Murdered police counterterrorism officer Pascal Avrahami
Yesterday I wrote that there were rumors that Egyptians were involved in a firefight with Israelis. I deliberately didn’t go into more detail because I didn’t want to compromise my source. Now it has become general knowledge:
The incident involving the Egyptians occurred later in the afternoon, while the chief of staff and the defense minister held a press conference north of Eilat. An IDF force rushed to an area where there had been more shooting. Egyptian soldiers were seen holding three men at gunpoint.
When the Israeli officers asked for the captives to be handed over, an Egyptian officer claimed that they were Egyptian soldiers. At some point the troops came under fire, and a sniper killed the anti-terrorist police officer Pascal Avrahami.
IDF and Egyptian soldiers were facing each other along the border and they came under fire from one of the groups of terrorists. They were neutralized by the soldiers. The incident ended about 6 P.M. — Ha’aretz
Here is the story as I heard it, attributed to eyewitnesses: the police counterterrorism officers were observing the Egyptians across the border at a range of several hundred meters. It was late in the day, and the Egyptians were preparing to leave their position, taking apart equipment, etc. Suddenly, several bursts of automatic fire came from the Egyptian side. The Israelis rushed to take cover and return fire, and at this point Avrahami was hit. No one else was wounded on the Israeli side.
The bullet that hit him was an ordinary Kalashnikov slug, not a round from a sniper weapon. At that range, it was a very lucky shot.
If this account is correct, then what happened was not a ‘regrettable accident’. It was a case of deliberate murder, and the Egyptians that were killed were killed in self-defense. There should be no apology from Israel, nor even an ‘expression of regret’. An investigation should be carried out to find out which Egyptian soldier or policeman opened fire, and if he was not one of those killed by the reaction he provoked, then he should be arrested and charged with murder.
Egypt should apologize and compensate Israel for the death of Avrahami.
Of course this won’t happen. The rules in the Middle East say that Israel is always wrong, that Arabs are allowed to kill Jews with impunity, and that Israel should apologize for existing.
During the reign of Mubarak, there was always vicious incitement against Jews and Israel in Egyptian media, although Mubarak kept a tight reign on violent expressions of it. Since his fall, the hatred has become more concrete, with repeated acts of sabotage to the pipeline supplying Israel with Egyptian natural gas and increased support to Hamas and other terrorists in Gaza. ‘Arab spring’ demonstrations in Egypt often include ugly antisemitic and anti-Zionist signs and expressions.
Now the incitement has reached its natural destination, murder.
To a certain extent, Israel in its public diplomacy pretends that it is a normal state, surrounded mostly by normal states (Iran is perhaps an exception) where peace is prevented by the intervention of extremists. This is a very distorted picture.
In fact the situation is that Israel is surrounded by states whose leadership and people hate Israel and Jews. They have never accepted the idea of a Jewish state. They only oppose the ‘extremists’ when these threaten their own regimes. This includes, of course, the Palestinian Arabs.
Peace cannot be obtained as long as this condition is maintained, and no Arab or Muslim leadership exists anywhere that wants to change it. This — not settlements, not borders, not human rights — is the reason that there is no peace.
Egypt promised peace in return for the Sinai. Israel gave them the Sinai, uprooting Jewish settlements to do so. But Egypt did not return peace. The regime just placed the stew of hatred on slow boil, and dumped in antisemitic incitement, books, TV shows, ‘education’, etc. And this is why, more than 30 years after Camp David, Egyptians are killing Israelis.
Technorati Tags: Israel, Egypt, Pascal Avrahami, incitement, murder
It is what it is when anyone is killed.
In a just society murder is murder.
The aspect that seems so incomprehensible to the West when dealing with Islam is Sharia. Non-comprehending or not Sharia is the “reason d’être” of Islam.
In other words conceptualization of anything outside of Sharia is simply not permitted and cannot be heeded.
Sharia is where the idea of a similar playing field or as popular opinion likes “a level playing field” does not, cannot and will not exist.
The concepts of Western accommodation conflict with Sharia and therefore they are not even on the same playing field. Yet the assumption prevails in the West (including Israel) that everyone is on the same playing field.
So the West and Israel can call this a Murder and under Sharia it is simply the killing of a Jew or a Christian and such killings are not different from killing any animal.
This is why when speaking to a Sharia Moslem believer one finds the concept of empathy is wholly absent. It is as they say “Allah’s will” and they see themselves as the righteous embodiment of Allah’s will and by such logic see everything they cause or do as Allah’s will.
So say a person is murdered is to describe the consequence and not the perpetrator or the act. It does nothing to expose the philosophy behind the act in fact it conceals it.
Islam is a battle for the mind and the West has to battle to keep those minds free from the ilk of Sharia Islam.
When Molsem kill anyone it would be better to engage the religious component in every report that shows the Sharia desensitization of respect for non-Molsem life. This would best be done by use of a phrase or word that conveys this aspect.
I don’t know what the word or phrase should be but certainly there are many possibilities. Without such a construct however we allow that death by the hands for Sharia inspired Muslims is simply another killing or another murder when in fact it is not – it is a commanded religious exercise to be practiced upon first the Jew and next the Christian.
When Mubarrak was tottering I went into a total anxiety attack. My sense was that the end of his regime would mean an Egypt which would use its American weaponry to war with Israel. I do not know how close we are to that scenario. But it seems to me that this is the major scenario that has to be on the mind of Israel’s military leaders. The ‘aleihum’ scenario in which all the enemies combine at once in an effort to destroy us. In this Egypt with its large ground and air forces presents perhaps the major threat.
Perhaps we are very far from this. Perhaps the Egyptian regime has to deal with internal problems, its own bankruptcy, and to get itself in order. Perhaps it will think many times before losing U.S. support. Perhaps it knows that Israel can devastate it entirely. i.e. Perhaps it knows that War is insanity from its own point- of- view. But the hysterical street celebrating the pulling down of the Israeli flag seems to be in the saddle.