It's difficult to convey to people living far from here just how appalling, sickening, infuriating it is when hate-driven terrorism happens again and again and again and again. The lessons are so clear to those of us living under its influence - and evidently so baffling to many of those who do not.This afternoon (Thursday), the calm routine of our home town of Jerusalem was brutally assailed again. And again it was done by an ordinary-looking Palestinian Arab operating a bulldozer and driven by a grotesque, jihadist version of Islam.
A man called Marei Radaydeh, a construction worker in his mid-20s who lived with his wife and young child in Beit Hanina, a suburb of Jerusalem just a few minutes from our home, was killed by alert police and passers-by around 1 o'clock today.
The killing saved many lives because it happened while this man called Marei, a Koran on the seat next to him according to Haaretz which quoted Israel Police, was furiously engaged in ramming his yellow construction vehicle into the people traveling inside cars and buses on the city's main freeway, just a short walk from its main shopping center.
This man called Marei brought his bulldozer (he was its registered owner - certainly not a poor man or a desperate man, just a hatred-filled man) all the way across Jerusalem, along the Menachem Begin freeway.
He used the bulldozer's front blade to flip over a first vehicle, continuing along the road at high speed while dragging the car and its occupants (who fortunately escaped serious injury). Then he turned his attentions to a bus which, unknown to him, was without passengers. He would have continued, but several armed Israelis from different directions used their weapons to send the man to his virgins.
This was the fourth bulldozer attack by Palestinian Arabs against ordinary Israelis in less than 12 months.
- In July 2008, a Palestinian Arab went on a rampage on Jaffa Road, using his bulldozer;s front blade to crush several people, killing three and injuring dozens more. He was shot dead at the scene.
- Two weeks later, a Palestinian Arab from East Jerusalem carried out a similar attack, wounding at least 24 people. He was shot dead at the scene.
- In September 2008, another Palestinian Arab from Jerusalem plowed his car into a crowd of young soldiers on their way to a ceremony at the Western Wall. He was shot dead at the scene.
And reminding us why the "moderates" of the Mahmoud Abbas regime are anything but moderate, their information minister said today the terror attack in Jerusalem was a mere "traffic accident". Though it sounds like a Saturday Night Live routine, the Fatah flack next demanded an investigation into why the driver had been shot. It's highly likely the UN Security Council will very shortly accommodate him.
The late, distinguished Israeli diplomat Abba Eban understood the black humour of being surrounded by fanatical enemies for whom reality was whatever they demanded it to be, and whatever the media would be willing to swallow. If an Arab state introduced a resolution at the UN declaring the earth was flat, said Eban, it would pass by a vote of 164 to 13 with 26 abstentions along with a declaration that Israel had flattened it.
Eban might have smiled to see global news networks like AFP, describing today's attempted mass murder as an act of "terror" - with the quotation marks reminding readers that it's really only the Israelis who think that's what it was.
Leave it to the mainstream media to scratch around for a sympathetic side to these stories of ordinary, hate-filled terrorism. You can't make this stuff up. Keep in mind this photo is now being syndicated to news media throughout the world, and is likely to become the image that untold numbers of news consumers will associate with the cold-blooded attack on a Jerusalem road today.
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