17-Nov-17: Ramming/stabbing attack Friday morning at entrance to Efrat

Today's attack vehicle: The driver had a knife
and used it too [Image Source]

There has been an Arab-on-Israel attack in Gush Etzion, just south of Jerusalem this bright, sunny, late-Autumn morning (Friday). The first reports appeared on social media around 8:15 am.

From Times of Israel:

A Palestinian terrorist rammed his car into two people, seriously injuring one of them, before getting shot while trying to stab soldiers in the central West Bank on Friday morning, the army said. The driver of the vehicle, who has yet to be named, rammed his car into the first victim, a 70-year-old man, who sustained a light head wound, at the Efrat South junction, medics said. He continued down the road to the nearby Gush Etzion Junction where he hit another Israeli man, 35, according to the Magen David Adom ambulance service. The second victim was initially said to have been lightly-to-moderately wounded, but the hospital downgraded [sic] his condition to serious, with a brain injury. The army said the driver then got out of his car with a knife and tried to stab soldiers. “The soldiers responded by firing towards the attacker, resulting in his injury,” the Israel Defense Forces said in a statement. According to the hospital, the terrorist was in critical condition.

Ramming followed by stabbing: it's classic Palestinian Arab textbook jihad. At this stage, the indications - unconfirmed - are that the terrorist is being treated at one of the two Hadassah hospitals in Jerusalem and is alive but in bad condition after being shot.

Israel National News says the older of the two Israeli victims, David Ramati from the nearby community of Kiryat Arba, was run-over by the attacker and his van. He is being treated for his injuries at Shaarei Zedek Medical Center.

The younger victim was struck by the same vehicle but at a different nearby location, and is being treated for serious head injuries at Jerusalem's Hadassah Ein Karem hospital.

The same source says (and at this early stage, we will be looking for confirmation) that the terrorist who executed the attack is a seventeen year old Palestinian Arab. This means he is a child in the eyes of the law and will therefore be entitled to the attention and protections of the new Bill proposed to the US Congress by Rep. Betty McCollum

a Democrat representing the families of Minnesota’s Fourth District in the United States House of Representatives. In 2000, Congresswoman McCollum made history as only the second Minnesota woman elected to serve in Congress since statehood in 1858. McCollum represents the residents of Minnesota's capital city, St. Paul, as well as all of Ramsey County and most of Washington County...

From her November 14, 2017 media release:

Congresswoman Betty McCollum (DFL-Minn.) today introduced legislation— the Promoting Human Rights by Ending Israeli Military Detention of Palestinian Children Act, H.R. 4391 — to prevent United States tax dollars from supporting the Israeli military’s ongoing detention and mistreatment of Palestinian children... “This legislation highlights Israel’s system of military detention of Palestinian children and ensures that no American assistance to Israel supports human rights violations,” Congresswoman McCollum said. “Peace can only be achieved by respecting human rights, especially the rights of children. Congress must not turn a blind eye the unjust and ongoing mistreatment of Palestinian children living under Israeli occupation.”

JMs McCollum's co-sponsors are Representatives Mark Pocan, Earl Blumenauer, André Carson, John Conyers, Jr., Danny K. Davis, Peter A. DeFazio, Raul Grijalva, Luis V. Gutiérrez, and Chellie Pingree.

The legislation has the endorsement of

• American Friends Service Committee
• Amnesty International USA
• Center for Constitutional Rights
• Churches for Middle East Peace - which offered this commentary: "We must ensure we are not supporting the continued trauma inflicted on Palestinian youth entangled in the Israeli Military Detention system...”
• Defense for Children International - Palestine
• Friends Committee on National Legislation
• Global Ministries of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) 
• United Church of Christ
• Jewish Voice for Peace
• Mennonite Central Committee
• Presbyterian Church (USA)
• U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights
• United Methodists for Kairos Response (UMKR)
• United Methodist General Board of Church and Society.

If any of these groups has ever criticized, let alone condemned, the overt weaponization of children systematically carried out on an ongoing basis by Fatah (through its Palestinian Authority extension) and Hamas, we have seen no signs of it.

We sent her a Tweet on Wednesday which has evidently not yet received her staff's attention:

What a shame if Rep McCollum's misguided initiative [see "The NGOs that Wrote McCollum’s Legislation on Children’s Rights"] were to continue on its way without the author explaining how she rationalizes sanctioning Israel's security policies while she and her law turn a blind eye to the Palestinian Authority's open and explicit child-weaponization.

Vicious Arab-on-Israeli terror attacks like this morning's are the direct result of that kind of silly and dangerous moralistic preening. Maybe someone could ask Rep McCollum where she stands on Arab-on-Israel ramming/stabbing attacks like today's. And whether she sees her Bill stopping them or encouraging even more. And whether any of that matters to her.

UPDATE November 17, 2017 at 11:30 am: The attacker, according to the Arabic edition of Ma'an News Agency's website, is Izz al-Din Ali Abu Rmeishan Karaja. He's from Halhoul, a town close to Efrat which has produced a significant number of terrorist attackers in the past few years (click Halhoul for our posts on previous attackers from there).  And he is 17, so the law sees him as a child. They have a photograph of him (which we will not show) here. It's very likely being circulated right now as he becomes a celebrated hero. Depending on how the recovery process goes, he's headed to becoming either (a) a lifetime recipient of a massive Palestinian Authority financial windfall - what we call the Mahmoud Abbas Rewards for Terror scheme; or (b) a martyr whose life will be honored and celebrated in their circles.

UPDATE November 18, 2017 at 7:30 pm: The younger of the two Israeli victims is Even Ezer (Ebenezer) Holaring, 35, is still in very serious condition at Hadassah Ein Kerem hospital according to Israel National News tonight. They say he's a member of Kiryat Arba's Bnei Menashe community of Jews whose origins are traced to India. His family, including six children under the age of 13, is going to need lots of support of a social, spiritual and emphatically material nature - see the details at the special Gush Etzion Foundation website page that has been set up to gather support for them here.