Aziz Salha may not be a name we remember, but the image we cannot forget. The hands. Those bloody red hands, gleefully dipped in Jewish blood, raised in perverse jubilation during the unspeakably brutal murder of two IDF reservists. Their offense? Taking a wrong turn into the savage Palestinian town of Ramallah. And being Jewish, of course.

I remember the October 2000 barbarous event especially well, because it occurred during my first trip to Israel, a personal solidarity visit. I had arrived the day after Ariel Sharon had gone up on the Temple Mount, which Arafat used as the pretext to incite the violent Palestinian Second Intifada.

My visit to Israel was not with a tour group, but I was staying with a Christian journalist friend who lived in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Abu Tor, south of the Old City. After renting a car at the airport, I ventured to Jerusalem. When I entered the mixed Arab/Jewish neighborhood of Abu Tor, a surprise awaited on one of the streets. It was littered with rocks, evidence of some kind of apparent recent rioting. Not yet being aware of the Intifada, I cautiously moved forward. Then I heard a rock hit the car. Welcome to Jerusalem!

I was able to safely reach my friend's house without further incident. But my visit to Israel took a very different turn from what had been planned. A number of the intended destination areas were not considered safe to enter because of the widespread Arab violence.

It was during this first Israel visit the murders of Yossi Avrahami and Vadim Nurzhitz happened in Ramallah, with a level of barbarity (but not the scale) which may rival October 7. The lynch mob inflicted unspeakable brutality upon the two IDF reservists. But the most savage aspect, much like October 7, was the intense degree of reveling in the bloodshed. Crazed, frenzied, gleeful celebrations in the manner of some kind of manic, bloody demonic ritual does not begin to describe the savagery of Aziz Salha and his hordes of fellow Palestinian murderers.

And yet, Aziz Salha, after being sentenced to life imprisonment for his horrific crime, was released in a prisoner exchange in 2011. That is not justice. But today, October 3 2024, justice was served. Salha was killed in an IAF airstrike in Gaza. Finally, justice.

For anyone confused about the concept of "social justice", this is what it actually looks like. True "social justice" does not resemble the warped, depraved concept being taught in many universities, a "social justice" which provides the impetus and justification for more violence against Jews and Israelis. That Palestinian mythology, that false ideology of victimhood and oppression, is belied by their innumerable instances of "bloody hands" over many decades.

Back in 2000, many still had an optimistic view that actual peace was possible with the Palestinians. The Second Intifada may have been the beginning of the end of that tragic misconception. Over the last 24 years, it has become crystal clear to most the "peace process" was a cruel mirage. The Palestinians do not want a state next to Israel, they want a state instead of Israel. And the Palestinian violence of the last several decades, tragically played out over and over and over again, has viciously penned by bloody hands the epitaph of the "two state solution".