Screen cap from the Israel Police video report [here]
The general sense of fury being projected by a wounded and failed Palestinian Authority leadership in the wake of Israel's suddenly open 'normalized' relationship with the United Arab Emirates received its depressingly predictable expression last night.
Here in Jerusalem, near Lion's Gate (שער האריות) in the Old City at around 8:40 pm Monday night, shortly before Muslim evening prayers and close to the Bab Huta entrance (one of several) to the Temple Mount, an attacker wearing a protective face mask launched an explosive knifing attack. His victim was a 19 year old armed Israeli security officer who came out of it with moderate injuries but alive and recovering.
The attacker was almost immediately shot by security personnel and died of his injuries. Palestinian Arab news reports like this one predictably say the young Arrab was 'executed'.
The security camera video [here] makes plain the usual procedure: young Arab male, walking along one of the Old City paths, lunges without warning towards a security forces member standing guard to protect the peace, whips a knife out of his clothing. Thrusts a hand holding the weapon towards the upper body of the Israel, causing what undoubtedly would be the first of several lethal wounds if no one stops him. But he is stopped by the shots of another alert Israel Border Guard officer and falls to the ground.
Arabic-language news reports (like this one from the official Palestinian Press Agency, archived here) say (translated from the Arabic original) "the Israeli occupation forces executed a Palestinian youth", that "the martyr... is from the Shuafat refugee camp in Jerusalem" and "he is 30 years old".
The murderous assault comes against the background of what a Times of Israel report calls "a general lull in terror activity in the capital, which had not seen a stabbing attack in nearly three months".
The teenage border guard, presumably in the midst of his compulsory national service, was taken to hospital (Yediot Aharonot says Shaarei Zedek; Times of Israel reports Hadassah Mount Scopus Medical Center) for emergency treatment. Initial first aid was given at the site by Magen David Adom medics. The hospital reports that he sustained stab wounds to the chest and is "stable and fully conscious”.
Haaretzquotes Israel Police announcing that the Temple Mount gateswere closed immediately after the knifing. Social media reports (like this) say that in the Shuafat neighborhood of north Jerusalem there were clashes in the hours that followed between Israel Police and locals.
The source caption reads: "The Shuafat Refugee Camp from the Jewish neighborhood of Pisgat Ze’ev, in northeast Jerusalem. (Miriam Alster/Flash90 )" [Image Source]
As we write this, there has been very little media attention - and practically none outside Israel - but to us it seems a serious development.
Israel Police investigators, arriving on the scene around 11:00 pm, found additional explosive material in the fourth-floor apartment where the explosion happened. Eight suspects are now under arrest and being interrogated. No names have been released so far, and none of their affiliations (affiliations are a big deal in reporting on terrorism). One individual suffered critical injuries in the explosion and was hospitalized. Another man is much less injured.
That part of Shuafat is usually termed "refugee camp" in media reports. In reality, it's a suburban neighborhood of Jerusalem which is served by the indispensable Jerusalem Light Rail's one and only line (in fact, the light rail system's eastern terminus is at Shuafat).
And while it's certainly not the most gorgeous part of town, it's not exactly a concentration camp as we showed in a post some years ago ["07-Nov-14: Hovels? Shanties? A Palestinian Arab refugee camp"]. It's separated from the rest of the city by the meandering West Bank security barrier and that has a negative impact on easy of access - not to their own communities but to ours - and on law and order. You can get a sense of the questions that arise, and the absence of answers, here: "Stuck between Israel and the PA, Shuafat refugee camp seethes"[ Avi Issacharoff in Times of Israel, June 7, 2015]. Can UNRWA help them? Can the PA? Hamas? It hardly matters because the mess that is Shuafat today seems to serve the needs of all of them.
Paradise? No, not at all. But hardly a shanty town either, and very little like what people imagine when the term 'refugee camp' is deployed to describe the place.
As today's Jerusalem Post article points out, a substantial spike in terrorist activity was reported in Shuafat after the separation barrier was established, and that became even more pronounced once the “knife intifada” got going in 2015. Click here to see what we have reported about troubles emanating from Shuafat.
The Jerusalem Light Rail has come under frequent attack inside and
from Shuafat. This scene is from riots right on the tracks in Shuafat in
July 2014 [Getty Images]
The tensions in that part of Jerusalem are no secret. The police leaving the scene last night got involved in what are being called clashes with local residents - who were rioting - but a Jerusalem Police spokesman said no injuries were reported.
We're not aware of any Palestinian Arab sources who seem to see the connection among (a) the riots that meet Israeli service providers; (b) the steady stream of Arab-on-Israeli terrorist activities carried out by Shuafat residents; (c) the passion of those residents to be entirely disconnected from Israeli control; and (d) the low level of Israeli services being provided to the neighborhood.
Israel National News is reporting the interception of a terror-minded, armed Palestinian Arab today on his way to the center of Jerusalem and an appointment with destiny:
Police captured an Arab suspect from Shuafat neighborhood in northeastern Jerusalem as he made his way to the center of town with a concealed knife, following a tip by an Arab woman who observed him with the weapon.
The woman, also a resident of Shuafat, reportedly witnessed the suspect placing a sharp object in his bag before boarding a bus towards downtown Jerusalem.
After witnessing this, the woman contacted police stationed near the entrance of Shuafat, informing them of the suspect’s concealed weapon.
Israel Police officers and a unit of Border Police officers tracked down the suspect’s bus based on the woman’s tip, and found a knife inside of a bag which had been concealed underneath the suspect’s bus seat.
The suspect, a man in his 20s, was arrested and taken for interrogation.
Though the report says the would-be attacker took a bus, the fact is that getting into the center of the capital from Shuafat on Jerusalem's north side which used to be a complicated task until the Jerusalem Light Rail - routinely pelted with rocks in and around Shuafat - began operating on August 19, 2011, six years ago almost to the day, is now a breeze. The large numbers of Arabs shopping and strolling in the center of Jerusalem testify to its positive impact.
If more details emerge of the thwarted attack we will report them here.
Shuafat: The attacker threw his knife to the ground as demanded by the security personnel [Social media]
Israel National News reported a short while ago that another attempted stabbing attack was foiled this afternoon (Wednesday) on Jerusalem's northern edge.
An Arab male stepped off a bus at the entrance to the Shuafat neighborhood around 1:00 o'clock and, as required by the signs and by well-known practice, approached the adjacent IDF security checkpoint; it's there so that people arriving on public transportation can show they hold valid Israeli ID or valid entry permits. This fellow drew a large and fearsome looking knife from where he had been concealing it on his person and charged at the officers manning the checkpoint. Attacks like this often end in one or more deaths but not today; the personnel manning the security post drew their weapons and ordered the would-be attacker to put the knife down. That's what he did and that's why he is now under arrest and alive. No one was injured.
The knifer is now helping the police with their enquiries.
Over at the Palestinian Arab media business, Ma'an News Agency, they say the knifer is 21 years old and a resident of Shuafat. Quoting a Fatah source, they give his name as Wissam al-Dibs. They entirely fail to mention the ongoing high-pressure incitement in Palestinian Arab circles over the past eighteen months encouraging knifing attacks on Israelis - civilians and military; adults and children.
We're sure they will correct this in their next knifing report. They might also mention one of the motivations - beyond the obvious urging of their political and religious leaders - as reported in the Los Angeles Times nine months ago:
“They want to escape the difficult situation that they are in. Whether it’s depression, lack of success in school, or a fight between their parents. They are looking to escape their reality,’’ said Kadoura Fares, who heads the Palestinian Prisoners’ Club, a nonprofit group devoted to providing assistance to prisoners held in Israel and their families. Fares estimated that one-fifth of the knife confrontations involve distraught Palestinian youths. “In our culture, suicide for no reason isn’t honorable,” he said. “If they try to confront a soldier, however, it’s looked on with more respect.’’ In the United States, such confrontations are known colloquially as “suicide by cop.’’ ["Politics isn't the only motive driving Palestinian knife attacks on Israeli soldiers", LA Times, August 7, 2016]
The headline is not accurate. Arab-on-Israeli knifings have been directed at individuals from every part of Israeli society. Click "knifing" or "Stabbing" to see how many we have covered in our past posts.
Jerusalem's Teddy Kollek Stadium: One of the intended targets of
the terrorists [Image Source]
If you have been watching news reports over the past two weeks of Israel Police activity in the eastern and northern neighbourhoods of Jerusalem, you will be aware that there has been speculation about what's behind it. Turns out there was a focused investigation the details of which were embargoed.
The matter came before a court this morning, the eve of Rosh Hashana (Jewish New Year),and is now public knowledge.
Six Jerusalem Arabs have been indicted for allegedly working to establish a cell of the ISIS terror organization inside Israel. The six were charged in a Jerusalem court of security offenses, assisting an enemy in war-time, and association with a terror group. The suspects are residents of the Shuafat and Anata neighborhoods. According to the indictment, from 2015 until August 2016, the suspects made efforts to enlist in ISIS and establish an ISIS cell inside Israel. Among other activities, the six organized study sessions to spread the terror group’s radical ideology. [They] reportedly planned terror attacks against Jews in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.
Haaretz initially (also around 10:00 am today) said
The Jerusalem District Prosecution, which filed the indictments, claims that the some of the suspects attempted to leave Israel to join Islamic State in Syria, and also planned to carry out attacks in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. The six suspects also established a study group to memorize ISIS' ideology, according to the prosecution. In August, five Israeli Arab men from the north were sentenced to prison terms ranging from two-and-a-half to six years for attempting to join ISIS.
Now (12 noon, Sunday) that same Haaretz story is substantially expanded with more details:
The Jerusalem District Prosecution filed two indictments, one to the local district court and another to the magistrate's court, against the six suspects from the Shoafat refugee camp and the neighborhood of Anata. The suspects, who were detained during an arrest operation some 10 days ago, stand accused of establishing an ISIS cell, attempting to reach Egypt or Syria to join forces with ISIS fighters and of planning to carry out attacks in Israel on behalf of the terror group.
According to the indictment, 29-year-old Ahmad Shweiky set up the network in 2015. He allegedly established a study group that met once a week to study ISIS' ideology. The group's members allegedly cut their hair, grew their beards and folded the hem of their pants, as is customary among ISIS members. About six months ago, two of the suspects – Amer Al-Baiyeh and Mohammed Hamid – are said to have traveled to the Egyptian border near Eilat to examine the possibility of crossing it to Sinai to join ISIS-affiliated fighters. They then attempted to obtain visas to Egypt but failed.
In June 2016, two of the suspects allegedly traveled to Turkey via Jordan in order to cross the border into Syria. They reached the city of Gaziantep but were caught by Turkish police, detained and expelled back to Jordan, before returning to Israel.
Once back in Israel, they began planning to carry out an attack, according to the indictment. They first considered purchasing weapons to carry out a shooting attack at a Tel Aviv beach, and later planned to make explosives. They considered carrying out, among other things, an attack near the Teddy Stadium in southwest Jerusalem or government buildings in the capital. They had managed to save up some 1,000 shekels in order to finance the attack until they were detained. After one of the suspects was arrested, two others planned to kidnap a soldier...
Since then, there have been dozens more stabbings, shootings and car-rammings. Yesterday, there were multiple such attacks. But one of them is in a class of its own. It's the subject of this post.
The photo [in that post] indicates at least one of the attackers is young - to our eyes, 15 or even less. The second attacker is not shown; he was evidently shot and is probably not in good shape. We don't know names, or where they live, or the condition of the one shot... [T]he Light Rail security guard, who was moderately wounded in the attack, managed to fire his weapon toward the two attackers, wounding one according to the police. He received emergency treatment at at the scene and then rushed to Jerusalem's Shaarei Zedek Medical Center. He is about 25, and has stab wounds to the upper body.
A life changing experience for the guard who, thankfully, is said to be doing well today at Shaarei Zedek Medical Center in Jerusalem. And the attackers? It may have changed their lives too. Or not.
What we know about them is mundane and not very revealing other than that, on any view, they are children and cousins. Times of Israel says both Moawiyah Alkam and Ali Alkam live in the northern part of Jerusalem, one in Beit Hanina, the other in the Shuafat neighborhood. The one who was shot (according to this source, the younger of the two) received emergency treatment at the scene from Israeli paramedics and was then rushed to Jerusalem's Hadassah Ein Kerem hospital. The initial report had him in serious condition, unconscious and on a ventilator while the second child is evidently unhurt, and held by police after a court order today authorized seven days of detention. The boy who was shot is today described as being in moderate condition. Lucky for him, the medical treatment provided by the Zionists he has been raised to loath is helping to save his life. The Arabic-language social media are, as we have come to expect, completely with the boys. The Hamas-aligned Shehab news agency, based in Gaza, posted an outraged Tweet yesterday [here] with an embedded video clip [here] showing Israeli security personnel vigorously checking one of the two boys for concealed weapons. "Brutal occupation" are the opening words. Another Arabic-language twit says the arrest of the knifers was "barbaric". The atmospherics could hardly be clearer: there was an act of evil, in the eyes of the Arab world, and it was done by the Israelis against the Palestinian Arab boys. No other approach is visible when you look at their news reports and social media. What was on the minds of the young marauders? An Israel National News report says the younger of the attackers, Muawiyyeh Alkam, told police without evident shame that they set out to perform an act of vengeance following the death of another Alkam cousin "who was murdered at Damascus Gate" in their words. That's evidently a reference to Muhammad Saed Ali, 19, another resident of Shuafat, north Jerusalem, who viciously stabbed three Israelis at the entrance to Jerusalem's Old City on October 12, 2015, before being himself stopped and killed by armed security personnel. (We wrote about that here.) And why, it might be asked, does a failed act of attempted murder need to be avenged? Because those attacks are ritually turned on their heads in the Arabic media, with the attackers portrayed as victims, and the victims demonized and presented as usurpers and colonizers. It's a dangerous, immoral and expensive strategy - expensive in terms of Arab lives lost and wasted. The abuse of the Alkam children continues today. One of their uncles, according to Times of Israel, does not believe they were even involved in the attack.
"...I will tell you the truth, we have no faith in the police. We have already seen in other cases, in Hebron and even in Jerusalem, they make up stories and even killed a Jew they suspected of being an Arab,” Sheikh Abdullah Alkam said Tuesday afternoon, referring to the shooting death of a yeshiva student during a confrontation with troops last month. “Maybe they planted a knife on them, I don’t know. We want to first check what happened. I’m their eldest uncle and I was to check everything carefully."
Security camera video shows the children stabbing the security man on board the tram [Source]
But without actually pausing to check a single thing, or to view the video we embedded above, devoted uncle moves quickly into justification mode: as he understands it, the boys and their cohort
see how soldiers act at checkpoints, they see how nice it is in Pisgat Ze’ev and French Hill,” he said, referring to two Jewish neighborhoods of East Jerusalem. “And what do they have? There isn’t even a garbage truck. The streets look like hell. A hundred thousand people without normal services living in harsh conditions.”
Which is as good a case as any for sticking knives into security personnel on a fancy and fast tram that brings Palestinian Arabs from their version of hell into the heart of modern Jerusalem.
But it's clear the real hell for them and their uncles is in trying to make sense of modern, open, bustling, prosperous Jerusalem where Arabs are treated more or less like Jews, and where bullet wounds are treated by hospital staff - Jews, Christians, Moslems - who don't give a damn about the political craziness their patients carry around between their ears.
How they cope with this, given what's pumped into them by their social media and newspapers and uncles, is a puzzle.
What does life offer yesterday's child attackers? Very likely the unconditional support of family and community who will stand by them through thick and thin, through criminal charges of attempted murder and terrorism. What comes with that is constant exposure and reinforcement of the sort of message that the poster at the top of this article conveys: the higher purpose of young Arabs is to kill them some Israelis. What that will not include is religious, moral or ethical doubt. If they have encountered doubt so far, it's not evident in their lives or the lives of the other perpetrators of terrorism whose deeds we have examined from a distance.
All this makes for near-impossible relations. How do you make peace with people who hate the very notion?
We know. There are readers who believe there are sober, serious voices among the Palestinian Arabs calling for tolerance, compromise, an end to acts of violence and terror, a better life for their own sons and daughters. Trouble is, as much as we want to hear those voices, they are impossible to find [see "11-May-14: Still searching for outraged moderate Palestinian Arab voices"]. Instead, the length and breadth of their society is infected with messages of hatred, the fabrication of blood libels to ensure even more acts of hatred, a cacophony of perverse calls for more killing, more revenge, more "heroism" of the sort that yesterday's two boys with knives embody.
Shabbat ended here in Jerusalem about four hours ago. The sirens of police and emergency vehicles throughout the night and day ensured that the drama unfolding in this city was never far from most people's thoughts, notwithstanding the specialness of the day and its message of peace.
A survey of the day's events:
Around the middle of this morning, two Jewish men, wearing the traditional black Sabbath garb that marks them as belonging to the Haredi sector, were attacked while walking home from Sabbath prayers at a local synagogue in the Nevi'im Street neighbourhood of Jerusalem adjoining the Old City. Medics who rushed to the scene found both men "on their feet... conscious and in stable condition", according to a Times of Israel report. One was moderately injured while other other sustained light wounds. Both, suffering from stab wounds to the upper part of the body, were rushed to Shaare Zedek Medical Center for emergency treatment. Police arriving at the site of the attack "saw the terrorist with a knife in his hand and called on him to halt. The terrorist ran towards them with his weapon and the two cocked their weapons, fired at him and neutralized him. The attacker was identified as Ishak Badran of Kafr Aqab in East Jerusalem." His life ended at the age of 16. In the Palestinian Arab media, they're saluting him today as "the child martyr". A photograph doing the rounds today on Twitter [here] purports to show him holding the knife before police did what they had to do:
A second knifing attack in Jerusalem happened around 3:45 pm at Damascus Gate in the Old City. A police statement says two Border Police officers on patrol in the area noticed a Palestinian Arab male acting suspiciously. They asked him for identification and in the course of handing over his ID card, he pulled out a knife and stabbed one officer in the neck. Other nearby service personnel saw the attack and opened fire, killing the attacker, but also accidentally hitting two Israeli officers, one seriously. The dead terrorist is named as Muhammad Saed Ali, 19, from Shuafat in North Jerusalem. According to a Reutersreport tonight, Hamas has issued a statement saying the attacker (Reuters calls him a shooter) "was one of its members. "The hero martyr fought the Israeli occupation with language they understand," Hamas said." That's interesting; perhaps the editors at The Guardian, always careful not to take sides in such matters unless it's to castigate Israel, ought to mention it some place, because right now they are telling their news consumers that Mr Ali "was shot dead after Israeli police alleged that he stabbed two police officers." Do you think the Islamist thugs of Hamas might be offended by the Guardian's squeamishness? We certainly hope so.
Iron Dome anti-rocket defense system batteries were emplaced in Ofakim and Be'er Sheva (both of them are cities in Israel's south) today after two separate rocket attacks from the Gaza Strip during Friday night. The first of the attacks consisted of two Israel-bound rockets fired late Friday night - both failed to get as far as Israeli territory and crashed into people or property inside the Gaza Strip, with zero news reporting about the outcome, which is what normally happens with Fell Shorts. A second attack, at about 1:00 am Saturday morning, resulted in a crash landing in an open area in the Eshkol region, close to the border fence with Gaza. Fortunately no injuries or damage, but that, as we keep saying here, was never the intention of the terrorists who have death and destruction on their minds and in their prayers.
Related to that last note: William Booth, writing for the Washington Post on Friday ["Gazans join in widespread violence sweeping Israel", Washington Post, October 9, 2015] said: "Palestinians in Gaza joined in angry protests sweeping across Israel and the West Bank, rushing Israel’s perimeter fence and throwing stones at soldiers, who shot and killed six Gaza residents and wounded 60, many of whom were in serious condition, according to the Health Ministry. The clash at the Gaza fence marks the highest death toll in the coastal enclave since last year’s war between Hamas and Israel. After Friday prayers in Gaza, the leader of the Islamist militant movement Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh, declared that a third Palestinian uprising, or intifada, had begun “and we intend to join in.”
Over at the Wall Street Journal, Haniyeh is quoted differently but no less savagely: "A leader of Hamas, the Islamist movement that rules in the Gaza Strip, spoke in support of the attacks on Israelis. Ismail Haniyeh, a senior Hamas politician, in a sermon on Friday called for “the strengthening and increasing of the intifada,” saying Gaza was “ready for confrontation."
Incoming rocket warnings are sounding as we write this. The area under attack appears to be Ashkelon, a coastal city in southern Israel within a few seconds' rocket-firing distance from the terror-infested Gaza Strip. Initial indication [at 11:20 pm] - a successful mid-air intercept, which means the trajectory of the terrorists' rocket was calculated to be threatening to lives or property in the target area. There are also reports that Hamas has in the past few minutes been threatening (via its media channels) to launch additional rockets with longer-range targets as their goal.
Earlier this evening, we learned the government of Israel has issued emergency call-up notices (in Hebrew: Tzav 8) to three Border Police reserves units. They are expected to be deployed in and around Jerusalem.
There have been violent riots and clashes in Ramleh, Shuafat (North Jerusalem), Taibe.
We are scanning reports throughout the evening of Arab rock-hurling attacks on Israeli buses and cars, as well as firebombings in a number of dispersed locations throughout Israel.
It's the day after Judaism's Yom Kippur. In some ways, it's a shame the Jewish practice of focusing energy and thoughts on wrong-doings on one long (very long) day once a year - no eating, no drinking - and sincerely repenting for them has not been adopted outside the Jewish world in the way that we Jews do.
Even those not very observant of Judaism's detailed code of conduct do this both as individuals and as a community. Does this make "us" holier than other people? No, of course not, though observant Jews do have a fairly concrete sense of the sacred and what holy means. and strive to bring it into our lives. And are we doing better now that the Day of Atonement is behind us? Only time will tell, but the day does end on a distinctly optimistic note.
We're thinking about this after reading a little-noticed report about a proud, eloquent Palestinian Arab with a passion for human rights and the courage (as we have seen from up close ourselves) to speak out in defence of the values in which he believes even when his audiences are not too sympathetic.
He has just been visiting New Zealand. And according to a seriously disturbing report we have just seen from there, Bassem Eid was treated despicably.
Some readers might be surprised to know that the sharpest of the disgraceful responses to which he was treated came from some of the very people who posture and trumpet themselves as respectful defenders of free, open speech.
His bio says that Bassem Eid spent the first 33 years of his life, starting from birth, in the UNRWA-run Shuafat refugee camp on the edge of Jerusalem. His formative years probably resembled those of hundreds of thousands of other Palestinian Arabs. He went on to work for B'Tselem, an Israeli NGO that claims to "document human rights violations in the occupied territories, combat denial and help to create a human rights culture in Israel". B'Tselem is one of the perennial darlings of the hypercritical "activists" who obsess over Israel's shortcomings. Then he left them to create his own human rights body to advance the interests of his people.
The article [here] by a New Zealand friend of Israel, Miriam Bell, is upfront about the challenge of bringing a man like Eid to the South Pacific. He has a history of being outspokenly critical of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) "movement" "and all that it represents". This, she says at the outset, "may have played a part in the hostility that greeted his recent visit..." The evidence suggests she's right.
The Astor Foundation, named for a prominent New Zealander whom we met in the 1970's, and focusing on human rights issues, sponsored Eid's trip to New Zealand. It's a worthy new body that seeks to promote "human dignity for people of all faiths, cultures and ethnicities", and addresses "issues that threaten the peace and harmony of New Zealand" including "extremism and ethnic and religious hate".
As frequently happens when zealots grab the steering wheel of social movements, the local NZ advocates for the Palestinian Arabs got alarmed at the idea of an independent thinker - even one raised in a Pal Arab refugee camp - and reached for the mute button. What could have worried them?
Eid's perspective on Palestinian affairs is a bit different to most Palestinian activists. He is very critical of the Palestinian leadership - citing corruption as one of the leading causes of ongoing Palestinian suffering - and believes it is wrong to focus solely on the Israeli side of the conflict. These views are not embraced by pro-Palestinian groups. One in New Zealand accused Eid of "hysterical, anti-Palestinian ranting" and of being an "asset for racist, Zionist organisations dedicated to undermining Palestinian rights." [AIJAC, September 22, 2015]
Plainly seeing themselves as the guardians of the Palestinian Arab mission in that far-off island nation, they busied themselves with undercutting, demonizing and silencing the voice of a Palestinian Arab for whom human rights is considerably more than a political slogan. And while they successfully demand for themselves and their cause the right to be heard at every possible opportunity, they had no difficulty pulling insider strings and aggressively hostile rhetoric to silence Eid's unique voice.
Bell quotes Dr. Love Chile, an associate professor of sociology at Auckland University of Technology, a graduate of Ahmadu Bello University in Nigeria, and previously a consultant to the New Zealand government's Human Rights Commission. He spoke out against Eid getting an audience because he disagreed "with Eid's philosophical/political position and was not prepared to expose his students to that sort of individual."
We think a person could write a thesis about the condescension and hypocrisy of that viewpoint.
Then, just two days before the first lecture, the Fabian Society pulled out, citing "the degree of tension in this issue and how the Palestinian view is represented." The Fabian Society's tradition is one of promoting free and open debate. Its vision is "the advancement of New Zealand Society through progressive education and debate." How its actions in this situation support these goals is a mystery. [AIJAC]
Eid's university campus lectures went ahead:
Essentially, his message was that there is absolute corruption within the Palestinian Authority and there is a need for genuine support of the Palestinians - as opposed to the sort of grand-standing and politicising that we currently see. [AIJAC]
But the speaker first had to endure a gaggle of New Zealand protestors who handed out hostile material inside the venue and accused Eid of being a "traitor" and (worse, we assume) a Zionist. Perhaps they also argued with the points he made. If so, we haven't seen those contentions reported. The impression we have is that they ignored his views, preventing them from being heard to the greatest extent possible by intimidation and demonization. Eid's human rights don't seem to be on anyone's agenda.
New Zealand's mainstream media were scarcely more open. An article about the Eid visit, by Sheree Trotter, a Māori New Zealander and advocate for Israel, gives the context:
It is perhaps not surprising that Eid’s visit was largely ignored by the New Zealand media. His message to the international community goes against the grain of the dominant narrative on the Israel/Palestinian conflict. Eid is quick to point out uncomfortable realities, such as the role of UN funded groups in perpetuating the misery of the Palestinians whilst gaining power and money on the backs of their suffering; the bias of a media which has lost its way and become politically motivated; the apartheid lie which can only be explained as yet another manifestation of antisemitism. Bassem Eid identifies proudly as Palestinian. From his perspective identity is not the primary concern for most Palestinians. They know who they are. At the core of Eid’s message is his concern for the future well-being of his own: “We are people who want to survive. We are people who are looking for a better level of life. We are a people that want to ensure the future of our children. ["A Palestinian voice of realism", September 8, 2015, Times of Israel]
I’ve argued with racists and Putinists in my time and – to put it as mildly as I can – these little bastions of academia were up there with them in their contempt for basic freedoms. Contempt is perhaps not quite the right word. Most simply did not understand what freedom was, and could not grasp the need for universal human rights. They could not see themselves as others saw them, or understand that by giving up on basic principles, because they are difficult to live with, they had left themselves naked before their enemies... ["Britain's hypocritical universities are naked before their enemies", The Spectator, April 21, 2015"]
It's a growing problem, in case anyone's not noticing.
But all is not lost, as we reminded ourselves this morning. That's when we learned about a YouTube video, originating in Egypt, that has restored some of our faith in the ability of determined individuals, willing to risk what it takes in the pursuit of truth and freedom to speak out and say what they believe to be true.
It's ten and a half minutes long, almost entirely spoken in Arabic, and entitled Why do you hate Israel? But the clip maker, Sherif Gaber Abdelzim Bakr, just 22 years old, provides almost-English subtitles. And for his guts and clear thinking alone, he deserves a wide audience. As we write this, the clip has had 58,000 views since it went up three days ago.
Support probably means something to him since he's currently in hiding after being convicted seven months ago by an Egyptian court on multiple charges that include contempt of religion, spreading immoral values, and abnormal thoughts that provoke and disturb the public peace and the national security of Egypt. (The background is here.)
Bassem Eid is not in hiding, and not in danger of going to jail, at least not in Israel. But (and we have not heard this from him), it might be some time before he willingly exposes himself again to Western (or at least South Pacific) academics or audiences with some specific sub-set of human-rights on their minds, or self-proclaimed advocates of free speech. At a certain point, a person just gets sick of the empty slogans and pines for a world where values and opinions can count on getting a certain degree of respect and exposure.
Ah, you're asking about that optimistic note we mentioned that marks the end of Yom Kippur? Right. The very last words of the day-long prayers are Leshana Haba Biyerushalayim. Next year in Jerusalem. It's not paradise here, but when someone we don't agree with gets up and wants to speak, Israel's very robust democratic spirit pretty much ensures his or her voice will be heard. Anything less would be a sin.
The rock-hurlers were out in force on Friday in the northern Jerusalem
neighbourhood of Shuafat [Image Source]
With the Sabbath just ended, here's a look back at a violent Friday.
Hamas, some of whose radical Islamist leadership sits in the far-off Gaza Strip, some in the even-further-away oil-rich Gulf states (glitzy Dubai, in particular), and some in Turkey, declared a day of "rage" in recognition of the many acts of wanton violence carried out in and around Jerusalem.
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.
Anticipating trouble in the wake of Hamas's calculated incitement, the authorities here restricted access to the Temple Mount on Friday women and to men over the age of 40. Friday prayers on the Temple Mount were covered by some five thousand Israeli police and ended without serious incident. But here's a partial selection of what ensued later:
There were riots outside Jerusalem Old City's Damascus Gate on Friday involving hundreds of Palestinian Arabs.
A firebomb attack in the Jabel Mukaber neighborhood of Jerusalem on members of the Border Guard resulted in three police officers being injured. [Ynet Friday] Times of Israel says there was gunfire in addition to the firebombs, as well as the use of burning tires and burning garbage dumpsters to block streets. It also notes that the clash was at about the same spot as the one where a Jerusalem man, Alexander Levlovitz, died when his car was pelted with rocks on Sunday night ["16-Sep-15: Jerusalem Watch | Not-so-new New Year violence"]
In Jerusalem's mixed (Arab/Jewish) Abu Tor neighbourhood, masked Arab youths hurled rocks at Border Guard officers during the afternoon.
Similar attacks were staged at the Qalandiya security checkpoint.
An open paint can was hurled at Jerusalem's light rail causing damage to the carriage but no injuries. [Ynet Friday] Such attacks, often more violent and causing serious damage, are especially galling to people living in Jerusalem who understand what a positive and welcome difference the Light Rail, which took about a decade to construct and has been operating for five years, has made to the day-to-day life and ease of movement for Jerusalemites in general, and to the area's Arabs in particular. That added-value is at the heart of why Light Rail carriages keep coming under thuggish Arab attack - at this point, on a daily basis.
The source caption reads: "The Shuafat Refugee Camp from the Jewish neighborhood of Pisgat Ze’ev, in northeast Jerusalem. (Miriam Alster/Flash90 )" [Image Source]
Times of Israel says Border Police officers at a Jerusalem-periphery checkpoint on the edge of Shuafatintercepted a Palestinian Arab youth of 15 very early this morning. They found him to be armed with an assault weapon concealed under his clothes, and attempting to get through the Israeli checkpoint in order to fulfill his destiny.
The Border Police officer who was manning a metal detector at the checkpoint asked the teen to pass through the security check a second time, after the detector indicated the presence of a metallic object on his person. When a second inspection also showed the presence of a metal object, the officer asked the youth to remove his shirt, revealing a sub-machine gun. The youth was taken into police custody for investigation. [Times of Israel, today]
The IDF furnished this image of the Carl Gustav
gun forcibly separated from a social-climbing Arab 15 year old
this morning [Image Source]
Shuafat is a neighbourhood on Jerusalem's north side with a large and thriving "refugee camp". Those are typical Shuafat refugee shanties in the photo above.
Israel National News ["Gun-Toting Arab Teen Terrorist Arrested Entering Jerusalem"] adds that the quick-thinking young service-man, on realizing what the Arab youngster had in mind, promptly closed off the inspection area's revolving door and secured the site while calling to his commander. The two then "worked together to neutralize the teen and separate him from the weapon, a light-weight automatic Carl Gustav." It's not difficult to imagine a scenario where, to avoid unnecessary risks in the dark hours of the early morning, a terror-minded young man with a serious weapon might have been more permanently neutralized by heavy-handed security personnel unwilling to take chances. That is not what happened there today, and we can all - especially the kid with jihad fever - be glad of that.
This is how we remember ancient Rachel's Tomb
as it looked in the 1980's and 1990's [Image Source]
Separately, there was an unprovoked stabbing this morning in southern Jerusalem, close to Rachel's Tomb, an ancient place of pilgrimage for faithful Jews for, oh, about 1,700 years. According to Ynet [Palestinian woman stabs female IDF soldier | June 29, 2015], the attacker - a Palestinian Arab woman, evidently with terror on her mind as well - stabbed a young woman serving in the Border Guard during a security check at about 11 this morning. The soldier, about 20, suffered serious knife wounds to her neck. According to Times of Israel, she was conscious when taken to Hadassah Medical Center for emergency medical care. The attacker was arrested unharmed, and found to be in possession of two additional knives.
Tragically, Rachel's Tomb needs far more protection
now [Image Source]
Rachel's Tomb, where the Jewish Biblical matriarch Rachel is buried, has been a target for terror attacks since the outbreak of the Second Intifada or Oslo War in 2000, and as a result the compound has been heavily fortified. The IDF told Knesset Members in mid-2013 that about 200 firebombs and 90 improvised explosive devices (IEDs) had been thrown at the compound since November 2012's Pillar of Defense counter-terror operation in Gaza, indicating an average of almost two bombs a day. The military said that the nine-meter (almost 30-feet) high walls that have been constructed around the Tomb compound have not sufficed to provide security, with suggestions raised at the time to build a roof to protect the site from attacks from all angles.
A February 2015 rock-hurling attack directed at children living
in Maale Hazeitim [Image Source]
Also this morning: a school bus bringing young children to their school in central Jerusalem from their homes in Jerusalem's Ma'ale Hazeitim neighborhood of in Jerusalem came under rock attack during the morning rush hour. The heroes hurling the rocks were masked, according to Israel National News. Some of them might have been in this February attack depicted in the snapshot on the right. No reports of injuries so far.
Yesterday (Sunday):
A Palestinian Arab woman was arrested Sunday afternoon attempting to cross into Israel from Kalkilya, a Palestinian Arab settlement, with a concealed shotgun. Israel's Channel 2 reported last night that she confessed under interrogation that she had been despatched by Hamas to carry out an attack against Israelis. [Source: Times of Israel] Though it's right in the middle of the areas currently controlled by the Fatah/PLO regime of Mahmoud Abbas, Kalkliya has long been dominated by the Islamists of Hamas. A YMCA to serve the town's tiny Christian population was burned to the ground by local activists and militants in 2006.
Security at the French Hill tram stop [Image Source]
Once more, a miracle in broad daylight. A Jerusalem Arab has given physical expression to his political (and perhaps religious) viewpoint by means of a knife and a brief visit to a tram-stop in the nation's capital on a bright sunny day. Thankfully, alert security personnel stopped him cold.
This comes from a Times of Israel report:
A Palestinian man tried to stab a security guard at a light rail train stop in Jerusalem on Monday, but was stopped by security personnel who shot and subdued him. The attacker, whom police identified as a 35-year-old Palestinian from the Shuafat refugee camp in East Jerusalem, was lightly wounded, Israel Police spokeswoman Luba Samri said in a statement. A security guard told police the Palestinian had “attacked him from behind” before running toward people waiting at the station, Samri said. Several other security guards then opened fire at his legs before overpowering him. He was evacuated to Hadassah Hospital in the Ein Kerem neighborhood. There were no injuries to any of the passengers or the guards, and light rail services resumed shortly afterward. The area, near Jerusalem’s northeastern French Hill neighborhood, has seen numerous attacks on Israelis in recent months. ["Security guards thwart attempted stabbing in Jerusalem", Times of Israel, today]
There's a brief video clip about the attack on the Israel National News (via YouTube) here. And for readers interested in putting today's attempted murder into an appropriate context, here are some of our posts from the past few weeks:
Chances are that unless you live in the same country that we do, some or all of these reports will never have reached the mainstream media in your community. That means the debate over terrorism, its victims and what ought to be done with and to the perpetrators will probably make very little sense to the people living near you. That includes the trivial detail that today's attacker is now somewhere inside the best hospital within a thousand kilometers, getting the very best of medical care from people who will probably ride home when their shift ends via the same Jerusalem Light Rail that tantalizes the feverish passions of tomorrow's knife man, and next week's.
What motivates a person to try to carry out an act of murder among his or her neighbours, by trying to stab them to death, preferably from behind? Surprisingly, that's not a rhetorical question. It has an actual answer. And it's here: "28-Dec-14: You there with the knife. What are you waiting for?"
Jerusalem's Light Rail serves Arab neighbourhoods of the city but
is attacked almost daily by rock-hurling Palestinian Arabs [Image Source]
Traveling outside Israel (which is what we were doing for the past week) puts you in a position where news reports of the daily acts of violence in this ongoing war are liable to pass almost without being noticed.
Here are some notes (based on news items originally published by Israel National News and a handful of other sources) on events of the past week that, like us, you might not have picked up.
April 25, 2015 (Saturday)
A 17-year-old Palestinian Arab attacked security personnel manning two checkpoints near Ma’ale Adumim. He was armed with a meat-cleaver and a knife. The attack was foiled when he was shot and killed.
A Palestinian Arab, a resident of the Jerusalem neighbourhood of Shuafat, drove his car directly at four Israelis standing at the location known as the Kohanim Route in the village of A-Tur, part of Jerusalem, on Saturday night. A woman in her twenties suffered moderate injuries (though we see the Jerusalem Post said she is in critical condition. The injuries of three other people were defined as light. The vehicle was founded abandoned later the same night, and following an intensive police search, the driver was found and arrested.
Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat was driving to the scene of the attack the same evening when his vehicle came under a hail of rocks hurled by people from the roadside. The mayor's car was damaged, but there are fortunately no injuries to report.
Not far from Jerusalem, on Route 443, the road that connects north Jerusalem with the Tel Aviv metropolitan area and with the new city of Modi'in in-between, a Kavim commuter bus was firebombed on Saturday night. Fortunately there were no passengers on board and the drive was unhurt. One source reports that security forces located a second firebomb nearby, evidently prepared and about to be hurled at something in the vicinity.
April 26, 2015 (Sunday)
A security guard was attacked during the evening while he was standing, evidently on duty, at a bus stop in the community of Eli. The purpose of the attack, carried out by a 19-year-old Palestinian Arab resident of Nablus, appears to have been to steal the security man's weapon. The attacker was replled, and handed over to the police.
In a second weapons-related attack, an Arab prisoner serving time in Ketziot Prison on terror charges, and for being a member of Islamic Jihad, a prohibited terror organization, attempted to grab the gun of a security guard by coming at him armed with a can opener. The guard's face suffered lacerations, but he managed to subdue the prisoner. The Arab is now in solitary confinement, and will be charged with attacking a guard.
Outside the ancient Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron around 6:15 pm, a serving member of the Border Police suffered stab wounds to the head and upper body, and left in moderate condition, after coming under knife attack by a Palestinian Arab, Assad al-Salayma, 20. The attacker was shot dead on the spot by other officers.
Arab rock-throwers attacked the Jerusalem Light Rail while it was passing through the Shuafat, Jerusalem, neighbourhood. There are no injuries but one of the tram cars was damaged. Attacks on the Light Rail's 23 vehicles have become an almost daily occurrence.
Rioting continued in the A-Tur neighborhood, close to where the tram was attacked. Rocks and fire-bombs were hurled at police and security personnel.
And a postscript to an earlier report we posted here: "17-Apr-15: In the aftermath of another lethal car-ramming in Jerusalem". The driver of the vehicle in that attack, which resulted in the killing of a young man, Shalom Yohai Cherki, 25, and the injuring of the young woman who was standing at the French Hill bus stop with him, has now confessed:
Khaled Koutineh confessed to carrying out the vehicular terrorist attack last Wednesday, the eve of Holocaust Remembrance Day,” the authorities said in a statement. “Koutineh confessed to carrying out the attack with the intention of harming Jews, a decision he made just moments before the actual deed,” the statement read. The authorities said that Koutineh was driving along Route 1, searching for Jews on the side of the road to run over. Eventually, he came upon a junction in French Hill and targeted the bus stop. Koutineh initially told interrogators that he had suffered from mental imbalances, though authorities said he admitted to concocting the alibi in hopes of evading a stiff penalty. [Jerusalem Post, April 21, 2015]
Most people, even those who think of themselves as careful readers of news from the Middle East and well informed on the Arab/Israel conflict, have no idea any of these events happened.
The Shuafat Refugee Camp is in the news today because it's where the terrorist who drove into a crowd of Israelis in Jerusalem on Wednesday lived. We have had some comments from readers about the misery and deprivation of life in those camps, so we thought a few photos might be helpful in managing people's expectations and creating context.
All of the snaps below are of the Shuafat Refugee Camp and not of the more congenial northern Jerusalem neighbourhood called Shuafat.
Paradise? No, not at all. But hardly a shanty town either, and very little like what people imagine when the term 'refugee camp' is deployed to describe the place.
North-east Jerusalem: The Shuafat neighborhood with
the Jerusalem city tram running along the main commercial strip.
Shuafat continues to be called "refugee camp" in news reports edited
by people who, in many cases, have never come close
to the place. [Source]
Three reports from the past 24 hours.
Saturday afternoon near Shuafat (often described in the news as a "refugee camp" but in fact a relatively prosperous suburb) in north-east Jerusalem, a Palestinian Arab man threw himself on an Israeli serviceman and stabbed him, probably using a screwdriver. The Israeli, a uniformed Border Guard officer, was lightly injured while the stabber escaped and was not captured yet.
Sunday morning (yesterday) at the Qalandiya checkpoint north of Jerusalem, a few minutes drive from our home, a Palestinian Arab attacked security personnel at the security crossing armed with an ax. Acting in accordance with the textbook, members of the Border Police and security personnel opened fire at the man - wounding him lightly in one leg. Israelis are frequently accused by the Israel-bashing political extremists of engaging in genocide. Several instances selected at random: the president of Venezuela; Prof. F. A. Boyle of the University of Illinois College of Law; Norman G. Finkelstein, until recently of DePaul University; Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, an Iranian political figure.
Ambulances, one from the Israeli Magen David Adom, the other
from the Palestinian Arab Red Crescent Society, parked side by side
at the entrance to Hadassah University Hospital Ein Kerem's emergency medicine center. Needless to say,
it serves Jews, Christians, Moslems and everyone else
without discrimination.
They will likely conclude that whoever did the shooting on the Israeli side missed.
But the truth is that missing is not what happened. Shooting at the legs is what the manual says, even when the terrorism-minded fanatics come at you with an ax. The injured Palestinian Arab ax-man was treated by a Border Police paramedic and then transported to the Hadassah hospital in Jerusalem for further care. To minimize the chances that our readers missed the point, let's say that again: (a) treated by a Border Police paramedic on the spot, and (b) transported thereafter to the world-class Hadassah hospital in Jerusalem for (c) further care.
Incidentally, Border Police who arrived on the scene recovered a long commando knife in his bag, another matter that may come up when Ax Man is questioned after being released from hospital.
Later on Sunday (yesterday) an Israeli Border Guard serviceman stopped and arrested a Palestinian Arab man in possession of a 12 centimeter knife at Yitzhar junction. He is suspected of being on his way to carry out a stabbing attack against Israelis. Knifings of unsuspecting Israelis - hundreds of them in the past few years - are frighteningly easy to carry out. Despite the relative ease with which Palestinian Arabs can slip unhindered into mostly-Jewish population centers in Israel, a striking number of Palestinian Arabs carrying huge concealed knives have been stopped at security checkpoints (see for instance our recent blog entry: "9-Jan-12: Another day, another attempted murder-by-knifing").
It seems we are seeing a rise in the level of ordinary violence visited on us by the Palestinian Arabs living nearby and coming into our cities, hospitals and other institutions every day. This may be related to the same phenomena that has caused a spurt in the appearance of what Ma'an, a Palestinian news channel, calls "symbols of resistance". The symbols they describe are graffiti-sprayed signs, appearing at multiple locations in the center of Jerusalem, and calling for manly, self-respecting public actions by Arabs - like stabbings perhaps. Ma'an calls this "the start of a campaign which will target other locations in the city and may spread across Israel."
