While Israel had its internal tensions ratchet to pretty alarming levels for a bit until Netanyahu paused his plan to reform the country's Supreme Court (something that points up that Israel ought to write and implement a constitution - but that's for another post), an additional layer of heat that had been somewhat dormant of late is now the nation's focus.
It's that ongoing tussle with radical Islamist groups, in particular, Hamas and Hezbollah.
The latest development in that is this pretty savage behavior:
An Italian tourist was killed and seven people wounded in a car-ramming attack in the Israeli city of Tel Aviv on Friday evening.
Israeli police said a vehicle was driven onto the bike path of the Tel Aviv boardwalk, hitting pedestrians before it overturned on a lawn.
When police officers arrived at the scene, “they noticed the driver trying to reach for what looked like a rifle-like object that was with him” before killing him, Israeli police said.
The man killed in the attack has been named by Israeli and Italian authorities as Alessandro Parini. Italian media said he was a 35-year-old lawyer.
In a tweet posted Friday, Italy’s Prime Minister Georgia Meloni expressed “deep condolences for the death of one of our compatriots, Alessandro Parini, in the terrorist attack that took place in the evening in Tel Aviv,” and condemned the “cowardly attack that hit him.”
Three of the seven people injured in the attack are still in hospital as of Saturday morning local time, according to Ichilov Medical Center. All of those killed or injured in the attack were tourists.
Police said that the car was driven by a 45-year-old resident of Kfar Kasem, an Arab-Israeli city east of Tel Aviv.
Israeli authorities described the incident as a “terror attack.”
What had been transpiring prior to that?
The attack occurred after Israel struck Palestinian militant targets in southern Lebanon and Gaza, amid days of tensions in the region following police raids on the al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem.
And what caused the police raids on the al-Aqsa mosque? Some Ramadan worshippers got unruly because some Jewish Passover observers intended to sacrifice a goat there.
Now, that's a practice that no one outside the fringe has engaged in for a long time:
The task of adapting Judaism to its new Temple-less reality fell to Rabban Gamaliel II, head of the Jewish Assembly – the Sanhedrin. With regard to the Passover sacrifice, Gamaliel decreed that the sacrifice should continue in family homes, with each family sacrificing its own goat or sheep.
However, other rabbis believed that the Passover sacrifice, like all the other sacrifices, could only be conducted by the priests in the Temple and that, like the other sacrifices, should not be conducted until the Messiah comes and the Temple is rebuilt.
Some Jews followed Gamaliel and continued to sacrifice goats and sheep in their homes on Passover; others didn’t and saw the practice as apostasy.
Within about two generations, the practice ceased when the anti-sacrifice camp assumed control and threatened to excommunicate those who practiced it. So, sometime in the second century C.E., Jews stopped the practice of sacrificing baby goats and sheep on Passover. Until recently, that is.
the Jewish Temple on the Temple Mount (a site now occupied by Islamic shrines, the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock). To this end, they have been training personnel and preparing the objects that are required for the Temple operation to commence.
Since Passover 1968, Jewish groups – generously funded by Evangelical Christians in the United States who share their eagerness for the Apocalypse – have been trying to sacrifice goats and sheep on the Temple Mount. However, they have been repeatedly turned away by the Israeli government, which fears their actions could trigger a holy war. The Temple Mount Faithful are unperturbed, and in recent years have been holding practice Passover sacrifices elsewhere in Jerusalem, biding their time until they can successfully sacrifice goats and sheep on the Temple Mount itself.
Now, these are not trivial matters. All parties involved feel like major things are at stake.
But on the Saturday of Holy Week may I offer my two cents' worth?
God does not expect a goat sacrifice.
At a place not too far from where the current developments have been transpiring, the only sacrifice required was made.
Gratuitous stunts attempted with the aim of stirring up discord don't lead to Godly consequences.
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