Tuesday, October 21, 2014
Elder of ZiyonThe Palestinians are accusing an Israeli settler of running over two schoolgirls, killing one of them, and speeding away.This story, saying that the young girl was "martyred," was all over Palestinian media yesterday.
Palestinian UN Ambassador Riyad Mansour said in a letter Monday to the UN Security Council that the two girls got off a school bus in the West Bank town of Sinjil on Sunday and were hit while walking to their mothers across the street. He said Inas Khalil, 5, died several hours later and Nilin Asfour, 8, is in critical condition.
Residents of the Palestinian town accused the driver, 29, of the Yitzhar settlement, of deliberately hitting the girls.
The driver told police he did not stop after striking the girls because he feared for his life due to the crowd that had gathered around the injured girls, according to Ynet. He stopped in the nearest Jewish community, Ofra, where he reported the accident and turned himself in.
Israel Police said a preliminary investigation showed that the incident was an accident, according to Ynet.
There is no doubt that her death is a tragedy. But here's some context that the media is of course too lazy to research.
In 2013, there were 7827 traffic accidents in the West Bank, resulting in 136 deaths (a sharp increase from the 114 Arab deaths in 2012 and 104 in 2011.)
Jews take up less than 20% of the population over the Green Line in Judea and Samaria. Even given the relative separation between the two populations, we can assume that most fatalities occur at high speeds, meaning on highways which Jews and Arabs share, so one would expect that certainly over 10% of those deaths would be from Jews. If Jews were delibrately targeting Arabs, the number would be much higher. Yet we do not hear about nearly that many deaths.
On the other hand, here is footage from the summer of an Arab driver deliberately aiming his car at a group of Jewish women and girls hitchhiking in Gush Etzion:
A little more context: Here's what happens to Jewish drivers if they happen to enter the wrong Arab neighborhood:
Once again, Arabs are projecting on Jews what they do - joyfully - themselves.
