aIt’s good to wish for a “brighter future” for Israelis and Palestinians (“25 Years After Oslo, Stabbed In The Back,” Editorial, Sept. 21). But the completely-in-character Palestinian reaction to the murder of Ari Fuld belies any prospect of that beginning in 5779, or, likely, for decades to come.
Palestinian media portrayed Fuld’s 17-year-old killer as a victim. The Palestinian Authority immediately rushed a substantial cash payment to his family, with the promise of sizable monthly stipends to follow. It had almost certainly triggered the teen’s rampage by a vicious canard, widely circulated the previous weekend in the Arab media, that Israel planned to hold Jewish prayers in the Al Aqsa Mosque.
A lethal combination of lies, incitement, and incentives has led to the murder of thousands of Israeli civilians over the quarter century after Oslo. Those deaths flowed from a faulty premise of “making peace with enemies.” Peace, however, can only be made with former enemies. As manifestly exhibited in recurrent horrific incidents, the Palestinians are now very, very far from being that.
