NO WHITE FLAG

At least three days a week I drive on highway 443 to work in Jerusalem. On one side of this road you can see the Jewish town of Givat Ze'ev and, on the other, the entrance to the Palestinian city of Ramallah, the seat of Palestinian Authority leader, Mahmood Abbas (Abu Mazin). It was here, at the large petrol station on this road, that private Ziv Mizrachi was knifed in the heart by a Palestinian terrorist yesterday. Before succumbing to this fatal wound, he struck at the terrorist who had gone after a fellow female officer by shooting him while the blade was lodged in his chest. Consider that. The defense of a fellow soldier is the last thing Ziv thought of, even as he could barely breathe.

12 years ago his uncle, Alon Mizrachi, who was working the security of the famed restaurant Cafe Hillel in Jerusalem, shielded tens of diners with his own body when a terrorist entered wearing a bomb belt on a suicide mission to meet the 70 Virgins in heaven, the reward promised to every Jihadist. Ponder that too. Alon knew that this act of defense would be his last act on this earth.

Ziv Mizrachi's father, Doron and brother to Alon cried out at the funeral that his is a family of strong defenders of the Jewish people who will never surrender to terrorism. Eight days from now, after the first week of mourning is over, he will be at work as usual. He will take the bus as usual. He will go about his life as usual. Palestinian terror will not defeat his family and those of the myriad citizens who his brother and son paid the ultimate price to save. Just for a moment, contemplate that pain. Brave heroes, all three.

"Baruch Dayan Emet", the traditional Hebrew citation when someone passes (meaning 'God's judgement is just'), is a difficult one to say these days. During the current wave of terror, we find ourselves saying it all too often. But then it also reflects the spirit of the Mizrachi family - it connotes a kind of determinism underlying the Zionist project, and yet refutes capitulation of any kind.

I'll be driving that route tomorrow, as usual. Baruch Dayan Emet.

WATCH OUT FOR YOUR VALUABLES

The Friday attack on Paris did not emerge from a groundswell of socio-economic unease by local Muslims. To the contrary, people who migrate in order to better their situation are interested in survival and invest in their contribution to their adopted country. In fact they are usually beacons of the pluralistic ideal. Without losing their ethnic identity, they manage to take on local mores, excel in the education system, and often reach the highest political and cultural echelons of society. This is certainly true of Jewish and Indian Britons, Algerian French, and African Americans. Economic or social anxiety doesn’t usually lead to terrorism.

Terrorism such as that witnessed by Parisians yesterday was indeed orchestrated by 8 members of ISIS who managed to cross the border via Germany together with the swathes of Syrian refugees currently swamping European borders. The war that the continent is now facing must be recognized as ideological in nature, based in a religion that is incompatible with western ideas of individual and democratic freedoms. The radical Islam that ISIS and similar groups espouse seeks to vanquish “infidel” communities from the world. They even say so. You just have to pay attention to their own published charters.

Israel has long contended that the EU should not ostracize but rather embrace our efforts in the Middle East because we know that the war we battle every day is not in fact territorial but religious. If the Israel/Palestinian conflict were about territory it would have been solved decades ago. Jerusalem itself has been on the negotiation table no less than 3 times, and each time was rejected outright by the Arab side. In kind, had the EU recognized the long term unstabling effects of the tribal war in Syria between the Allawis, Sunnis and Shiites (ISIS are Sunnis) and taken steps to curb it, it is possible that the great migration of this century could have been prevented and they would be far better equipped to deal with the wave of terror that radical Islam has unleashed.

But it’s not only nations ISIS wishes to take over. It is also – in fact primarily – western ideas that they want to uproot. Those ideas are embedded in the great symbols of European history: the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre, Place de la Republique and that most famous of all Gothic churches Notre Dame, to name just a few that immediately come to mind. France and Europe needs to either take fierce and unpopular steps to protect its heritage, or gird up the Arc de Triomphe and bury Leonardo’s Mona Lisa in a bunker somewhere until this Dark Age passes.