26-Apr-17: Another Arab-on-Israeli stabbing today; same site as yesterday and assailant is related to yesterday's knifer

The lives of today's knifer, and his cousin from yesterday's knifing, are in
the hands of emergency surgeons at Rabin Medical Center today [Image Source]

If you saw our report yesterday about a stabbing attack on Israelis at Hawara Checkpoint in the Samaria District, you'll know that the assailant failed in his mission and ended the day yesterday in Beilinson Hospital being treated for serious bullet wounds. His name is Amjad Maher Jaafar (Haaretz gives his surname not as Jaafar but as Salah), his home is in Balata, a bustling neighbourhood (though often called a refugee camp) of the Palestinian Arab city of Nablus, and he is 17.

At about 1:30 pm this afternoon (Wednesday), there was another Arab-on-Israeli stabbing attack at more or less the same spot as yesterday's attack. 

Times of Israel says no Israelis are reported injured and that, according to an IDF spokesperson, the soldiers who came under attack responded with gunfire. The result is similar to what happened yesterday: the assailant took bullets in the stomach, was taken to Rabin Medical Center's Beilinson Hospital in Petah Tikva for emergency treatment (like yesterday's stabber), and is said to be in “serious condition, unconscious and on a ventilator”.

Here's what Ma'an News Agency, a Palestinian Arab mouthpiece, says about today's knife-man:

Locals identified the wounded Palestinian as 16-year-old Saleh Omar Saleh from Balata refugee camp in southern Nablus. According to locals, Saleh is the cousin of 17-year-old Amjad Maher Jaafar, who was shot multiple times in the stomach at the same location less than 24 hours earlier, after he too allegedly attempted to carry out a stabbing attack on Israeli soldiers.

(In Arab society, the word "cousin" can have a broader meaning than we are accustomed to, and may refer to members of the same clan. And though we have no way of knowing at this point, reports in the Hebrew social media describes today's attacker being aged 20.)

Today's attempted stabbing extends a daily sequence that so far includes:

• 25-Apr-17: A thwarted Arab-on-Israeli stabbing near Hawara Junction
• 24-Apr-17: At Qalandiya Crossing, a woman stabber attacked an Israeli official this morning
• 23-Apr-17: Tel Aviv tourist precinct: Arab assailant stabs four

and in the previous week 

• 14-Apr-17: The urge to stab erupts again: In Jerusalem, a young woman is knifed on a tram

Developing

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.

21-Feb-16: Sunday stabbings

Working journalists [Image Source: Jerusalem Post]

Brief details here of today's Arab-on-Israeli terrorist violence, based on Israel National News' report. There have been three separate attacks so far.

1. Early Sunday morning, a knife-wielding Arab girl was arrested when she attempted a stabbing attack on security personnel at the Tapuah Junction checkpoint. She is a 17 year old from the Arab village of Qusra. She stood near a bus stop at the junction, evidently waiting for victims. She was fortunately discovered and arrested after brandishing her knife but before causing any life-threatening problems to others.
2. Later Sunday morning, a 14 year old Arab boy launched a brazen assault on IDF soldiers near Bani Na’im, east of Hebron. The INN report says he opened the door of an IDF jeep and tried to stab the soldiers inside. They overpowered him and took him into custody. He is alive and very, very lucky.
3. Minutes after that attack, another attempted stabbing, this time direct at Israeli civilians, was launched at an intersection near the town of Huwwara. This third attacker was shot dead at the site (Times of Israel says this it happened at Bitot Junction) before getting close enough to his intended victims to do damage. Palestinian media sources, quoted by Times of Israel, say the attacker, Qusai Diab Abu al-Roub, is 15 years old, a resident of Qabatiya, south of Jenin.

It's unlikely that any one of these attacks, or the three of them taken together, will get much analytic coverage in the media. And neither will the single most disturbing fact about these and many of the attacks that came before them in these past five months of bigoted frenzy: that all of them are the work of children - and of course the men who groom them, incite them, congratulate them and elevate them to the status of heroes. 

And at a deeper level - that they are faithfully expressing what their society expects of them and encourages them to do. The conspiracy of silence that accompanies the Palestinian Arab child-abuse industry, the weaponization of the children living in their villages and towns (but never the children of the insider elite), is the real unreported story. 

Does anyone at the Tel-Aviv-based Foreign Press Association have anything to say about this? Their compliance with one of the ugliest aspects of an ugly ongoing pattern of conduct does them and their editors absolutely no credit.

31-Dec-15: Pal Arab attacker rams car into Israelis

Times of Israel reports that an IDF soldier was lightly injured this morning (Thursday) in a vehicle-ramming attack at a road Junction between Tapuah and the Palestinian Arab town of Hawara. He received emergency treatment at the scene from IDF medics before being taken by ambulance to Belinson Hospital, part of the Rabin Medical Center complex, in Petach Tikvah.

The IDF force, from the Givati battalion, was patrolling Route 60 and according to Ynet had stopped to conduct security checks of Palestinian Arabs. The attacking driver was shot dead at the scene, according to the army. Reports say he was a Palestinian Arab of 22, Hassan Bazur. No further details at this stage, but as observers of the passion for blood and death in their society know, he is being turned into a martyr via posters and celebrations as we type these words.

Hawara (or Huwwara), near Nablus, has seen multiple Arab-on-Israeli stabbings and vehicle ramming attacks in the past three months of violence.

27-Dec-15: Sunday, the Arab-on-Israeli violence continues

Police security checkpoint in Jerusalem's Old City [Image Source]

It's Sunday mid-afternoon here: a bright, sunny, mild and violent day. Some of the day's events since our morning post:

• During the morning, a Palestinian Arab woman tried to stab an Israeli near Ma’ale Shomron, an Israeli community west of Nablus. She was stopped with no injuries to anyone. She is said to be from the nearby Palestinian Arab village of Azzun. [Times of Israel, December 27, 2015] 
• A separate incident: a Palestinian Arab woman was stopped at the entrance to the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron and found to be in possession of a knife. She is under arrest, and alive.
• A Palestinian Arab man was arrested by Israel Police officers patrolling the Christian Quarter of Jerusalem’s Old City this afternoon. Asked to show identification,  Times of Israel says he instead drew a blade that had been secreted in his clothing. The officers relieved him of the weapon and took him into custody, alive. Palestinian Arab sources say he is from the Ramallah area. No one was injured, and there are no names or other identifying details at this stage. 
• In Hawara, a village south of Nablus, the day's fifth (so far) Arab-on-Israeli terror attack saw two Arabs approach a gas station near the IDF checkpoint. Israel National News says they suddenly stabbed one of the soldiers stationed there, inflicting moderate knife wounds to his limbs. Other security personnel opened fire and killed the attackers at the scene. The second soldier was lightly wounded in the fire. Both Israelis received emergency treatment at the scene and were then evacuated to Beilinson Hospital in Petah Tikva. The Palestinian authorities say the attackers were aged 17 and 23.

27-Dec-15: Saturday's violence

Some background on two more Arab-on-Israeli attacks that marred the Sabbath day that ended last night.

IDF Square Jerusalem [Image Source: Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Commons]

In Jerusalem, at Kikar Zahal (IDF Square) close to the Old City's Jaffa Gate and a couple of minutes' walk from Safra Square, the compound where the municipality is headquartered, a Palestinian Arab aroused suspicions on the part of police officers who, in the words of Israel National News,

"approached him to investigate... At that point the terrorist whipped out a knife and tried to stab one of them, but the officers beat him to the draw and shot him, killing him at the site."

Haaretz adds that the would-be knife attacker "is mentally disabled" in the words of family members. It identifies him as

26-year-old Mussab Mahmoud Al-Razali from East Jerusalem. His uncle told Palestinian news agency WAFA that his nephew suffered from severe mental disabilities and even studied at the Nur Special Needs School.

The Huwara attack vehicle (via social media)

He attracted attention because "police noticed him following a pair of Jewish worshippers". Saturday morning is a time when thousands of Israeli Jews, as well as visitors, walk through Jaffa Gate to the Old City's Western Wall plaza. It's a route that gets heavy police attention because of the attraction it seems to hold for murder-minded jihadists.

Later in the day, a cluster of soldiers manning at a checkpoint near the Arab village of Huwara in Samaria came under vehicle-ramming attack. One, a young serviceperson of 20, was injured in the attack and taken to hospital with a suspected broken leg. Others opened fired and hit the Palestinian Arab attacker who later died of his injuries. Haaretz says his name is Maher al-Jabi, a male of 56.

News consumers who rely on the Arab news media will get the story more or less back-to-front as the headlines of two reports typical of the genre ["Palestinian dies from injuries in car ramming near Nablus" - Al Bawaba; "Another Palestinian shot dead by Israelis at Nablus checkpoint" - Press TV Iran] make clear. Ditto The Columbus Despatch which spins a syndicated Associated Press report with its own creative headline ["2 Palestinians killed in clashes"]

23-Nov-15: A third knife-wielding Arab boy is dead in terror attack

The Arabic news site, Alquds, says today this photo shows the site
of the attempted stabbing [Image Source]

This post is about a low-profile terror attack today that has gotten almost no news coverage: also about little examined matters like where the terrorists come from, how they got there, who sent them and what this might mean for us and for peace and the future. They're serious existential questions.

According to Israel National News:

An Arab attempted a stabbing attack in the Hatmar Junction (also known as the Territorial Brigade junction - ed.) in Samaria on Monday afternoon, close to 3:00 pm. The stabber was eliminated by IDF soldiers at the scene before he was able to harm anyone.

This is the same checkpoint where another terror attack was done just yesterday. As Israel National News reported that, a little after 9 am Sunday a Palestinian Arab woman launched a stabbing assault on Israeli pedestrians in a place the article calls Brigade Square in the Samaria district. She failed to inflict any injuries on anyone. The attempt itself came to an end when a vehicle driven by a former head of the Samaria Regional Council deliberately plowed into her in order to thwart her obvious intentions, immediately after which IDF soldiers on duty at the site, acting on the relatively-new "shoot-to-kill-terror-attackers-in-the-act shot and killed her in the act.

Today's attack is reported in the Arab media with a few more details.

This version comes from International Middle East Media Center, self-described as "a joint Palestinian-International effort [that] combines Palestinian journalists' deep understanding of the context, history, and the socio-political environment with International journalists' skills in non-partisan reporting." It got started in 2003. Just how non-partisan is something we can discuss.

In any event, here's part of the IMEMC report:

Israeli forces shot and killed a Palestinian teenager on Monday afternoon after he allegedly attempted to stab an Israeli soldier at the Huwwara checkpoint south of Nablus, Israel's army said. An Israeli army spokesperson said that as the Palestinian approached the checkpoint, he "drew a knife and attempted to attack a soldier." She said that the soldier "responded to the immediate danger" and opened fire on the Palestinian, "resulting in his death." The Palestinian Ministry of Health identified the alleged attacker to Ma'an News Agency as Alaa Khalil Sabah Hashah, 16. 

If they're right, this makes the hapless attacker at Huwwara Checkpoint the third Palestinian Arab 16 year-old child (yes, child) to be killed in the same day, today, while carrying out an attack on Israelis with a knife in his hand. We posted about the other two here and here.

Not for the first time, we ask ourselves and our readers how a society engineers things such that it produces children of 16 and less ready to kill and be killed in an undeclared war. Conveniently, one part of the answer popped up today via Twitter:

Via Twitter today

Erekat's pompous declaration ("just practising their right to self-defence") perfectly channels the condescension of the Palestinian Arab political elite that for decades has provided the foundation for relentless Palestinian Arab failure and self-destruction.

He is the Palestinian Authority's prodigious Senior Vice-President for Strategic Resignations [here's a partial list: "Erekat may resign after failing to secure future for Palestinians", Gulf News, November 4, 2015; "Abbas rejects resignation of Palestinian peace negotiator Erekat", Jerusalem Post, November 17, 2013; "PA's Erekat: I didn't resign", Ynet, October 31, 2013; "Despite Resignation, Longtime Peace Negotiator Erekat Carries On as Before", Forward, March 2011; "Saeb Erekat resigns as chief Palestinian negotiator", February 12, 2011, BBC; "Palestinians' Top Negotiator Quits", SKY News, May 16, 2003; "Palestinian cabinet resigns", BBC, September 11, 2002].

Erekat's public, bald-faced lies ["Erekat: Media’s Favorite Liar Resigns", Honest Reporting, February 14, 2011] are the stuff of legend. But not among Palestinian Arabs; in his home market, he incites, prods and urges as effectively as the worst of the PA insiders.

There is no single step we can think of that would be more helpful towards the emergence of a genuine peace-focused political process on the Palestinian Arab side than Erekat's actual, authentic resignation and removal from the "peace-making" process.

But beyond that, and setting aside the decades of corruption, venality, kleptocracy and child-abuse of the deceased Yasser Arafat, no one is entitled to a larger share of the credit for the perpetual downward spiral in the prospects for a better future (or any future) of Palestinian Arab children than their current president, Mahmoud Abbas.

Holding arms high to signify honour and respect, PA President
Mahmoud Abbas honours arrival in Ramallah of convicted terrorists - all of them
murderers - freed under US pressure from Israeli prison,
August 14, 2013.[Image Source]

Elected to a four year presidential term 11 full years ago, the autocratic Abbas - frequently called "moderate" by journalists and public figures who don't know better - seems not to have missed an opportunity during all his extremely well-compensated years in power to elevate the standing of terrorists in Palestinian Arab society to the status of heroes and role-models. He has been at the forefront of Palestinian Arab society's one and only effective undertaking: the glorification of violence and terror.

The announcement, in April 2008, that Abbas was 

awarding the Palestinian Authority's highest medal, the Al Quds Mark of Honor, to two convicted female terrorists currently serving terms for murder in Israeli prison left [us] trembling with rage. One of them, Ahlam Tamimi, murdered fifteen men, women and children in the terror attack on Jerusalem's Sbarro restaurant in August, 2001. Among the victims was [our] own fifteen year old daughter, Malki... [Our April 23, 2008 blog post]

A sober commentary at the time pointed out that

Conferring the Al Quds Mark of Honor is decided at the discretion of the Palestinian Authority’s president, and he alone has the final say when choosing the Palestinians to be honored with the medal... ["Abbas: A "Moderate" Honoring Terrorists", Honest Reporting, April 15, 2008] 

To say it bluntly: the unrepentant mass murderer Ahlam Tamimi, our daughter's killer, embodies for Mahmoud Abbas precisely the kind of Palestinian Arab personality worthy of the highest regard and emulation. (It happens that he reversed his decision a short time later but only because of intense pressure from outside the PA. He left little doubt that the original decision to bestow honor on two female killers of Jews conveyed a message in which he personally believed.)

Today's three dead 16 year olds, all about the same age our murdered daughter Malki was when she was murdered by the people who groomed them too, join the long list of Palestinian Arab lives - many of them the lives of children - thrown away for nothing other than to serve the vanity, greed and weakness of this hateful, bigoted, kleptocatic octogenarian fraudster.

9-Oct-06: One More Death, Four Different Viewpoints

Other than the fact that a Palestinian Arab died today as a result of shots fired by Israeli service personnel at a crossover point near Shechem (Nablus), almost everything connected with the death of a man called Mohammad Sa'adah today is in dispute.

It's instructive - for those of us who care about the role played by the media - to see how different agencies deal with those disputed issues. We'll start with the BBC:

Two Palestinians killed by Israel

The Israeli army has killed two Palestinians in separate incidents in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Palestinian medics said a 14-year-old boy was killed in northern Gaza. Israel said it killed a Palestinian retrieving a rocket launcher. In the second incident, Israeli forces shot dead a Palestinian they said was trying to stab them at a checkpoint close to the West Bank city of Nablus. But Palestinian witnesses said the 20-year-old victim was unarmed.

As usual, the BBC gives us the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. A 20 year-old Palestinian who the Israelis say was trying to stab them, killed by the Israelis. How awful. Yet another innocent death to add to the toll. Another needless death chalked up to those trigger-happy Israelis.

Next a Palestinian agency known for its highly partisan coverage of news from an exclusively Arab viewpoint for consumption in non-Arab news markets:

Army kills Nablus resident at Huwwara checkpoint south of the city

Ghassan Bannoura – IMEMC & Agencies - Monday, 09 October 2006, 16:50
Mohammad Sa'adah, 22, was shot and killed on Monday afternoon by Israeli soldiers stationed at the Huwwara military checkpoint south of the West Bank city of Nablus. Soldiers did not release the body of Sa'adah for some time then gave his body over to a Palestinian ambulance that took him to Rafidia Hospital in the city. Sa'adah is a redident of Tall village near the city of Nablus. Local sources said that Israeli soldiers are holding scores of Palestinian civilians at the Huwwara checkpoint and the nearby Beit Iba checkpoint. Soldiers closed the two checkpoints after the incident. The Israeli army claimed that Sa'adah ran towards the soldiers at the checkpoint and tried to attack them with a knife. Soldiers then opened fire at him and killed him. Eyewitnesses at the checkpoint said that the Sa'adah ran towards a car at the checkpoint when he was shot by a number of soldiers. They said that he was not holding a knife as the soldiers claimed. However, soldiers insisted that they found the knife in his clothes after killing him while searching the body.

So the Pal-Arab version knows about an attempted attack and about a knife. Strange that the BBC failed to pick that up. Move on now to the version of Haaretz, a serious daily from Israel that holds a left viewpoint on most things.


Report: IDF kills assailant near Nablus

Also Monday, IDF soldiers shot and killed a Palestinian at the Hawara checkpoint outside of Nablus. The IDF said the man ran toward a soldiers and tried to attack them with a knife at which point they opened fire and killed him. Palestinian witnesses said the man, Mohammed Saadeh, 20, a Palestinian policeman, ran toward a car at the checkpoint when he was shot by three soldiers. They said they did not see him holding the knife, a small paring knife, but that soldiers later found it in his pocket.

That's interesting. The innocent Pal-Arab is a policeman in the service of the Palestinian Authority. To us, that seems like a relevant piece of information, particularly when the Americans, with enthusiastic support from Europe, are looking to substantially boost the size of Mahmoud Abbas's personal security force and the ranks of the PA police. Is it possible that the BBC could have overlooked this?

Finally, this from Yedioth Aharonot, an Israeli tabloid:

Nablus: Soldier kills Palestinian after stab attempt

Stabbing attack thwarted: Soldiers at Hawara checkpoint shoot, kill Palestinian who tried to assault troops with knife
Efrat Weiss (Published: 10.09.06, 18:17)
A Palestinian man was shot and killed on Monday in the Hawara checkpoint south of Nablus after attempting to stab IDF soldiers who were manning the checkpoint. The man raised the suspicion of the soldiers and then attempted to attack them. One soldier shot the man at his lower extremities and wounded him. He died shortly thereafter. A preliminary investigation revealed that the man approached two soldiers who were inspecting vehicles at the checkpoint who were leaving Nablus. At some point the soldiers became suspicious of the man, and after questioning him regarding his actions, the man took out a knife and assaulted one of the soldiers, knife in hand. The Hawara checkpoint experiences an incident or an attempt to attack soldiers on daily basis. In addition, the soldiers thwarted attempts to transfer weapons through the checkpoint.

It's a small story. Among all the bloodshed and misery, just another death. And as most of us know, there's plainly no such thing as objective reporting when it comes to highly contentious issues like the Arab/Israel conflict and the jihadist war against the world.

But there are still some among us who aspire to seeing news media who understand the meaning of impartial. Give us the facts, we say, and let us make up our own minds.

It would be interesting to know whether the BBC's large Israel-based staff thinks it belongs to the school of impartial reporting. Israelis like us who consume its reportage daily, albeit from a standpoint of criticism, believe the BBC does not even come close. For ourselves, it's hard to say this is because of their reporters in the field. Most of those we've met (not all) seem serious and professional, especially when compared with reporters for lesser media orgs. That only leaves us to wonder about what must be happening in far-off Bush House where - presumably - they have a much clearer and wiser view of matters than we lesser mortals out here in the sub-tropics.