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| The entrance to Tsur Baher, on Jerusalem's southern fringe [Wikipedia] |
Haaretz reported yesterday that four men from Tsur Baher, a Palestinian Arab village adjacent to Armon Hanatziv, were picked up by police in the early hours of Friday morning and were to be brought before a magistrate later in the day for arraignment. Their ages range from 15 to 20, according to a syndicated JTA report.
It's too early to know what awaits them in Israel's justice system, though we can hope. Thanks to the courageous and determined campaign waged by Michael Palmer, a man of quiet dignity whose son Asher and grandson, Yonatan, a baby just a year old, were both killed by other rock-hurling Arabs on roads close to Jerusalem two years ago [see "25-Sep-11: "Only" rock throwers - but now a father and his infant son are dead"], there's now finally an Israeli legal precedent for pinning homicide charges [see our report] on such thugs.
The little toddler, two year-old Avigail Ben Tzion, whose terrorist-inflicted head injuries, including a fractured skull, brought her so close to an unthinkable outcome on Thursday night was, thank Heavens, discharged from Hadassah Medical Center in Ein Kerem, Jerusalem today. She will be continuing her recovery at home. Israel National News reports tonight that her condition has improved "markedly" and she is smiling again.
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| Little Avigail's not-so-safe safety seat in her parents' damaged car [Image Source: Yonatan Sindel/Flash 90] |
The impact of both aspects of this event - the victims' story and the evil of the alleged perpetrators - almost never manages to cross Israel's borders. The foreign news media pay a modicum of attention if someone Jewish is killed. Absent a death, attacks of this kind barely rate as news.
Thus few people ever get to know of the pain and strength of the Israeli victims of such cowardly attacks as Thursday night's attempted murder. The reality of the thuggish gangs in villages and towns right across the Palestinian Authority's domain who have elevated the use of boulders, cement blocks and mere rocks to the level of lethal weapons makes little impact. So many people just don't hear about them. Nor do they appreciate the profoundly damaging impact that the utter absence of criticism from the ranks of Palestinian Arabs has on that world. When did anyone hear of a Palestinian Arab of any stature condemning the lethal culture of rock-throwing among their people, and the devastating effect it has on their culture, ethics and moral standing?
So here are some photographs from past posts to flesh out the narrative of an entire society - the Palestinian Arabs - raising its emerging generation to learn to kill in the name of unbridled religion-inspired hatred with whatever weapons come to hand.
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| "Youths" and their weapons of choice |
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| Hurled rocks are not political objects but for killing. |
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| As the pictures themselves testify, those "stones" are rarely hurled in a vacuum |
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| Hurled at a speeding vehicle, the outcome can - and is intended to - be catastrophic |
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| We wrote about this vicious attack, and the press photographers whose presence was an essential part of why it happened, here |
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| And a reminder of what lies behind those bogus journalistic atmosphere pieces that emerge around this time of year [Image Source] |
This story with its accompanying pictures illustrates two of the headwinds that Israel perpetually faces in its attempts to make peace with its neighbours; Blind Arab hatred, and a shallow,uncritical and largely supportive media.
ReplyDeleteMoshe, Melbourne