Retired Brig. Gen. Yossi Kuperwasser lamented the increasing violence against Israeli citizens at the hands of Palestinians and Arab-Israeli terrorists, many of them teenagers.
Three people were murdered and nearly two dozen injured in at least four terror attacks on Israelis Tuesday.
Kuperwasser, who once served as director general of the Israel Ministry of Strategic Affairs and headed the Research and Analysis and Production Division of Israel Defense Forces Military Intelligence, told reporters that Palestinians are taught from a young age to "get rid of the Jews who came to this land, who deny the Palestinian cause."
Young Palestinians, Kuperwasser said, are taught by leaders in school, summer camp, and other activities to demonstrate their commitment to the "struggle" by engaging in violence.
"‘How do I know that I’m a Palestinian? Because I’m going to sacrifice my blood for Palestine. … That’s what makes me a Palestinian.’ That’s really the feeling of these children. … In summer camps and in shows that they carry out in schools and they play a game: Stab the Jew," Kuperwasser said during a press call with journalists Tuesday organized by the Israel Project.
The ex-general explained that such "brainwashing" makes it difficult for the Israeli government to stop such attacks.
"It’s not easy to convince them to give it up because they were brainwashed for such a long time," Kuperwasser stated.
The attacks Tuesday were focused in and around Jerusalem and involved multiple knife attacks and a shooting and stabbing on a bus. The bus attack alone, carried out by a pair of terrorists, resulted in two deaths and sent 16 people to the hospital with injuries, according to police.
The Palestinian attackers also used a car and a meat cleaver to wound Israelis.
Palestinian terror groups have celebrated the attacks. "The Hamas movement blesses the heroic operations in Jerusalem and hails the heroes who executed them," Hamas wrote on its Twitter account.
One day prior, Palestinians waged three knife attacks in Jerusalem, one of which left an Israeli boy in critical condition. Israeli authorities shot and killed one of the attackers and a second was run over by a car.
The surge in attacks Tuesday comes after weeks of increased violence against Israelis at the hands of Palestinian and Arab-Israeli terrorists, leading Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to ask for police reinforcements in the area over the weekend.
Eight Israelis have been killed and dozens injured in attacks over recent weeks, and upwards of 28 Palestinians—about half of them attackers—have been killed in confrontations with Israeli forces.
A cleric urged Palestinians on Friday to stab Jewish Israelis during a sermon at a mosque in Rafah, directing his audience to attack Jews in groups and use "axes and butcher knives" to "cut them into body parts."
"You will get nothing in our land except for slaughtering or stabbing. Why? The world will say that we are terrorists, that we incite. Yes!" Sheikh Muhammad Salah "Abu Rajab" said at the Al-Abrar Mosque Friday, according to video footage.
Days before, a Palestinian mother named her newborn child to honor young terrorist Muhannad Halabi, who stabbed two Israeli men to death in Jerusalem and wounded a woman and her child earlier this month. Halabi was shot and killed by Israeli police after the stabbing.
Netanyahu accused Israel’s Arab leaders of inciting the violence and directed Israeli-Arab citizens to "kick out the extremists among you."
According to police, Israel’s minister of public security Gilad Erdan is evaluating increased security measures that could include making it easier for Israelis to purchase firearms and closing off the Palestinian suburbs in the eastern part of Jerusalem.
"Israel will settle the score with the murderers and those who help them. We will cut the hands of whoever tries to hurt us," Netanyahu told the Israeli parliament Tuesday.