22-Apr-20: Jerusalem: Pandemic or not, the terrorism goes on

Teddy Stadium, Jerusalem [Image Source]

We haven't done much blogging lately. No, we're not traveling. Nor are we dealing with back-to-back meetings as sometimes has happened in a previous era.

But in the current circumstances with a virus-borne plague turning life upside down everywhere, we've been distracted with the exigencies of life: staying indoors at home, worrying about family, taking care of food and supplies, protective items and hygiene aids. And engaging in numerous on-line meetings and webinars.

We're planning to do some catching up, starting now.

It's always clear to anyone watching that the practitioners of terror are generally motivated enough to keep at it even when their targets are pre-occupied. That's been made manifest here via two troubling reports.

Word emerged in the past hour of terrorist arrests made by Israeli security in March. As reported by Times of Israel ["Shin Bet says it arrested Palestinians planning bombing of Jerusalem stadium"] today, the suspects are accused of

planning to carry out terror attacks in Jerusalem and the West Bank, including a bombing in the capital’s Teddy Stadium, the Shin Bet security service says.... The three members of the terror cell — Ahmad Sajdaya, Muhammad Hammad, and Umar Eid — initially planned to construct a bomb and set it off in Teddy Stadium, performing reconnaissance operations and other preparations, before realizing that this would be too difficult to carry out due to the venue’s tight security. Instead, the trio planned to carry out bombing attacks on IDF troops in the West Bank and attempted a number of attacks last month... [They] also assisted in a number of attempted bombings against Israeli troops in recent years.

The Teddy Stadium, inaugurated in 1990 and named for long-time Jerusalem mayor Teddy Kolek, is owned by the Jerusalem municipality and has room for some 32,000 patrons. the largest sports stadium in the Middle East.

An updated report from Times of Israel adds these details:

• All three suspects were members of Kutla Islamiya, a university campus organization affiliated with the Islamist terrorists of Hamas.
• They got to know each when all three attended Birzeit University, located in Birzeit, near Ramallah, north of Jordan in an area controlled by the Palestinian Authority. Birzeit started life in 1924 as an elementary school for girls and acquired university status, while under Israeli control, in 1975.
• Sajdaya who is from Qalandiya has a history of involvement with explosive devices and lost part of a hand in a bomb preparation "accident" a few years ago.
• Eid, from Deir Jarir, holds an Israeli identity (blue) card. This helped him attend a soccer match at the Teddy Stadium a year ago. His goal was to gather intelligence with a view to blowing it up.
• Hammad, from the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Kafr Aqab, does not have permanent Israeli residency.

It's a developing story.

And earlier in the day [Wednesday] in Jerusalem again, a Palestinian Arab driving a van through a security crossing (commonly known as the Kiosk Checkpoint) east of Jerusalem near the city of Maale Adumim at about 8:00 am carried out a combined vehicle-ramming and stabbing attack. 

The attacker was eventually shot dead by armed Border Police forces after running down and hurting a twenty-year-old officer standing in the security checkpoint. The driver then leapt from his vehicle, brandishing a pair of scissors which he used to stab the already injured Israeli. This is captured in the security camera video above.

The as-yet unnamed Israeli is reported in moderate condition and recovering in hospital.

Times of Israel says a pipe-bomb was found in the attacker's possession, indicating advance planning (notwithstanding the use of scissors) and a desire to inflict more serious losses than running down an Israeli sceurity person would suggest.

In the Aljazeera version, the attacker is identified as Ibrahim Halsa, 25, from the village of Sawahra. If they're right, it's located on Jerusalem's south-eastern edge. Israel National News reports that a number of

"Arabs were injured in clashes in a-Sawahra village in the Jerusalem area, home of the Islamic operative who carried out the attack. Residents burned tires and IDF forces fired rubber bullets at them."

The late attacker's family, sad to relate, now become eligible under the Palestinian Authority's bizarre reward scheme ("Pay to Slay, it's commonly called) for the families of dead terrorists.
 

UPDATE 8:30 pm: And now reports of fires raging inside two of the several buildings that make up the Jerusalem City Hall complex. The Jerusalem Post says:

The fire began in the main building of the complex... Once the fire was detected emergency procedures were activated and police and firefighters were called to the scene. The cause of the fire is still unknown. Eight teams of firefighters are currently at work putting out the fire and searching for anyone who might be trapped in the building.
Police arrested a 40-year-old man for allegedly starting the fire. The man is reportedly a resident of East Jerusalem. Molotov cocktails were allegedly found at the scene, according to a Kan News report citing a City Hall official.

More when we know it.

17-Oct-19: At dawn today, a thwarted Arab-on-Israeli vehicle-ramming-and-knifing attack

The attack vehicle driven by a 20 year old
Palestinian Arab [Image Source]

In another Arab-on-Israel vehicle ramming attack around dawn this morning (Thursday) on the outskirts of Ramallah, a vehicle driven by a Palestinian Arab drove directly at police officers in an attempt to run them over. Haaretz says the officers were in plain clothes and their car was unmarked.

The resulting impact significantly damaged the police vehicle. The attack car was too (see right).

The officers realized almost immediately that their attacker was clutching what a news report ["Palestinian attempts ramming attack against Border Police", Jerusalem Post, October 17, 2019] calls "a suspicious object". This turned out to be knife.

Israelis have visceral reactions these days to rampaging Arabs with knives in their hands. They promptly directed live fire at their attacker who, we now know, is a resident of eastern Jerusalem said to be twenty years old.

His injuries are currently being tended to in Jerusalem's Shaarei Zedek Medical Center hospital. He is reportedly alive and in serious condition.

Al-Amari, called a refugee camp for the past seventy years [Image Source]

Rioting ensued soon after the attack, with rocks and Molotov cocktails (firebombs) being hurled at Israeli security officials, who "responded with riot control measures" in the words of the Jerusalem Post report.

The violence took place in the al-Amari "refugee camp" which is today under full Palestinian Authority control. It houses about 5,000 Palestinian Arabs and has existed since 1949.

The Arab version of what happened according to the alquds.com Arabic-language news site includes a car and a shooting. But no ramming and no knife:

An eyewitness said the driver of the vehicle was surprised by the presence of army patrols which led to a collision with one of the military jeeps. The soldiers fired three shots at the driver who was seriously injured and was taken by ambulance while the soldiers arrested a second young man beside him after forcing him to undress and undergo a search.

Ronen Lubarsky, 20, a soldier in the elite IDF Duvdevan Unit, was struck on the head during an operation to arrest suspected terrorists in the same al-Amari neighborhood on May 24, 2018 [Times of Israel, May 28, 2018]. A heavy slab of granite hurled from a third-story rooftop struck the young soldier who was hospitalized in critical condition at Hadassah Hospital Ein Kerem’s intensive care unit. He died some days later. A Palestinian Arab, Islam Yusef Abu Hamid, was subsequently charged with his death and convicted in April 2019.

04-Mar-19: Pre-dawn vehicle ramming attack on Israelis north of Ramallah

There has been yet another vehicle-ramming attack on Israelis this morning (Monday). According to a breaking Times of Israel report [here], a vehicle in which three persons were traveling was the weapon by which an attack was launched on Israeli security personnel before dawn today near an Arab village it names as N'ima.

Two injured Israelis were evacuated from the scene by helicopter and ambulance for emergency medical care at, we believe, Tel Hashomer Medical Center. One is said to be an IDF soldier whom it describes as being seriously inured. A member of the Border Guard (Mishmar Hagvul in Hebrew) is said to be lightly hurt.

Two of the attack-vehicle's three occupants are said to have been killing and a third wounded. The report quotes an IDF statement “from an initial investigation it appears to be a (terror) attack.”

A Hebrew-language social media report says the overnight attack at about 3:30 this morning in the Binyamin region was at Talmon/Dolev Junction which is about half way between the Israeli community of Dolev and an Arab village (of some 3,500 people) called Kafr Ni'ma (ניעמה) located about 13 km north-west of Ramallah. The less-injured service member is reported by first responders to be about 19. The more seriously-injured soldier is said, in an IDF statement [here], to be an officer. Haaretz says he's in his early twenties and in critical condition after being run-over. No names yet.

A Ynet report adds:

"The troops had stopped their vehicle at the roadside at night—Israeli media reported it had broken down—and were deliberately struck, the military said."

From the Palestinian Arab side, an Arabic language tweet at about 9:00 am Monday from the SAFA Palestinian Press Agency [here] quotes the PA's Ministry of Health about what it calls

"the martyrdom of two citizens and the wounding of a third after the occupation shot them near the village of Kafr Nehmeh west of the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah, and no information until the moment about the identity of the martyrs and the injured."

("Occupied" Ramallah is where the Fatah-controlled Palestinian Authority has its capital. Fatah and Hamas are deadly rivals. SAFA, based in the Gaza Strip, used to operate a Facebook page but this was shut down by Facebook about a year ago.)

26-Dec-18: Vehicle rammer is stopped by IDF Wednesday afternoon

Image Source: Xinhua

Times of Israel reported yesterday["Attempted West Bank car-ramming attack reported outside Nablus"] on an attempted car-ramming attack on Israeli soldiers and civilians in the northern West Bank. IDF troops opened fire and stopped the attacker, who is now injured, before he could do more damage.

The suspect attempted to run over a group of people waiting at a bus stop at a junction outside Nablus, near a military base, according to the military and the Samaria Regional Council. Soldiers at the scene shot at the assailant, who was taken to hospital in moderate condition. No Israelis were physically hurt in the attempted attack, although the Samaria Regional Council spokesperson said three people — two women and a man — suffered panic attacks and underwent treatment. “He was driving slowly and suddenly sped up toward us,” said eyewitness Emunah Mevorach, 23, who said the car had tried to maneuver between concrete columns placed next to the bus stop to prevent such attacks. “The soldier shot many bullets and we ran behind a concrete block. The soldier’s reaction saved us.”

The Chinese newsagency Xinhua ["Israeli forces foil Palestinian car-ramming attack in West Bank, driver injured"] adopts a straightforward approach to their headline, while Turkey's Anadolu does what most of the Arabic-language press customarily does: irrespective of what their sources tell them, and pretending there is not a years-long obsessive Palestinian Arab campaign to encourage vehicle rammings of Israelis underway - and many dead Israelis as a result - it suggests the attack may or may not have happened, depends whom you ask (but their reporters rarely ask). See "Israeli forces shoot Palestinian in alleged car attack" from the Turks.

From Ma'an's version of the news

The notorious Ma'an News Agency (not surprisingly) headlines its version of the news with this: "Israeli forces shoot, injure Palestinian at Huwwara checkpoint":

The Palestinian Ministry of Civil Affairs confirmed that they were officially informed of the driver's injury, whom they identified as Raed Thiab, 35, from Kafr Qalil village. The ministry added that he was injured with two bullets in the leg. Witnesses told Ma’an that the vehicle was parked dozens of meters away from the Huwwara checkpoint, near a transport stop for Israeli settlers.

The headline of their Arabic-language version is (not surprisingly) less shy and owns up to how the guy wasn't just shot but "was injured allegedly carrying out an attack".

11-Dec-18: Near Hevron, another thwarted Arab-on-Israeli vehicle ramming

Idhna [Wikipedia]

The hunt for the drive-by shooters in the attack we reported on Sunday ["09-Dec-18: A shooter in a passing vehicle seriously injures several Israelis tonight near Ofra, north of Jerusalem"] goes on. Meanwhile there are fresh reports today of similar Arab-on-Israel violence.

In the less dramatic of two Tuesday reports, a Palestinian Arab driver in a village called al-Jiftlik, 33 km north of Jericho in Israel's northern Jordan Valley, drive directly at officers of the Border Guards who were securing the work of Civil Administration personnel engaged in demolishing illegally-constructed buildings. The village is part of Area C, meaning it is subject to full Israeli military and civil administration. The driver, a 30-year-old male from the village

allegedly accelerated his car toward a group of Border Police officers. The troops fired warning shots into the air, and the suspect stopped and was arrested, police said... He was handed over to the Shin Bet security service for further questioning [source]

In a separate incident, Times of Israel says a Palestinian Arab driver was shot dead by Border Police mid-morning today (Tuesday) in Idhna, an Arab town of about 20,000 people, located 13 km west of Hevron with an out-of-the-ordinary background.

The circumstances point to a failed vehicle-ramming attack:

The Border Police officers... were standing guard as members of the Defense Ministry’s Civil Administration, which oversees day-to-day activities in the West Bank, were taking part in an effort to crack down on the illegal burning of garbage. According to police, the Palestinian suspect drove through a checkpoint the border guards had set up, hit a security vehicle with his car and then “accelerated toward a Border Police officer.” The border guards opened fire at the vehicle, fatally wounding the suspect... No Israeli troops were injured.

The driver was later identified by the Palestinian Arab Red Crescent authorities as Omar Hassan al-Awawdeh, 27.

An Iranian news source frames today's events in ways that will be familiar to consumers of Israel-bashing reports:

The Israeli military regularly opens fatal fire on Palestinians, accusing them of seeking to attack its personnel. Human rights groups have repeatedly slammed the Tel Aviv (sic) regime for its shoot-to-kill policy as a large number of the Palestinians killed at the scene of attacks did not pose any serious threat to Israelis.

A December 2017 Aljazeera report from Idhna where today's
thwarted attack took place [Source]

In the wake of the thwarted vehicle-ramming, we have yet to see any Arab media attention on what Times of Israel noted - that what brought the Israeli police into the town today was "an effort to crack down on the illegal burning of garbage".

Sounds prosaic. But it turns out to be a classic instance of the Israeli authorities trying to prevent the Palestinian Arabs from doing even more harm to themselves and their own backyards.

Idhna was once a thriving agricultural town. Today, it's notorious for being one of the most polluted places in the region. The environmental damage the residents have done to their land is massive and lethal, much of it resulting from the illegal burning - in order to extract resalable components, especially metals - of televisions, fridges, computers, air-conditioners and other appliances. The result is massively large and damaging levels of heavy metals, especially cadmium and lead, damaging crops and aquifers and making life hazardous

Almost exactly a year ago, Aljazeera gave it some attention in a video report: "Palestine's Idhna struggles with e-waste". Though the word 'dumping' is used, it's evidently the town's people who go out looking for the dangerous and the toxic because that's where the money is.

A quick survey of Arabic-language news media shows that the shot driver is invariably called a "martyr", with zero mentions of why the Israeli police where there, of the thwarted ramming [Al-Madinah; Al-Fajr; Ad-Dustour (Jordan); Safa; Panorama] or of the crushing pollution.

26-Nov-18: An Arab-on-Israeli vehicle ramming attack this afternoon - the driver is dead, the injured are recovering

Image Source

A little after noon today, three IDF servicemen doing construction work along the side of the road were struck by a car driven by a Palestinian Arab male.

This happened on Route 60 as that highway passes Karmei Tzur, an Israeli community of about 1,100, located 22 km south of Jerusalem, just south of Gush Etzion Junction.

The IDF says one has moderate injuries to all four limbs while the others are injured lightly - scrapes and bruises. All were treated at the scene by ambulance crews and then taken to hospitals in Jerusalem for treatment.

This is believed by the military to have been a deliberate vehicle-ramming attack. A fourth soldier, an Army reservist, fired at the driver and killed him. In the Arab media, the suspected attacker is named as Ramzi Abu Yabes, 32, a resident of Dheisheh refugee camp.

UPDATE November 27, 2018: In its customary way, the European-funded-and-backed Palestinian Arab news channel, Ma'an News Agency, casts doubt ["Palestinian shot, killed for alleged attack near Gush Etzion"] on the version of events reported from Israel. That's in its English-language edition. But in its Arabic version, the driver of the attack vehicle is called 'martyr'. And overnight, according to a reliable source [here], Hamas, which is less interested in vagueness and more in  open incitement, released a statement

"calling Ramzi Abu Yabes a hero for using his vehicle to strike three #IDF soldiers along a central West Bank highway today. His home is currently adorned with Hamas flags and visitors."

Another Arabic source [here], quoting a spokesperson for the ambulance that attended the scene, says Abu Yabes

"was on a mission to treat a burn patient in Beit Ummar [and] had undergone a cardiac catheterization for almost two months which made him unable to control the driving of the car, which deviated towards Israeli soldiers... and it is not true that he carried out the operation in favor of any Palestinian faction."

16-Aug-18: The victim of an Arab-on-Israeli vehicle-ramming tonight is a young woman [Multiple UPDATES]

Israel National News has reported tonight (Thursday) that an Israeli woman was killed in a vehicle-ramming attack in Israel's Samaria district:

A young woman in her 20s was murdered in a ramming terrorist attack that took place Thursday night near Havat Gilad in Samaria. Magen David Adom paramedics attempted to resuscitate the victim, but were forced to declare her death. The assailant fled the scene. IDF forces began searching the area. In January, Rabbi Raziel Shevach of Havat Gilad was murdered in a drive-by shooting attack.

We hope they're wrong about her condition. Times of Israel describes the victim as being alive but in  a very bad way. A MaarivOnline tweet says the attack happened at 9:32 pm tonight.

We wrote about how six more Israeli children - Renana, 10; Naomi, 8; Miriam, 6; Malka, 5; Ovadia, 3; and Benayahu, 10 months - all from Havat Gil'ad, became orphans in that January 2018 vehicle ramming at the same spot as tonight's - see "10-Jan-18: Hamas praises a murderous drive-by shooting that orphans six young Israeli children". The attacker was eliminated in a shoot-out with Israeli security forces a few weeks after that ramming murder.

Sorry to say, Ynet says tonight's Israeli victim has died. It adds

"The driver fled the scene, with the IDF suspected he escaped to the nearby Palestinian village of Jit."

UPDATE: At the Jerusalem Post in a report published around 10:20 pm tonight, they're not sure if this was a terror attack:

An Israeli woman was killed in a hit-and-run incident near the Havat Gilad outpost in the Samaria region of the West Bank. It was not immediately clear if it was a vehicular attack or a car accident. The woman was hit as she crossed Route [blank] near the outpost. The car appeared to be a Palestinian taxi, which fled the scene...  According to KAN Radio, the Palestinian driver was afraid to stop. He drove straight to the nearby Palestinian city of Nablus and turned himself into the police there, where he clarified that the incident was an accident. A Magen David Adom paramedic said that the woman was found unconscious in a ditch and had sustained massive injuries. She was not breathing nor did she have a heart beat, the paramedic said. They were unable to revive her and she was declared dead at the scene.

UPDATE Friday August 17, 2018  at 7:00 am: According to a Times of Israel update, the victim is a woman "in her forties" from the Israeli community of Emmanuel. Her name is not yet published as "some family members were still being sought to notify them of the death".

UPDATE Friday August 17, 2018 at 2:00 pm: The Israeli victim struck in last night's incident is named today as 42-year-old Hava Roizen. Roizen was struck by the vehicle on Route 60, near the Havat Gilad outpost. She was declared dead by the Magen David Adom ambulance service after paramedics were unable to resuscitate her. Times of Israel says 

Following a preliminary investigation, the army said it was “highly likely” that the fatal crash was a hit-and-run incident rather than a terror attack. The driver fled the scene and was later spotted near the Palestinian village of Jit where he turned himself in to Palestinian Authority police. A senior PA official told the Times of Israel the driver was a 63-year-old male who insisted what happened had been an accident and not an attack. The official added that the man would remain in the custody of the PA police and would be dealt with by the PA judicial system. “I was afraid that if I stopped they would kill me, so I fled,” the driver told Palestinian police, according to Hebrew media reports.  Roizen was a resident of the small ultra-Orthodox settlement of Emmanuel...  An immigrant from the former Soviet Union, Roizen worked as a photographer, frequently hitchhiking around the country to events, an Emmanuel resident [said] “She was incredibly dedicated to her job. She’d travel wherever it was necessary, and I’d often see her returning to Emmanuel at very late hours,” he said, referring to Roizen and her husband as humble people.While military sources said the preliminary investigation found that the incident was a hit-and-run, they had not definitely ruled out the possibility that it was a terror attack.

As to whether terror was involved, the chairman of the Shomron Regional Council Yossi Dagan is quoted:

"From the point of view of the military commanders in the field, and from our point of view as well, this is a terror attack for all intents and purposes,” he claimed. The settler leader pointed out that the junction is well lit and that there were no skid marks or other signs that the driver had tried to come to a sudden halt. “This is another terror attack, a cold-blooded murder of a Samaria resident on a central road in the State of Israel.”

UPDATE Wednesday September 12, 2018
Times of Israel reports today that the Palestinian Arab driver of the vehicle that allegedly struck Hava Roizen and killed her

was indicted Wednesday for a hit-and-run, ruling out speculations of a terror motive in the incident. The death... last month was initially reported as a possible car-ramming attack, though police said at the time that it was more likely to have been an accident. The indictment against Kamal Kadari, 60, was filed at the IDF’s Samaria Military Court, charging him with negligent homicide and abandoning the scene of an accident, the Kan public radio broadcaster reported. Kadari, who turned himself in to the Palestinian Authority police after the incident, remains in PA custody... Kadari, who had five passengers in his car at the time, did not notice the Israeli woman in the road, the report said... Kadari fled the scene and was later spotted near the Palestinian village of Jit, where he gave himself up to PA police.

11-May-18: An Arab-on-Israel vehicle ramming this afternoon

Just as the Sabbath siren is being heard here in Jerusalem, we are learning of another Arab-on-Israeli vehicle ramming attack that happened late this afternoon.

A soldier aged about 20, as yet unnamed, is lightly injured, says Times of Israel quoting a Samaria Regional Council spokesperson, when he was struck near the Israeli community of Shavei Shomron just before 6 this afternoon. The young man was treated by Magen David Adom ambulance personnel at the scene and then taken to hospital for further treatment.

The IDF's investigations support the idea that this was a terror attack, and the driver who fled the scene with his vehicle is now the subject of a manhunt.

We are also hearing of a second suspected vehicle ramming attack that happened around 6:35 pm in the Har Hevron vicinity. More details after the Sabbath.

UPDATE Saturday night, May 12, 2018: This is what the Chinese newsagency Xinhua knows:

A car hit a soldier at the Ganot Interchange adjacent to Shavei Shomron, west of Nablus. The driver fled the scene, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said in a statement. "Forces are searching for it," said the IDF. A second ramming attack took place near Hebron, where a driver attempted but failed to hit a soldier at a checkpoint, and the driver was arrested, Israeli media reported.

Still hoping to have more details to share.

16-Mar-18 [UPDATED]: An Arab-on-Israeli vehicle ramming in the Samarian hills Friday afternoon; tragic results

This screen shot from a video clip taken at the scene and uploaded to the
Hebrew-language rotter.com site shows the attack vehicle, a relatively new
SUV with severe damage from striking multiple human beings,
killing some of them

Reports a short time ago, just before Shabbat starts, say there has been what seems like yet another Arab-on-Israeli vehicle-ramming attack, this time with disastrous consequences. The precise details seem still, at 5:00 pm, to be cloudy. We will update once we have firmer information.

Times of Israel says a Palestinian Arab driving on Route 585 close to the entrance to the Israeli community of Mevo Dotan (population: about 400) in the north Samarian hills, has plowed into four Israeli service personnel, all around 20 years old. There are also reports saying five. All are said to be in a bad way.

Israel National News says two of the Israelis are dead (but this is not confirmed yet). It appears two others are in serious condition.

The driver is evidently (though not confirmed) in Israeli custody.

Ynet says it's not yet clear whether the ramming was deliberate or accidental. It describes the driver as 26, from the Arab town of Barta'a in the Wadi Ara region. He is said to have light-to-moderate injuries and is being treated at the scene.

But the Jerusalem Post, in reporting on what happened, connects it to today being yet another in an endless series of organized seriously-violent tantrums. It says

Clashes between Palestinian protesters and Israeli security forces were reported on Friday afternoon as the Palestinians mark “100 days of rage” following US President’s Trump decision to move the US embassy to Jerusalem, channel 10 reported. 

UPDATE Saturday March 17, 2018 after sundown: The Palestinian Arab "resistance" reminds us that what they are about has much more to do with blood-lust and bigotry than with building something good for themselves. Times of Israel reports:

• The Palestinian Authority has so far said nothing official about the killings.
• "Several Palestinian terror groups and activists on Friday praised the “heroic” car-ramming attack in which two IDF solders were killed near Jenin, saying it was an “appropriate” response to US President Donald Trump’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.
• "While no group claimed direct responsibility for the terror attack, it came after Palestinian groups had called for Friday to be a “day of rage,” in response to Trump’s December decision.
• Hamas said: “This heroic and courageous operation underscores our people’s insistence on pursuing the path of resistance”. One of its spokespersons Abdel Latif al-Qanua, said the “heroic operation underlines the vitality and continuity of the intifada, and our people’s rejection of the US decision on Jerusalem.” Another, Sami Abu Zuhri, said that the terrorist attack was a “message” to those who have been calling on his terror group to lay down its weapons. “It is also a message to the effect that there is no future for those who conduct security cooperation,” he said, referring to the cooperation between the Palestinian Authority forces in the West Bank and the IDF.
• Palestinian Islamic Jihad, another Palestinian Arab terror group, said the attack was a response to  “Zionist terrorism” and called for more attacks to “foil the Zionist-American plot to obliterate the Palestinian cause.”
• Speaking for the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, one of the terrorist outfits operating under  the umbrella of the PLO, Talal Abu Zarifeh said the vehicle-ramming was a “natural response to Israeli crimes” and a sign that the uprising was continuing.
• Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, also part of the PLO, said Friday's murderous attack had “trampled Trump’s decision on Jerusalem – 100 days since he announced it.”
• Palestinian Arab sources have named the vehicle rammer as Ala Qabha, 26. The Times of Israel report says he is injured, was taken to hospital for treatment, and will be interrogated there. His family say the lethal ramming attack "was an accident and not an attack, with one relative telling Haaretz that the young man was a painter, and had been on his way home from Jenin after buying supplies. “He’s not politically affiliated and doesn’t belong to any organization,” he said." But it also quotes Haaretz saying that Qabha was serving time in an Israeli prison until April 2017. The Hadashot news service he had been imprisoned for security-related activities.
• A second Palestinian Arab male was treated by the Palestinian Red Crescent. We don't know at this stage how he was involved.
• As we wrote on Friday, two of the Israeli victims have died. Another, a soldier, suffered severe head trauma and is fighting for his life. 
• A second soldier is in serious condition.

UPDATE Saturday March 17, 2018 at 7:45 pm: From Ynet:

"Meanwhile, Shin Bet released a statement Saturday evening saying that while the terrorist initially insisted the attack was merely an accident, he confessed under interrogation to having acted under nationalistic motives. Kabha's brother remains in custody and the degree of his potential involvement in the attack is still being investigated. Shin Bet added that no other persons involved in the attack or aware of Kabha's intentions were known at present, meaning he was a "lone wolf" terrorist acting without the guidance of a terror group."

Under the Palestinian Authority's Martyrs Fund (in dozens of our posts we refer to it as the PA Rewards for Terror scheme) rules, this renders him qualified to start receiving reward payments. These send a signal to Palestinian Arab society that what the attacker did is precisely the kind of action that the PA leadership needs, wants, encourages and finances.

UPDATE Sunday March 18, 2018 at 9:00 am:
The names of the two young Israelis killed in Friday's ramming-by-terrorist attack have been released, now that the families have been notified. They are Captain Ziv Daos, 21, from Azor, near Tel Aviv, who was a platoon commander in a Home Front Command search and rescue unit; and Sergeant Netanel Kahalani, 20, from Elyakim in northern Israel, a driver in the Menashe Regional Brigade. He was promoted to the rank of sergeant.

14-Mar-18: Following up last week's Acco ramming attack

Ten days after the dramatic scene of an Israeli pedestrian being struck by a fast-moving late-model car and hurled high into the air ["04-Mar-18: Vehicle ramming attacks, two of them, in Israeli Arab Akko"], some details of who's responsible started emerging today.

A Times of Israel report this afternoon (Wednesday) says

• Four persons were injured in what it terms "a car-ramming attack" in Acre, northern Israel. They are a pair of IDF soldiers, a Border Guard service person and a civilian,
• The Israel Police view is, to use the term they frequently deploy, that the attack was "nationalistically motivated". In plain language, this means terrorism.
• The suspect is a 26 year-old male from Sh'faram, an Israeli Arab. 
• He was remanded in custody today. There will be no change in that status till March 21. Presumably another hearing will take place that day.
• Counsel representing the accused denies that his client is a terrorist or that his motivations were "nationalistic"
• "The court has placed a gag order on all other details pertaining to the case." This has been the case since the day of the attack. The court hasn't given any explanation.

At Ynet, they add that the accused was not present in the Haifa Magistrates Court today. The remand was extended in absentia, as he remains hospitalized. As we noted last week, he was hit by several bullets when Israel security personnel stopped him.

Not that this necessarily means a thing, but Hamas claimed credit last week for what it called the “brave and heroic” ramming, describing it as "continuing the resistance against the crimes of the occupation".

04-Mar-18: Vehicle ramming attacks, two of them, in Israeli Arab Akko

Initial image from the attack scene via Haaretz

Reports coming in around noon today (Sunday) say there has been a pair of Arab-on-Israeli vehicle ramming attacks. Haaretz ["Three Wounded in Suspected Car-rammings in Northern Israeli City of Acre"] says an Israeli Border Guard officer and two soldiers were injured

in suspected car-rammings in two different incidents in the northern Israeli city of Acre. One person was wounded on Yehoshafat St., near the city's outdoor market, and two others by the railway station downtown.

Here's how Times of Israel describes the locations

The first victim was hit by the car outside the Acre city market. The driver then continued toward a train station and hit the other two victims.

Israel National News says

Police emphasize that the background to the incident is still unclear.

Ynet says

According to eyewitnesses, the driver began his rampage after receiving a speeding ticket. Police said they were investigating the matter.

There are varying reports about the attacker's condition but agreement that he was shot by someone Israeli. Haaretz, quoting the police, says the

motivation behind the incident remains unknown.

We've just posted a shocking video via a tweet which makes it hard to believe this was anything other than an attempt to kill Israelis. See it here.

Other reports (we will be adding details) says three Israelis aged 20 were rushed to the Nahariya hospital. Via social media, we hear that two are in light-to-moderately injured condition; one is in critical condition.

Wikipedia says that Acre, usually called Akko or Acco by Israelis, is on

the northern extremity of Haifa Bay. The city occupies an important location, as it sits on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea, traditionally linking the waterways and commercial activity with the Levant. The important land routes meeting here are the north–south one following the coast and the road cutting inland through the Plain of Esdraelon; Acre also benefits from one of the very rare natural harbours on the coast of the Land of Israel. This location helped it become one of the oldest cities in the world, continuously inhabited since the Middle Bronze Age some 4000 years ago. Acre is the holiest city of the Bahá'í Faith, and as such receives many Baha'i pilgrims. In 2016, the population was 47,808. Acre is a mixed city, that includes Jews, Muslims, Christians, Druze and Baha'is...

More details about the attacks when we have them.

UPDATE 1:50 pm on Sunday March 4, 2018: Times of Israel says the victims are two IDF soldiers, a Border Guard service person and a civilian in his fifties, and that all are lightly injured. The driver of the attack vehicle, a Hyundai SUV, was shot multiple times and critically wounded. It quotes Israel Radio saying that the driver is an Arab Israeli male from Sh'faram, a city of 40,000 with a Sunni Muslim majority "alongside large Christian and Druze minorities" [Wikipedia] and that the particulars of his identity "could not be immediately confirmed by police".

UPDATE 3:00 pm on Sunday March 4, 2018: Wisely cautious, Times of Israel only now quotes an Israel Police statement that the suspected car-ramming attack in Acre was a “nationalistic attack.” Or in simpler terms, a terror attack. Quote:

“The investigation of the incident, as well as the findings from the scene and documentary materials, indicate that this was a nationalistic attack,” police say. The police statement comes after reports said the driver was angry after receiving a parking ticket.

Few details at this stage about the attacker. It appears a court may have issued a gag order preventing name and background from being published though several sources are currently saying the driver of the Hyundai is a male, an Arab, not from Akko and the bearer of a blue (regular Israeli) identity card. All Israeli citizens are issued, and must carry with them, government-issued ID.

UPDATE 5:00 pm on Sunday March 4, 2018: The Jerusalem Post confirms what we reported earlier - that from the standpoint of the police, this was terrorism:

A gag order was placed on additional details of the incident by police who said that the investigation continues. “This is an extremely serious incident,” said Acre’s Chief Superintendent Yaniv Ronen, adding that “the identity of the driver is known and we are also looking into that.” Unconfirmed reports in Hebrew media stated that the driver was a 51 year-old man from the town of Shfaram.
Shortly after the incident witnesses said that the driver of the jeep had received a parking ticket and had run over the soldiers in anger. “The driver got a ticket for NIS 1,000 ($290) for parking in a handicapped spot. He got pissed off and went up on the sidewalk [and] then struck a traffic light and some bushes and ran over a border guard,” eyewitness Shimon Cohen was quoted by the Ynet news site as saying.
Video footage filmed by a bystander on his phone from outside the market where the border police officer was hit showed the jeep driving onto the curb hitting the officer before he turned around in a possible attempt to hit the officer again. He is then seen fleeing the scene as police arrive and as the officer is seen receiving help from bystanders. Other CCTV footage showed the jeep accelerating before it strikes a soldier who is seen flying through the air as the jeep drives off... MK Zuhair Bahlul (Labor), who lives in Acre, stated that Acre “has always been an example of a strong, values-based city where coexistence and strong neighborly ties exist between its Jewish and Arab residents.” Wishing a speedy recovery to those wounded, Bahlul added that he “hopes and believes that the police investigation will reveal that this was not a deliberate terrorist attack. I call upon all the residents of the city to maintain restraint and patience,” adding that “even in difficult times we in Acre know how to join together to preserve the common fabric of life."

The identity of the rammer is still undisclosed, but the indications are (we think) that he's the injured person in his fifties mentioned by Times of Israel.

As far as we know, no one in the news reporting industry appears to have asked yet whether the driver is about to become a beneficiary of the Fatah/PA/Mahmoud Abbas Rewards for Terror scheme.

UPDATE 8:00 am on Tuesday March 6, 2018: A video clip of a senior doctor, Dr Eli Kakashvili, at Nahariya Hospital where all the injured, including the alleged attacker, are being treated, seems to suggest the driver is a male in his twenties (no longer in critical condition after surgery) and the man in his fifties is an innocent victim. Formal announcements by the security authorities as to who did the ramming and why have not yet been made.

21-Jan-18: Friday's terror and the lens of history

The security checkpoint, one of several in the vicinity of the ancient Tomb
of the Patriarchs, where the woman and her two knives were
intercepted on Friday [Image Source]

We happen to live in a land richer in history than almost anywhere else on earth. The fact that we share much of it with people whose beliefs bring some of them to self-destructive acts of violence against us is one of the tragic aspects of that specialness and causes a large measure of that history to have heavily violent overlays.

This past Friday gave us three reminders. Two have strong scriptural resonances.

Regular readers will be aware of how often the ancient Tomb of the Patriarchs (Hebrew: Ma'arat Hamachpelah, in recognition of its name according to Bereishit/Genesis 23, when our patriarch Avraham purchased it for full value, 400 pieces of silver) in Hebron has been a target for armed, terror-minded Palestinian Arabs with mayhem on their minds.

You can see some of our earlier reports of attacks in that sacred place, most of them thwarted, by clicking on the index term Tomb of the Prophets. There was yet another this past Friday afternoon. Israel National News reports that the would-be attacker was, once again,

a Palestinian Arab woman who was armed with two knives... The Border Police officers asked the woman to undergo a security inspection when she tried to escape the checkpoint. The officers arrested her and asked her to reveal the items she had been carrying. The suspect, who took out a knife, was asked by one of the officers to empty her bag, and when she did, another knife fell to the floor. The Border Police said that the circumstances of the incident and the knives found in the woman’s possession indicate that she was planning to carry out a stabbing attack. The suspect, a resident of Idna in her 30s, was transferred for further interrogation by the security forces.

The Palestinian Arab news company, Ma'an News Agency, says this about the thwarted attack:

Wafa [an arm of the Palestinian Authority] reported that a Palestinian woman was detained by Israeli forces for alleged possession of a knife. According to Wafa, the 32-year-old woman was detained after she was searched at the entrance of the Ibrahimi mosque in Hebron’s old city... Israeli forces have detained scores of Palestinians, many of the minors, for allegedly being in possession of knives following a spate of alleged and actual small-scale knife attacks by Palestinians that surged in the fall of 2015... Eyewitnesses have also said in a number of cases that Israeli security forces planted knives on slain or imprisoned Palestinians to claim that they were acting in self-defense during a stabbing attack.

What's the attraction of the Tomb of the Patriarchs? First, it's considered the most ancient, continuously-used prayer structure in the world, though the building resting on top of it - a mosque which had been converted from a large rectangular Herodian-era Judean structure, in Wikipedia's words - is relatively new, only about 850 years. It's also the place where, continuously for nearly 4,000 years, Jews have revered the burial sites of  three patriarchal couples: Avraham and Sarah, Yitzhak and Rivka, Ya'akov and Leah.

Times of Israel reports on another attack - this one not thwarted - earlier the same day. An IDF service member was injured

in an attempted car-ramming attack in the Jordan Valley. The incident took place near the entrance to the Qasr al-Yahud baptismal holy site near Jericho. The vehicle did not have the necessary permit to enter the site and did not stop when soldiers flagged it down, an army spokeswoman said. Security forces detained the driver for questioning and the lightly injured soldier was treated at the scene of the incident.

The attack was caught by an Israeli security camera:

Video source (There's a zoom-in video view of the same attack here)

Qasr al-Yahud is an Arabic name. It means Castle of the Jews and is believed to have that name because, in a less-politically-fraught era, the Arabs acknowledged that the site, a short walk from the Jordan River, is where according to tradition Joshua led the Children of Israel in the final stage of their forty-year-long journey from bondage in Egypt to freedom, autonomy and dominion in the Land of Israel. Right afterwards, they conquered (still) nearby Jericho.

The website of the Israel Nature and Parks Authority refers to its significance to another religion:

Christian tradition marks this site as the place of the “spiritual birth” of Jesus, as opposed to his physical birth in Bethlehem. As such, the baptismal site is of great sacred significance - the third holiest site in the Christian world (after the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem).

For Friday's vehicle-rammer, religious faith may well have played a role. But its details are not likely to be explained on any tourist site.

Also on Friday, according to Ma'an, forces of the IDF arrested four Palestinian Arabs in pre-dawn raids in al-Yamoun, a village north of Jenin:

The detainees were identified as brothers Jihad and Abd al-Qader Freihat. Israeli forces confiscated mobile phones and surveillance camera recordings from their house during the raid. Two other residents of al-Yamoun, identified as Yahiya Abu al-Haija and Mustafa al-Karam. The two were detained during a raid on the Jenin refugee camp... A Palestinian from the Wadi Burqin neighborhood of Jenin, just outside the Jenin refugee camp, was killed during a predawn raid on Thursday. The slain Palestinian, Ahmad Ismail, 30, was killed during an alleged shootout, as Israeli forces were conducting raids in search of Palestinians allegedly suspected to be involved in the shooting of an Israeli settler last week near Nablus.

WAFA says today that IDF raids in the same general area have continued into today (Sunday). Both those Palestinian Arab media channels are evidently too delicate to connect the arrests and raids with a specific act of murder. But it's clear they mean the cold-blooded killing of Rabbi Raziel Shevach HY"D from Havat Gilad ["10-Jan-18: Hamas praises a murderous drive-by shooting that orphans six young Israeli children"] nearly two weeks ago in the area of Nablus, or Shechem as we knew it in Hebrew.

It's where, according to the Torah,the Alm-ghty appeared to Avraham and first promised that “To your offspring I will give this land”, a promise that has been integral to the traditions of Jewish history ever since.

03-Nov-17: Jihad-minded vehicle rammers and what's expected of them

Tuesday's weapon [Image Source]

What can the people living in the cross-hairs of ruthless murder-minded terrorists (that includes every single person reading this post) learn from the vehicle-ramming attack executed by an Islamist terrorist in New York City this past Tuesday?

An article by Rukmini Maria Callimachi in yesterday's New York Times ["What New York Attack Suspect’s Words May Say About ISIS Ties"] offers some answers. She's a staff reporter at the Times, focusing on Islamic extremism.

Her analysis is based on detailed guidance published in the English-language ISIS online magazine, November 2016 edition. [There's a useful summary here: "New Islamic State Rumiyah Magazine Details Tactics for Jihadis in the US" Terror Trends Bulletin, November 12, 2016]

It provides a kind of Deadly Dummy's Guide for aspiring terrorists preparing to use a vehicle to wreak havoc on innocent people - referred as to "enemies of Allah" in the not-so-subtle language of this widely-distributed and easily-accessible journal. There are four principal stages to the carnage they advocate:

1. Keep driving the car or truck for as long as possible. "To ensure the most carnage", it advises, don't exit the vehicle during the attack. Stay inside, "driving over the already harvested kuffar". (That  word means infidels, unbelievers and refers to almost everyone on earth.) "Continue crushing their remains until it becomes physically impossible to continue by vehicle.”
2. When the vehicle has been used to the full, move on to other weapons. Guns and knives are top of the list.
3. Ensure the public understands that the killing comes from the perpetrator's fealty to ISIS. The article tells the murder-minded attacker to write a note on paper, including the specific message that “The Islamic State will remain”. It's a slogan with roots in the Islamic doctrine of "baqiya". Then to throw the paper sheets out of the vehicle so they can be found and read after the murders have been done.
4. Record an oath of allegiance - either audio or video - addressed to an individual along the lines of how "early Muslims pledged fealty to the Prophet Muhammad, and later to the caliphs that succeeded him". Murderers inspired by ISIS are told to pledge to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi al-Husseini al-Qurayshi. He's the figure described by the NYTimes ["U.S. Actions in Iraq Fueled Rise of a Rebel", August 10, 2014] as "a street thug" when American forces first apprehended him in 2004 and who has gone on to become "the self-appointed caliph of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria and the architect of its violent campaign to redraw the map of the Middle East."

From the ISIS website: A user's manual for mass-murderers [Image Source]

In Tuesday's murderous rampage, Sayfullo Habibullaevic Saipov, a 29-year-old citizen of Uzbekistan living in New Jersey after scoring in a diversity immigrant visa lottery program, crushed pedestrians to death in a bike lane of Lower Manhattan. He stopped driving only after crashing into a school bus. Eight people were killed right away. Many more are terribly injured.

As the guidelines say, he was ready to move on to knives - a bag in his possession contained three of them. He flung pages from the window of his rented truck which claimed an affiliation with ISIS (who returned the compliment last night, saying the killings were theirs). And many photos of Abu Bakr were on his phone. An oath of allegiance will probably show up soon.

There's no book of guidelines for victims. We're all left to rely on common sense. The problem in the case of lethal rammings - as we have learned to our sorrow in Israel where we don't lack terrorists and victims - is that their vehicles rarely come with signs on them saying "I look innocent enough but I am planning to murder you and anyone else I can."

Trying to figure out what life-affirming, cultured and non-racist societies ought to do to safeguard innocent people from the lunacy of the rammers (and shooters and stabbers) is never going to be easy or elegant, and will require a much deeper understanding of what brings Sayfullo Habibullaevic Saipovs into our midst than almost every society on earth is willing to try to achieve.

26-Sep-17: What do the Palestinian Arabs think now?

[Image Source: PCR]

It's been about nine months since we last addressed the core question of what Palestinian Arab opinion polls tell us about their hopes, fears, ambitions and values. That last review is here: "15-Dec-16: What do the Palestinian Arabs think now?"

As it happens, this morning has gotten off to a really rotten start with another Arab-on-Israeli terror attack at the entrance to the bucolic northern Jerusalem suburb of Har Adar. As we write this, reports say three Israelis were shot to death and a fourth is fighting for his life in a Jerusalem hospital. The gunman is dead. We will report on what we know about this later.

With the fresh extreme violence in mind, what do the data tell us? What do Palestinian Arab polls of Palestinian Arab opinion, reveal about support for murder of this kind and about the other issues that are on the minds of the people who play such an influential/complicated role on the lives lived by us Israelis?

As we have said here before, what the Palestinian Arabs think is something we're very interested in knowing. Relying on newspapers or electronic media coverage of their views, a person is likely to get someone's wishful projections or politically-skewed understandings rather than data-based analysis. The difference between the two is vast and unbridgeable.

There are some serious polling organizations that are themselves Palestinian Arab. We tend to focus on the findings of the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research or PSR [website] headed by the respected Prof. Khalil Shikaki. We're doing that again now.

In PSR's Poll Number 65 (there have been three on which we did not manage to report since our last related post), which was published on September 19, 2017, we think these are the key findings (italicized texts are taken verbatim from the source)

A syndicated AFP photo shows the supporters of Fatah and of Abbas in the
Gaza Strip last week. There may be more out of camera range. [Image Source]

• Violence: 35% of those polled "think that the most effective means of creating a Palestinian state alongside the state of Israel is armed action". Negotiation gets 33% and "popular non-violent resistance" 26%. In the December  2016 poll, armed action got slightly more: 37%. A year ago, it got 34%. Those slight rises and falls are less significant than the reality that a third of the Arabs living closest to us see the best solution to the differences between as being achieved by murder and terror. A third. But it gets worse...
• Non-violence? Now bear in mind that "popular non-violent resistance" is an expression that means something quite different for the Palestinian Arabs and their advocates - including their president - than for most other people. Abbas and people around him use it to refer to lethal measures like hurling rocks at Israelis and their vehicles: non-violent resistance in  their lexicon includes rock hurling, knifings and vehicle-rammings. That's plainly terrorist violence, whatever advocates for the Palestinian Arabs claim, and it means that nearly two-thirds of the Palestinian Arabs are for it. 
• An "overwhelming majority" are "worried about the future of liberties in Palestine". Contributing factors, over and above the decades of heavy-handed, thuggish rule by a self-preserving clique of aging Abbas/Arafat regime kleptocrats (our observation, not PSR's) include a marked rise in PA arrests of reporters and "activists"; a new presidential decree enacting an oppressive piece of regulation that they call a "cybercrime law"; and upcoming changes to the PA's Law of the Judiciary. 
• Related to the first point: A large majority of Palestinian Arabs (85% of West Bank Arabs) now say they are afraid to criticize their PA masters. Fully half of them believe Abbas' PA has become "a burden on the Palestinian people". 
• This is evidently affecting their political outlooks. If presidential elections were held today, the Hamas candidate "Haniyeh would win against Abbas. Findings also indicate a decline in support for Fatah, particularly in the Gaza Strip where Hamas is more popular. In the West Bank however, Fatah remains more popular than Hamas." Just 3 months ago, PSR found that each candidate had the same level of support if this were a two-horse race. No longer. 
• But even before they get to elections, there's no doubting the appetite for immediate political change: "67% of the public want president Abbas to resign... Three months ago, 62% said [this]... Demand for Abbas’ resignation stands at 60% in the West Bank and 80% in the Gaza Strip."
• Gaza is one big set of problems for Fatah and its leader: "It is certain that [Mahmoud Abbas, president-for-life of the PA] would lose any presidential elections in the Gaza Strip to Hamas’ Ismael Haniyeh". 
• Worth recalling that the last time Palestinian Arabs were given the chance to vote for a president was in January 2005 when Abbas won; he has held tenaciously on to power ever since. The only previous presidential election, dominated by Yasser Arafat, was in 1996.
• For the rather touchy Abbas and his hangers-on, there's more bad news and it involves Abbas' fiercest rival: "Fatah is fast losing its popularity in the Gaza Strip, standing at 28% today compared to 40% only nine months ago. Those who still support Fatah in the Gaza Strip are shifting loyalty to Mohammad Dahlan whose popularity among Gazans has more than doubled during the past nine months, from 9% to 23% today, while his popularity among West Bankers did not change, remaining hardly at 1%."
• In a three-way race, the convicted murderer Marwan Barghouti who lives in an Israeli prison cell, would easily beat both Abbas and Haniyah.
• Support for violence against Israelis has risen over the previous poll, "despite the fact that a majority remains opposed to it", partly because of "the lack of trust in diplomacy. Findings show that about three quarters believe that the Trump Administration is not serious about Palestinian-Israeli peace making and an even higher percentage believes that the Administration is not an honest broker and that it is biased in favor of Israel".
• When they watch television, here's where they tune in: Al Jazeera (Qatar-owned, Qatar-based) 20%; Ma'an TV 14%; Hamas' Al Aqsa TV 13%; Palestine TV (controlled by the PA) 12%; Filasteen al Youm/Palestine Today 11%; Al Arabiya (Saudi-owned, Dubai-based) 6; Hamas' Al Quds TV 4%; al Mayadeen (satellite-news station based in Beirut) 3%.
• The popular perception of corruption in the PA and its institutions is now at 77%. This is actually something of an improvement; in a 2014 PCR poll, it stood at 81%.
• On the list of "Most vital Palestinian goals and problems", the top item with 40% support is the need "to end Israeli occupation". A mere 12% think the "first and most vital goal should be to establish a democratic political system that respects freedoms and rights". The most serious problem confronting their society today is poverty and unemployment (26%) with "the spread of corruption in public institutions" second at 25%.
• The violent confrontations that took place on Jerusalem's Temple Mount in July 2017 in the wake of the brazen and cold-blooded killing of two Israeli Druze security men [see our post] occupied much of the thinking of the Palestinian Arab public. In PSR's words and despite those other concerns we just listed, the "the installment of metal detectors at the entrance to al Haram al Sharif gates were the most important event during the period in question". 
• As for Israel's decision to quickly remove them, a minuscule 7% of Palestinian Arabs attribute this to King Abdullah II of Jordan despite Jordan's not-so-subtle PR efforts to grab the limelight, as in this Arab media quote: “Without the Hashemite custodi­anship and the steadfastness of the Jerusalemites, the holy sites would have been lost many years ago.” (Those of us old enough to remember life in Jerusalem pre-1967 recall how the Old City of Jerusalem was under illegal Jordanian military occupation from 1949 until freed in the Six Day War.)

There's not much here to feel good about. As their own societies - both Fatah and Hamas - explore new kinds of tyranny, between one-third and two-thirds of them hold tight to a vision of more violence as a solution to their problems. The future of their children, meanwhile, along with their health, their schools, their environment and their economy remain mired in self-inflicted gloom, failure and inertia.

PSR 65 was based on a sample size of 1,270 adults interviewed face-to-face (not by phone) in 127 locations selected randomly. The statistical margin of error is 3%. 

18-Aug-17: Spain reels under multiple - evidently connected - jihadi assaults

Barcelona yesterday

It's been a terribly dramatic day and night in Spain. Three separate terror attacks in the Catalan region now appear to be tied to each other and to Islamist terror groups. In the words of Spanish prime minister, Mariano Rajoy, “jihadi terrorism” is what's behind the assaults, the maimings and the murders.

Here's an overview based on a range of mainstream media sources. First Barcelona:

• A van was deliberately driven into pedestrians on one of the city's most popular boulevards, Las Ramblas, killing 13 people on Thursday afternoon. 
• ISIS claimed "credit". Its Aamaq news agency said (according to Irish Times): “The perpetrators of the Barcelona attack are soldiers of the Islamic State and carried out the operation in response to calls for targeting coalition states” - evidently referring to the US-led coalition against ISIS.
• The BBC for reasons none of us ought to respect calls ISIS "the so-called Islamic State". (If that's the game, should we believe that the United Kingdom is actually united? Isn't that unity also so-called? Let's ask the Scots.)
• "It was clearly a terror attack, intended to kill as many people as possible," Josep Lluis Trapero, senior police official, said. [Telegraph UK]
• Times of Israel says a manhunt is underway for the driver.
• The attack vehicle is a rented white Fiat van. One version [Telegraph UK] says the driver rammed it into pedestrians outside a kosher restaurant shortly after 5pm. He then "veered onto the promenade and barreled down the busy walkway for 500 metres, swerving back and forth and mowing down pedestrians. Victims were left sprawled in the street, spattered with blood or writhing in pain from broken limbs. Others fled in panic through Las Ramblas, screaming or carrying young children in their arms."
• The death toll includes one Belgian and three Germans. Among the 100 injured, 15 are in serious condition. The injured include four Australians and according to Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop: “We are concerned for one Australian who remains unaccounted for. SKY News says that Australian is a seven year-old boy. Another of the Australian injured is in serious condition. In addition there are three Dutch, 26 French (of whom 11 are said by the French government to be in serious condition), three Greeks, one Chinese among those hhurt. Others are from Venezuela, Ireland, Peru and Algeria.
• Times of Israel reports that the area under attack "went into lockdown. Swarms of officers brandishing hand guns and automatic weapons launched a manhunt in the downtown district, ordering stores and cafes and public transport to shut down. Several hours later authorities reported two arrests, one a Spanish national from Melilla, a Spanish-run Mediterranean seafront enclave in North Africa, and the other a Moroccan. They declined to identify them."
• According to Spanish public broadcaster RTVE, one of the detained is named as Driss Oukabir, said to be a French citizen of Moroccan origin. But there are also reports a man of that name went to police in Ripoll to report that his identity documents had been stolen. One version being reported is that Driss Oukabir claimed his brother might have stolen them.
• Reuters says the Spanish royal household said on Twitter: “They are murderers, nothing more than criminals who are not going to terrorise us. All of Spain is Barcelona.” A person could wish that the sentiment of the Spanish royals would occasionally be extended to apply to the murderous, hateful attacks we here in Israel endure on an almost daily basis.

Next, Cambrils:

• Another vehicle-ramming attack last night (Thursday) in the seaside resort town of Cambrils, about 100 kilometers from Barcelona is being linked to the Barcelona attack.
• A police officer and five civilians are injured; two are in serious condition. The injuries all appear to be caused by the deliberate ramming.
• Times of Israel quotes the Cataln region’s Interior Minister Joaquin Forn saying this morning (Friday) that the Cambrils attack “follows the same trail. There is a connection.” He has not yet explained the connection and confirmed the driver in the Barcelona attack remains at large.
• The same source told Catalunya Radio this morning (Friday) that a third person has been arrested in connection with the Barcelona attack. He was taken into custody in the northern Catalan town of Ripoll.
• Five men carrying bomb belts and acting as human bombs - evidently inside the ramming vehicle - were shot and killed by police who then detonated their explosives in a controlled blast. Media reports however use a different way of describing their intentions. CNBC for instance writes that they "were wearing suicide belts". Telegraph UK says "five terrorists wearing suicide vests launched the second ramming attack in the country in a matter of hours." CNN says "police killed five men wearing fake suicide belts".

Permit us to interject something (not for the first time) about suicide and human bombs:

If the attackers in Cambrils were going to commit suicide, why in a public place? Could it be that suicide was not actually their goal? Were they in reality contemplating well-thought-out murder? Were they in fact murder-minded terrorists? If so, why confuse and mislead by implying (through the term suicide-belt or suicide bombers) that they were intent on committing suicide? They made themselves into human bombs and that is what we owe to ourselves and victims past and future to call them and those like them. We explain the thinking here: "30-Jun-15: We need to be calling them what they are: human bombs".

And it now appears a Wednesday night gas explosion in the town of Alcanar, 160 kilometers south-west of Barcelona along the Mediterranean coast is part of the same battle:

• "At least one person died and another six were injured in the explosion at around 11.15pm Wednesday night in the village of Alcanar Platja in southern Catalonia. Firefighters discovered about 20 gas cylinders while examining the scene of the blast... According to reports in the Spanish media, authorities were working under the assumption that a butane gas leak caused the blast. The deceased is believed to have been of Moroccan origin." [RT]
• Then came a second blast. From Mirror UK: "The first blast occurred at around 11.15pm on Wednesday night in a housing estate called Montecarlo de Alcanar Platja, in Alcanar, in the province of Tarragona, south of Barcelona.... the house was completely destroyed... Police said it was possible a second person was dead among the ruins of the house. They added that they suspect the house was being used to build an explosive device... 
• A second explosion injured nine more people, including six police officers and two firefighters. 
• The second explosion happened as the emergency services sifted through the rubble of the house... 
Neighbours had said that two north African brothers had been renting the house."

In reactions to the blood-letting and terrorism, the World Council of Churches shamelessly tweeted "Terrible attacks in Barcelona. Must be condemned by all. Prayers for the victims and their families. #PrayforBarcelona". We hope our readers will help circulate a response we published seven months ago: "08-Jan-17: Where the World Council of Churches stands as Israelis are rammed to death".

The head of the Palestinian Authority did what he does best - make up a respectable-sounding but totally insincere and counter-factual condemnation while hoping no one relevant notices the hypocrisy of his being the inciter-in-chief of almost identical attacks directed against Israelis [see "18-Aug-17: On vehicle rammings, Mahmoud Abbas, moderate advocate for terror, is open-minded, sees both sides"]