22-Nov-16: At Qalandiya, yet another would-be Pal Arab stabbing attacker is thwarted

The Qalandiya security checkpoint on a quieter morning
[Image Source: Mati Milstein]

At the Qalandiya Crossing on Jerusalem's northern edge, another Palestinian Arab man wielding a knife and evidently intent on finding an Israeli victim has been stopped by forceful Israeli scurity action.

Today's attempted assault happened at about 10:30 this morning (Tuesday). Not much is known at this stage about the attacker - his name, his age and where he comes from are all as yet unannounced in the news media - other than that the Arabic-language media already (no surprise in this) call him "martyr" (see for instance Ma'an News Agency's Arabic report here).

A spokesperson for Israel Police is quoted by Times of Israel saying

The attacker was declared dead of his wounds at the scene... [as] he attempted to stab a guard... [T]he assailant approached guards manning an area meant for vehicular traffic with a knife drawn and was shot. No Israeli guards were hurt.

Click here for our previous posts about the long, sad history of Palestinian Arab attacks on Israelis at Qalandiya.

UPDATE 1:30 pm Tuesday November 22: It's reported in Arab media that he Palestinian Authority's Ministry of Health identifies today's failed stabber as Jihad Muhammad Said Khalil, 48, from the village of Beit Wazan, near Nablus.

24-May-16: Yet another knife-wielding Pal Arab teenage girl and her pointless, terror-driven death

Dead Pal Arab children are the logical culmination of a process that
starts in their schools and homes. Scene from the wildly successful
Pal Arab video "Birds of Paradise" [Image Source]

Monday afternoon and the pattern of Arab-on-Israeli terror attacks appears to be in one of its quieter phases. But it's a deceptive quiet.

On Jerusalem's northern edge, where the Arab villages of Biddu and Beit Iksa meet the security barrier, a woman approaches a security checkpoint. Police of the Mishmar Hagvul (Border Guard) watch her warily and when she pulls a knife out of some hidden recess and brandishes it at them, they are probably thinking back - fast - to the training which seeks to prepare them for attacks of this sort.

As Times of Israel reports it, one of them calls to her to stop; she keeps coming. One of them fires into the air to be sure the message is clear enough; she keeps coming. It's evident to the security personnel that she means to thrust her knife into any available Jewish flesh. So one of them fires directly at her and she stops.

As of today (Tuesday), it's not known what brought the woman to the scene. Her name and other personal information remained unknown until hours later. No identifying documents were found on her dead body. The Palestinian Health Ministry issued a news release last night saying the knife-wielding attacker is a seventeen year old female, and gives the English form of her name as Sawsan Ali Dawud Mansur. She's from Bidu. Her picture, which we will not publish, is online via this Arabic TV channel.

The Arabic-language edition of Ma'an, a European-funded Palestinian Arab news service, in characteristic fashion calls her "martyr", ensuring the pointless, useless steps she took that brought about her death will be retold in ways that guarantee yet more Palestinian Arab children will follow her example and very likely die. (In its English-language edition report, read by outsiders and not by villagers, Ma'an avoids the use of "martyr" today and in general.) In Arab parts of Twitter, she's described as "executed in cold blood". Martyrdom posters are almost certainly being tacked to walls throughout the PA's domain this morning.

For the girl with the knife, the
end of the road [Image Source]

It's unlikely the people doing the tacking will give thought to the process by which high school-age Arab youngsters - not a handful but many - are led to derive meaning from suicidal attacks on Israelis. It's simply their culture, and a matter about which, when the subject comes up, they are proud.

The rest of us, at least some of us, can't shake from our minds the thought of a society living among us and right next to us that literally weaponizes its children, hijacking their education [see "18-May-16: Does Pal Arab hate-culture education leave room for messages of tolerance and kindness? Let's see."] and wiping thoughts of a better future from their young brains, replacing them with a diabolical vision of the redemptive power of martyrdom.

4-May-12: Fewer terror attacks? It's no accident

The community of Elon Moreh

A week ago, we wrote ("28-Apr-12: Security barrier proves yet again to be a life-saver") about the small victories of an alert security force confronted with terrorists in ordinary clothing carrying weapons of extreme hostility in their bags and on their bodies.

This morning there's more. 

Two Palestinian Arab men, reported to be in their 20s, were apprehended by Israeli Border Guard personnel yesterday (Thursday) near busy Tapuah Junction in the Shomron (Samaria). They were found to have explosive pipe-bomb devices and knives in their backpacks. The bombs were safely exploded by sappers and none of the harm which the terrorists intended to cause materialized. They are now in custody.

Then in the small hours of this morning (Friday), an alert security guard protecting the Elon Moreh community (population: 1,300), also in the Shomron,  alerted soldiers to the presence of a Palestinian Arab man approaching the security fence. He was promptly arrested by soldiers from the IDF's Kfir Brigade and found to be armed with a knife 14 centimeters (6 inches) long [sources: here, here and here]. A previous attack by a pair of would-be terrorists equipped with knives was foiled just eight weeks ago in the same place. At the time, we wrote:

A thriving Jewish village of some 1,200 people today, Elon Moreh is in the vicinity of Itamar, Har Bracha and Yitzhar... For at least two millenia, Jews have traditionally reckoned Elon Moreh to be the place where Abraham had been told by the Almghty: “To your descendants will I give this land” (Genesis 12:6) and where Abraham's grandson Jacob later purchased land (Genesis 33:19). Skeptics will question whether Jacob and Abraham heard this or even whether they existed. But it's far more difficult for them to deny that Jews have held this belief about their historical forebears as part of Judaism's written tradition stretching back far longer than most of today's cultures have had a written tradition... If only all terror attacks ended as neatly and successfully as today's.

We wish Elon Moreh's residents and ourselves a peaceful Sabbath. 

8-Jan-12: Terrorist outrage is blocked by quick thinking today at a security checkpoint

Border Policeman [Image Source]

There's a report coming from Jenin in the past hour that illustrates one of two possible narratives depending on how flexible you are on the subject of terrorism.

Four Palestinian Arabs were required to stop and be checked by yet another of those hideous and humiliating IDF security barriers earlier today (Sunday) where they were told to remove some of their clothing. The insult to their autonomy and manhood must have been unbearable and will very likely turn them hostile and unco-operative in their future interactions with Israelis.

That's one version. Here's another.

Some hours ago, four Palestinian Arabs were stopped at the Salem Crossing near Jenin in the northern West Bank and required to undergo a security check.

Here, according to Yaakov Katz from the Jerusalem Post is what happened next. The four were in line to walk into the Samaria Military Court. A member of the Israel Border Police (Mishmar Hagvul in Hebrew) watching them noticed there were wires protruding from under the jacket of one of the four. The soldiers promptly shut down the crossing, ordered the Palestinian to remove his clothing and found that he had three pipe bombs on his body. A further eight pipe bombs were found in his bag. So too was a pistol, several bullets and a commando knife. He and his three companions are now being interrogated.

The suspicion is they were there to carry out an attack on the Samaria Military Court. Israel National News says the four are from Balata, a village near Shechem (Nablus) in central Samaria.

A week ago, the IDF captured a number of weapons including an M-16 and an Uzi submachine gun in a residence in Kfar Salem, near Nablus, not far from Jenin. The Shin Bet reported a significant increase in the number of terrorist attacks in the West Bank during December (we reported on this last week: "1-Jan-12: Terror attack statistics climbed sharply in December").

Border Police doing what they do at a security checkpoint

For single-minded, religiously-impassioned individuals who are willing to die so long as they inflict pain on a despised enemy, there's an enormous amount of harm you can do to people's bodies with 11 pipe bombs, a pistol and a commando knife.

This time, an alert serviceman was quick enough and - with his security crossing colleagues - determined enough to prevent it.

But the thing about terrorism is you don't ever eliminate it by watchfulness. Yes, you can do your best to ensure that this attack or that plan is thwarted - put up barriers, install cameras, be vigilant etc. But so long as the jihadist process that creates this kind of hatred continues, and so long as it infects more and more young people growing to adulthood in Palestinian Arab society, the danger is constant and ends only when the terrorists themselves are completely neutralized.

How well is this understood outside Israel? Here's one way to tell. Watch to see how much interest the news media outside Israel take in this story.

As of 3:30 pm today, Israel time, no one other than Israeli channels is reporting it.

9-Jan-08: Major media event cont.

And this afternoon (so far), five more Qassam strikes to add to this morning's nine.

One struck a private residence in the southern Israeli city of Sderot. Another landed right in the center of Sderot. YNet says four people were injured including a 17-year-old girl who suffered shrapnel wounds to her arm and a boy who was hurt while attempting to take cover. A 60-year-old man arrived at hospital after reporting chest pains in the wake of the attack.

Police are on every corner this afternoon and evening in the close-to-center parts of Jerusalem from where we write about This Ongoing War. The atmosphere, as a result, is somewhat tense here, compounded by the backed-up traffic, the off-limits streets, the cordoned sidewalks and footpaths (see picture) and disruptions of various other kinds to ordinary Jerusalemite lives.

The practical justification for this major anti-terrorism effort is self-evident, unfortunately. But some aspects are not, as our friend Marc Luria points out in his op-ed in yesterday's Jerusalem Post, "Tell Olmert and Barak to finish the fence..." Marc addresses George W. Bush in an open letter and makes some points we haven't seen anywhere else:

...Although it has been incredibly effective, [the security barrier erected by the government of Israel in the past several years] is only about 60 percent complete. The Defense Ministry stopped building it a few months ago because it had used up the 2007 fence budget, which had been cut in half; and the budget for 2008 is less than 2007. Optimistic reports put the finish date in 2010, but the finish date has been two years away for the last six years. I believe that unless you push Olmert to finish the fence earlier, your plans for a peace settlement in 2008 are unlikely to succeed. The lack of a fence will mean that additional Israeli withdrawals will result in more terror in Israel, which will derail the peace process. It happened over and over again in 2001 and 2002. The lack of a fence will make it more likely to happen in 2008 and 2009... We don't really need any help in building the fence. The government can allocate the money - probably less than another $600 million. The Defense Ministry has the know-how, and the route is basically planned... Fortunately, aside from one enclave, most of the remaining route is within a few meters of the Green Line, so the legal obstacles should be few. All I am asking of you is to tell Olmert and Barak to finish the damn fence already. There's no need to go public with this - just tell Olmert you want to go back to your ranch and you don't want to hear about suicide bombers in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. Oh, and one more thing. Israel has sent over 7,000 policemen to Jerusalem to guard you during your visit. That's great, and I'm sure you will be safe. But at the same time, the government also announced that it would stop funding the guards on buses. After all, there haven't been any bus bombings in a couple years - perhaps because of these guards. Please tell Olmert you don't want to hear about bus bombings, either. At least until the fence is completed, he should keep the guards on the buses.

Marc's argument makes a lot of sense to us.

The security barrier gets an enormous amount of negative media coverage, which perhaps is why so few column inches have been devoted to how astonishingly effective it has been. Not as a tool for creating better and warmer neighbourly relations - that's unfortunately going to have to wait until better times in the future. But effective as a preventive measure against terrorist intrusions into the lives of ordinary Israelis and into civil society in this country. The security barrier, plus Israel's military vigilance and the proactive stance of its security forces have led to a dramatic reduction in loss of Israeli lives.

This amounts to compelling logic. But only if saving innocent lives is a consideration that speaks to you.

5-Jul-06: Preventive Measures... Work

There are many aspects of the news coverage of this war that infuriate us. One of them is the dishonest and cowardly way some reporters and photographers distort the way the Israeli authorities carry out preventive security. Among the favorite cliches of agenda-driven reporters and photographers (see image at right, courtesy of one of many Israel-bashing sources) is the Israeli security check. Nothing captures quite so well their perception of an asymmetrical war. You can count on words like "forced to stand in the heat", "treated rudely by Israeli troops", "seething anger", "humiliation" and "demeaning" sprouting from each sentence. But never the unbearable truth that this is the strategy of last resort and it saves lives on both sides.

A classic of the genre is Robert Fiske's memorable article with the unmemorable title "How Pointless Checkpoints Humiliate the Lions of Palestine, Sending Them on the Road to Vengeance". If you click the link to read it, please keep in mind it was written several weeks before the murder by Hamas terrorists of our fifteen year-old daughter. Ponder also on the fact that Malki's killer hid his explosives inside a guitar case on his back. Under current Israeli security procedures (but not at that time), he would have been stopped and our daughter would be twenty and alive. (The death toll that day was 15, plus 130 injured, plus a young mother left unconscious and still unconscious today.) The appalling Fiske, and perhaps also his editors at Britain's Independent newspaper, would find it hard to see what that has to do with him and his writing. But for us the connection is clear.

For those of us not infected by the Fiskean approach to this war, the role of active, preventive security is probably better appreciated. Events today emphasize their usefulness.

A news blackout was lifted an hour ago, as a result of which we can write that the security forces succeeded this morning in finding and stopping the intended-perpetrators of yet another large-scale terror attack, this one set to be carried out in an Israeli city somewhere in Israel's centre. One of the terrorists was arrested in the Barkan industrial zone following some successful intelligence work. He was wearing an explosive belt, the kind often called a suicide belt. (A pity to use the word suicide, which places all the emphasis on the would-be murderer. We wish the word were avoided in settings like this.) Haaretz says the taxi driver who transported the man to the area was also detained.

Prior to the arrests, forces were deployed throughout the Sharon region (the cities and towns north of Tel-Aviv) as well as in a number of Judea and Samaria communities this morning. Unannounced roadblocks were set up at strategic locations on highways and suspicious vehicles were stopped for inspection. Though most Israelis pay scant attention to general security alert announcements and the local media rarely report them, a high alert had been declared for the Sharon region and then canceled at about 10 this morning - for the best possible reason (i.e. the terrorists were found and stopped).

Other details are still currently banned from being published. But we can report with a reasonable degree of confidence that no one died of humiliation, and the injury toll from being forced to sit in a car being searched by security forces was zero.