opinion
No, President Biden, the Synagogue
Attack Did Not Target the
‘Civilized World’
David Suissa
W 12
FEBRUARY 2, 2023 | JEWISH EXPONENT
Palestinians celebrate in the Gaza Strip following a terror attack in Jerusalem on Jan. 27 that left seven
people dead, including a child.

narrative that has always been exceedingly diffi cult
for Westerners to contemplate is that the Israeli-
Palestinian confl ict is not a political confl ict but an
existential one. This narrative is horribly inconvenient
for the simple reason that it doesn’t lend itself to
solutions: the drug of choice of civilized diplomacy.

From the minute modern-day Israel was born nearly
75 years ago — continuing with its building of a
vibrant nation with the strongest army in the region
— Israel has been a victim of its success, becoming
a source of constant humiliation to Arab neigh-
bors who could never match that success. This has
been especially true for Palestinians, who have been
cursed with corrupt leaders who have rejected every
Israeli peace off er while fattening their own bank
accounts and blaming their people’s misery on those
“Zionist invaders.”
But unlike the Palestinians, who kept saying no and
built an identity around victimhood, those Zionists
took what the United Nations gave them in 1947
and built a powerful state. The contrast with the
Palestinians can’t help but be humiliating. Here are
the Jews, who for centuries had to accept their
second-class dhimmi status in Arab and Muslim lands,
breaking free to a place of empowerment through the
Jewish state. No amount of political appeasement can
cure Palestinian leaders of this humiliation, indeed of
this epic failure to serve their own people.

If anything, given this shameful failure, Palestinian
leaders have a more obvious incentive to keep nurtur-
ing their status as the most coddled victims in the
world, oppressed by the “little Satan” Israel. You take
your status where you can get it.

That may also explain why murdering Jews who
come out of a synagogue, as heinous as it is, is so
acceptable in the perverted Palestinian algorithm of
Jew hatred. The terror act itself serves to reinforce
and dramatize the desperation of victimhood.

Until a radically new and brave leadership infi ltrates
Palestinian society, teaching its people that hating
the Jews is violently against their interest, we are
relegated to dealing with facts on the ground.

Those facts go as follows: Terrorists will continue to
try to kill Jews, and Jews will continue to try to stop
them. This may not be very comforting for the civilized
world, Mr. President, but for the Jews of Israel, it’s the
only world they know. ■
David Suissa is editor-in-chief and publisher of Tribe
Media Corp and the Jewish Journal.

Credit: Photo by Atia Mohammed/Flash90.

e attach ourselves to
narratives because
they comfort us. It’s
comforting to think that the terror-
ist who murdered seven Jews
coming out of a Jerusalem synagogue on Jan. 27
was striking a blow against “the civilized world,” as
President Joe Biden asserted.

But he wasn’t, Mr. President. Alqam Khayri, 21, a
resident of eastern Jerusalem, was specifi cally going
after Jews.

His Palestinian brethren, who celebrated his murder-
ous act by dancing in the streets and handing out
candies, were not thinking about the civilized world.

They were rejoicing at the death of Jews.

When the Palestinian Authority glorifi es terrorists
who murder Jews or teaches Jew hatred to their
children, they’re not thinking about the opera halls of
Vienna or the art galleries of Paris. They’re thinking
about the dreaded Jews who had the chutzpah to
return to their biblical homeland after 1,900 years.

When Hamas launches rockets from Gaza to murder
Israeli civilians, they’re not thinking, “Boy are those
Jews civilized; we better get rid of them.” No, they’re
thinking of the Hamas Charter that obligates them to
destroy the world’s only Jewish state.

This is not a comfortable narrative.

It’s a lot more “civilized” to sanitize and universalize
our confl icts; it helps us manage and control them. If
we can frame the Palestinian terror against Jews as
an attack on a grand idea like the “civilized world,” it
reduces our frustration and anxiety. Instead of dealing
with a confl ict that is ugly and personal, we can come
together around a sophisticated ideal.

The problem is that the hatred for Jews within much
of Palestinian society is just that — ugly and personal.

There’s nothing civilized or universal about teaching
Palestinian kids that “the Jews don’t belong here.”
That is a hatred of aspiring annihilation. No amount of
clever reframing can change that.

Three decades ago, Israel made the mistake of
sanitizing and overlooking that hatred by pretending
that a political agreement based on geographical
borders could end the confl ict. I was one of those
dreamers, and part of me still dreams of that day.

But ugly, deep, personal hatred dies hard. The