JERUSALEM—A Palestinian leader on the West Bank said Tuesday that the current uprising will not resort to suicide bombings to avoid losing Palestinians’ international support.
"The international community does not accept buses being blown up in Tel Aviv," said Jibril Rajoub, former head of the powerful Preventive Security Force of the Palestinian Authority. "But when a settler or soldier is stabbed while on occupied land, nobody asks any questions. We must struggle in a way that keeps the world with us."
During the Second Intifada which broke out in 2000, more than 1,000 Israelis were killed, many in bus bombings around the country and in similar suicide attacks in restaurants and other public places. These attacks were widely condemned abroad. In the end, Israel won international legitimacy for an intensive military crackdown on the West Bank and the suppression of the uprising.
In another media interview Tuesday, the former Palestinian intelligence chief, Gen. Tawfik Terawi, said that the current uprising was a spontaneous popular movement. "It belongs to no particular political faction and no one can stop it."
Both Rajoub and Tirawi, who are leading contenders to succeed President Mahmoud Abbas, 81, as leader of the Palestinian Authority, suggested that the era of attempted dialogue with Israel was over. Abbas himself has called for "peaceful resistance to Israel" and for a return to the negotiating table.
The almost daily "lone wolf" attacks by Palestinians over the past three weeks continued Tuesday. An Israeli civilian and a soldier were lightly injured when a car rammed into them at a bus stop in the Gush Etzion settlement area south of Jerusalem. The Palestinian driver emerged from his car and attempted to stab civilians but was shot dead.
Earlier in the day, an Israeli driver on the West Bank whose car was hit by rocks pulled to the side of the road to examine the damage to the vehicle. As he did so, he was hit by a truck and killed. The Palestinian truck driver did not stop but turned himself in shortly afterwards to Palestinian Authority police. He said he had hit the Israeli by accident and that he had not waited for Israeli police out of fear of what might happen to him. Palestinian authorities have complained that Israeli security forces have been "executing" on the spot persons believed to have carried out terror attacks. Earlier, an Israeli officer was stabbed in the hand by a West Bank resident who was shot dead by other soldiers.
Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon on Tuesday condemned Israeli civilians who had beaten an Eritrean asylum seeker who had been mistakenly identified by a security guard in Beersheba as participating with a Palestinian in killing an Israeli soldier in a shopping mall and wounding 11 other people. The Palestinian was shot dead and the Eritrean was shot and wounded. The civilians prevented ambulance personnel from evacuating him for some time. He was pronounced dead in hospital. " No one should behave this way," said Yaalon of the civilians involved, "even when there is great anger". Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also chastised the Israelis involved in the incident.
Meanwhile, a restaurant owner in the Israeli coastal town of Kfar Vitkin is attempting to ease tensions between Jews and Arabs by offering a 50 percent discount on the national dish of Hummus (chickpea paste) to anyone sitting at a table where Arabs and Jews are sitting together. The restaurant owner, Kobi Tzafrir, said that tables had filled up with Arabs and Jews since he put a notice on Facebook about the arrangement in his Hummus Bar. "Scared of Arabs? Scared of Jews?" read his Facebook notice. "He has neither in his establishment," he wrote. "By us, we've got human beings."