Hero Moshe Plesser, immediately after shooting the terrorist
Today’s terrorist attack in Jerusalem in which an “Israeli Arab” driving a huge articulated loader (not a bulldozer) killed three people and injured tens more is nothing special, except for the murder weapon. But there was lots of human drama, like the mother throwing her baby out of a car window to safety before the massive bucket came down and crushed the life out of her, or the heroes that jumped up on the machine and struggled with the driver, the off-duty soldier Moshe Plesser finally shooting the terrorist to death as he yelled “Allahu Akhbar!”
For a good real-time account of the story, including video links, see IsraellyCool here.
Press reactions were the usual, with speculation about the ‘motives’ of the Arab construction worker, Husam Taysir Dwayat. Excuse me, what motivates an Arab to kill as many arbitrary Jews as he can and shout “Allahu Akhbar”, a concern for peace, justice, and human rights?
His family and friends acted surprised. Husam was known as a drug dealer, but not a ‘political’ person, they said. Maybe he had been taunted by Jewish teenagers and just ‘lost it’, they suggested.
But Palestinians understood and cheered. Elder of Ziyon presents some Palestinian reactions to news reports. It was a big hit with them.
The Hebrew University bomber, the Merkaz haRav murderer, and now this one, all lived and worked in the Jerusalem area and had Israeli identity cards. Does this mean that there’s no future to the idea of Israeli Jews and Arabs living together peacefully, if not in friendship?
Unfortunately, that is probably exactly what it means. And the consequences of this will be terrible for Jewish and Arab Israelis. The fault lies with the Arab leadership and elites who have insisted for 60 years — no, for almost 100 years — that there must be no peace.
It lies with the Arab newspapers, TV networks, websites, religious establishment, political systems, educational systems, writers and intellectuals, Yasser Arafat, Fatah, Hamas, Azmi Bishara, the Balad party, Hosni Mubarak, Hafez and Bashar Assad, Hassan Nasrallah, Mohammed Bakri, Raed Salah, Mahmoud Abbas, the House of Saud, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Haj Amin al-Husseini, Sheik Ahmed Yassin, and I could go on, and on, and on if my fingers weren’t tired.
Every day there is one overwhelming message broadcast to every Palestinian and Israeli Arab from every direction: the Jews took your land, they are responsible for all of your problems, they are your deadly enemy, the highest praise is due to martyrs in the fight against them, they are destroying the al-Aqsa mosque, they are the sons of apes and pigs, they have damaged your honor, etc.
Is it any wonder that Arabs who are not engaged in organized professional terrorism often involve themselves in amateur terrorism, or that “non-political” types like Husam Taysir Dwayat often explode into ‘impulse terrorism’, the so-called “sudden jihad syndrome”?
But in fact these are distinctions without a difference. The idea of a Jewish state with a peaceful Arab minority isn’t going to fly any more.
This is one of those facts whose consequences are so bad that everyone insists that it’s not true. But it is true, and it’s probably too late to reverse the trend, which in any event is accelerating, not slowing down. This horse is already out of the barn, thanks to the abovementioned list of disseminators of hatred, and all the efforts of the “pro-peace” people are not going to put it back in.
Technorati Tags: Israel, Arabs, Husam Taysir Dwayat, terrorism, Jerusalem
I agree. I think it is disturbing how the family of the terrorist immediately claimed as defense for not losing their Israeli benefits, the terrorist’s prior association with a jewish woman.
A civil war is just the thing that anti-Israel militant terrorists are hoping for. You are right, it is a big hit with Palestinians.
A strong stance toward such actions is not only necessary from a deterrent standpoint, but totally warranted.