This past Sunday, a Jerusalem cemetery was filled with thousands of Jewish mourners.

“We’ve made it 63 years, we’ve declared a state and won independence and founded a glorious army,” said Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau, “and still this circle of horror and river of tears is flowing, and we stand helpless with a feeling that is impossible to put into words.”

It was the funeral of five members of the Fogel family who were brutally knifed to death last Friday night in their West Bank home.

Three members of the family remain: 12-year-old Tamar and her two little brothers, ages 6 and 2. In his address, Lau spoke to Tamar directly: “In one cruel hour, you have become a little mother. You are now the mother of little Roi and Yishai, and you are only 12 years old.”

This tragedy has received scant attention amid coverage of the devastating earthquake in Japan and other earthshaking news. But it uniquely highlights the savagery of the Middle East conflict and the insurmountable odds stacked against the Jewish state.

It occurred against the backdrop of a region in turmoil, with longstanding allies of Israel turning away or in serious danger of becoming hostile, and the international community inexplicably pressuring Israel to hurry up and resume “peace” talks.

“We stand helpless” is a sickening understatement.

The facts are appalling and nauseating. Last Sabbath evening, terrorists jumped an Israeli security fence to enter the Israeli town of Itamar. They broke into the Fogels’ home and found Udi, age 36, sleeping in bed holding his 3-month-old daughter, Hadas.

They slit both of their throats.

When Udi’s wife, Ruth, emerged from the bathroom, they stabbed her to death.

They then moved through the house and found a bedroom with two of the Fogels’ sons: Yoav, age 11, was reading in bed and Elad, age 3, was sleeping. They slashed Yoav’s throat and stabbed Elad twice through the heart.

Apparently the terrorists didn’t see Roi sleeping on the living room couch or Yishai asleep in another bedroom. They fled the house without harming them.

Tamar was at a youth event with some friends. When she came home two hours later, she found the door locked. She woke up Roi by calling through the living room window. When he let her in and she went to the bedrooms, she saw the bloodsoaked horror and ran from the house screaming.

One paramedic described the murder scene as “shocking … kids’ toys right next to pools of blood.”

Who would commit such an incomprehensibly barbaric act?

The al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade claimed responsibility. This is the terrorist wing of Fatah.

Fatah is the political party of Mahmoud Abbas. Abbas is chairman of the Palestinian Authority and supposed partner in the “peace process” with Israel.

Abbas responded to the butchery by denying that the PA incites violence against Israel.

This claim is ridiculous, undermined by mounds of proof. The very day of the Fogels’ funeral, Fatah officials named a town square in Ramallah after a woman terrorist who led a 1978 attack that killed 37 Israelis.

Just two months ago, Abbas himself awarded $2,000 to the family of a terrorist who tried to kill Israeli soldiers. He said in December, “We have frankly said, and always will say, if there is an independent Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital, we won’t agree to the presence of one Israeli in it.”

Meanwhile, the other major force in Palestinian politics, Hamas, celebrated the Fogels’ murders by handing out candy and sweets on the streets of Gaza. One resident described the slayings as “a natural response to the harm settlers inflict on the Palestinian residents in the West Bank.” Murdering children and infants—to these Palestinians, this is a natural response to housing construction.

Hamas spoke on its website about the homicides. What it posted in English differed markedly from what it posted in Arabic. Its terse English statement denied any connection to the attack, and even suggested that it may not have been carried out by Palestinians. In Arabic (as translated by Al Mutarjim), the message was more eloquent, openly praising the “Palestinian mujahid” (“holy” warrior) for being “able to break into the usurper (settlement) of ‘Itamar’ south of Nablus in the occupied (West) Bank” and stab “five Zionist usurpers.”

Zionist usurpers like 3-year-old Elad and 3-month-old Hadas.

Mutarjim noted that this Arabic-language post received dozens of comments, all of which applauded the murders. A sample:

Allah is great, to Allah be the praise. The separate factions of the resistance should change their tactics, and rely more heavily on individual operations, which cannot be detected and thwarted by the lackeys of the authorities, rather than forming cells. They should devise new methods for combat by knife, strangulation, breaking necks, poison, and every method which is not known by your enemy.

Another:

Allah is great, and to Allah be the praise. May you prosper, o mujahid. May Allah preserve you, and remove the eyes of the Jews and their agents far from you.

These are the people that Israel is apparently meant to appease by offering concessions to their leaders. People who glory in the massacre of Jewish babies.

Circle of horror, indeed.

These events are only the latest bits on a mountain of macabre evidence showing the utter folly of the Jews ever trying to negotiate their way to a peaceful coexistence with the Palestinians—a people saturated in hatred and hostility toward their very being.

How could anyone but recoil in horror at such savagery as the al-Aqsa terrorists unleashed on the Fogel family? Sadly, the international community’s reaction shows just how.

The mainstream press did everything it could to paper over the horrific Arab-on-Jew terrorism. The bbc claimed the murders were committed by “an intruder who broke into their home.” cnn also said the act was committed by an “intruder,” and used quote marks to cast doubt on the Israeli army’s claim that this was a “terrorist attack.”

The Associated Press, in an apparent effort to make the Fogel family seem less innocent, described Itamar, the family’s town, as “home to some of Israel’s most radical settlers.”

The New York Times first reported on the story by focusing not on the murders, but on Israel’s response. Under the original headline “Israel Approves Settlement Construction,” (now titled “Israel: New Settlement Housing After Bloody Attack”) it couched its reportage on the tragedy within a description of Benjamin Netanyahu’s determination to build 500 more Jewish homes in the West Bank—a sign of Israel’s courage in the face of terrorism. The article explained that “the attack and the government response threatened to drive Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking even further out of reach.” The Times blamed Israel’s “defiance” through “settlement” building for throwing “already shaky peace efforts into a new tailspin.”

To the Times, it’s not the massacre of Israeli children that hurts peace efforts, nor the climate of poisonous hatred within the Palestinian culture that would motivate such an attack, nearly so much as Israel building houses.

In reality, the only thing preventing more tragedies like last week’s in Itamar is Israel’s security measures. The idea that peace will come if only Israel stops building, or retreats from more land, or allows more Arabs to move into the country, has no grounds. The overwhelming evidence shows that the Palestinians simply do not want and will not accept a peace deal with the Jews.

Still, though, the international community keeps pushing for a two-state solution. Most recently, Britain has been lobbying hard, to Israel’s dismay, for world powers to draft a statement laying out the parameters for a Palestinian state. It views the unrest in the Middle East and North Africa not as a reason for Israel to hold off on negotiations and to bunker down—but as a cause for greater urgency to try to lock down an agreement.

Trying to fend off international pressure, Prime Minister Netanyahu is rumored to be preparing a peace proposal to present to Washington in May. The initiative is thought to involve a phased creation of a Palestinian state.

But perhaps the greater indication of the Israeli prime minister’s recognition of reality—that no matter the concessions or plans, peace will not eventuate—is some of his recent political moves. A week ago, Netanyahu announced that he had decided to appoint Yaakov Amidror, known for his “hawkish” political views, as his new national security adviser and key adviser on the peace process. At the same time, it was revealed last week that Netanyahu has invited the National Union party—considered the most right-wing in the Knesset—to join his government.

These moves are widely seen as an indication that Netanyahu does not plan on making any far-reaching concessions to the Palestinians. No doubt, they are a hardening of the Israeli government’s position. Our editor in chief has forecast just such a trend within Israel for over five years. (You can read about this in our article “What Will Trigger the Next World War?”) Netanyahu’s intransigence in the face of remorseless butchery of Jews should come as no shock.

The Jews’ realization of the impossibility of negotiating a two-state solution with the Arabs has been washing over them in stages in recent years. While caving in to pressure yet again and again, the recognition that the peace process has in fact wounded the nation—sapped Israel’s strength, depleted Israel’s land, and exhausted Israel’s will to fight and survive—is dawning.

This realization was specifically prophesied in your Bible. The prophecy is recorded in Hosea 5:13: “When … Judah [the biblical name for today’s Jewish State of Israel] saw his wound, then went Ephraim to the Assyrian, and [Judah] sent to [Assyrian] king Jareb ….” Longtime Trumpet readers know that Gerald Flurry has pointed to Judah’s “wound” being the peace process ever since the Oslo talks in 1993.

Hosea’s prophecy reveals a moment when Israel sees its deadly wound—it recognizes the folly of the paradoxical “peace” process—and acts in desperation. That moment is getting closer. Read “Israel’s Final Chapter” to see what it will bring.