In the aftermath of the massacre in Paris on November 13^th, an Israeli friend posted on Facebook, “I hate to see this happen to anyone, but I hope that now the world will finally understand what Israel deals with 24/7.”

I remember feeling the same way after the 9/11 terrorist attacks in America, attacks which hit close to home, taking the life of my wife’s brother Douglas, who was in the Twin Towers on that fateful day.

In the midst of the pain and shock, I said to myself, “This is what Israel is fighting against every day. At last, America will understand.”

Similarly, after the Paris attacks, Prime Minister Netanyahu said, “It is time for states to condemn terrorism against us like they condemn terrorism anywhere else in the world.”

In this same spirit, over the last few days, there have been widely circulated, three-paneled graphics making this point, with one panel showing the Twin Towers burning (and the caption 9/11), the next panel showing the Eiffel Tower (and the caption 11/13), and the third panel with an Israeli flag (and the caption 24/7).

Is the world finally catching on?

Sadly, it is not.

Israel, we are told, is not an innocent party, as was France or even the USA. Instead, Israel, is guilty of provoking these terrorist acts, and if not for the Jewish nation’s evil policies, not only would the Israelis and Palestinians live together peacefully, but the fires of radical Islam would be extinguished.

Palestinian Hamas militants take part in an anti-Israeli protest after the weekly Friday prayers in the southern Gaza Strip town of Khan Yunis on September 18, 2015, after Hamas called for a ‘day of rage’ following three days of clashes around Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa mosque compound Islam’s third holiest site, which is also considered the holiest site in Judaism and known to Jews as Temple Mount.

This, of course, is complete nonsense. The very presence of the Jewish people in their ancient homeland is a provocation to radical Islam, and their control of Jerusalem is utterly intolerable to these religious extremists.

Until the Jews are driven from the land, radical Islam will not rest.

Ask the Iranians who chant, “Death to Israel” if they will be happy as long as Israel exists as a sovereign nation. Ask the leadership of Hamas if they will be content with a two-state solution. After all, “Hamas’ charter calls for the destruction of the State of Israel and its replacement with a Palestinian Islamic state from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea.”

Ask Hezbollah and ISIS and Al-Qaeda what their goals are as far as Israel is concerned, and then remember that these sentiments are not new.

Already in 1936, Haj Amin Husseini, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, later a collaborator with Hitler and the father of many of today’s radical Islamic movements, had this to say about living in peace with the neighboring Jews: “There is no place in Palestine for two races. The Jews left Palestine 2,000 year ago, let them go to other parts of the world, where there are wide vacant places.”

More importantly, these sentiments go back to some of the earliest Islamic traditions, including a famous “Kill the Jews” statement from the Hadith quoted a few years ago by Mufti Muhammad Hussein, the religious leader of the Palestinian Authority, the so-called “moderate” Palestinian leadership.

In a speech celebrating the 47th anniversary of Fatah and aired on Palestinian Authority TV on January 9^th, 2012, the Mufti cited this Islamic tradition attributed to Muhammad: “The Hour [of Resurrection] will not come until you fight the Jews. The Jew will hide behind stones or trees. Then the stones or trees will call: ‘Oh Muslim, servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him.’”

To make this all the more sobering, according to Palwatch.org, a July, 2011 poll sponsored by the Israel Project indicated that a staggering 73% of Palestinians believe this Hadith.

Not surprisingly, this call to kill the Jews is enshrined in the Hamas charter, with Article 7 citing this very Hadith, prefaced by the comment: “Hamas has been looking forward to implementing Allah’s promise [to annihilate the Jews], whatever time it might take.”

That’s why Prime Minister Netanyahu said, “We are not at fault for the terrorism turned toward us just as the French are not at fault for the terrorism turned toward them. Those to blame for terrorism are terrorists. Not the [disputed West Bank] territories, not the settlements nor any other factor — it is the will to destroy us that keeps the conflict alive and motivates murderous aggression against us.”

To be sure, many Israelis, along with Jews outside of Israel, are critical of some of Israel’s policies and feel that these policies increase Palestinian hatred of Israel. But very few, if any, believe that changes in those policies would result in the end of terrorist attacks against Israel, attacks which would be in the hundreds (if not thousands) each month if not for Israel’s unceasingly vigilant security.

In reality, the reason that Jews are attacked by Muslims in countries like France and Belgium is the same reason they are attacked in Israel: radical Islam’s hatred of Jews in general and Israel in particular.

Despite all this, Sweden’s foreign minister Margaret Wallstrom said in a Swedish public television interview, “To counteract the radicalization, we must go back to the situation, such as the one in the Middle East of which not the least the Palestinians see that there is not future. We must either accept a desperate situation or resort to violence.”

So, according to this line of thinking, radical Muslims are not to blame, Israel is to blame. And it is not radical Islam which has declared war on the West but Israel which has provoked it.

At some point soon, perhaps as Wallstrom’s own nation is being terrorized by radical Islam (which I hope and pray will not be the case but which I fear could well be the case), she will realize that, rather than Israel being the cause of these terrorist acts, Israel is the ultimate target of them.

And rather than scapegoating Israel, she and her enlightened contemporaries can focus on the dangerous ideology which is destroying so many lives — Jewish lives, Christian lives and Muslim lives.

This is the reality Israel faces 24/7.