Good Monday evening. This is Daniel Allott with The Hill’s Top Opinions.
Last week a gunman killed eight Israelis at a synagogue in East Jerusalem. But what makes that slaughter and subsequent killings across Israel more disturbing is that the alleged killers don’t seem to have had a political or ideological reason for carrying out their horrific crimes beyond a deep hatred of Jews.
“The killers do not fit the usual profiles,” writes Moroccan publisher AHMED CHARAI. “Indeed, they are young men who seemed to have integrated into society. They have schooling, jobs and sometimes children of their own. Before the attacks, they were not suspects. They look and act like swimmers, but inside their minds, they are sharks.”
“The new killers act alone, do not consort with known terrorists or gather precursor materials.” This makes the attacks seem unstoppable, writes Charai, who is on the board of directors for the Atlantic Council and the board of Trustees for The International Crisis Group.
The main concern now is how to prevent the violence in Israel from spiraling into something worse.
Charai believes the Palestinian Authority “is too ill to treat the maladies of others” but that there is much the Israeli government can do “to break the stalemate between Israelis and Palestinians.” He also believes the U.S. has an indispensable role. “The Biden administration must help with any negotiated solution to allow Israelis to live in safety and Palestinians to have a real authority that represents them.”
Read Charai’s op-ed here.
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