Wednesday, October 14, 2015
Jews are being killed simply for being Jews
One myth in particular has shown itself evergreen: the idea that Jews are trying to undermine Islam and its holy sites in Jerusalem. We have heard the lie that “Al Aqsa is in danger” since the 1920s, when the Palestinian leader Haj Amin Al-Husseini tried to stir up local rioters against Jews, inciting them to murder. Husseini would distribute pamphlets saying: “O Arabs! Do not forget that the Jew is your worst enemy and has been the enemy of your forefathers.”1929 vs today
Last month, President Abbas called on Jews not to put their “filthy feet” on the Temple Mount, again inciting anti-Jewish violence. Yet when Palestinian activists use this revered holy site as a temporary base from which to attack Israelis – piling up rocks, fireworks and explosives – it is they who desecrate the place.
Those making libellous claims about Israel and Al Aqsa today ignore the fact that 3.5 million Muslims visited the site last year, compared to 200,000 Christians and just 12,500 Jews. Indeed, Israel has maintained a delicate status quo since 1967, when it regained control of the Old City of Jerusalem, and handed back the administration of the Muslim holy sites to Islamic administrators known as the Waqf. Israel is determined not to let the status quo change, and has recently banned politicians from any visits to the site, in order to calm tensions.
But ultimately, what we are seeing is not about religious rights or land. It is about the same old issue. This is the issue that people least want to discuss but which most needs to be discussed. The excuse may change with the passing years. But the reality is that, be it 1921, 1929, 1936 or 2015, Jews are being murdered simply for being Jews.
Eitan Na’eh is Israel’s Acting Ambassador to Great Britain
The current wave of terrorism was born from a lie. A lie that contributed to the incitement. Incitement that, regretfully, continues. Incitement that continues just like the lie. And that lie is that Israel is planning to rebuild the Temple and to that end is also planning to demolish Al-Aqsa mosque, which is holy to Muslims. If it weren't for the terrorist attacks, the casualties, the wounded, the worry, it would sound like a joke. A very bad joke, by the way.PMW: Fatah brought soil from Al-Aqsa to grave of killer of two in Jerusalem
As far as the people who keep things stirred up online are concerned, lies are legitimate now, just like they were in the past. Lies are allowed if they facilitate the murder of Jews. Lies are allowed if they challenge the Jewish people's sovereignty over their holy sites in the City of David.
In August 1929, the mufti, Hajj Amin al-Husseini, preached a sermon in which he decreed that "anyone who kills a Jew is promised a place in the world to come." Can anyone say that anything has changed among the extremists?
By the way, that sermon led to the riots of 1929 in which 133 Jews were slaughtered while the British cavalry looked on, indifferent.
Fatah brought soil from the Al-Aqsa Mosque to the grave of terrorist Muhannad Halabi, who murdered two in the Old City of Jerusalem "so that the dead body of Martyr Muhannad Halabi can hug the soil for which he died a Martyr." [Fatah Twitter account, Oct. 8, 2015] Fatah thus follows the ideology of its chairman, Mahmoud Abbas, who recently justified the violence and murder as "protection of the holy sites," as Palestinian Media Watch documented.PMW: The PA lies to defend terror
In another demonstration of support for the current terror and murder campaign, today the Palestinian Authority Ministry of Education is planting olive trees and placing "signs with the names of the Martyrs," honoring the "Martyrs" of what they call "the ongoing popular uprising." The ministry event follows two weeks of Palestinian terror attacks in which several Israelis have been murdered and dozens wounded in stabbing and shooting attacks carried out by Palestinians. The PA and Fatah leadership have referred to these terrorists as "Martyrs."
The PA Ministry of Education stated that its tree planting ceremony was a symbol of its dedication to the "Martyrs," and mentioned that some of them were school pupils. This refers to, among others, Hassan Manasrah (15) who together with an even younger boy brutally stabbed 2 people earlier this week, leaving a 13-year-old boy fighting for his life with multiple stab wounds. The ministry event was to "honor" the terrorists' "sacrifices":
One of the ways the Palestinian Authority is keeping its population angry, willing to riot and continue terror attacks against Israelis, is by falsely portraying every terrorist as an innocent victim of Israel.
PA Chairman Abbas’ spokesman, Nabil Abu Rudeina, stated that Israel had “executed” Hassan Manasrah (15), one of two young Palestinian terrorists, who repeatedly stabbed and critically wounded a 13-year-old boy (name undisclosed) who was riding his bike and also stabbed Yossef Ben Shalom (21) in the Pisgat Ze'ev neighborhood of East Jerusalem yesterday:
“Presidential Spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeina stated that the execution of child Hassan Manasrah... is an abominable crime, and the legal, humanitarian and political responsibility for it is on the Israeli government. He demanded that the Israeli government catches those who committed this crime. Abu Rudeina stated: ‘If the government of Israel continues this escalation [of violence] by carrying out more grave acts of execution, the situation in the region will go out of control, and everyone will pay a heavy price for these Israeli crimes.’” [Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Oct. 13, 2015]
PA Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah also made the same false accusation before the president of India, Pranab Mukherjee:
“Just yesterday the Israeli occupation forces assassinated in cold blood the child Hassan Manasrah and his innocence and calls for help did not help.” [WAFA, Oct 13, 2015]
Top ministers to join Temple Mount activist to mark year since attempt to kill him
Activist and would-be Likud MK Yehuda Glick, who seeks to promote greater Jewish freedoms at the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, is planning to hold a public event Sunday marking the one-year anniversary of a failed attempt on his life in which he was badly injured. Senior government ministers plan to attend the event, during which activists who have promoted Jewish access to the contested holy site will be honored.No, It’s Not The Occupation, Stupid
Arab fears over alleged Israeli intentions to change the status-quo at the Mount — where Jews are allowed to visit but not to pray — and its al-Aqsa Mosque have sparked major unrest in recent weeks and still play a major part in the current wave of terrorism against Israeli civilians.
The event, scheduled to take place in Jerusalem’s Menachem Begin Heritage Center, “is for everyone who prayed, aided and hoped for my well-being,” said Glick, a rabbi and activist best known for his efforts to allow Jews to freely worship on the Temple Mount, in a statement. “I invite all those people to join in celebrating my miraculous survival and recovery. I am eternally grateful to God, Who must have felt that I have more to do in this world.”
On October 29, 2014, Glick was shot by a Palestinian terrorist outside the Begin Center. The gunman, Mutaz Hijazi, approached Glick on a motorcycle, called him an “enemy of al-Aqsa” and shot him four times at point-blank range. Glick had just concluded a talk on “the importance of maintaining a Jewish presence on the Temple Mount,” according to a press release by the Temple Mount Heritage Foundation, which he founded.
The entire history of the Arab-Israeli conflict is a history of Arabs putting Israelis in a position from which they must defend themselves, and then blaming Israel for the way it defends itself. This is true of the 1948 war, in which the armies of Egypt, Syria, Transjordan, Lebanon and Iraq invaded the newly reconstituted state of Israel, and which is now commemorated as the “Nakba.” This was true of the 2014 Gaza war known as Operation Protective Edge, during which most of Israel was under relentless rocket attack, and its attempts to defend itself from those attacks were widely condemned as “disproportionate,” or as “murder” and “war crimes.”'The West Gives Legitimacy to Terror Against Jews'
This is true, as well, of the violence that is being directed at Israel today. The violence is being blamed by some on the so-called “occupation,” but this ignores that Israel’s military presence in the West Bank is itself a defensive measure. During the 1967 war, Jordan, which then occupied east Jerusalem and the West Bank, attacked the Israeli section of Jerusalem after Israel’s preemptive strike against Egypt. Israel recaptured the eastern part of the city, as well as the West Bank, only after that attack.
The much-maligned checkpoints and separation barrier, the embodiments of the “occupation” to the anti-Israel crowd, are defensive measures as well. They were put in place in response to the Second Intifada that Arafat intentionally started, and have saved many lives.
Addressing the foreign media present, an impassioned minister Steinitz said, "Israelis cannot understand" why it is that "when Islamic zealots are killing Christians or other people in Paris in the name of Allah, shouting allahu akbar ('Allah is greater')," there is strong condemnation, but the same doesn't hold true in Israel.Chloé Simone Valdary: Some publications — like 972 mag, Al Jazeera, Electronic Intifada …
Citing attacks in London, Paris, and the Boston marathon attacks, he noted that in these cases the terrorists were "killing in the name of Allah, when they are murdering Americans or Europeans, this is always a barbaric action of terror" in the media.
"When recently terrorists, unidentified yet but probably Islamic terrorists, killed 100 Turks in Ankara, this is described by the media as an act of terror, and rightly so." He went on to enumerate the murder of Yazidis, Kurds and moderate Muslims in Iraq, all of which is labeled a "barbaric act of terror."
However, "when Jews are stabbed and killed or injured in Israel, and in all cases the terrorist shouted allahu akbar...exactly the same slogan, suddenly it's not terrorism anymore" in the world media's eyes.
"Killing the Jews, especially here in Israel, this is different," he posed incredulously.
Some publications — like 972 mag, Al Jazeera, Electronic Intifada — etc have argued recently that the ongoing terrorism is the fault of the “occupation,” by which they mean either the presence of Israelis in Judea & Samaria, or the re-establishment of Israel in 1948, or both.Ex-Israeli General: Palestinians Taught to Kill Jews in School, Summer Camp
This is patently false, but more importantly, it undermines the Arab civilian population.
If you study the sociological underpinnings of terrorism, more often than not, said acts have absolutely nothing to do with perceived injustice by another force; instead when you trace said actions backwards it has to do with the selfsame organizations that sent people to go murder innocent civilians in the first place. In the case of Hamas, for example, that regime follows what I like to call the “Jim Jones effect.”
Jim Jones’s church started out welcoming people from underprivileged backgrounds and giving them a place where they could feel a sense of purpose and direction. In doing so, Jones created a community where people felt safe and protected from the perils of the outside world. But overtime, Jones began to abuse his congregants and tell them that it was the outside world that was responsible for the misery they were now feeling under Jones’s direction.
When Jones forced his people to drink koolade laced with cyanide, someone recorded what he told them and today we have the audio. There’s a great PBS documentary on this subject which I recommend you watch. He said specifically, “we are going to commit a revolutionary act of suicide” against the outside world. Which is to say he followed the below steps:
1. Make people feel loved.
2. Abuse them
3. Tell them the pain they’re feeling is a result of outside forces.
4. Get them to commit suicide to escape such forces.
This is, with variation, the EXACT formula that Hamas follows.
Retired Brig. Gen. Yossi Kuperwasser lamented the increasing violence against Israeli citizens at the hands of Palestinians and Arab-Israeli terrorists, many of them teenagers.The Consequences of Mayhem
Three people were murdered and nearly two dozen injured in at least four terror attacks on Israelis Tuesday.
Kuperwasser, who once served as director general of the Israel Ministry of Strategic Affairs and headed the Research and Analysis and Production Division of Israel Defense Forces Military Intelligence, told reporters that Palestinians are taught from a young age to “get rid of the Jews who came to this land, who deny the Palestinian cause.”
Young Palestinians, Kuperwasser said, are taught by leaders in school, summer camp, and other activities to demonstrate their commitment to the “struggle” by engaging in violence.
“‘How do I know that I’m a Palestinian? Because I’m going to sacrifice my blood for Palestine. … That’s what makes me a Palestinian.’ That’s really the feeling of these children. … In summer camps and in shows that they carry out in schools and they play a game: Stab the Jew,” Kuperwasser said during a press call with journalists Tuesday organized by the Israel Project.
The ex-general explained that such “brainwashing” makes it difficult for the Israeli government to stop such attacks.
“It’s not easy to convince them to give it up because they were brainwashed for such a long time,” Kuperwasser stated.
UN resolutions, even those unfairly condemning Israeli self-defense, won’t change the status quo on the Temple Mount that is defended by the Israeli government that already discriminates against Jews. Yet more condemnations of Israel won’t do a thing for the Palestinians. If we are to assume that Palestinians really do want a two-state solution (and based on the PA’s consistent refusal to accept the legitimacy of a Jewish state no matter where its borders are drawn, there is no reason to believe that they do) this new terror surge is exactly the wrong way to go about it. Israelis already were worried that a withdrawal from much of the West Bank (something that every Israeli government has offered to do — including Netanyahu’s — in the last 15 years) would duplicate Ariel Sharon’s disastrous experiment in the pullout from Gaza. But now that Abbas has whipped up the kind of hate that has Palestinians seeking to slaughter Jews they see on the street or on buses, further withdrawals seem utter madness..Palestinian Incitement to Murder
By embracing terror, Palestinians have deepened the divide with Israelis while making even left-wingers less likely to trust them. Stern measures intended to prevent more terror attacks will have widespread support from right to left. Nor will many Israelis, even those most likely to want to believe in the idea that Abbas is a man of peace, soon forget the way he stoked hatred and needlessly caused so much loss of life.
If Palestinians want prosperity and peace, they need to drop the hate and start learning to accept Israel as a fact of life that will continue even if they attained statehood. But so long as their quest for sovereignty is bound up with holy war, they’ll get neither. As with past unnecessary conflicts they started, the Palestinians will be the ones who will suffer most from this one
Stop Palestinian Hate Speech
What Palestinian Terror and ISIS Have in Common
‘Alleged’ Palestinian lies encouraging their ‘alleged stabbings’
Moreover, their violence perpetuates Israeli rule. My new book The Age of Clinton: America in the 1990s argues that the Soviet Union collapsed peacefully, South African apartheid vanished peacefully, the Northern Ireland troubles ended peacefully, but the Israeli-Palestinian problem persists violently because only in this conflict does one group seek to destroy the other people. You cannot compromise with those who wish to kill you.Oslo Boomers: Palestinians Born After 1993 Accords Set a Teen Terror Trend
As we watch young Palestinians stabbing and rock-throwing, flip the Western assumption that people that violent must be that desperate.
Instead, ask: who is teaching them to hate? Why aren’t they raised to be peaceful (Mahatma) Gandhians or high-tech (Bill) Gatesians? Palestinians could get more than they expect with non-violence or a productive, middle-class high-tech society. Instead, they terrorize their neighbors and create totalitarian exterminationist regimes like Hamasistan in Gaza.
Finally, note the irony: Bill Clinton and Barack Obama share the same vision of two states for two peoples, but Israelis still cherish Clinton’s friendship and resent Obama’s hostility. Instead of falsely crowning him Israeli’s Best Friend Ever, pro-Israel Democrats should protest the messaging, the dog whistling, the telegraphed hostility. Israel needs true Clintonesque friends, not Blame Israel First Obamians, especially with totalitarian terrorism metastasizing yet again.
From Al Durah to Hassan: The Last 15 Years in 1 easy lessonAccording to Khalil Shikaki, director of the Ramallah-based Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research (PSR), the Oslo Accords take on different meaning for the younger generation of Palestinians than those who were adults at the time of the signing.“The older generation remembers the pre-Oslo conditions and therefore tend to be less critical of that agreement than the younger generation who sees Oslo as a miserable failure,” Shikaki told JNS.org, noting that youths consider the Oslo agreement to be “a failure to end occupation, deliver a state, or build clean, efficient, and strong public institutions.”Bassem Eid, another expert on internal Palestinian affairs and former director of the Jerusalem-based Palestinian Human Rights Monitoring Group, asserts that younger Palestinians — whether living in Jerusalem, Gaza or the West Bank — have been taught to feel that their daily lives “are getting worse and worse.”“Imagine those who have been born after the Oslo agreement,” Eid told JNS.org. “If you are born with the feeling that life is getting worse and worse, that is the frustration.”
Eid said the feeling that Oslo is a failure, while pervasive among the younger generation, is actually shared universally by Palestinians.“The Oslo agreement almost died several years ago in the eyes of the Palestinians. I don’t believe that there is one Palestinian who believes that Oslo still exists,” he said.
Today, Palestinian spokesman Nabil Abu Rudineh denounced Israel for “executing” a Palestinian boy, and compared this incident to the murder of Muhammad al Durah in 2000. The mashup got tweeted almost simultaneously.The Timing of the Palestinian Terror Wave Is No Accident
The discourse is powerful on multiple levels. Associating this picture with Al Durah attempts to give it the power was the icon of hatred that gave the “Al Aqsa Intifada” so much of its intensity, it was literally a banner of violence.
It fed an entire industry of indoctrinating hatred and a desire for martyrdom among Palestinian youth. As one fresh faced 12 year old girl assured her approving interviewer, “everyone want to be a martyr.” By which she meant, everyone wants to blow themselves up amidst a bunch of Israelis to kill and maim as many of them as possible.
The product of that hatred is this second lad, born just at the time the Al Durah icon of hatred hit the world. This time Hassan was actually shot and killed by an Israeli, not because he was an innocent bystander like Muhammad al Durah, but because he and his cousin had just stabbed and nearly killed three Israelis including a 13-year old boy.
And that is exactly what is happening now. Abbas knew he could count on the major news outlets not to question why the terrorism is occurring now. Instead, the ragged old cliches of the mysteriously self-igniting “cycle of violence” are being re-hashed, while Israel’s legitimate self-defense against the stabbings, shootings and rock throwings is being increasingly reported in negative terms.Palestinian killed during stabbing attempt in Jerusalem
True to form, Israel has been unable thus far to counter the media dynamic that has worked so well for Abbas in the past. It appeared to be too little and too late when Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely several days ago announced a media campaign, as well as the formation of an inter-ministerial team to prepare a series of informational videos on the subject of Palestinian incitement. We have had 20 years to prepare those videos. Do not wait for the international media to hold its breath.
In his next move, truly Orwellian in a way that only the old Soviet cadres could have trumped, Abbas is now asking the U.N. Human Rights Council to quickly dispatch a commission of inquiry to the region “to investigate all crimes perpetrated by Israel against our people.” While this may sound outlandish to right-minded people, Abbas is not entirely wrong in his calculations that the U.N. will respond to his exhortations. Abbas knows that the dance he performs for the benefit of the U.N. is usually met with applause, and is just as predictably choreographed as his dance with the international media. All is possible when it comes to the U.N., particularly the U.N. Human Rights Council, where Saudi Arabia is currently chairing the U.N. Human Rights Council panel in charge of appointing independent experts.
There were no injuries in the attack, which took place next to the Damascus Gate, the scene of several previous knife attacks on officers and others.Thousands Attend Funeral of Rabbi Murdered in Jerusalem Car-Ramming, Stabbing Attack
A police spokesperson said Border Police officers noticed a young Palestinian man sitting near the Damascus Gate wearing camouflage clothing and appearing nervous and suspicious.
The officers approached him to investigate and as they got closer he pulled out a knife and attempted to stab them, police said after an initial investigation.
The officers immediately responded and shot in his direction. The attacker ran toward them with the knife in his hand. Finally they shot and killed him, a police spokeswoman said.
Thousands of mourners gathered for the funeral procession of Rabbi Yeshayahu Akiva Krishevsky, who was killed on Tuesday when a terrorist rammed his vehicle into a group of pedestrians waiting at a Jerusalem bus stop.‘Jerusalem terrorists planned to hijack bus,’ says witness
The procession for Krishevsky, who was 59, began at the Pinsk-Karlin Beit Midrash [Jewish house of study and prayer], located in the predominantly ultra-Orthodox Beit Yisrael neighborhood of Jerusalem, and set out for the Har Hamenuchot cemetery. During the procession, influential Rabbi Elimelech Biderman said the attack signaled that God was trying to send a message.
Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat was also among the mourners. According to Israeli news website nrg, he was encouraging yeshiva students from outside Israel to maintain patience amid the current wave of violence, which has seen dozens of individual knifing, car-ramming and other terrorist attacks against Israelis since the beginning of October alone. Seven Israelis and 27 Palestinians, including 11 identified attackers, have been killed in the spasmodic violence that erupted around the Jewish New Year last month.
A witness to Tuesday morning’s deadly attack in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Armon Hanatziv, in which two terrorists boarded a bus and proceeded to shoot and stab passengers, said the attackers tried to commandeer the bus to continue their killing spree.18-Year-Old Recounts Escaping Death Twice in Jerusalem Bus Attack
Golan Cohen Gabbai, who arrived at the scene as the attack was unfolding, said he saw one of the terrorists sitting in the driver’s seat.
Gabbai said he overtook the bus with his car and blocked it, forcing the driver to stop.
One of the terrorists “opened the doors and wanted to come at me with a knife,” he said. “I shut the car windows and stayed put. He ran to the back and came back with a gun. When I saw that, I intended to flee but I managed to delay him” until security forces arrived at the scene.
Ruby Ma’atabi recalled for Israeli website nrg what happened when one of the terrorists, brandishing a firearm, began to open fire on passengers on the Egged bus: “The terrorist began shooting toward the back of the bus, where I was sitting. He shot an older man who was sitting in front of me.”Watch: Border Police Storm Bus as Terrorists Butcher Passengers
“Then, he grabbed a knife and started stabbing me in the throat and I managed to flee. I hid next to the door and tried to open it but I couldn’t. Then another terrorist came along, grabbed me and tried to choke me. I freed myself from him when the other grabbed me by the shirt. At that moment I tried to do everything in my power to grab something myself, but there was nothing to grab. So I tried just to save myself, to escape. I felt the fear, either I make it or I die,” Ma’atabi recounted.
“The incident started when I got on the number 78 bus line this morning in Armon Hanatziv. Two terrorists got on the bus and sat down; they didn’t seem suspicious. As soon as the bus began moving, one of the terrorists yelled ‘Allahu akbar‘ and began shooting toward the rear of the bus,” he said.
Two Israelis were killed in Tuesday’s bus attack, when the terrorists began shooting and stabbing passengers before being shot by police. Another Israeli man, a 59-year-old rabbi, was separately killed in Jerusalem that same morning when an east Jerusalem man drove a company car into hapless bystanders at a bus station.
A local resident in Jerusalem's Armon Hanatziv neighborhood captured the scenes of terror after two Arab terrorists attempted to hijack a bus, butchering passengers with a large knife and a pistol in one of two near-simultaneous attacks in the capital Tuesday.Watch: Terrorist Stabs Commuters in Ra'anana, Then Runs Off
Two people were murdered in that attack and more than a dozen others wounded, before the attackers were shot by border police, seen rushing to the scene in large numbers.
One terrorist was killed and the second wounded and taken into police custody.
CTV footage shows the moment an Arab terrorist attacked a group of Jewish commuters at a bus stop in Ra'anana yesterday, injuring four people - just hours after an identical attack in the same city.Watch: Pisgat Ze'ev Stabbing Captured in Vivid CCTV Footage
The terrorist, dressed in an orange t-shirt, can be seen calmly approaching his unsuspecting victims before suddenly launching into a frenzied attack, and then running off almost as fast.
He was later caught and subdued by other pedestrians and handed over to police.
The previous attacker was less fortunate, only succeeding in lightly injuring one person before passersby tackled him to the ground and beat him unconscious. Police who arrived shortly afterwards held the crowd back, and the terrorist was hospitalized in serious condition.
CCTV cameras recorded stage-by-stage the prolonged, brutal stabbing spree by two young Palestinian Arab boys on Monday in Jerusalem, as the pair tore through the northern neighborhood of Pisgat Ze'ev armed with large knives, seriously injuring two people including a 13-year-old child.Father of 13-year-old terrorist says Israel staged attack
The footage shows how the pair first pounced on a 25-year-old man, stabbing him repeatedly and leaving him seriously wounded.
They can then be seen running through the streets, eventually ending up outside a grocery store, where they attacked and critically injured their second victim a 13-year-old Jewish boy riding his bicycle.
The attackers themselves were minors - cousins aged 15 and 13 from Beit Hanina.
The father of the 13-year-old terrorist who along with his cousin carried out the stabbing attack in Jerusalem's Pisgat Ze'ev neighborhood, is claiming that there was no terrorist attack at all and that the incident had been staged by Israeli security forces.Graphic Video Shows Terrorist Running Over, Stabbing Victims
The father added that members of the security forces were the ones who stabbed a 13-year-old Jewish boy who was riding his bike, who is currently hospitalized and fighting for his life.
"My son doesn't know how to hold a knife," the father said during a visit to the mourning tent of the family of his 15-year-old nephew, who was killed during the event. His son was wounded and arrested.
"My son was attacked by Jews when he went to buy a computer game. My son only turns on the TV to watch cartoons like 'Tom and Jerry,'" the father continued.
Alaa Abu Jamal's attack killed 59-year-old Rabbi Yeshiyahu Krishevsky and left another man wounded, before he himself was shot dead by a security guard in Jerusalem's Geula neighborhood.Alert Woman Helps Foil Terror Stabbings in Northern Israel
It was preceded just a few minutes earlier by a shooting and stabbing attack on a bus in which two people were murdered.
Previous footage uploaded by a nearby motorist of Abu Jamaal's attack was relatively unclear, but this latest footage - apparently recorded by CCTV cameras - offers a far clearer insight into the chilling, cold-blooded nature of the attack.
An alert female employee at a gasoline station in the Lower Galilee foiled a terrorist attack last Tuesday afternoon by calling the police after suspecting that two Arab youth were terrorists.Shots Fired on IDF Vehicle from Gaza
She turned out to be right.
The youth, ages 16 and 17, tried to escape, but the police caught up with them and searched them
They discovered they were carrying a knife and a jackknife, and the suspects confessed that they were planning to carry out stabbing attacks but had not yet decided where.
Like most of the attacks and planned attacks during the recent wave of terror, the Arab youth apparently were acting on their own and were totally amateurish.
Snipers from Gaza shot on Tuesday afternoon at an IDF military vehicle driving near the border fence.Arab Rock-Throwing Attacks in Judea and Samaria
The incident occurred while a group of soldiers were traveling near Israel's border with Gaza; a senior IDF officer was also reportedly inside the vehicle at the time.
Palestinians snipers from Gaza then opened fire on the military vehicle.
There were no injuries reported in the incident, but the vehicle was damaged.
Tuesday's attack follows another incident on the Gaza border two days ago, when Palestinians opened fire at an IDF force working on reinforcing the border fence near Kissufim.
Palestinian Authority Arab rock-throwing terrorists focused on Highway 60, between Gush Etzion and the southern Hebron Hills, Wednesday morning.PICTURES: Palestinian rioter sets himself ablaze during clashes with IDF
They also clashed with Israeli soldiers at the flash point of Al Aroob, one mile south of the Gush Etzion junction.
Large-scale rock-throwing attacks were reported on the highway, but no one was injured and damage was minimal.
In Samaria, Israeli cars sustained damage from rock-throwers near Yitzhar.
There has been a dramatic decline in violence throughout most of Israel except for the rock-throwing attacks.
The would-be terrorist, a student at Hebron University, suffered light to moderate injuries.
Clashes began after protesters blocked the main north entrance of the West Bank town of Hebron with stones and tires.
Seven Israelis and 27 Palestinians have died in almost two weeks of street attacks and security crackdowns. The violence has been stirred in part by Muslim anger over increasing Jewish visits to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. (h/t Cliff)
PreOccupiedTerritory: Study: Arabs Who Stab Jews Might Not Be Interested In Coexistence (satire)
A scientific survey has found indications that Arabs who attack Jews by attempting to stab them are less likely to support Jewish-Arab coexistence, the journal Nature reported today.Jerusalem hospital treats terror victims and terrorists
A study of the target population found what scientists called a “very strong correlation” between perpetration of a stabbing attack on Jews and a low regard for the ideal of Jews and Arabs living in the same country and getting along, or at least leaving each other alone. Of those surveyed, a stabber or would-be-stabber was nine times more likely than the average respondent to harbor a negative opinion of coexistence, and eighty-four times more likely to have incurred a bullet wound.
Avi Uss, lead author of the study, cautioned that while the correlation was indeed robust, the rule remains that correlation does not equal causation. “The cause and effect here may be much more complex than a cursory look at the data would seem to show,” he warned. “There might well be an underlying factor accounting for both of these statistics. We cannot justifiably jump to the conclusion that just because someone opposes coexistence, he or she will suddenly try to stab a Jew – or, indeed, that someone who attempts to stab a Jew to death will thereby become an opponent of coexistence.”
Uss noted that any number of such underlying causes could lead to both results without there being an inherent connection between opposition to coexistence and having perpetrated a stabbing attack on a Jew. “There could be environmental factors in play here that explain both phenomena. Further study is certainly warranted here,” he concluded.
As a wave of violence sweeps across Jerusalem, victims and perpetrators are often surprised to be reunited — at each other’s bedside in the city’s largest emergency ward.Israel deploys hundreds of soldiers in Jerusalem
The Hadassah Medical Center prides itself on checking politics at the door and treating Palestinian attackers and Jewish victims alike. But the tensions on the street are increasingly seeping through the hospital’s sterile walls, with family members clashing in the hallways and causing the wounded even more trauma.
Hadassah’s Ein Kerem campus is considered a rare model of co-existence in deeply divided Jerusalem, with a mixed Jewish-Arab medical team working together to treat the city’s wounded and infirm.
Coping with conflict is nothing new. More than 20 members of the hospital staff were either killed or lost close relatives during the last decade’s Palestinian uprising, or intifada. They are accustomed to separating their own feelings from the task at hand and treating those on the other side of the region’s decades-old conflict.
Six companies of Israeli soldiers were mobilized in Jerusalem Wednesday, as the IDF joined efforts to secure the city following an escalation in the violence there. The move is part of a slew of measures passed by the security cabinet overnight Tuesday aiming to prevent further terror attacks after the deadliest day so far in the current wave of unrest.Israeli settlements shut their gates to Palestinian workers in light of violence
Tuesday saw four terror attacks, two of which, in Jerusalem, left three Israelis dead. All told, over 30 were injured.
“In accordance with the cabinet’s decision last night, as of this morning 300 IDF soldiers have already begun spreading out to provide additional security under police command,” an Israel Police spokesman said in a statement Wednesday morning.
Many settlements decided on Tuesday night to temporarily close their gates to Palestinian workers on Wednesday, and in some cases for the rest of the week, to protect themselves against possible attacks in their home communities.Police given authority to impose East Jerusalem closures
Among those enacting such closures are settlements in the Gush Etzion, Samaria and the Binyamin Region, as well as Givat Ze’ev and the cities of Ariel, Ma’aleh Adumim and Beitar Illit.
The closure does not include the industrial areas or the Gush Etzion junction, where a Rami Levi supermarket is located.
Although none of the attacks since October 1 have taken place inside the communities of Judea and Samaria, settler leaders, one after the other, announced the closings.
Following a deadly rash of terror attacks across Israel carried out by East Jerusalem residents on Tuesday, the security cabinet voted to authorize police to impose closures in Jerusalem and surround Arab neighborhoods according to security considerations, a statement by the Prime Minister’s Office said late Tuesday night.Minister says residency of 19 East Jerusalem terrorists to be revoked
The police “is authorized to impose a closure on, or to surround, centers of friction and incitement in Jerusalem, in accordance with security considerations,” the statement read.
Other courses of action approved by the security cabinet included the demolition of terrorists’ homes within days of an attack and the banning of new construction, the confiscation of the property of terrorists who carry out attacks and the revoking of permanent residency rights.
The residency status of 19 East Jerusalemites accused of involvement in terror attacks will be revoked, Interior Minister Silvan Shalom said Wednesday, as the government implements a series of measures designed to crack down on an ongoing spate of terror attacksIsrael Will Not Return the Bodies of Terrorists
This measure will deny their families welfare benefits they would have received from the state’s National Insurance Institute.
A high percentage of the attackers involved in a recent wave of stabbings and other attacks have come from East Jerusalem, where residents enjoy some Israeli rights as permanent residents, though not full citizenship.
Shalom told Israel Radio that Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked will submit a proposal to the government to deny relatives of terrorists who were killed while attempting to murder Israelis an allowance from the National Insurance institute.
The Security Cabinet on Wednesday approved the suggestion of Internal Security Minister Gilad Erdan (Likud) not to return the bodies of Arab terrorists who are killed while conducting attacks to their families.Victim Identification Service ZAKA to Use Black Body Bags for Terrorists, White for Victims
The Cabinet is likewise considering Erdan's suggestion to bury the terrorists at cemeteries belonging to the IDF that are located at the extreme edges of the country, where terrorists have in past been buried.
Funerals of Arab terrorists have often turned into gala affairs in which the murderous jihadists are feted as heroes, and the suggestion to bury them on Israel's borders is intended to reduce the element of incitement and recruitment contained in their funerals.
"The family of the terrorist turns the funeral into a protest of support for terror and incitement to murder, and we must not allow that," said Erdan. "We must do everything so that the terrorist won't be able to merit honor and ceremonies after conducting an attack."
The ZAKA voluntary community emergency response teams in Israel (the acronym stands for Zihuy Korbanot Ason, Heb: Disaster Victim Identification) has decided to start wrapping the bodies of murderous terrorists in black bags and not the ordinary white bags used for victims.Gun permit restrictions eased amid terror wave
The move comes in response to numerous requests by Israelis who have complained to the organization that it is sacrilegious to wrap the bodies of the terrorists in bags with the ZAKA inscription. One complaint read: “ZAKA is a sacred organization, and you mustn’t blaspheme the ZAKA name with the bodies of bloodthirsty killers.”
ZAKA members, most of whom are Orthodox Jews, assist ambulance crews, aid in the identification of the victims of terrorism, road accidents and other disasters, and, where necessary, gather body parts and spilled blood for proper burial. They also provide first aid and rescue services, help with the search for missing persons, and participate in international rescue and recovery operations.
Restrictions on gun permits are being eased, especially for former security officials, as a measure meant to help counter the wave of terror attacks, Israeli officials said this week.Lieberman: Let the Police Shoot like American Cops Shoot
“In light of the security situation, I have decided to make it easier to obtain a gun permit,” Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan said Tuesday.
“In recent weeks, many citizens helped the Israel Police neutralize terrorists carrying out attacks. Citizens trained in the use of firearms are a force multiplier in the struggle against terror,” he added.
Under the new policy, all IDF officers above the rank of 2nd lieutenant and non-commissioned officers from the rank of first sergeant and up can obtain a permit, even if they hold those ranks in the reserves. Parallel ranks in the police and other security services may do the same.
The decision makes private handgun ownership accessible to a broader range of ranks than previous restrictions.
A recent Israeli television poll showed that Lieberman is most favored by the public to handle the security situation. People are unhappy with Netanyahu, which usually is the case no matter what.Obama Admin Refuses to Condemn Palestinians for Wave of Terrorism
They have even less of an appetite for Opposition leader Yitzchak Herzog, whose speeches recently have made him sound like a male version of Tzipi Livni. In other words, pathetic.
Lieberman, who heads the Yisrael Beiteinu party that was severally punished in the elections this past March, also suggested three other steps that the Security Cabinet should take:
— No terrorist should be left alive.
— Cancel citizenship of any Jerusalem Arab involved in terror; and
— Declare army rule in every place necessary to stop terror.
A spokesman for the Obama administration Tuesday refused to identify Palestinians as the perpetrators of a wave of Palestinian terrorist attacks that have left dozens of Israelis dead and wounded in the past weeks.
Associated Press reporter Matt Lee pressed the State Department spokesman to explain why the administration says it delivers the same message to both Israeli and Palestinian leaders when only Palestinians are carrying out terrorist attacks. “Does the United States believe–does the administration believe–that Israel is inciting or not condemning violence?” Lee asked.
Spokesman Mark Toner replied, “I think what we’ve been very clear about saying is that we want to see both sides take affirmative steps.”
“So the U.S. – the administration sees both sides at fault here, is that correct?” Lee asked.
“Both sides need to, as their leaders need to express the fact that both sides need to decrease the tensions that are leading to ongoing incidence of violence. But you know, you’re asking me to assign blame and I don’t think that’s the case,” Toner said.
“Well, I mean, if the secretary is calling up both Abbas and Netanyahu and has the same message for both of them, it would suggest that you think that both of them need to do more to that,” Lee said. “I’m just trying to figure out what is it you would want the Israelis to do more in condemning the violence.”
“For one thing, upholding–for one thing, as I said upholding the status quo in Haram al-Sharif and Temple Mount,” Toner said.
“But has there been suggestion that the status quo is going to be changed?” Lee asked.
