Who could have seen this coming?

Jews are being run over, stoned, stabbed, screwdrivered, hatcheted, and shot at point-blank range. It’s enough to make one long for the good old days of merely being rocketed, missiled, and suicide-bombed. Time flies when you’re being butchered.

While the Palestinian Arabs are reveling in their traditional pastime – 1,001 Ways to Murder Jews – the State of Israel dithers. Where is the government tasked and mandated by its electorate and the entire citizenry with the fundamental duty of protecting the people?

Reassuringly, the Israeli Cabinet is in meetings.

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This means that ministers are drinking from tall pitchers of water, and playing with their smartphones. Meanwhile, the corpses are tagged and bagged, and Jerusalem exhales its latest lamentations.

It would be more reassuring if the Cabinet held their huddles atop Temple Mount. Perhaps then the average Israeli could feel safe again in the streets, using public transit, and attending lectures or prayer services in synagogues.

Factually speaking, Palestinian Arabs are murdering and terrorizing Israeli Jews. Factually speaking, Israeli Jews are nebbishly tolerating and enabling these barbaric behaviors. “Havlagah” (restraint) has returned. Consequently, both parties are to blame for the continuing chaos, which will proceed apace until Israel gets serious about the situation and stops fooling around. Folks, it just doesn’t get any more predictable than that.

The neat thing about dealing with terrorism is the total absence of ambiguity. You don’t coddle terrorists, you crush them: without hesitation, without second-guessing, without post-mortem apologies. It is utterly unethical to allow inhumane brutes such as these to carry on with their cruel proclivities; a sluggish, feckless response to terrorism only guarantees the near-future massacre of the terrorists’ innocent and unsuspecting victims.

Without a doubt, several who are alive today will soon be slaughtered, because Israel is asleep at the switch. How many more must be brutalized before responsible authorities take action, before a strong statement is made and an unequivocal message sent – in the vernacular terrorists comprehend – that their violence and atrocities will not be countenanced? When will Israel’s defenders retake the initiative, assume a proactive approach, and heed the Mosaic injunction to choose life by safeguarding lives?

Lacking political leadership, Israelis must perforce collectively rend their garments, and roll out the sackloth and ashes. Even anti-Semites must admit that no one does grieving like the Jews, who have the most experience with woes and hoary seniority when it comes to tragedy – a comforting laurel for our trying times.

A Jewish folk tale has it that kabbalist Abraham Berukim, a disciple of the Holy Ari, Rabbi Isaac Luria, beheld a mystical shape on the Western Wall of Temple Mount, that of a woman dressed in black. Until a ke’zayit (olive’s worth) of common sense and an ounce of self-respect return to the Jewish People and the State of Israel, Zion will remain in mourning.

Brace yourselves for the familiar bloodbath.