01-Aug-16: At the crossings and road junctions: Scenes from a war

Vehicles line up for security inspection at Huwwara
(not yesterday) [Image Source]

Israel's internal security arrangements tend to get very bad press despite the fact that - or is it because? - they frequently prevent acts of terror from taking place.

We happen to believe strongly in security arrangements. When we say "human rights", we actually mean to be thinking, first and foremost, about the human right to stay alive. It's a right that was denied our daughter Malki, murdered in a Hamas attack when she was fifteen, and a right the breach of which aroused, in simple terms, terribly little outrage by the human rights industry.

Yesterday (Sunday), a balmy summer day when much of the country was vacationing, provided several insights into how security works and who benefits. This is true not because yesterday was a special day but because it actually was not. And what's striking is that for all the arguing that security barriers are pointless, worthless, useless, ineffective because terrorists can easily avoid them, and a torture for those forced to endure them, the uncomfortable fact remains: those are exactly where malevolent people with weapons of death on their bodies or in their bags or cars keep turning up and keep getting caught.

• At the IDF security checkpoint at Huwwara, south of Shechem (Nablus), an Arab male driving a vehicle stopped shortly before reaching the soldiers manning the barrier, got out of his car and came running at them with his knife brandished. The soldiers acting on orders opened fire in the face of a hostile action with clearly-articulated intentions, and the attack ended. The assailant, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry, quoted by Israel National News, is a 31 year old resident of Shechem. Ma'an News Agency gives his name as Rami Muhammad Zaim Awartani. The circumstances suggest he was intent on launching the sort of interaction for which knives are needed, and not - as is frequently claimed - en route to some other peaceful purpose when assailed by hostile IDF personnel. The attacker is now dead - assassinated, in the words of parts of the English-language Palestinian Arab media [click].
• Also on Sunday, a little later in the day, Israeli police stopped a Palestinian Arab taxi cab at the busy Tapuah intersection in the Samaria district. Such searches are common and routine, and often triggered by suspicions stemming from indicators for which the security people are trained to identify. In this case, their search turned up parts of M16-type weapons in the cab. The driver is now helping the authorities with their enquiries. He is unharmed.
• Then last night (Sunday) at the Trans-Samaria Crossing, a vehicle driven by an Israeli Arab with Israeli citizenship papers was stopped and in the course of a search was found to have four pipe bombs on board. The driver was heading back across the Green Line from the communities of Judea and Samaria. A police sapper was called to the scene to neutralize the bombs. While that was underway, the very heavily-traveled east-west Route 5 highway was temporarily shut down to traffic in both directions. The driver turns out to be a resident of the Bedouin city of Rahat in the Negev. He is now arrested and he too is helping the authorities in their enquiries.

The Trans-Samaria Crossing on Israel's east-west Route 5 [Image Source]

Closely related to that last intercept - just the evening before (Saturday night) at the same Trans-Samaria Crossing - a different Palestinian Arab driver was was arrested when a security check turned up a stock of weapons, including two large knives, two axes and a cache of 25 nine-millimeter bullets, inside his vehicle. Times of Israel said his car had Israeli license plates.

It's safe to assume that in the absence of the security arrangements in each of the locations we just described, very different outcomes would have eventuated.

That's a reality that has played a central role in the posts we wrote over the years. Take a look at "5-Jul-06: Preventive Measures... Work" from more than a decade ago. We noted there that

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 how the Israeli authorities carry out preventive security. Among the favorite cliches of agenda-driven reporters and photographers... 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...

For those of us not infected by the Fiskean approach to this war, the role of active, preventive security is probably better appreciated. A classic of the genre is Robert Fisk's memorable article with the unmemorable title "How Pointless Checkpoints Humiliate the Lions of Palestine, Sending Them on the Road to Vengeance" [reviewed here - we are still hunting for an online version of the Fisk piece]. 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 Fisk, 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. 

Eliyahu Asheri Hy"d: Murdered a decade ago

Not everyone sees things as we do. That's because not everyone sees security as a significant factor in keeping their own lives and those of their loved ones safe and intact. But those of us who do are very serious about it and very appreciative of those who make it happen.

Incidentally, if you visit Tapuah Junction (mentioned above), you will find a brand-new rest facility there for travelers. It was inaugurated very recently by the Asheri family in honor of their son, Eliyahu Hy"d, to mark ten years since he was abducted and murdered by Palestinian Arab terrorists. 

We wrote about them at the time of their terrible loss: see "29-Jun-06: The face of the enemy" and "4-Jul-06: Saving Hostages". 

Though we felt drawn to the tragedy of their son's death and took part in his funeral in Jerusalem all those years ago, we don't know the Asheris and have never met them. Still, we're confident they have not spent the past decade plotting revenge, stewing in their anger or incubating hatred. We are confident of that because of our close familiarity with that powerful urge in Jewish tradition to connect really bad events - personal and communal tragedies - to positive responses: acts of charity or of chesed - acts that bring a little more goodness into a world that needs as much as we can possibly provide.

The Asheris understand that. Mr Fisk and his editors, we assume, surely do not. And nor will the families of the violence-minded individuals in yesterday's three jihadist near-misses.

24-Dec-15: Another terror outrage narrowly averted - and Shalit Deal releasees are again at the heart of the darkness

Al-Quds University students [Image Source]

This could have turned out very, very badly - and might still.

Right here in Jerusalem, side by side with ordinary, constructive lives being lived by most of the people who call this special city home, a cluster of death-cultists - yet another in a lengthening string of them, working in dark places and preparing unspeakably dark plans involving injuries, mayhem and deaths - has been stopped.

No one imagines they are the only such cluster of plotters or that there will not be others on the way. But these, at least, have been stopped for now.

No innocent civilians were hurt - at least, not for now. So news coverage of this important development has been sparse outside our beleaguered country, particularly as seasonal celebrations have the attention of most of Europe, Australia and the Americas. From Times of Israel:

The Shin Bet, alongside the IDF and Israel Police, have thus far arrested 25 Hamas operatives, the majority of them Al-Quds University in Abu Dis students, who they suspect were preparing to attack Israeli targets, the agency said in a statement. The arrests were carried out over the past few weeks. The service also uncovered a makeshift laboratory in Abu Dis, in east Jerusalem, which was being used to create the explosives necessary for bombing attacks. It said the cell was controlled by Hamas leadership in the Gaza Strip... In addition to the Abu Dis terror cell, the Shin Bet also busted a [related] Bethlehem-based group... ["Hamas cell planned suicide and car bombings, Shin Bet reveals", Times of Israel, December 23, 2015]

Some of the plotters

The article makes clear that some of the intelligence that led to the unraveling of this group's plans came from interrogations carried out by PA security officers of Hamas people arrested by them. As we keep noting in this blog, Hamas operates throughout the areas occupied by the PA, in some places more publicly, in others less. Their hand, not to mention their flags and the signs of their terror-focused activities, are everywhere.

Among those arrested in this latest intercept:

• Ahmad Jamal Mousa Azzam, 24, from Qalqilya, at some point a student at Al-Quds University in Abu Dis: Considered the terrorist ringleader, and controlled from Gaza. He was given training by his handlers in "how to create explosive belts and vests, as well as improvised explosive devices". Once in, Azzam recruited the others, mostly from among the Al-Quds student body. Some of those were intended to become human bombs.
• Hazem Ziad Amran Sandouqa, 22, a resident of the Old City of Jerusalem and an Israeli citizen - therefore able to move around with relative ease, an obvious strategic advantage to the planning and execution of terror. 
• Fahdi Daoud Muhammad Abu Qaian, 19, also an Israeli citizen, a Bedouin from the Negev, and a designated attacker in the terror plot. Under interrogation, he confessed that he was being prepared for a bombing mission by means of an explosive vest or by driving an explosives-packed vehicle into an Israeli target (we're guessing the target would have consisted of human beings).
• Issa Nasser Issa Shoka, 19, an Al-Quds University student, a designated money courier and intending human bomb, as well as one of the leaders of the Bethlehem cell.
• Muhammad Waleed Ahmad Sarhkhan, 20, of the Bethlehem cell.
• Muhammad Na’im Issa Ali, 19, also from the Bethlehem cell, another intending human bomb.

Avi Issacharoff, in a follow-on article published last night ["What if the Hamas terror cell in Abu Dis had succeeded?", Times of Israel, December 23, 2015], looks at the dire consequences had this Hamas terrorist cell not been stopped:

The Palestinian Authority is surviving. And overall, Israeli citizens have become used to a sick reality in which almost every day Palestinians try to attack them. [But although] this weapons factory and infrastructure were discovered, the fact is that every passing day moves us closer to Second Intifada-style terrorism... [Issacharoff]

Viewing yesterday's IDF real-time video (above) of soldiers breaking into the Jerusalem lab and doing an inventory of the chemicals they found there turns this into something more real and immediate. For purposes of bomb making, the jihadist/murderers had stocked up (something we have not seen reported so far in the news) on nitro-glycerine and cyanide - they're shown clearly. That's in addition to an evil scientist's trove of lethal substances and explosives intended for killing and seriously harming people. Experience tells us those people would have been innocent Israelis, almost certainly civilians. That's how terror works.

Had, Heaven forbid, the Abu Dis/Bethlehem terror collective pulled off a "showcase" outrage

The Israeli government would have come under immense pressure to take steps against the PA, and the call for a closure of the major West Bank cities would have come from every direction. The pressure would likely have led to a ban on all Palestinian workers entering Israel, and possibly even to a widespread IDF operation in one or more West Bank cities... Tens of thousands more unemployed Palestinians would be on the streets, with hundreds of thousands affected by their loss of income. More violent confrontations with young Palestinians would likely ensue. The fraying of cooperation between the PA security forces and the IDF would be inevitable, maybe even a complete severance of such cooperation. And at the end of that slippery slope, the collapse of the PA itself... [T]hat’s precisely why Hamas has been trying so hard to set up an infrastructure capable of carrying out suicide attacks against Israeli civilians, including inside sovereign Israel... Hamas is avoiding a direct confrontation with Israel in Gaza but is doing a lot to heat things up in the West Bank. Senior Hamas operatives in Gaza know they have a certain amount of immunity from Israel, because Israel does not want another major conflict there. The people who are today orchestrating the effort to carry out attacks are mostly Hamas members who were freed in the 2011 Shalit exchange — West Bankers who were exiled to Gaza under the deal. Somebody in Israel evidently believed, or wanted to believe, that confining them to Gaza would reduce the danger they presented. Except that even from Gaza, these people have now become a central headache for Israel in the West Bank... [Issacharoff]

We blogged last month ["27-Nov-14: Hamas terrorist ring is busted; Israel says the handlers operate from Turkey; Qatar is involved"] about the meaningfully-malevolent role of Shalit Deal releasees. And we offered more background here: "11-Dec-15: The price of the Shalit Deal and the countries that help it keep rising".

The price paid by Israeli society - and in a meaningful sense also by the Palestinian Arabs - for this catastrophic transaction keeps growing. Yet there remains, it has to be said and with some pain, a striking unwillingness among the insiders of our government to properly analyze what was done, reach operative conclusions and express sincere regret. It's surely called for.

20-Jul-14: Hamas rocket devastates Israeli family, kills father

Zero red lines: Rocket men in Gaza fire at anything Israeli

The constant indiscriminate rocket fire from Gaza continues, and exacted a human life during Saturday afternoon.

Jerusalem Post says an Israeli died after sustaining critical injuries from a rocket attack near Dimona. Four other people, including two young children, were injured in the same attack and are undergoing hospital treatment for their injuries. One, a three-month-old baby, is in critical condition; another appears (to us) to be her mother and the widow of the dead man. Times of Israel names the dead victim as a 32-year-old man from a Bedouin community near Dimona, Ouda Lafi al-Waj, and explains

Since many Bedouin communities are unrecognized by the government, many basic services are not provided to them. They are also not protected by Iron Dome, which registers their homes as “open areas” and allows rockets to fall there without attempting interception.

Maan, the Palestinian news agency, says the dead man was killed by a rocket that fell short of its real target (if that's an expression that can fairly be used in a war in which rockets by the hundred are simply flung into the air by the jihadists in the general direction of something Israeli.) The Negev desert city of Dimona is home to an Israeli nuclear reactor and there is constant speculation that Hamas is making efforts to hit the reactor, among various other "quality" targets.

The Maan report says Al-Waj lived in

Qasr al-Sir, an unrecognized Bedouin village in southern Israel with a population of around 1,000. Israeli medical sources said that the injured included a 4-month-old baby girl in serious condition as well as a 5-year-old boy and a woman in her 30s with light injuries. The injured appeared to all be members of the same family.

On Tuesday, Dror Khenin, 37, was killed near the Erez border crossing with the Gaza Strip. He was hit by a mortar launched by Gaza terrorists and rushed to Barzilai Hospital in Ashkelon but died there of his wounds. Khenin was a volunteer who had come to distribute food to soldiers posted to the area.

15-Sep-12: The ongoing chaos in Sinai [UPDATED 16-Sep-12]

The MFO's Sinai headquarters [Image Source]  

If you were Egyptian, and got all your news about Egypt from Egyptian sources, you might end up somewhat in the dark. Not a new problem, but an ongoing one. Al-Ahram is [source] "Egypt’s largest news organisation, and the publisher of the Middle East’s oldest newspaper: the daily Al-Ahram, in publication since 1875".

Buried deep inside the English version of its online edition, virtually impossible to find unless you look hard, is this report about something that happened in Sinai on Friday:

Egypt Bedouins storm peacekeeper Sinai camp over anti-Islam film
AFP, Friday 14 Sep 2012

A group of Bedouins stormed an international peacekeepers' camp in Egypt's Sinai Friday to protest against a film mocking Islam, sparking clashes that left three people injured, a security official said. The Bedouin broke through the fence of the Multinational Force and Observers (MFO) compound and set fire to an observation tower. In the ensuing clashes two Colombians and an Egyptian were injured, the official said, adding that the extent of their injuries was not immediately clear.

Bearing in the mind the increasingly violent state of Sinai and the clear presence there of very active Islamist and jihadist terrorist groups, the rather minor coverage is odd.

[In case you have not seen our numerous reports on the terrorist attacks that have plagued Sinai in the past two years, and the growing concerns here in Israel over their implications, please read just one of our recent blog postings on this: "17-Jul-12: Sinai used to be seen as a paradise"].

Here's how a major newspaper in far-off Australia covered the same Friday events - Australian soldiers were in the line of fire and Australians care about such matters.

Attack on Sinai base of Aust peacekeepers
From: AAP September 15, 2012 6:03PM

ARMED militants have attacked an international peacekeeping base in the northern Sinai, where Australian soldiers are stationed. However, no Diggers were hurt in the incident, Defence says. In the attack on Friday, dozens of militants broke down the wall of the facility housing the Multinational Force and Observers (MFO) headquarters, setting fire to vehicles and facilities. MFO soldiers defended the base and there was an exchange of fire. Four MFO members were reportedly wounded.
"There were Australian Defence Force (ADF) peacekeepers within the base that was attacked, but all ADF personnel have been accounted for and there have been no reports of Australian personnel wounded in these attacks," a Defence spokesman said.
Twenty-five Australian personnel are serving with the MFO in what's known as Operation Mazurka. MFO is a non-United Nations mission formed in 1981 out of the Camp David accords, under which Egypt and Israel ended long-running hostilities and Israel agreed to withdraw its forces from the Sinai and hand the peninsula back to Egyptian control. Australia has been involved in MFO since 1982, initially with a much larger contingent that included eight helicopters and 100 personnel. MFO is commanded by the US and has about 1000 personnel, most of them Colombian and Fijian soldiers.
Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported the attackers were Bedouins. But it said it wasn't clear whether the attack was linked to unrest across the Middle East over a US film insulting Prophet Mohammed, or whether militants simply exploited the protests to stage the attack.

Not surprisingly, given the strategic stakes, the Jerusalem Post takes the matter more seriously still.

Armed Beduin attack peacekeeping force in Sinai 
By JPOST.COM STAFF, REUTERS09/14/2012 22:34

Militants opened fire on an international observer base near El Gorah, close to the borders of Israel and the Gaza Strip, and burned tires blocking a road to the camp, a witness and a security source reported Friday evening. Several members of the force were reportedly wounded. Officials from the Multinational Force and Observers (MFO) in Cairo were unreachable Friday night to confirm the report. Israeli media reported that some of the wounded were being evacuated to Soroka Medical Center in Beersheba for treatment. The IDF would not comment on reports that IDF helicopters were helping evacuate the wounded.
Egypt's Al-Masry Al-Youm reported that the gunmen attacked the base, setting fire to one of its guard towers and raised a black flag bearing Islamic inscriptions. Channel 2 described the attackers as Salafi Islamists, although that report was not confirmed. The wounded were Colombian nationals, according to Egyptian media.
The MFO is a force that was deployed to the Sinai Peninsula as part of the 1979 peace treaty between Jerusalem and Cairo. It includes a US contingent... North of Sinai, at least 30,000 Palestinians staged rallies against the film, which denigrates the Prophet Mohammad. Some 25,000 took to the streets of Gaza City, answering a call by Hamas and the smaller Islamic Jihad faction and waving the green and black flags of the two factions. American and Israeli flags were set alight, along with an effigy of the film's producer.

For the record, here's how Christian Science Monitor and Associated Press kicked off their reports about Friday's armed assault on the peace-keeping force.

Christian Science Monitor

In an assault that appeared to take advantage of general anti-foreign sentiment in Egypt, Islamist militants on Egypt's Sinai Peninsula attacked a foreign mission assigned to observing the Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty.

And AP

CAIRO (AP) — A senior official with the international peacekeeping force in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula says suspected Islamic militants stormed their base near the Gaza-Israel border, wounding four officers. The official says militants armed with automatic weapons broke into the base Friday, set fire to vehicles and are clashing with the force inside.

Our conclusion: There's something about the term "Islamist militants" that causes news editors to make strange editorial decisions. We'll come back to this soon.

UPDATE Sunday morning, September 16: "Egyptian troops riding dozens of armored vehicles and supported by attack helicopters assaulted armed militants in the northern Sinai village of Sheikh Zuweid Sunday, Egyptian paper Al-Youm a-Sabi’ reported." [Source] And the terrorists are not sitting back and waiting: "Three Egyptian soldiers were injured in an attack on the government’s security headquarters in Northern Sinai, by Islamist terrorists on Sunday. The gunmen attacked the base with a barrage of mortar bombs and machine guns security officials told Reuters."[Source]

9-Mar-09: "I was born into a Bedouin tribe..."

The myth of Israel's discriminatory "apartheid" policies is being aggressively peddled throughout the world by its enemies.

Most of those who buy this popular canard are entirely ignorant of the truth about Israeli society. They have never heard about the equal opportunities and rights enjoyed by Israelis of myriad races, religions and creeds. 

Additionally, most of those who embrace this myth are clueless about the repressive and dictatorial governments ruling in every one of Israel's neighbors. 

Worse, these critics of Israel make no effort to remedy their ignorance. And Israeli Jews who attempt to inject some truth into the "apartheid" debate are often dismissed as biased. 

 Hence, the following defense of Israel's civil rights is invaluable. It is written by a very brave and plain-spoken Arab Israeli. Unafraid of breaking ranks with most of his brethren, he publicly sings Israel's praises.

Lost in the blur of slogans
Ishmael Khaldi
Wednesday, March 4, 2009

For those who haven't heard, the first week in March has been designated as Israel Apartheid Week by activists who are either ill intentioned or misinformed. On American campuses, organizing committees are planning happenings to once again castigate Israel as the lone responsible party for all that maligns the Middle East.

Last year, at UC Berkeley, I had the opportunity to "dialogue" with some of the organizers of these events. My perspective is unique, both as the vice-consul for Israel in San Francisco, and as a Bedouin and the highest-ranking Muslim representing the Israel in the United States. I was born into a Bedouin tribe in Northern Israel, one of 11 children, and began life as shepherd living in our family tent. I went on to serve in the Israeli border police, and later earned a master's degree in political science from Tel Aviv University before joining the Israel Foreign Ministry.

I am a proud Israeli - along with many other non-Jewish Israelis such as Druze, Bahai, Bedouin, Christians and Muslims, who live in one of the most culturally diversified societies and the only true democracy in the Middle East. Like America, Israeli society is far from perfect, but let us deals honestly. By any yardstick you choose - educational opportunity, economic development, women and gay's rights, freedom of speech and assembly, legislative representation - Israel's minorities fare far better than any other country in the Middle East.

So, I would like to share the following with organizers of Israel Apartheid week, for those of them who are open to dialogue and not blinded by a hateful ideology:

1) You are part of the problem, not part of the solution: If you are really idealistic and committed to a better world, stop with the false rhetoric. We need moderate people to come together in good faith to help find the path to relieve the human suffering on both sides of the Israel-Palestinian conflict. Vilification and false labeling is a blind alley that is unjust and takes us nowhere.

2) You deny Israel the fundamental right of every society to defend itself: You condemn Israel for building a security barrier to protect its citizens from suicide bombers and for striking at buildings from which missiles are launched at its cities - but you never offer an alternative. Aren't you practicing yourself a deep form of racism by denying an entire
society the right to defend itself?

3) Your criticism is willfully hypocritical: Do Israel's Arab citizens suffer from disadvantage? You better believe it. Do African Americans 10 minutes from the Berkeley campus suffer from disadvantage - you better believe it, too. So should we launch a Berkeley Apartheid Week, or should we seek real ways to better our societies and make opportunity more available?

4) You are betraying the moderate Muslims and Jews who are working to achieve peace: Your radicalism is undermining the forces for peace in Israel and in the Palestinian territories. We are working hard to move toward a peace agreement that recognizes the legitimate rights of both Israel and the Palestinian people, and you are tearing down by falsely vilifying one side.

To the organizers of Israel Apartheid Week I would like to say: If Israel were an apartheid state, I would not have been appointed here, nor would I have chosen to take upon myself this duty. There are many Arabs, both within Israel and in the Palestinian territories who have taken great courage to walk the path of peace. You should stand with us, rather than against us.

This article appeared last week in the San Francisco Chronicle.