The Real Reason The Tel Aviv Terrorist Ran To A Mosque

Wikicommons Jaffa Mahmoudiya Mosque - an example of a Jaffa Mosque

Updated 8 April 2022 at 18:00 because of the death of Barak Lumen z"l

The tragedy of the April 7, 2022 attack on Dizengoff in Tel Aviv where three young men were murdered and thirteen injured carried out by Ra’ad Fathi Hazem of Jenin warrants a deeper look as to what was really going, especially with regard to the mother and the mosque.

Often security experts and pundits approach such a horrific event at face value. It is routinely known for example that the mosque offers a place of refuge as well as a site for storing arms for jihad. There is a long history in Islam for this. This is also known due to the violence that is routinely encountered at Al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem. Its Palestinian mantra that is that Al Aqsa is “allegedly” in danger.

But why must there always be such drama and bloodshed swirling around Al Aqsa caused by the shabaab, the youth, who engage in jihad? Should such behavior just write off to learned ideologies? Certainly, they are not social influencers promoting peace, stability and hope for the Palestinian people.

Ideologies only serve as a kind of packaging for emotions. Such rage is learned early. Children are tragically treated like trash. They are narcissistic objects of honor manipulated and abused, never gaining a sense of self.

In Arab Muslim culture there is an unconscious social prohibition against separating from ummi (Ar. mother). The shabaab never go through an individual separation stage. They are psychologically glued to “mommy” on account of their shame honor culture. In this culture one must willfully spill blood in order to cleanse honor. They never move beyond this stage while proffering all sorts of rationales for projecting their feelings of inferiority, perennial victimhood, lack of individual identity and rage because they have been infantilized by their mothers who they, themselves, were once more devalued as little girls than the boys.

When I first started to really unpack the unconscious psychodynamics of jihad at a deep level after 9/11, I remember the aha moment when I saw the violent rioting stone-throwing mob circling Al Aqsa Mosque like a swarm of pissed off bees protecting the queen bee. I realized then what they were unconsciously acting out, and that they were trying to protect their ummi, their mommy, their mosque.

In my Jihadi Dictionary I wrote the following about the Mosque as Mother which was confirmed by those coming from within their own culture – most especially Shahin Najafi.

The mosque is an unconscious representation of the mother’s breast, according to Shahin Najafi, an Iranian rapper who received a death threat for portraying the mosque’s dome on a record cover as a gigantic, engorged female breast. The cover touched “the third rail” in what was unspoken and unconscious imagery, the nourishing mother in the Muslim mind, especially in Shiite culture. I wrote about this album cover, which I took “to mean that a perverse sexuality lurks below the surface of Mahdist culture, which hates the female. The dome of the mosque is an unconscious representation of the female breast of the nursing mother. This is the essence of a shame–honor culture signifying that there is maternal deprivation and paranoia. They go hand in hand. The little girls and women are abused. With shame, comes blaming the other but hardly ever the mother because the mother is the object to be protected by the little humiliated, shamed boy who witnesses his mother being abused. The little boy feels his mother to be an extension of himself. To see her hit is for him to feel her pain. He must protect her at all costs. Picture a frightened little boy clinging hysterically to his mother’s skirt.” This is the image often perceived when Muslims feel that their mosque is under attack. The heroic mother is a jihadi defense against the devalued, shameful female. P. 158.

It behooves us to understand what Ra’ad Hazem was acting out when he murdered in cold blood and then fled to a mosque. The terrorist act is the tip of the unconscious iceberg, poking through to consciousness. The jihadi, such as Ra’ad Hazem, holds the tip of the spear of jihad for the passive aggressive behavior of Palestinian leadership and its members who speak out of both sides of their mouth: peace and jihad while passing out candy and engaging in Schadenfreude. The Tel Aviv jihadi didn’t just flee to a mosque in Jaffa seeking refuge. No, he fled seeking to be psychologically reunited with his ummi, folded into her skirt.

I have heard one too many counter terrorist experts complain that the unconscious root of the problem which I am suggesting is just too labor intensive and not worth knowing. This is because they too are terrified at a deep level because the ramifications are so enormous. It is very hard to change a culture but not impossible. Being in denial though is dangerous. It can lead to slipshod security and hence tragedies. The mosque as mother provides a unique key to understand the pervasiveness and the depths of the problem in Palestinian culture. If there is to be any hope in containing such violence, this message must be internalized and comprehended in order to effect change.

Eytam Magini z”l, Tomer Morad z”l and Barak Lufen z"l May Their Memory Be For A Blessing