The mother of one of two Israeli Arab girls who stabbed an Israeli security guard on Thursday apologized for her daughter’s actions, thanked the guard for subduing the pair without opening fire, and expressed wishes that he should have a long life, The Times of Israel reported on Friday.
The mother, a city employee in Ramle, has been raising her six children alone after her husband deserted the family and went to the Gaza Strip. She told Israel’s Channel 2 that her daughter was sad because of the resulting financial difficulties, but indicated that the girl never spoke of harming Jews.
She said that she raised her kids to consider all Israelis to be “family” and that “there is no difference between Jews and Arabs.”
She praised the guard who stopped her daughter and the other girl after being stabbed without firing his gun, saying, “May God grant him long life. I apologize to him… I’m sorry, to him, and to the mayor, and to all the people of Israel… May God grant all the people of Israel peace.”
The girls told authorities that they attacked the guard as “revenge for the situation in the Al-Aqsa Mosque” and Israel’s “killing of Palestinians.”
The charge that Israel is altering the status quo on the Temple Mount, Judaism’s holiest site and the location of the Al-Aqsa Mosque, the third holiest site in Islam, is a frequent theme of Palestinian incitement against Israel. Though the Israeli government routinely rejects the claim, and non-Muslim activity in the complex remains restricted, Palestinian leaders often declare that Al-Aqsa is in danger, an accusation that predates the founding of Israel.
In his testimony before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs in October, David Makovsky, distinguished fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, explained:
Sadly, the charge that Israel is out to destroy the mosque is not new. This claim was made in 1929, resulting in riots in Hebron that killed 63 people. More recently, fatal violence surrounding the Temple Mount occurred in 1991 (20 killed), 1996 (87 killed), 2000 (153 killed within the first month of violence), and 2014 (9 killed).
The aunt of one of the girls, according to Ha’aretz, “speculated that the girls had seen videos encouraging attacks on social media and had been influenced by them.”
The Shin Bet, Israel’s internal security agency, attributed the fatal stabbing of mother-of-six Dafna Meir by a 16-year-old Palestinian last month to similar incitement. “On the day of the murder, while under the influence of the programs he had been exposed to on Palestinian television, the minor decided to commit a stabbing attack with the goal of murdering a Jew,” the agency said in a statement. It specifically cited “Palestinian television broadcasts which portrayed Israel as ‘killing young Palestinians.’”
Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs described the ongoing wave of terrorist attacks as being “motivated for the most part by the lie spread by the Palestinian media that Israel allegedly threatened Al-Aqsa mosque, as well as by the frustration, desperation and anger of the younger generation. Generally speaking, the terrorists have not been operatives of any established terrorist organization, and the current wave of terrorism has not been directed by any organization, but rather is directly inspired by the intensive incitement accompanying it.”
[Photo: Courtesy Israeli Police ]