No way to make a lasting peace

An inexcusable act of violence has highlights the inadequacies of Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu's policies.

Israeli emergency personnel carry the body of a victim from the scene of an attack at a Jerusalem synagogue this week. Finbarr O'Reilly / Reuters

The attack on a West Jerusalem synagogue, which left five dead, has rightly been condemned on all sides. There can be no excuse for the killing of civilians – three dual Israeli-American nationals and one Israeli-British. An Israeli policeman died of his injuries.

The attack is, in every way, counterproductive because it does nothing to further the Palestinian cause, obtain justice for the Palestinian people or bring succour to those grieving the dead from the recent Gaza conflict. If anything, such an attack only visits more misery on ordinary families, as it raises fears that Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, will once again mete out collective punishment to the Palestinian people, just as he did in Gaza earlier this year. But in many ways, the attack exposes the incendiary faultlines of Mr Netanyahu’s policies, which have simply created the conditions for a desperate people to commit desperate acts.

The recent provocation in which an Israeli cabinet minister campaigned to change Palestinian access to the Al Aqsa mosque, the third holiest site in Islam, has caused tensions to rise sharply in the last few weeks. Jerusalem, of course, has been fiercely contested by disparate religious traditions for hundreds of years.

From the Israeli perspective, the attack shows that Mr Netanyahu’s confrontational policies, including the steady building of Jewish settlements on occupied Palestinian land, cannot keep Israeli citizens safe. That will require negotiating a peace that recognises Palestinians’ right to self-determination, not depriving them further of basic human rights.

Even though Mr Netanyahu is, once again, claiming victim status and vowing victory in the “battle for Jerusalem”, it is unclear if that will be enough to reverse the inexorable swing of the pendulum of international public opinion against Israel. For that, Mr Netanyahu would need to display vision and wisdom rather than reflexive vengefulness.