Battle for our existence

One does not need to be a religious person to comprehend how horrible the murder of worshippers wrapped in tallitot and tefillin was. One does not need to be Jewish to be shocked by the pictures of prayer books soaked in blood. To be a human is enough.

It appears that our enemies have lost their humanity. The massacre in the synagogue on Tuesday took place near my home. I heard about it as I was on my way to pray. The images of a prayer hall full of blood reminded me of dark chapters in Jewish history. "Terrorist attack" is not a proper definition of what happened. This was a pogrom, an indiscriminate slaughter. This was not just another terrorist attack, randomly perpetrated by an individual with a vehicle against Jews who happened to be in his path. This was a planned and deliberate slaughter of worshippers at prayer.

And the response of the Palestinian street to this heinous act indicated where this hatred came from, where it grew from an inhuman egg into a monster. The demonstrations of support by the neighbors of the terrorists, the handing out of sweets in the mourning tent of the family of the terrorists and the declarations of pride by relatives of the terrorists all showed this.

Throughout the morning, everyone was waiting for Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to condemn the attack. Such a condemnation did come, but, oh, what a condemnation it was. Abbas compared the massacre in the synagogue to what he called the "invasion of Al-Aqsa mosque." This proved that this condemnation was nothing but lip service, for public relations purposes, to mislead the world, rather than a true condemnation of the massacre.

While here in Israel we argue about Public Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovitch's statement that terrorists should not be allowed to leave the scenes of their attacks alive, there, in the homes of the terrorists, in universities in Jordan and on the streets of Gaza, sweets are handed out to passersby and the relatives of terrorists declare them to be "heroic martyrs." We must listen to these voices, and also the voices coming from Jabel Mukaber that proclaim, "We still have a lot of young people with nothing to lose who are ready to attack Jews."

In the hours after the attack, the Israeli media was dealing with the questions of whether we are in the midst of another intifada and if security guards should be placed at synagogues. No, this is not an intifada. This is a battle for our existence, pure and simple. "It is a time of trouble unto Jacob, but out of it shall he be saved" (Jeremiah 30:7).

Eli Yishai is a Knesset member for the Shas Party.