Responding to the urging of their political and religious leaders, Palestinians have over the last few weeks taken to stabbing random Jews in Israel. This new manifestation of their mass homicidal psychosis has come to be called the “knife intifada.” It’s a suicide attack, this time on a more intimate level. The killer stabs as many passers by as he can before he is shot. He is then celebrated as a martyr by his people, and his family is provided with a large money reward. Many Palestinian mothers openly praise their dead progeny, and it is no wonder. Mom acquires some capital, and she can always produce more children. It’s a gruesome illustration of the law of supply and demand.

Iran’s Ayatollah Khamenei recently encouraged these sorts of microaggressions on the theory that if you make life unpleasant enough for people, they’ll eventually move away. It’s the flip side of the continued existence of Palestinian “refugee camps.” Life is not unpleasant there. All necessities are provided by the United Nations, including food, housing, schools and the like. Life would be much harder anywhere else. The “refugees” would be on their own.

It’s easy to ignore a knife intifada when it’s happening far away. And we’re all accustomed to hearing about acts of Muslim depravity. But what if it’s coming to a neighborhood near you? Or a college campus. Like the campus at the University of California at Merced in sunny California where a student yesterday stabbed four or five people before being shot by the cops who were fortunately allowed to carry guns on school grounds. Think how many lives would be saved if armed guards were stationed at all gun-free zones, or better still if there were no gun-free zones.

Nothing is yet known about the stabber except that he was a freshman at the university and his name was Faisal Mohammad. Of course it was. The Jewish Press wonders whether the campus police “will be castigated for ‘executing’ a crazed person in the midst of stabbing innocent victims, as happens when Israeli police or soldiers neutralize terrorist stabbers.” Probably. And the stabber’s family will likely sue the university for putting young stabbers at risk.

Authorities are still trying to find a motive for the attack. Of course they are.