27-Oct-16: Thwarted: Another Arab-on-Israeli terror plot in Jerusalem, and Hamas are again involved

File photo of the Jerusalem District Court building [Image Source]

Israelis pretty much take for granted that the country's always-alert security forces will be pro-active in thwarting Palestinian Arab terrorists before their plots can run their course. But it's of course not something anyone ought to take for granted.

Mahmoud Mussa Abbasi, reportedly a 25 year-old resident of one of the settlements and suburbs of East Jerusalem (according to Times of Israel, it's Ras al-Amoud), was indicted this morning in Jerusalem District Court on terrorism charges. Arrested three weeks ago (according to Jerusalem Post) he allegedly plotted a terrorist attack in the capital -  a shooting attack targeting security forces and civilians in Jerusalem, according to the Shin Bet.

The suspect had also allegedly tried to purchase weapons for such an attack. In addition, the Shin Bet investigations found that Abbasi has supported Hamas and was involved in several prior attacks in which Molotov cocktails and stones were hurled at Israeli security forces. Investigator also found that Abbasi had attempted to acquire knowledge on manufacturing pipe bombs, although he had not actually engaged in producing an explosive. ["Shin Bet thwarts suspected Jerusalem terror plot by Arab-Israeli man", Jerusalem Post, October 27, 2016]

Hamas was also involved in another recently-thwarted plot here in the capital: "11-Oct-16: Who will live and who will die: A Hamas plot is thwarted in Jerusalem".

Though the Jerusalem Post headline terms him an Arab-Israeli, we think that's unlikely given that he lives in East Jerusalem. There's no indication of anyone else being charged but experience suggests that sometimes accomplices are brought to court at a later stage in the investigation.

Israel National News adds that the prisoner is alleged to have been involved in

a number of terror-related offenses dating back to 2014. Abbasi is accused of taking part in violent disorders, as well as making and throwing firebombs during the Protective Edge counter-terror campaign in Gaza. From July 2015 until his arrest, he allegedly made a number of Facebook posts in praise of terror attacks in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. In 2016 he allegedly destroyed the hard disk of his employer's computer after the employer was arrested by security forces.

Prosecutors said

Abbasi voiced support for the suicide bomber who attacked the number 12 bus in the Talpiot neighborhood of Jerusalem last April and the shooters at the Sarona Market in Tel Aviv who killed four people in June. “Abbasi’s arrest, and the results of his questioning, demonstrate once again the high level of threat from acts by lone attackers who are influenced by incitement on the web by terror organizations, and in particular Hamas, and who themselves incite to carry out attacks,” the Shin Bet said. ["East Jerusalem man charged with plotting shooting, backing Hamas", Times of Israel, October 27, 2016]

The shooter in a fatal Jerusalem terror attack less than three weeks ago ["09-Oct-16: In Jerusalem, first reports of Arab-on-Israeli shootings this morning"] was also connected to Hamas.

21-Jun-16: Martyrs, rocks and firebombs: Scenes from an Israeli highway

When a rock hits a fast-moving car, the damage is certainly serious
enough to be lethal: Aftermath of last night's assault on Israeli
vehicles on Route 443 [Image Source: Haaretz this morning]

There are two major highways that connect Jerusalem with the coastal plain, Ben Gurion Airport and the Tel Aviv area. One is Highway One, currently undergoing a multi-billion shekel enlargement and refurbishment. The other is Route 443.

In the early hours of this morning. according to an Agence France-Presse (AFP) report quoting Israeli security officials, a gang of Palestinian Arabs hurled bottles, rocks and incendiary Molotov Cocktails at fast-moving vehicles on Route 443.

"An initial review suggests that as the mob continued, nearby forces acted in order to protect the additional passing vehicles from immediate danger and fired towards the assailants," a military statement said. "Forces confirmed hits resulting in the death of one of the attackers. At the moment I am aware of one other attacker that was wounded and treated by medical forces and later evacuated to hospital. Two additional suspects were arrested." [AFP via Times of India - today]

Though the AFP reporter says this happened "near the village of Beit Sira", the description suggests to us it happened where the highway passes just below the village of Beit Ur El Fauqua, population around 1,000 people. (An Israel National News report reaches the same conclusion this morning.) We ourselves have been hit by rocks while driving past that spot, as have many of our friends in the neighbourhood. It has a reputation as a source of lethal violence.

Palestinian Arab "security officials" told AFP the dead person is Mahmoud Badran, 20. Times of Israel ["Palestinian firebombs Israeli cars, is shot dead by IDF"] says he is a resident of Kafr Qadum, east of Qalqilya. It adds that two other Palestinian Arabs were "seriously injured", quoting the same Palestinian Arab source. 

Several vehicles driving in the early hours of Tuesday morning were damaged as a result of the Arab attack. Ynet's report says of the victims:

An Israeli and two foreigners in their twenties were lightly injured and taken to Shaare Zedek Medical Center overnight Monday when rocks and Molotov Cocktails were hurled at a passing vehicle on Route 443. The terrorists also poured oil on the main road... IDF forces were called to the scene and shot at the terrorists, killing one of them and moderately-seriously wounding four others. Three were evacuated to a government hospital in Ramallah while the other was taken to Hadassah Ein Karem. Two suspects were arrested and taken in by the security forces for investigation.

Associated Press, unwisely (having regard to decades of Arab news-reporting history - this sort of partial and biased journalism didn't exactly begin yesterday) basing itself on an Arab version of events, says

"A Palestinian official says a 14-year-old Palestinian boy has been shot dead by Israeli troops. Wagie Ahmad, head of the Beit Our local council in the West Bank, says Mahmoud Badran was killed and four others were wounded early on Tuesday when their car was fired upon by a military patrol. The Ramallah hospital says another person was moderately wounded and three were lightly wounded. The Israeli military had no immediate response. Israeli media says the shooting took place after rocks were hurled at Israeli vehicles, wounding three."

Haaretz, no stranger to bizarre manipulation of facts if there's a greater need, offers this headline: "Two Tourists, One Israeli Wounded in Stone-throwing Incident Near Major Highway". The vehicles that were hit and damaged were on the major highway. So were the victims. The only part of this that was near the major highway was the gang of thugs with the firebombs, bucket of oil, rocks and evil murderous intentions. That's an odd reason to choose that way of describing where this attack happened.

The editors and reporters at the Palestinian Ma'an news service, not so surprisingly, have a substantially different version of who did what to whom.

"Israeli forces shot and killed a 15-year-old Palestinian [they offer a photo] and injured four other Palestinian teens early Tuesday morning in the village of Beit Ur al-Tahta in the central occupied West Bank, after they reportedly threw stones and Molotov cocktails at Israeli settlers, lightly injuring them.
The Palestinian Ministry of Health confirmed the death of Mahmoud Raafat Badran, and added that three of the Palestinian minors sustained serious injuries after being shot by Israeli forces in the head and chest, and were evacuated to Palestine Medical Complex in Ramallah City.
Initial reports said the fourth teen was taken to an unidentified Israeli hospital, but it was revealed later by Palestinian medical sources that he was detained by Israeli forces for interrogation.
Local sources in Beit Ur al-Tahta identified the three being treated in Ramallah as Dawood Isam Kharroub, his brother Muhammad, and Ahd Ikram Suleiman.
Local Palestinian sources said five teenage Palestinians were travelling in a car between Beit Ur al-Tahta and the nearby village of Beit Sira west of Ramallah when Israeli forces “showered” the vehicle with live fire, killing one and injuring four."

Amid the conflicting claims, we can safely express total confidence that the dead Palestinian Arab is either already a designated "martyr" or being upgraded to one at this very minute.

UPDATE Tuesday at 12:30 pm: Haaretz has an updated report now.

Palestinian Killed in Stone-throwing Incident Near Major Highway Was Likely a Bystander, IDF Says | 15-year-old Palestinian was killed and four were Palestinians wounded, three seriously, after two tourists and one Israeli were wounded along Israel's Route 443 | The 15-year-old Palestinian killed by Israeli military fire during a stone-throwing incident along a major highway was apparently a bystander near the site of the original incident, according to an IDF press release. According to the army, he was traveling by car with his family, according to an initial report conducted by the army that was released Tuesday morning. The investigation reported that stones and a firebomb were thrown at the highway leading from Jerusalem to Modi’in, near the village of Beit Sira, around 1 A.M. Oil was also spilled on the highway. The stones injured an Israeli citizen travelling on a bus as well as two tourists travelling by car. An officer and some soldiers from the Kfir Brigade serving in the vicinity were passing through. They noticed the injured and launched a hunt for the stone throwers. Gunfire was errantly shot at the car, in which the boy was a passenger, killing him, according to the report. Others wounded by gunfire were evacuated to a Ramallah hospital. The army still has been unable to say whether the injured include passers-by shot by accident or people connected to the stone throwing. The army said the investigation into the incident would continue in the Binyamin regional battalion serving in the Ramallah area. 

The Palestinian Authority identified the slain Palestinian as Mahmoud Rafat Mahmoud, a 15-year-old from the village of Beir Ur al-Tahta, west of Ramallah.  Abdul Karim Kassem, head of the village's local council of the Palestinian village of Beit Ore-Tahta, told Reuters that the wounded Palestinians were in a car "returning from a pool in a village near us when they came under fire." According to the Palestinian Health Ministry, four Palestinians were wounded by Israeli fire, three of them seriously. Three of the wounded Palestinians were taken to a medical center in Ramallah, while the other remains hospitalized at Ein Karem. Two of the wounded are brothers, according to sources in the village. [Archived at 12:40 pm, June 21, 2016] 

UPDATE Tuesday June 21, 2016 at 1:00 pm:

From Reuters: "Israeli troops mistakenly killed a Palestinian bystander on Tuesday while responding with gunfire to a petrol bomb and rock attack on Israeli vehicles in the occupied West Bank, the military said. An earlier statement from the military had identified the Palestinian as an assailant. The mayor of his village said he was a 15-year-old. The military said several Palestinians threw petrol bombs and stones at vehicles, injuring three civilians, on a highway between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem that traverses the West Bank... Troops gave chase and "after an initial inquiry, it appears that uninvolved bystanders were mistakenly hit during the pursuit," a military spokeswoman said, identifying one of them as the Palestinian killed in the incident. She said the military had opened an investigation... Abdul Karim Kassem, head of the local council of the Palestinian village of Beit Ore-Tahta, told Reuters that Mahmoud Badran, the teenager killed in the incident on Highway 443, was in a car with other passengers "returning from a pool in a village near us when they came under fire". Another Palestinian was wounded by Israeli gunfire and taken to hospital in the West Bank city of Ramallah. The military said two additional suspects were arrested.

Who is the dead 20-year old mentioned in the AFP report above? At this point, anyone's guess.

25-Oct-15: A day in the life of a society under siege

From the Metzad community's website 

Not a quiet day here.

• At about 10:00 this morning (Sunday), an Israeli driving his vehicle near Metzad, a community in the Gush Etzion area, came under rock attack. He exited the vehicle for reasons about which we can speculate and was approached by one man or two who might have been dressed in clothing that made them look like Haredi Jews (those details are un-confirmed), one of whom attacked him with a knife, inflicting serious stabbing wounds and injuring him. The attackers fled, and are being pursued at this moment. The victim, aged about 58, was taken conscious by MDA ambulance to Hadassah Medical Center in Jerusalem with stab wounds to the upper body and trauma injuries to the head from being hit by a hurled rock. [Info source: Israel National News]
• Just before 10:00 am this morning, a Palestinian Arab passing through Tapuah Junction in Samaria was stopped for questioning by Border Police and was found to have a concealed knife on his person. There's an understandable reluctance to accept 'explanations' these days, and he was promptly arrested and taken in for questioning. [Info source: Israel National News]
• Around 1:30 pm today (Sunday), Israeli security forces foiled yet another stabbing attack, this time at a checkpoint in Hebron adjacent to the ancient Tomb of the Patriarchs. The attacker, a Palestinian Arab woman who pulled a knife at the site, was shot and died of her injuries. She failed in inflicting harm on the Israelis at the site. Hers will not be the last such attempt. [Info source: Times of Israel] For the record, the unsuccessful and thwarted stabbing attack is reported in a sadly familiar way by the Palestinian Arab Ma'an News Agency today: "Israeli border police shot and killed a Palestinian women in Hebron city near the Ibrahimi Mosque in the southern occupied West Bank, witnesses said." True and factual, but incomplete, entirely free of meaningful context and calculated to mislead. 
• Early this morning, police arrested an Arab male traveling on an inter-city bus who was overheard saying he intended to become a shahid, or martyr. He had boarded the bus on Route 90 near Kibbutz Gesher, several kilometers south of Tiberias. When the bus reached Tiberias, he was arrested, and removed. Police then found a knife and a kippa (Jewish-style skull-cap) in his possession. But after interrogation, the police released him, issuing a statement that they were satisfied he had not been planning to carry out a terror attack.
• Important revelations arising from the fatal attack (one Israeli killed, 10 injured) at Be'er Sheva's central bus station exactly a week ago (on Sunday October 18, 2015), carried out by Muhanad Al-Aqabi (also writtem Al-Okabi), 21, an Israeli citizen from Hura. It now emerges from the ongoing enquiry that Al-Aqabi, who was killed by security personnel in the course of his attack, had maintained contact with terrorists in the service of Hamas prior to mounting the terror assault. Israel National News reports today that he had images of Hamas terrorists, weapons and other materials on his mobile phone. The new data discovered by police indicates the attack was planned with Hamas.
• Around 5:15 pm, according to an unpublished report. there was another stabbing attack at Tapuah Junction, the second of the day. The victim suffered stab wounds to the chest, causing him serious-to-critical injuries. The attacker fled and we assume is being pursued. (We see that Times of Israel is reporting on a stabbing at about the same time, but at Ariel Junction, near the Samarian city of Ariel. For the moment, we assume the two reports are referring to the same attack.)

The day goes on.

25-Oct-15: Making sense of the Middle East, chapter 389

Said to be Islam's third most sacred site [Image Source]

"Jordan wants Israel to remove Aqsa surveillance cameras"
- Agence France-Presse, December 17, 2013

Said to be Islam's third most sacred site [Image Source]

"Israel agrees to Jordan’s proposal to install cameras at Al Haram Al Sharif"

- Jordan Times, October 25, 2015

Still waiting to see if anyone in the mainstream media thinks this is worthy of comment.

13-Oct-15: Thoughts about rocks through the windshield

File photo

Robert Fisk, a writer for The Independent UK, was driving his car in a remote part of Pakistan in December 2001 when something mechanical happened and he had to stop. While pushing the broken down vehicle off the road, he became aware that

a group of 40 to 50 people gathered. "At first they were reasonably friendly but then a little kid threw a stone at me. More stones followed and then I find myself being punched and beaten in the face... ["UK journalist beaten by Afghan mob", BBC, December 9, 2001]

He wrote that he thought he heard the mob shouting the word "kaffir", an Islamic/Arabic word meaning infidel, a non-adherent to the beliefs of their religious values. Much later, he recorded his feelings about what was happening in a confessional that is a classic of its kind:

They started by shaking hands. We said "Salaam aleikum" – peace be upon you – then the first pebbles flew past my face. A small boy tried to grab my bag. Then another. Then someone punched me in the back. Then young men broke my glasses, began smashing stones into my face and head. I couldn't see for the blood pouring down my forehead and swamping my eyes. And even then, I understood. I couldn't blame them for what they were doing. In fact, if I were [them], I would have done just the same to Robert Fisk. Or any other Westerner I could find. ["My beating by refugees is a symbol of the hatred and fury of this filthy war", Robert Fisk, The Independent (UK)]

In a merciless critique ["The pathology of Robert Fisk"] at the time, the British/American writer and conservative columnist Andrew Sullivan tore Fisk's mea culpa to shreds, calling it

a classic piece of leftist pathology. You have to read it to believe it. Even when people are trying to murder Fisk, he adamantly refuses to see them as morally culpable or even responsible. I’ve heard of self-hatred but this is ridiculous... What it means is that someone – anyone – is either innocent or guilty purely by racial or cultural association. An average Westerner is to be taken as an emblem of an entire culture and treated as such. Any random Westerner will do. Individual notions of responsibility or morality are banished, as one group is labeled blameless and another irredeemably malign. There’s a word for this: it’s racism. And like many other members of the far left, Fisk is himself a proud racist, someone who believes that the color of a person’s skin condemns him automatically and justifies violence against him... [Andrew Sullivan, December 9, 2001]

Sullivan's take-down of the Independent's war correspondent gave rise to the emergence of the now-widely used and useful term "to Fisk". That's defined by The Guardian to mean the practice of

"savaging an argument and scattering the tattered remnants to the four corners of the internet ["Archbishop on end of a good Fisking", The Guardian, June 19, 2005] 

All of that is offered as intro to a small, barely-noticed piece of news reported late last night in Times of Israel over the anonymous byline TIMES OF ISRAEL STAFF. At this point, as far as we can tell, it is published nowhere else:

UN official hurt in stoning: ‘Allah will forgive them’
Mounir Kleibo, who heads the UN bureau of the International Labor Organization in the Palestinian Territories, sustained serious injuries to his jaw after coming under attack by Palestinian rock throwers in East Jerusalem on Friday.
The UN coordinator for development and humanitarian activities in the occupied Palestinian territory, Robert Piper, condemned the attack “on a clearly marked United Nations (UN) vehicle traveling on Route 50 in East Jerusalem, which seriously injured a senior UN official..." Piper’s statement did not identify Kleibo either by name or position. A report in the Hebrew-language NRG website noted that Kleibo’s Facebook profile was overtly pro-Palestinian, despite his being a UN official. Kleibo’s cover picture shows the dome of the al-Aqsa Mosque on Jerusalem’s Temple Mount and his profile picture is the word “Shuhada” (“Martyrdom”) on a black background. In one of his posts, Kleibo wrote, “We mourn not only our shahids but also ourselves, our eyes, our hearts, our consciousness and our humanity.” After the attack - in an update apparently posted from his hospital bed at the Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem’s Ein Kerem neighborhood - Kleibo said that both he and his wife, Tamara, were fine, and then added, “May Allah forgive those who throw the rocks at night”... [Times of Israel, October 12, 2015]

Kleibo's Facebook page

There's some sympathetic background about Kleibo here ("Mounir, you see, has a passion for Palestine and carries an ambitious vision").. His Twitter account appears not to be active (and probably hijacked as well to judge from what's posted there).

We're not psychologists, but it would make our hearts sing to see a professional in the field explain to the rest of us what it takes to bring a successful professional to the state of mind that produces a Fisk-full of self-demeaning and eventually dangerous nonsense.

In the end, if murderous hatred is dumbed down by smart, relatively powerful people into forgivable and perhaps understandable temper tantrums, then what becomes of ordinary notions of right and wrong, good and evil, life and death, and the well-being of our families and our children and our societies? At what point can it be said that a person's moral compass has ceased to function? Or his common sense?

As for the notion of forgiveness as a response to terror, that's something on which we have spoken publicly several times in the past, generally in response to journalists quoting statements made on that theme (statements we reject completely) by Archbishop Desmond Tutu. We will try to pull together a blog post about them in the wake of this Kleibo affair. Sullivan's caustic observation in that 2001 piece gets close to it:

You know the expression: you wouldn’t understand a culture if it actually hit you in the head? [Some people] won’t recognize reality, or abandon their racism, or moderate their spectacular condescension to the inhabitants of the developing world – even when reality, literally, crushingly, punches them in the face.  [Sullivan, December 9, 2001]

If anyone knows anyone in the human resources department at the United Nations or the ILO, this might be a good time to reach out and express some sympathy.

Or fury.

09-Oct-15: Rocks, knives, guns: Cause, effect and culprits [VIDEO]

We think those who view the violence of the past few weeks, and especially these last few days, as the "spontaneous" eruption of "lone wolf" "activism" are living a lie. 

Behind the delusions there is a cold, calculated and very real process that keeps being ignored, daily, by mainstream media editors. We owe it to the innocent victims to drill down into the industry of hatred and political narcissism that makes the pain and damage possible.

A good Sabbath to all. And may it be much, much more peaceful than the week now ending.

24-Sep-15: A day of violence - perhaps not as violent as feared

Hebron, moments before the shooting by an IDF soldier of
a woman whose knife was detected by a security machine and
who evidently pulled it to launch a stabbing attack [Image Source: Reuters] 

There's nothing quite as potent as holidays to expose our neighbours' passion for the sort of lethal violence we described yesterday ["22-Sep-15: What do the Palestinian Arabs think?"]

Tonight is the night after Yom Kippur, the 25 hour day of fasting, introspection and prayer that ended here in Jerusalem about 6 hours ago, and is drawing to a close right now in North and South America. It's also the start of the Muslim festival of Eid el-Adha.

Here's a selective, non-chronological summary of how the day (and the evening before it) passed for those charged with keeping Israelis (of every sort) safe.

• A young woman of about 18 attempted Tuesday to stab a Border Police officer at the Kikar Hashoter security checkpoint in Hevron. She was promptly shot and seriously wounded, and eventually succumbed to her injuries later in the day. No Israelis were harmed. [Israel National News, September 23, 2015]. Haaretz reports that the woman, Hadeel al-Hashlamun (in some places, written as Hadeel al-Hashlamon, was shot after launching a stabbing attack on a soldier. It quotes a preliminary investigation into the incident conducted by the IDF's Judea Regional Brigade commander: he found that a metal detector went off when the Palestinian Arab women walked through the security checkpoint; the soldiers manning the post called on her to stop. She failed to do so, and they then fired warning rounds into the ground in front of her. Then "the soldiers claim she pulled out a knife, and that's when they fired shots at her legs. The soldiers said they opened fire for a second time after the woman tried again to raise the knife."
• Just after midnight on Tuesday, the body of an Arab was found near Beit Haggai, south of Hevron. An initial investigation shows that he was killed while attempting to throw a bomb at a military vehicle. Security forces had been alerted to the scene when local residents spotted an improvised roadblock on the highway. As they combed the area, they heard an explosion and later found the body of the terrorist. He was apparently killed while trying to deploy the bomb against the soldiers. [Israel National News, September 23, 2015] The Reuters version: A Palestinian militant died when a bomb he was trying to throw at Israeli forces blew up near the West Bank city of Hebron overnight, officials from both sides said on Tuesday" [Reuters]
• Rocks were thrown Monday evening at Egged's Line 140 bus to the Samarian community of Beit El. The vehicle's windshield was smashed. Thankfully, no injuries. [Israel National News, September 23, 2015]
• Israel Defense Forces troops manning a post in the Jordan Valley arrested a Palestinian man who approached their position carrying an explosive device, the military said Wednesday. The incident occurred hours after the Yom Kippur holiday ended. The suspect was taken in for interrogation, the army said. [Times of Israel, September 23, 2015]
• Two firebombs were hurled at the at the fence of the Samaria community of Psagot, near Ramallah. Palestinian Arabs were suspected, Israel Radio reported. The explosives failed to ignite and no injuries are reported. [Times of Israel, September 23, 2015]
• Rocks were hurled yet again at a Jerusalem Light Rail tram by Arabs in the North Jerusalem neighborhood of Shuafat. Damage was caused to the vehicle but no injuries. Police are searching for suspects. [Times of Israel, September 23, 2015]
• A car was struck by rocks and damaged on Highway 75. [Israel National News, September 23, 2015]
• Several fires were reported to have been set in Jerusalem during Yom Kippur. Arson is suspected. [Times of Israel, September 23, 2015]
• A firebomb caused damage to the balcony and garden of a home in the Jerusalem mixed (Jewish and Arab) neighborhood of Abu Tor after midnight on Wednesday morning (Yom Kippur). [Times of Israel, September 23, 2015]
• A brush fire in the northern Jerusalem neighborhood of Pisgat Ze’ev, close to Moshe Dayan Boulevard, a major thoroughfare - but almost empty on Yom Kippur - is believed to have been deliberately set. [Times of Israel, September 23, 2015]
• A fire in scrubland near Jerusalem’s Biblical Zoo is also believed to have been caused by an act of arson. [Times of Israel, September 23, 2015]
• A fire was set on Cassuto Street, in the intensely-populated Jerusalem neighborhood of Bayit Vagan, close to a synagogue. Fortunately, no injuries were reported [Times of Israel, September 23, 2015]
• Multiple reports of Arab rock-throwers targeting Israeli Jews in their vehicles during the past 36 hours, including Yom Kippur, in parts of northern Israel ["Arab Violence Erupts in Northern Israel During Yom Kippur", Israel National News, September 23, 2015]: Arabs youths placing boulders in the road to block the entrance to the northern community of Dovav on Monday night after Yom Kippur began. Police detained them for questioning. [Israel National News, September 23, 2015]
• Also: Arab youths threw rocks at a passing car near Hosen Junction on Route 89. No one was injured and there was no damage to the vehicle, though police have still opened an investigation. [Israel National News, September 23, 2015]
• Also: An Israeli vehicle traveling near Golani Junction, a major northern intersection, was hit by rocks. Tiberias police are investigating. [Israel National News, September 23, 2015]

Overall, the enlarged police presence in Jerusalem, along with the closing of security checkpoints between Judea-Samaria and Jerusalem to mark Yom Kippur, have had a positive effect on keeping the violence level relatively subdued.

17-Sep-15: Rocks, rockets, riots, religion, risks

When we pray, Jews face in the direction of Jerusalem, and within Jerusalem
towards the site of the no-longer-standing Temple. This is true no matter where
in the world we are at that moment. Moslems, as this image shows, when in
Jerusalem, turn their backs to the Temple Mount. This photo appeared in a blog
post we published a year ago here 

Here's one small peek into what it means, in practical day-to-day-living terms, to have neighbors for whom terrorism and violence directed both at us and at their own populations, have zero downside.

The decision to open the valve a little or a lot - encouraging or allowing street violence, rocket fire, petrol bombs, stabbings - comes at close to zero cost. Worse, the outbursts of Palestinian Arab violence almost always pay dividends.

Why this works is something few people outside the region understand. But work it most assuredly does, in the satanic terms of the political and social culture embraced by those in charge of those places.

As we have been writing here ["16-Sep-15: Jerusalem Watch | Not-so-new New Year violence"], there is currently a state of serious high tension in Jerusalem. Thuggish young men, and not so young women, have clearly been given the signal to make maximum trouble. Their media, and especially cartoons, are in full incitement mode. Some of their Islamic holy sites are chief among the places where trouble and violence are designed - by them - to erupt.

No mainstream Western journalist, as far as we know, has raised the question this week that Israelis ponder all the time: if these mosques and other religion-rich sites have such holy status to Islamic believers, why do they treat them with what seems to us like naked contempt? Not just piling up rocks inside their mosques and ripping out fixtures to create stockpiles for hurling at Israeli soldiers, but even such prosaic matters as playing football inside and around the place they want us to call the Noble Sanctuary. (When did anyone ever see soccer played by observant Catholics, or anyone else, on the smooth flat surface of St Peter's Square in Vatican City?) There are some startling examples and pictures in a post of ours from a year ago: "06-Oct-14: Oh Jerusalem"

So when Hamas and the Fatah leadership of the Palestinian Authority again threaten to deliver more trouble, more violence, more "anger", it's worrying because we know they pay no price at all for this hold-me-back irresponsibility. And no Western media and very few Western political figures have ever shown an appetite to reign them in.

There is a price, however, that has to be paid. And it's generally paid by Israelis. Here's a clear example. From the Jerusalem Post today:

The Israeli military has deployed the Iron Dome rocket interceptor on the outskirts of the southern city of Ashdod in anticipation of more rioting in Jerusalem, Channel 10 reported on Thursday morning. Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip, has declared Friday "a day of rage" in response to recent developments on Temple Mount.
Palestinian and Arab anger has percolated in recent days over claims that Israel is provoking Muslims on Temple Mount.

Holy Islamic site of vast significance to the Arab people in
general and Palestinian Arabs in particular. Ignore the
football playing - mainstream news reporters surely do. [Image Source]

Note that the pathetically mis-labeled "moderate" PA leadership is right at the center of the rable-rousing, replete with insulting remarks about Jewish souls and Jewish soles:

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas vowed on Wednesday that his countrymen won’t allow Israelis to “desecrate” Islamic and Christian holy sites in Jerusalem.
“Al-Aksa is ours and so is the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. They have no right to desecrate them with their filthy feet. We won’t allow them to do so and we will do whatever we can to defend Jerusalem,” Abbas said in his Ramallah office during a meeting with east Jerusalem activists.
Abbas said the Palestinians were determined to prevent Israel from passing its scheme to “divide” the Aksa Mosque compound.
“There will be no Palestinian state without Jerusalem,” he stressed. “We are in Jerusalem and we will stay in it to defend our Islamic and Christian holy sites. We’re not going to leave our country.”
He praised Muslim male and female worshipers whose job it is to harass Jewish visitors to the Temple Mount.
“Each drop of blood that was spilled in Jerusalem is pure blood as long as it’s for the sake of Allah. Every shahid (martyr) will be in heaven and every wounded person will be rewarded, by Allah’s will.” [Jerusalem Post, September 17, 2015] 

What are the chances that rocket fire directed at anything Israeli in southern Israel is going to happen in the next 24 hours? Your answer will likely depend on how high a price you believe the Palestinian Arabs making the decision to let those rockets blast will be paying. In this neighbourhood, the price is close to zero, which is why an Iron Dome battery is being deployed there at this moment.

16-Sep-15: Jerusalem Watch | Not-so-new New Year violence

Israel has just emerged from two days of national and religious observance of the New Year, and the start of the Ten Days of Penitence leading up to the Day of Atonement, Yom Kippur which falls on Wednesday September 23.

Jerusalem, explicitly and by name, appears over and again in the ancient prayers recited by Jews in every corner of the world. Today's Jerusalem, no less on the minds of Jews everywhere, has been the target of escalating violence from specific quarters and with not-so-mysterious motivations. Here's our brief run-down of the past two days.

• Violence was clearly on the minds of Old City Arabs by Sunday, the eve of Rosh Hashana. "The clashes began Sunday morning, with security forces seizing pipe bombs at the site in an operation carried out hours before Jews prepared to celebrate the Jewish New Year. The Shin Bet security service alerted police to the cache, apparently an effort by Palestinians to stock up on bombs, flares and rocks ahead of an organized riot." [Times of Israel, September 13, 2015] There's little doubt the pre-emptive move by the police, along with good field intelligence, prevented a worse outcome.

Pipe bombs were seized in an Israel Police raid on the Temple Mount mosque on Sunday.
This image was posted by Gilad Erdan, MK, Minister for Public Security [Image Source]

• From our Jerusalem home, we have seen considerable police helicopter activity above the Old City and Jerusalem's Arab suburbs tonight (it's now well after midnight, and signs of that activity have passed). 
• Times of Israel quotes Israel Police Acting Police Commissioner Bentzi Sau saying tonight that there is currently an open-ended upgrading of Israel’s security presence in the capital with hundreds of extra officers on duty. The goal is to restore peace, prevent additional Arab violence and carry out arrests of those responsible for the numerous attacks of the past few days.
• The same report says the police have intelligence about plans for ongoing Arab-initiated violence at and around the Temple Mount, including "stone-throwing and petrol-bomb throwing at police" like the attacks that have been happening since Sunday. 
• Those police reports quoted in the Times of Israel report mention that "dozens of Palestinian youths stayed overnight in the al-Aqsa Mosque, and prepared petrol bombs, rocks, fireworks and other means to attack police and Jewish visitors to the holy site. Security officials blamed the Muslim authorities at the site for allowing it to be abused." Via the social media, images have been circulating by both Arab and non-Arab posters, including these:

Times of Israel published this image from a video released by the Israel Police Spokesman showing Palestinian Arabs gearing up for a confrontation on Jerusalem's Temple Mount, September 13, 2015. [Image Source]

Ready for prayer or other possibilities: Inside Al Aqsa mosque on Jerusalem's Temple Mount this week [Image Source] 

Rocks stockpiled and walls taken down, inside Al Aqsa mosque on Monday [Image Source]

Al-Aqsa mosque aftermath [Via Alquds News yesterday]

• Three Israelis, all of them civilians, were injured in the Old City of Jerusalem during Tuesday morning, the second day of Rosh Hashana, in an attack by a Palestinian Arab. The perpetrator was arrested.
• Times of Israel: "In the Arab world, meanwhile, leaders issued a stream of denunciations of Israel’s actions at the site, with Jordan’s King Abdullah warning that bilateral ties would be affected if the violence continued."
• Reuters on Monday: "The United States is deeply concerned by the increase in violence and escalating tensions surrounding the Haram al-Sharif/Temple Mount," said State Department spokesman John Kirby. "We strongly condemn all acts of violence. It is absolutely critical that all sides exercise restraint, refrain from provocative actions and rhetoric and preserve unchanged the historic status quo on the Haram al-Sharif/Temple Mount."
• Sunday night: Around midnight, a vehicle came under rock attack in the Armon Hanatziv/Talpiot East neighborhood of southern Jerusalem. The spokesperson for Israel Police said the driver of the car evidently lost control and crashed into an electricity pole. The driver, Alexander Levlovitz, a 64-year-old Jerusalem resident, later died of his injuries at Hadassah-Ein Kerem hospital. Two other passengers in his vehicle, so far un-named, were lightly injured. They were driving home from a Jewish New Year celebration. Jerusalemites are familiar with the long history of rock-hurling emanating from Jabel Mukaber, an Arab neighbourhood that abuts Talpiot East: we wrote about its violent history some months ago: see "20-May-15: Car-ramming attack again in Jerusalem"

The Israeli vehicle that came under rock-hurling attack on Sunday night [Image Source]

• Oddly, neither Reuters nor the State Department appeared to have anything to say about the killing of the Israeli driver, or the seizing of the unexploded pipe bombs.

01-Sep-15: A tale of two villages: one devoted to non-violence, another that actually exists

The Tamimi boy from Nabi Saleh with his arm in a plaster caste, being
energetic and mobile in a screen-capture taken just moments before
he was photographed headlocked by an IDF soldier. 
The source is this video clip.

The events about which we wrote here on Sunday ["29-Aug-15: Revisiting a Palestinian Arab village and its monsters"] have triggered starkly contrasting reactions.

In one corner are those who see the villagers of Nabi Saleh as peace-loving, non-violent nobility, battling to preserve dignity and fields.

In the other, those who are left dumbfounded by the brazen manipulation of women and girls, naked child-abuse, and contrived exploitation of public opinion via the villagers' use of calculated provocations, staged clashes and strategically-placed photographers. Without the presence of those camera men, none of the drama would be happening.

Even if this were not the hamlet that spawned, encouraged, celebrated and then idolized the woman who planted a bomb (a human bomb) in a Jerusalem pizzeria in order to kill as many Jewish children as possible, and succeeded, we would surely have been in that first corner. 

Same boy, different circumstances some minutes later

We explained our rationale in a March 2013 post ["A little village in the hills, and the monsters it spawns"]. We wrote it in response to a cover story in the New York Times Magazine whose distortions, tendentiousness and adoration of murderous violence literally sickened us. We expressed our criticism in a letter to the editors at the New York Times who ignored us. We then found our own way to show our disgust; you can read about that here. We remain appalled and infuriated by some of the journalism we see them practice there.

Those who see only giants and heroes in that hateful little Palestinian Arab town probably share the view, typical of its kind, that asserts

the village is struggling for humanity, justice, peace and dignity, and... they need their freedom [via a far-left Israeli publication, yesterday]

But there are Arabic-language sources that tell us with far greater candor and clarity what really drives Nabi Saleh's Tamimis. Those Arabic texts naturally were never intended to be seen by people like us and those who read our posts. But web tools make them easy to find.

* * * 

Take for example Wikipedia's Arabic-language entry on Nabi Saleh. As we wrote here on Saturday night, someone doctored the Wikipedia text shortly after we first publicized it. Every reference to the village people's adoration of jihad, martyrdom and death to the Israelis was erased. But this past weekend, we found the original Arabic text as it had appeared on Wikipedia in May 2013. We saved the original Arabic text to here, and a partial English translation to here. They are archived now thanks to the wonders of the Internet, and safe (we think) from the destructive attentions of those who feel compelled to re-invent the past. 

That deleted Wikipedia text is the village of Nabi Saleh paying tribute to its own viciously violent true self: to its warriors, to its killers, to its dead fighters, and above all to its favourite daughter, the one who smiles on-camera when she recalls how many innocent Jewish children she blew to pieces in the Sbarro pizzeria, our daughter Malki among them.

Virtually everyone in Nabi Saleh is a member of the Tamimi clan. That includes our daughter's murderer and the murderer's husband who is also her cousin - and also a convicted murder of Jews. And also freed in the catastrophic Shalit Deal four years ago. (They now live in Amman, Jordan). And also a hero of those self-proclaimed peace-loving, non-violent villagers.

* * * 

An expert on that form of terror, Dr Anat Berko who authored "The Smarter Bomb: Women and Children as Suicide Bombers", offers some sharp and relevant observations in an interview published today in Algemeiner. Noting that Palestinian Arab society, like virtually every other part of Arab society, is patriarchal, she points out that they systematically use women and children as front-line combatants. And as so often happens with the actions of people lacking scruples and fundamental morality, it pays off:

[T]he West will always view women and children as non-combatants. This is why they are often used as shields for the men. We have seen this in violent demonstrations in the West Bank and Gaza, where the men literally hide under the skirts of females. We saw it this week in the viral video of the IDF soldier being attacked by a group of females – even bitten by a girl – while he was trying to stop a Palestinian boy throwing rocks at Israeli soldiers. Any wounds sustained by women and children are automatically viewed in the West as war crimes committed by Israel...

which is plainly true. But in reality, what is happening is that

the crime against these women and children is being committed by the leaders of their society – who raise them to know nothing but hate – and by the terror masters, who treat them like cannon fodder. In this ongoing war, what we call non-combatants are actually combatants... and women and children are their ultimate weapons, because the West sees them as innocents. [Dr Anat Berko in Algemeiner, August 31, 2015]

In the company of men: The Tamimi child is taken to Turkey
to be praised for her 'bravery', December 2012 - and groomed for
more of the same [Image Source]

The West, but not so much the East. The Tamimi child (the one widely known today as Shirley Temper) who features prominently in this past weekend's video, and in virtually every video issuing forth for years via Tamimi Press, her father's well-funded Nabi Saleh publicity machine, received an award for 'bravery' in Turkey in December 2012. She was thirteen years old:

Tamimi said she was proud to get the Handala award which would enhance her strength... Handala Courage Award, handed out by the Basaksehir Municipality, was named after the cartoon character Handala created by Palestinian cartoonist Naji Salim al-Ali noted for the political criticism of the Arab regimes and Israel in his works. Visiting Turkey as being the guest of Basaksehir Municipality of Istanbul, 13-year-old Tamimi attended a series of events ahead of the award ceremony and opened an art exhibition titled "Being children in Palestine". She thanked Turkish children for welcoming her as she was one of them, and called on the Palestinian children to stand tall, at the ceremony. [TimeTurk, December 27, 2012]

We're not so sure the children heard her. But the many middle-aged men in the photo above did. It's their will she is doing. She evidently pleases them.

* * *

How obvious is the ongoing abuse of women and children in bucolic Nabi Saleh? The answer is pretty clear in the video clips of Friday's staged confrontation. Take this video clip for instance. It's from Tamimi Press, the propaganda business operated by Shirley Temper's father,

At the start of the "clash", we see a group of mostly men, plus two or three women and girls setting off down the road to find the soldiers:

A few minutes later, it's men only as they launch into rock-hurling and sling-shot firing at the Israelis:

Then more of the same, with no women or girls to be seen:

And then finally, the now-gone-viral iconic scene of an IDF soldier, armed with lethal weapons that remain carefully under his control, suffering a biting- and manhandling-attack by women and children along with a freelance photographer:

So where are the rock-hurling, sling-shot-firing macho fellows, the men, whose manly voices are heard singing songs of triumph at the start of the video just a few minutes earlier? The men - where are the men? 

That's a question for the camera operator. If anyone knows what sort of image the global market needs to be fed, needs to buy, it's the camera person. And men are not part of it. You do what you need to do. This is war - that sort of war.

Nabi Saleh's children jubilant as they prepare to get back several
of their beloved convicted murderers, October 2011 [Image Source]

* * *

When the convicted and unrepentant mass-murderer Ahlam Tamimi, the architect of the Sbarro massacre and already a celebrity, was about to walk free in the Shalit Deal, the joyous public celebrations in Nabi Saleh featured prominently in media coverage. 

(Three other Tamimis, all males, all convicted of the vicious 1993 murder of Chaim Mizrachi, a man with whom they had friendly relations, all sentenced to life terms, were due to be freed at the same time. Two of them - Nizar Samir Mahmud al-Tamimi and Ahmad Yusuf Mahmud al-Tamimi were in fact let loose and returned immediately to Nabi Saleh as heroes. The third, Sa’id Rushdi Mohammad At-Tamimi, was released in a separate round of US-inspired terrorist releases two years later in December 2013. The connection of these three convicted Nabi Saleh killers to non-violence, dignity and human rights is somewhat unclear to us.)

Nabi Saleh, October 2011. The woman holding the portrait
of our daughter's murderer is the murderer's sister, Eftikhar
Tamimi [Image Source]

Four Nabi Saleh murderers freed long before serving out their sentences, and at the same time subverting Israeli justice - clearly a cause for celebration in villagers' eyes. The pretense of Nabi Saleh's ersatz devotion to non-violence was dumped for a while as the joy of seeing killers returned to their homes in triumph kicked in. See "The anthem of Nabi Saleh: “Release our prisoners or arrest us all”" for more background.

* * *

The repurposing of Palestinian Arab women, and especially girls, for terrorist warfare took on a new reality in the past few weeks. An Al-Monitor reports ["Hamas concludes first-ever military training camp for girls", August 1, 2015] on a summer training program that was opened up for teen-age females in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip. Called "First al-Quds Army Camp" it was created

to prepare academically exceptional girls aged 12-18 for the liberation battle of Palestine... Hamas has never organized a female training camp before. Around 1,000 girls attend the camp, which offered a special curriculum to resist the occupation taught by women affiliated with the Hamas movement. These women enjoy extensive military experience and know how to intellectually mobilize people against the occupation. Camp director Rajaa al-Halabi told Al-Monitor, "The goal of the First al-Quds Army camp is to prepare girls for self-defense and for future battles against the occupation." [Al-Monitor]

Dr Anat Berko naturally looks beyond the self-serving rhetoric of the Islamists who created it:

"Women in Palestinian society have always been abused; training them to become fighters along with the men is not an act of equality, but rather another form of abuse." Berko, who spent years interviewing would-be and actual terrorists in Israeli jails, has frequently pointed out that the terror masters and their dispatchers never send their own children on suicide missions. [The camp] is part of the wider campaign of Hamas and other groups to take advantage of and manipulate the population. "It is the socialization of kids through terror,” she said. “It is child abuse, plain and simple. But where is the international outrage about it?" [Algemeiner]

There's no good answer to her question. Billions of dollars flow annually into the coffers of global child-protection and children's rights organizations like UNICEF, Defence for Children International, UNESCO, Child Rights International Network, the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, the Washington-based Jerusalem Fund, Save the Children, Arab Council for Childhood Development and others.

Strangely, the Islamist regimes and the terrorist training they inflict on the children fated to live under their boots routinely get ignored by all of them. Why? Because.

(We have written about this ongoing Arab child-abuse tragedy several times: "24-Jan-13: Sacrificing the lives of an entire generation of adolescents on their altar of hatred, the thugs of Hamas boast of plans to create a children's army"; "10-Feb-15: The Islamists of Gaza: Yet again preparing children to kill and be killed" and "12-Feb-15: It's Red Hand Day. Do you know where the children are?" The information we pulled together is open source and available to anyone who wants to find it.]

Among the last of the photos we have of our murdered
daughter is this one from the few days she spent in
August 2001 being a camp counselor to special-needs
children 

* * *

Our daughter Malki, whose life was stolen from us when she was the same age as little Shirley Temper is today, spent most of her last week of life at a summer camp too, as

a volunteer counselor at a summer camp for children with developmental delays and special needs. The camp takes place each summer in the north of Israel, and involves many hundreds of participants from all parts of the country. It's organized by Etgarim, an association with some lovely people running it. Malki and her friend Rachel traveled up north without being sure they would be accepted as volunteers. They were, in the end, and Malki came back from there smiling from ear to ear. She loved everything about it. She was murdered a few days afterwards, and we heard most of the stories we know about that camp from the other counsellors and the organizers... ["11-Aug-06: Good and evil"]

Malki's mother Frimet wrote this nine years ago:

During the five days they were there assisting the counselors, Malki's gentle, caring way touched everyone. Many of the people associated with Etgarim travelled long distances to comfort us during the Shiva - one trekked all the way from Kiryat Shmona at Israel's northernmost edge and back in one day, a four hour drive each way-and related incredible stories to us about Malki.
One of the counsellors who had supervised her remembered the farewell chat he had conducted with the volunteers the night before their return home. When he asked each of the volunteers to stand up and tell the group what they viewed as the most important feature of their stint, they all emphasized the importance of and satisfaction gained from giving to others. Malki was the last one to speak. We were told that she was the only one who spoke of what she had gained - of the happiness she had experienced in working with the children. ["27-Nov-06: Today Would Have Been Our Daughter's 21st Birthday"]

We're thinking still of Malki's gentle smile, and struggling even now with the fact that she will never reach her sixteenth birthday. And trying to make sense of the summer camps, role-models and futures our neighbours have created for their children.