17-Sep-16: In a Saturday morning Hebron stabbing attack, another assailant is thwarted

Scrutinizing papers at an IDF security checkpoint in
Hebron [Image Source: UPI]

We're seeing a marked increase in Arab-on-Israeli violence in the past two days.

During the just-ended Shabbat, a Palestinian Arab resident of Hebron aged about 25 approached IDF personnel manning the Tamar security checkpoint in the Tel Rumeida quarter, a Jewish neighbourhood of Hebron. Israel National News reports that on being asked to show identification,

he pulled out a knife and began stabbing the soldier... Reportedly, one of the soldiers initially succeeded in subduing the terrorist without killing him, but when the terrorist tried to continue stabbing, he was shot dead.

The injured soldier, who serves in the IDF Nahal Brigade's 50th Battalion, was treated locally by Magen David Adom teams and then taken by ambulance to Jerusalem's Shaarei Zedek Medical Center hospital for emergency treatment.

The Palestinian Arab news service Ma'an in customary fashion reports this as "an alleged stabbing attack". It quotes the knife-man's brother saying the assailant

was headed to work in the morning like every morning, but when he passed near a checkpoint "Israeli soldiers executed him in cold blood." He said that his brother worked at a factory in Hebron and was shot walking the only way that residents of the neighborhood are allowed to enter Hebron's city center. [Ma'an, September 17, 2016]

(We noticed that the same Ma'an report refers to another stabbing attack, this one from last night - Friday - in which it says "15-year-old Muhammad Thalji Kayid Thalji al-Rajabi was also shot and killed in the Tel Rumeida area of Hebron’s Old City after reportedly stabbing and lightly injuring an Israeli soldier." The Friday night stabbing attack by yet another weaponized Palestinian Arab child seems not to have gotten much attention in the Israeli media and would have slipped past us but for the Ma'an mention and this brief Times of Israel report.)

Over at Times of Israel, they identify the dead assailant as Hatem Abdel-Hafiz al-Shaloudi. A video captured by a security camera shows him approaching the soldiers at the checkpoint during this morning, presenting a piece of paper which is presumed to be ID:

The moment the soldier accepts the paper and glances down at it, Shaloudi is seen pulling out a knife and lunging at him. The soldier manages to duck away in time, and Shaloudi then turns his attention to another soldier. He chases him with the knife and the two are seen scuffling. The soldier wrestles Shaloudi to the ground as three more troops rush to his aid, weapons drawn. It is not clear exactly when the assailant is shot. At the end of the clip the soldiers are seen moving away from the now motionless Shaloudi as he lies on the ground... Some time after Saturday’s attack security forces surrounded Shaloudi’s Hebron home. There was no word on whether they made any arrests or confiscated materials... [Times of Israel, September 17, 2016]

That surveillance camera video is below:

We're no experts at interpreting scene-of-crime evidence but it's apparent the Arab had mayhem on his mind, and a lethal weapon in his pocket, as he drew near to the Israelis. See for yourselves.

That's not how Dr Hanan Ashrawi sees it. There has been a small flurry of interest following a statement she issued today in the wake of the violent Arab-on-Israeli attacks of Friday and today [see "16-Sep-16: Vehicle ramming attack on Israelis near Kiryat Arba" and "16-Sep-16: Arab-on-Israeli stabber thwarted at one of Jerusalem's Old City gates"]. 

Speaking via Palestine News Network [here], this noted scholar of Medieval and Comparative Literature was, as she always is, sharply critical of Israeli actions. She termed the prompt defensive actions of the Israeli service personnel "extra-judicial killings":

Israel is flagrantly employing a systematic and willful policy of summary executions against the Palestinian people. Such provocative acts are in direct violation of international law and conventions... Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his right-wing extremist government are creating a culture of violence, intimidation and lawlessness that is destroying the chances for peace; their volatile actions threaten to plunge the entire region into further instability, extremism and chaos. [Ashrawi via PNN, today]

She wrapped it up with a call to "the international community" to "hold Israel accountable with punitive measures before it is too late".

Oddly she entirely overlooked making any mention of the role played by Arab men and women with concealed knives or driving their vehicles at Israelis standing at bus stops. It's not clear at this stage what the "international community" thinks about the ongoing acts of Arab-on-Israeli terror or the recent uptick in their frequency. What is clear, and has been for a long time, is that Ashrawi - for all her peace-maker pretensions - is a skilled apologist and propagandist for Arab thuggery and the sort of violent, death-cult values that have produced lemming-like waves of badly-educated young Palestinian Arabs, heads filled with bogus visions of glory and heroism.

"Peace-maker" Ashrawi [Image Source]

By way of context: Ashrawi is a veteran PLO insider, a member of the PLO's Executive Committee (which Wikipedia calls "the highest executive body... of the government of the State of Palestine") and which, like the rest of the Fatah/PA inner circle of insiders, continues to conduct itself as if it were an elected leadership while pretending to ignore the reality that Palestinian elections have only happened once in the dozen or so years since the Palestinian Authority was brought into existence under the leadership of her close associate, Yasser Arafat - and that was eleven years ago.

Ashrawi herself is on that PLO Executive Committee because she was not elected but appointed to it in 2009 by the Palestinian National Council which is headquartered in the Kingdom of Jordan.

To the chagrin of ordinary Palestinian Arabs, democracy in their world is, for the most part, whatever the clique of Fatah/PA/PLO insiders declare it to be.

Meanwhile it's been announced tonight [Times of Israel] that the Israel Defence Forces has deployed an additional infantry battalion to Hebron to provide additional protection and to preserve the tense peace in this most historic of Jewish communities.