Jerusalem needs military presence

A Jew cannot disregard the emotional shock of seeing the photographs from Tuesday's attack: tallitot drenched in blood on Agassi Street, in the Har Nof neighborhood of Jerusalem. The associations are too strong. Even the world understood that condemnation was a must. The West was of course expected to condemn the attack, but even Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, the Arab MKs and the foreign minister of Bahrain spoke up.

People who arrived on the scene could feel that it was not another painful funeral for those who fell in Israel's wars. They were not soldiers at war. They were not part of the national-religious movement, like the parents of the three teenaged boys kidnapped and murdered in Halhoul or the girl who was run over and killed in Alon Shvut.

The funerals of three of the four rabbis were painful but different. A different crowd of mourners: yeshiva students who all knew one another, no army uniforms except for the Army Radio reporter, and a lot of anger.

You felt the presence of the foreign media -- even Brazilian TV reporters came to the synagogue-turned-slaughterhouse. The haredi girls went out into the streets, flouting modest tradition. "By night a cook and by day a murderer," they wrote about the killer on a banner they waved at the corner of the street.

A foreign journalist explained that this is not "more of the same." Terrorism has changed, "gone up a notch," "reached a crossroads," and "it is essentially an intifada." And perhaps the nightmare will end, but not anytime soon.

Even after Tuesday's murder, there has been no fundamental change in the defense establishment's perception of the incidents. Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon stuck to the line that it is not organized terrorism, but the actions of individuals, which are not easy to deal with and will continue for a long time. Abbas is not interested in renewing terrorism in Judea and Samaria, as it will grow underneath him and unsteady him. But in Jerusalem? He doesn't really mind.

The primary driver of terrorism is incitement. It is a lie -- Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stated on Tuesday evening -- it is a lie that Israel is trying to change the status quo on the Temple Mount (which was established by then-Defense Minister Moshe Dayan in 1967). And it is a lie that a Palestinian bus driver was murdered when he took his own life. But incitement works. So who cares if a Palestinian doctor found, just as his two Jewish colleagues did, that the driver had committed suicide and was not murdered? From the moment he left the morgue, he disappeared. He broke off contact. He is behaving like someone who understands that he is in big trouble.

Netanyahu's press conference on Tuesday night was a sort of interim summary of the recent terrorist activity, which I see as follows:

• Palestinian terrorism is now carried out by individuals, but with organized incitement campaigns, and it will not be long before the extremist organizations give their blessing and patronage for terror attacks. Unless they are stopped before then, which will take a long time.

• Therefore, Israeli determination is paramount, a willingness to combat terrorism "With a strong hand and an outstretched arm," but within the framework of the law. That is what Netanyahu was referring to when he warned Israelis not to take the law into their own hands and disrupt the campaign. Netanyahu promised to increase punitive action, but it is clear to him as well that the success of the campaign depends on the public's patience.

• I suspect that there will be no choice but to have army units join the police patrol in key areas of the Arab neighborhoods in Jerusalem. But Netanyahu, Ya'alon and Israel Police Commissioner ‎Yohanan Danino believe that increased police and Border Police forces and higher enrollment in the civil guard will be enough. We should give it a chance before calling the army into the campaign.

• There was worldwide condemnation on Tuesday, but if it does not grow stronger, it will simply fade as terrorism continues. The Islamic State group's beheadings demonstrate the fact that human shock lessens with repetition.

• The terrorists have been sent to undermine Israel's grip not only on the Old City and the Temple Mount, but also on western Jerusalem, over which Israel has been sovereign since the founding of the state in 1948. This is the escalation of the violent struggle against Israel.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is changing shape, and yet, it moves in circles. Once every few years it erupts in violence and then slowly calms down. Israel has only a moral compass to fight it as it cycles around. As Moshe Dayan was fond of saying since the War of Attrition: "Do not fear, Jacob My servant." (Jeremiah 46:27)

טעינו? נתקן! אם מצאתם טעות בכתבה, נשמח שתשתפו אותנו