By Marcos Peckel

Original published in Spanish at:

http://m.elpais.com.co/elpais/opinion/columna/marcos-peckel/harakiri

The noble tradition of the Japanese to commit suicide after a failure to save the honor may already disappeared in reality but survives in the collective imagination: the person who gives his/her life to a knife which leaves once the job is done a large pool of blood.
The knife in recent weeks has once again become central protagonist of a collective Harakiri the Palestinians commit, when they take them to attack innocent Israeli civilians. Israel buries its victims, the Palestinians bury the possibility of a dignified life and a future.
No doubt the legitimacy of the Palestinian cause which has disproportionate support from the world’s public opinion, of the international community and Israel itself, but from the time of British rule the Palestinians have been their worst enemy that took away from them any chance of a State and instead of changing this increasingly gets worse day by day.‎
It failed when Arafat had everything to win by achieving peace with Israel and create an independent Palestinian State during the Camp David negotiations in 2000, but at the moment of truth he preferred to continue the conflict and launch the second intifada. Peace lost its big chance, unlikely to return, Arafat was its gravedigger.
That second Intifada characterized by hundreds of Palestinians that indoctrinated adolescents in suicidal acts sent to kill by killing themselves by an infamous leadership did away with the Oslo accords and hope that the creation of a Palestinian state would be established alongside the Jewish State. As a consequence Israel had no choice but to build the wall to prevent the penetration of suicide terrorists on its territory. With each wave of violence worsening the plight of the Palestinians.
Since Hamas took by force the Gaza Strip in 2007, expelling the Palestinian Authority it has promised the “liberation of Jerusalem” but all it has achieved is destruction and ruin caused by war with rockets and tunnels. The blockade of Gaza began only after Hamas’ attacks on Israel.
Years of incitement and demonization of Israel in the education system of the Palestinian Authority, the media, speeches of their leaders and sermons given in mosques that brought their evil fruits: young blinded by hatred for those who “killing a Jew” as the way to redemption. To the “young with knives” sent by the leadership of Abbas and Hamas itself does not create any hope and as inspired perhaps by Isis they decide that their fulfillment in life is to kill and die for their images as heroes to circulate on social networks.
When to the incitement one adds the calculated lies that enhance the explosive cocktail. Lies like that Israel aims to change the status quo on the Temple Mount, now exclusive place of worship for Muslims, pretending to turn a political and territorial conflict into a religious war as all those devastating the Middle East. In contrast, the intention of Palestine in UNESCO to declare the Wailing Wall, the holiest sacred site of the Jewish religion as an Islamic site is a clear provocation of a leadership that lost its compass.
The occupation and settlements as mentioned as causes of Palestinian fury will be resolved only through negotiations with Israel. Terrorism and violence have been harmful to the Palestinian people and this time is no different.

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