Friday, November 03, 2017
Elder of Ziyon
A tweet from Forward editor Batya Ungar-Sargon:
The brilliant @Issaamro says: Israel: Take Note — The NYPD Didn’t Kill Manhattan Terrorist https://t.co/MWvZ5pjA5j via @jdforward— Batya Ungar-Sargon (@bungarsargon) November 2, 2017
Let's bask in Issa Amro's "brilliance:"
[F]or me, a Palestinian watching from occupied Hebron, it felt almost impossible to comprehend. The [New York] terrorist wasn’t killed on the spot? They managed to apprehend him alive?That's Amro's entire point. The rest of the article is about two cases where Israeli police fired on what appeared to be Palestinians who did not post an imminent threat and one where Amro was certain that they would have shot him dead had he not spoken Hebrew to them saying he wasn't armed.
It was surprising because it feels so antithetical to Israel’s approach.
Amro is writing in the Forward that Israel's policy is to shoot first even when it is not necessary, and that the NYPD cop who shot the truck terrorist is amazing for not continuing to shoot.
Nash shot at the terrorist 9 times. He missed 8 times. The shot that stopped him hit him in the abdomen, and the terrorist was in critical condition when brought to the hospital..
Police throughout the world are taught where to aim to shoot a suspect when warranted. they are not taught to aim at his or her knees or the arm, or to shoot the weapon out of their hand. They are always taught to aim at the midsection. That is the "center of mass" and the most likely to take the suspect down. The life of the suspect is the last thing they are taught to think about when they judge that it is a life-threatening situation.
Gunshots to the midsection are very often fatal. This was luck.
But...what about Israeli police? Don't they shoot dozens of times to make sure that the terrorist suspect is dead? Don't they have disregard for human life and choose to execute anyone they choose?
No.
No.
The female terrorist who stabbed someone outside a hospital in July 2016 wasn't killed. The terrorist who went on a stabbing spree in Tel Aviv earlier this year wasn't killed. The terrorist who rammed his car into a Tel Aviv nightclub and started stabbing people wasn't killed. Even the two terrorist cousins who shot and murdered four people at a coffeehouse last year were not killed.
Yes, there may have been some Israeli police who went beyond their rules of engagement - just like officers all around the world. Amro is claiming that this is the rule, not the exception. Without a shred of evidence.
But there is another difference between Israel and New York: In Israel, the chances that the terrorist also has an explosive belt under his clothes is a major consideration. Knowing that someone can possibly blow up the entire area is part of the calculus that Israeli police need to routinely make and that New York police, thankfully, do not have to. (Yet.)
In Israel, a person who approaches the suspect who is apparently down to kick his weapons away from him, as a civilian did in New York, is actually placing himself and others in danger. If he hadn't done that, and the terrorist had made a move to shoot his (toy) gun, there is no doubt Nash would have shot the terrorist again.
Just like in Israel.
But there is another difference between Israel and New York: In Israel, the chances that the terrorist also has an explosive belt under his clothes is a major consideration. Knowing that someone can possibly blow up the entire area is part of the calculus that Israeli police need to routinely make and that New York police, thankfully, do not have to. (Yet.)
In Israel, a person who approaches the suspect who is apparently down to kick his weapons away from him, as a civilian did in New York, is actually placing himself and others in danger. If he hadn't done that, and the terrorist had made a move to shoot his (toy) gun, there is no doubt Nash would have shot the terrorist again.
Just like in Israel.
So Amro is wrong about how police treat suspects who have deadly weapons. He is wrong about how Israeli police act. He is wrong about the differences between Israeli police and Ryan Nash. In fact, he is wrong in essentially everything he wrote.
But Batya Ungar-Sargon, instead of acting like an editor should act and check out her writer's words with a critical eye, swoons over Amro's "brilliance." She betrayed her own job as an editor and instead became a cheerleader for a story that has literally no basis for its thesis.
If an article is written for the Forward that adhere's to the editor's anti-Israel bias, there is no reason to fact check.
If an article is written for the Forward that adhere's to the editor's anti-Israel bias, there is no reason to fact check.
This is The Forward today.
