24-Apr-16: What the fate of a pre-teen Arab girl says about the grip terror has on her society

Dima Al-Wawi: Tried and failed to kill Jews and now doomed to life
as a jihadist role-model [Image Source]

Many hundreds, maybe more, of news reports and Tweets today celebrate the release today of a twelve year-old girl, arrested and imprisoned by the Israeli authorities to a term of four and a half months. 

When she was arrested on February 9, 2016, all the news reports we saw agreed [for instance Al Araby and Times of Israel] that the child was 16. That was shocking enough for us to include her in a post here on our blog ["09-Feb-16: The unthinkable things Palestinian Arab society wants for and from its children"] in which numerous other children of about that age had been intercepted trying to murder Jews. 

This girl child is free again today. The relevant authorities here in Israel agreed to shorten her sentence by six weeks for reasons no one is talking about. 

The general flavor of today's reports and Tweets is captured by headlines like these:

• After three months of detention in Israeli Jail, Dima Al-Wawi 12 y-o is finally free!! She is just a child..
• Dima Al-Wawi, 12 years old, the youngest female Palestinian prisoner, is finally free! #FreePalestineDetainees [From the PLO's official tweet]



The mother, via Aljazeera. The honest answer to her 
dishonest and disingenuous question is "Yes, of course, Can stab, can kill
and have done so numerous times in the past eight months
of vicious Arab-on-Israeli jihadist violence". All with the explicit blessing 
of their parents, president, imams and society. [Image Source]

• Israel frees youngest Palestinian prisoner [Associated Press]

We have written before about the exceptionally ugly process underway in which children are encouraged and incited to get involved in acts of terror against Israelis by the PA, Hamas and Palestinian Arab society. Not for nothing, we see these people as being in the grip of a death cult. 

There's no Arabic-language messsage today (as far as we can tell after searching around) that fails to sound a note of triumph. This rather sad-faced twelve year old girl is going to be paraded around as a hero whether she wants it or not. 

It does not have to be that way. After all, this child is more than just a prisoner who was freed. She pulled a knife on a couple of Israelis and tried to kill them. That's not a legal statement but a straight-forward observation of what happened. It's captured on video. She formed the intention, to the extent a child can, to murder.

To be clear about this, it's not only Palestinian Arab children who kill or try to kill. Sometimes - though not so often - it's because they really, really want to. Sometimes it's because people older and more powerful than them require that they do it. Civilized society has views on what that means and what we ought to do about it. 

For instance, the phenomenally-well-funded Human Rights Watch have this on their"Children's rights" page:

A symbol whether she wants to be or not [Reuters]

Millions of children... are forced to serve as soldiers in armed conflict... Young and immature, they are often easily exploited. In many cases, they are abused by the very individuals responsible for their care. We are working to help protect children around the world, so they can grow into adults.

And even when forced in the most violent way into joining the ranks of the jihadist terrorists, child victims - like thousands of Nigerian children [see "Boko Haram escapees find life at home can be filled with distrust, rejection", AP, today] - arouse mixed feelings, unjustifiably most of us would say, in their own community. 

But that's not how Palestinian Arab society views children and terrorism. 

We have noted before that, since they use the term "easily exploited", the people who run HRW are surely enraged by what's being done to Palestinian Arab children by the religious, educational and political leaders of their communities. But if they are, and if they know what has been done by her own society to this Al-Wawi girl and to hordes of others as young as she, we're surely not seeing any sign of it. Again we ask: If anyone knows of HRW condemnation of the fostering among Palestinian Arab children of martyrdom/murder as supreme values, please click here to enlighten us.

Some months ago, we quoted here [20-Oct-15: Children and what a soulless society can do to them] the words of an acclaimed leader of oppressed people:

In the hands of her father today: a future foretold [Telegraph UK]

 "There can be no keener revelation of a society's soul than the way in which it treats its children." - Nelson Mandela 1918-2013, addressing the launch of the Nelson Mandela Children's Fund, Pretoria, South Africa, May 8, 1995 [source]

The question needs to be asked: where is UNICEF? Or Save the Children, or Terre des Hommes, or the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement or even the dishonorable Amnesty International (on whom we have not yet entirely given up hope)? Or the other well-funded, high-profile public interest organizations that purport to care for the welfare of children but that take so little interest in the unfolding tragedy of the children of the Palestinian Arabs and the terror-obsessed jihadists cheating them of their future?

14-Nov-15: Friday's lethal attack destroyed an Israeli family preparing for their daughter's wedding

Site of the Friday afternoon murders, near Otniel [Image Source: EPA]

Some additional aspects of the tragedy ["13-Nov-15: Again: Israeli lives extinguished by Pal Arab terrorists"] we reported here Friday afternoon, just before the peace and spirituality of the Sabbath arrived.

Times of Israel reports that Rabbi Ya’akov Litman, 40, and his son Netanel, 18, were murdered in the shooting attack around 3:00 pm Friday near the Jewish community of Otniel. They along with other members of the family, residents of the Kiryat Arba community, were driving from their home to Meitar, near Be'er Sheva, for what sounds to us, from the vague description in the news reports, to be a Shabbat Hatan, the celebration of the upcoming wedding (set for November 17) of their daughter and sister. She was evidently not in the family van. Instead of a welcome, joyous and presumably long-awaited celebration, the Litmans and their family and friends have had to arrange a funeral for the father and son in Jerusalem tonight.

The other family members in the van were the wife and mother, a 16-year-old son and three young daughter aged 11, 9 and 5, according to Haaretz. All were lightly hurt with bruises and shrapnel injuries. Based on our familiarity with Jewish custom, the fourth daughter preparing for her wedding was very likely spending the Shabbat in or near her home with friends.

Haaretz says the gunman was waiting by the side of the road for any Israeli vehicle to drive by. Investigators found 14 bullets had been fired at the Litmans. The shooter fled, and a search has been underway since last night, focusing on the Palestinian Arab towns of Yatta and Dhahiriya.

Times of Israel says Ya’akov Litman, the driver, was wounded by the gun fire, swerved into the opposite lane, and crashed into rocks at the side of the road. Netanel called rescue services but was then also shot dead. A Channel 2 news report quoted by the news site says that after this, one of the gunmen came closer and fired additional bullets after killing the father and son.

A younger son then called the Magen David Adom hotline to report the attack, reporting as well that a Palestinian Red Crescent ambulance had just driven past the scene of the attack, and had deliberately ignored them and failed to stop. (Israel is said to be filing a protest with the International Committee of the Red Cross about this. Israelis are holding their breaths waiting for a robust response from Geneva. Not.) Haaretz says the MDA team reached the scene soon afterwards, pronounced the father and son dead at the scene, and rushed the other family members to Soroka Medical Center in Be'er Sheva.

There are reports tonight that the murders were celebrated publicly by Hamas via social media.

22-Nov-14: What youths and children are good for

The children are always innocent.
But what of the people who educate and equip them?

We posted here some weeks back ["07-Nov-14: In reporting terror, what the perpetrators and their victims are called is part of the war"] about the practice in some parts of the media to use descriptive words like "youth" and "man" in highly subjective ways. A pedestrian mowed down by a murder-minded Arab in Jerusalem is called a "17-year-old man"; the victim was, of course, an Israeli. Meanwhile, a "20-year-old youth" attacked police; he is, of course, a Palestinian Arab. There are other instances of this tendentious form of news reporting in that post. They lead us to say (as we did) that

those of us deeply irritated by the way news editors often spin an entire report via the judicious choice of specific words can't help suspecting there might be a little something on display here about agenda-driven reporting and editing.

Take a look at a report currently on the front page of the Palestinian news-site Maan:

A Palestinian youth was attacked and beaten by a group of Jewish settlers at Damascus Gate near the Old City of occupied East Jerusalem on Friday night, a local political activist who was present at the time of the incident said. 22-year-old Ahmad Yaqub al-Ghoul lost consciousness as a result of bruising and bleeding he suffered after three Jewish settlers described as being in their 20s hit him... [Maan]

This Palestinian Arab "youth" is 22 and the attackers "in their 20s" are not men, youths or boys but merely "settlers",

Over at Israel National News, they have some insights today into what is being done to youths - real youths, children below the age of thirteen - in the Arab quarters of Jerusalem. It's sickening:

• Yedioth Aharonoth interviewed Jerusalem's youngest Arab terrorists last week, providing a unique look into the minds of those who have forgone their studies and futures for the pursuit of violence. Even more Arab children join them in their attacks after the school bell rings.
• Salah, Hassan, Riyad and Ahmed of Jerusalem's Shuafat neighborhood - just a handful of the many Arab children aged eight to 13 who, instead of going to school and learning, mask their faces and assault police officers with potentially lethal rocks every single day. 
• "We are ready to die as martyrs, we have nothing to lose," says one Arab child terrorist. "Our heads aren't in studies at all, we are always planning what to do against the police."
• "Today I didn't go to school because I want to continue our struggle as a response to the murder of the martyr Ibrahim al-Akari," one 13-year-old said, referring to the Hamas terrorist from Shuafat who murdered two Israelis with his van earlier this month... And the commitment to violent attacks shows no signs of slackening, with one child saying "all of us here are ready to sacrifice our lives and die as martyrs."
• Another child... "Today the only thing I think about is throwing rocks at police..." 
• One rioter at the tender age of eight pledged more violence, and was quoted saying "inshallah (Allah willing) we'll succeed in liberating Palestine and Jerusalem."
• "Me and my friends every day plan what to do during the day against the police. We've thrown molotov cocktails, fireworks and rocks. I'm proud of these acts."

The child abuse industry that produces outcomes like those gets pathetically little exposure, and even less understanding, outside the Arabic-speaking world. [See "3-Mar-13: Incitement to terror: Understanding the Palestinian Arab official view on what children are good for"]

Television programs directed at children in pre-school, elementary and high schools make this plain to anyone willing to wade through the Arabic sources. A small proportion of them are translated to English, like a gem (we selected it literally at random) called "When we die as martyrs" from which these screen shots below come. It's impossible to watch the whole 3 minute atrocity and remain ambivalent. The children's sweet voices coupled with the murderous hatred of the words put in their mouths by instructors and parents make for classical cognitive dissonance - the screen shots alone don't come close to conveying that.

Universal Children's Day took place just two days ago, on November 20. The annual event might have been the perfect opportunity to shine a bright light on the programming, the brain-washing, the hate-focused preaching, the terror-friendly education that are all indispensable ingredients in the process of producing terrorist youths. But of course they were not. 

In a post we wrote just before UCD ["02-Nov-14: Understanding what they really mean when the terrorists say children are their main concern"], we quoted an impeccable Arab source who notes that the principal Palestinian Arab terror groups, Hamas and Fatah. long ago discovered that children are one of the most effective tools in the fight against Israel - especially because of the damage it causes to Israel in public opinion terms. And by blaming Israel for "deliberately" targeting children and women, they can count on the readiness of the mainstream media in the West to endorse the claims without question.

Not for the first time, we are left wondering why UNICEF, Save the Children, Amnesty, Terre des Hommes, International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement and so many other well-funded, high-profile, public-interest organizations with children at the heart of their agenda take so little interest in this unfolding tragedy. 

23-Jan-12: Caught some more terrorists

In Jerusalem today, the police along with Shin Bet agents arrested two senior Hamas people: Muhammad Totah and Khaled Abu-Arfa. Ynet calls them "activists from east Jerusalem", while reports from Egypt describe them as "law-makers" without actually pointing out how out of date that affiliation is: the Palestinian parliament has held no sessions since 2007.

The interesting part is that Totah and Abu-Arfa have been taking refuge inside the International Committee of the Red Cross building at 8 Nabi Shu'eib Street in east Jerusalem's Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood  for the past 18 months. (Those facts are confirmed by the ICRC, according to this report.) 

There had earlier been a third member in their little party, another Hamas man by the name of Ahmad Attoun. He was lured out and arrested several months ago.

This source reported back in March 2011 that the Hamas fugitives were themselves personally involved in the kidnapping of Gilad Shalit in 2006. They were to be deported from Jerusalem in summer 2010, but fled instead to the Red Cross building in Jerusalem on 1st July 2010 where they

"held court on a daily basis with no protest from their hosts... During that time, they've held a number of press conferences and met with foreign dignitaries, including former U.S. President Jimmy Carter. Every Friday, dozens of East Jerusalem residents gather at the Red Cross to hold prayers as a show of support."

The Jerusalem Post says today that the Hamas fugitives had been quite open about their goals with their Red Cross hosts. They notified ICRC officials from the first that they planned to hold protests on the Red Cross premises to draw attention to "their situation". 

Evidently no one inside the Red Cross objected. Instead:

"The Red Cross has provided the politicians with a room inside the building where they can sleep and keep their belongings, a bathroom, electricity for their large protest tent, and a water cooler, it is understood. Family members came daily to bring food and clothes." [JPost]

Ten months ago, when the CBN report was first published, a spokesperson for the Red Cross, Cecilia Goin, said "hosting" the Hamas fugitives was "in line with the organization's humanitarian mission". She made no reported comment on the terrorist nature of the Hamas mission, which to us seems a bizarre and disturbing omission for a humanitarian body's official representative.

The ICRC has a relatively proud history - with some question marks. Started in 1863 as "an independent and neutral organization" and based today in Geneva, its mandate stems from the Geneva Conventions of 1949. With 12,000 people in 80 countries, its work is funded by donations. The ICRC's sole objective is

"to ensure protection and assistance for victims of armed conflict and strife. It does so through its direct action around the world, as well as by encouraging the development of international humanitarian law and promoting respect for it by governments and all weapon bearers."

Magen David Adom (Red Star of David) ambulance
destroyed by Arab marauders near Jerusalem's central post
office, February 1948 [source]

The ICRC's activities in our part of the world have not been without controversy. 

For decades, the ICRC refused admission to the Israeli Magen David Adom organization, Israel's national emergency service. The ostensible reason was that MDA uses a Jewish symbol, the star of David. The MDA request to join came in 1931, and was accepted only in 2006 - seventy-five years later. 

In 1929, the ICRC approved the use of the the Red Crescent and Red Lion and Sun. The Jewish star was evidently a step too far.  

In a March 2000 letter to the International Herald Tribune, Dr. Bernadine Healy, then president of the American Red Cross, wrote:  "The international committee's feared proliferation of symbols is a pitiful fig leaf, used for decades as the reason for excluding the Magen David Adom — the Shield (or Star) of David." In protest, and starting in 2000, the American Red Cross withheld millions in administrative funding to the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC).

Meanwhile elsewhere in the area: Ynet reports this afternoon that undercover agents arrested two Hamas terrorists near Jenin in the Fatah-controlled West Bank earlier today. The two were in possession of an improvised weapon which, according to the suspicion, they planned to use in a shooting attack on Israeli vehicles.

10-Oct-06: No one at the UN reads this blog. Here's the proof

Ignore our posting from yesterday about the two Pal-Arab men intercepted yesterday with bombs strapped to their bodies at an Israeli security checkpoint.

Ignore our posting of the day before about another Pal-Arab man shot after trying to stab Israelis at another Israeli security checkpoint.

Ignore everything you've heard about Palestinian Arab gunmen, children with bombs strapped to their undersized chests, women with kitchen knives slipped into the folds of their robes, Red Crescent ambulances with explosives hidden behind false floors -- all intercepted at Israeli checkpoints, en route to their destiny with death. Sometimes their own death; always the death of Jews.

Ignore them just as the United Nations does. This report issued today puts that matter beyond doubt.

Number of Israeli roadblocks in West Bank up 40 percent in past year: U.N.

The Associated Press
Published: October 11, 2006
JERUSALEM The number of Israeli military roadblocks in the West Bank grew by nearly 40 percent in the past year, part of an increasingly sophisticated lockdown that disrupts all aspects of Palestinian life, a U.N. aid agency said Wednesday. The placement of these checkpoints and unmanned physical obstacles means the West Bank is increasingly being carved up into separate parts, with travel between them becoming more and more difficult, said David Shearer, head of the U.N.'s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Jerusalem. In all, there were 528 checkpoints and obstacles in the West Bank, up from 376 in August 2005, Shearer said, presenting new statistics. The West Bank's Jordan Valley is now entirely off limits to Palestinians who are not residents of that area, except for those with permits to work in the valley's Jewish settlements. The checkpoints are multiplying as Israel pushes ahead with the separation barrier it is building along — and at some points inside — the West Bank. Some 50,000 Palestinians find themselves on the wrong side of the barrier, meaning they are cut off from the rest of the West Bank, the report said. Israel has also deepened the separation between the northern, middle and southern parts of the West Bank, the report said. "We are seeing a continuing closing down, locking down of Palestinian areas," he said. Shearer said tight travel restrictions were also in place during the height of the Palestinian uprising, between 2000-2003, when dozens of suicide bombers carried out attacks in Israel. "Since then it's become much more systematic, much more sophisticated in terms of monitoring Palestinian movement and closing Palestinian movement," he said. "The West Bank, for example, is effectively being chopped up into three big areas ... and there are pockets within those areas where people also can't move." Capt. Adam Avidan, spokesman for the military's civil administration in the West Bank, said in a statement that Israel tries "as much as possible to preserve the Palestinians' way of life and to avoid hurting innocent civilians in its war against terrorism."

The office responsible for putting out this appalling piece of one-eyed, one-sided pseudo-analysis is the United Nations Office for Co-ordinating Humanitarian Affairs.

Their Jerusalem operation costs the UN $3 million a year. Evidently an insufficient sum, since they are unable to find the time, the resources or the wit to analyze the daily small and large acts of terrorism directed at Jewish Israelis and the IDF security checkpoints that are strikingly effective at slowing down, stopping and intercepting jihadist terrorists.

How can self-respecting UN civil servants sign off on a report to their employers and not mention this effectiveness? Not a word.

Do they find the effectiveness of IDF security measures a threat to their outlook on life and political convictions? Do they not consider the saving of Israeli lives a matter worth including in a report of this scope? Are they oblivious to the blood-soaked consequences of such highly selective, prejudice-laden moral outrage?

Shame on them, shame on David Shearer and shame on the UN bureaucracy that plays along with this pretend-objectivity without protest.