Following Barcelona, Jerusalem Revisited
At least 14 people were killed and 100 injured on Thursday 17 August 2017 when a driver deliberately slammed a van into crowds on Barcelona’s most popular street in a terror attack.
A popular global tourist destination, it was hardly surprising that citizens of 34 countries were among those killed and injured in Barcelona.
killed as van ploughs into pedestrians on packed street (Mirror -http://www.mirror.co.uk/)
The attack, the latest in a wave of vehicle rammings across Europe in recent years, drew condemnation from world leaders.
What was not “hardly surprising” was that when political commentators and security experts rattled off with precise ease, one case after another of terrorist car rammings across the globe in recent years, glaringly absent was any mention of Israel!
For these networks – “Jewish lives” lost in Israel “don’t matter”.
Depending on what TV news network you were listening to on the Barcelona attack, or what terrorist expert was espousing his or her expertise on security – you would have heard of comparisons “in a similar type to” to the lethal vehicle-ramming attacks in:
Not even a whisper of comparison to where this type of new terrorist began – Israel.
What It Began and What It Begat
Using vehicles as instruments of terror made its explosive debut in the Middle East. Back in in December 15, 1981, the Iraqi Shi’a Islamist group al-Dawa carried out a suicide car bombing targeting the Iraqi embassy in Beirut, Lebanon. The explosion leveled the embassy and killed 61 people, including Iraq’s ambassador to Lebanon, and injured 110 others. Two years later, in October 23 1983, in Beirut, Lebanon, two truck bombs struck separate buildings housing Multinational Force in Lebanon (MNF) peacekeepers, killing 241 U.S. and 58 French peacekeepers and 6 civilians.
However, these were vehicles detonated with explosives.
It was complicated and required sophisticated planning and coordination.
The easy, cheap and unpredictable method of simply using a vehicle without explosives – now the scourge of Europe – is credited to a Palestinian who on the 22 September 2008, drove a BMW saloon car into a group of civilians and off-duty soldiers in a ramming attack in Jerusalem injuring 19. According to Stratfor Global Intelligence analysts, this attack represented “a new militant tactic which is less lethal but could prove more difficult to prevent than suicide bombings.” SGI were right about the “difficult to prevent”: less so about the lethality as Barcelona proves with 14 dead and 100 injured.
Actually, the 2008 vehicular attack in Israel was a third in a series that year involving this new tactic of motor vehicle murder and mayhem.
‘Terrorist’ rams car into Jerusalem crowd, killing baby (Credit – AFP Photo/Menahem Kahana)
A few months earlier on July 2, 2008, Husam Tayseer Dwayat, an Arab Israeli citizen from the Sur Baher neighborhood of Jerusalem drove a bulldozer along Jaffa Road in downtown Jerusalem, slamming into a bus and passing cars. Four people were killed and another 45 were injured.
Later that same month, on the 22nd, Ghassan Abu Tir, from the Umm Tuba neighborhood of Jerusalem, drove a front-loader into traffic on the city’s King David Street, slamming into a bus and passing cars. Sixteen people were injured.
This new form of what The Jerusalem Post termed in 2008 as “Ramming Terror Attacks” is today the most ‘popular’ type of terror in Europe.
So, it begs the question, with all these vehicular attacks killing and maiming on the streets of Europe, why no comparison to where it began and where it still happens – in Israel.
An omission?
Of course, not?
“Oh, because in Israel it’s different”.
Yes, ‘over there’ – in Israel – these drivers “are not terrorists; they are liberators.”
In this convoluted reasoning, the “terrorist” in Barcelona is a “Liberator” in Jerusalem. The woman Muslim commentator on CNN, lamenting the rise of Islamophobia, said the act by the terrorists in Barcelona was “despicable”. Every Israeli would agree.
However, why does she and her fellow colleagues on CNN, BBC, Sky, France 24 and many others say that those who do the EXACT same thing in Israel are also “despicable”?
Truth be told, that what happens on the soil of Europe and described as “despicable”, when it happens in Israel, such murderers are lionized, idolised, honoured and have streets and kid’s summer camps named after them!
Is the blood spilled in Israel any different to the blood spilt in Europe?
“If you prick us, do we not bleed?
If you tickle us, do we not laugh?
If you poison us, do we not die?”
(Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare)
The Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy confirmed that the van attack in Barcelona was “Jihadist terrorism” which he said requires a global response. “Today the fight against terrorism is the principal priority for free and open societies like ours. It is a global threat and the response has to be global,” Rajoy said at a news conference in Barcelona.
“Jihadist terrorism”, “global threat”, “global response” from a European Prime Minister, and who would argue!
However, when it comes to the state of the Jews, Israel is attacked for trying to prevent being attacked!
Go figure!
Look what happened when Israel tried to install metal detectors in the Old City in Jerusalem following two Druze Israeli policemen shot in their back before Muslim prayers on Friday 14th July 2017.
The installation of the metal detectors – since removed buckling to international pressure – was not an Israeli initiative but a rational response to a specific terror attack to protect people, irrespective of religion, against future attacks.
But the Islamic world went hysterical in its irrational opposition, falsely accusing Israel of malicious intent, while in truth, the opposition to the metal detectors exposes the true intent – freedom to murder Jews.
Where was the world who are all supporting such security measures in their own countries to Israel’s dilemma? A deafening silence.
Jews are accustomed to deafening silences when they are being murdered!
Murder on their Mind
08 Jan 2017 – A truck driven by an Arab citizen of Israel, plowed into a group of uniformed Israel Defense Forces (IDF) soldiers disembarking from a bus on the Armon Hanatziv Esplanade in Jerusalem. (mdais.org)
Before these more recent vehicular terrorist attacks – mainly in Europe – the year 2017 began when on January 8, a truck driven by an Arab citizen of Israel, plowed into a group of uniformed Israel Defense Forces (IDF) soldiers disembarking from a bus on the Armon Hanatziv Promenade in Jerusalem’s Talpiot neighbourhood, killing four and injuring fifteen.
In customary response reportage, the BBC saw fit to headline:
“Driver of lorry shot in Jerusalem after allegedly ramming pedestrians, injuring at least 15.”
This rush-to-print headline portrays that:
What would be a terrorist in Europe is a driver in Israel innocently shot!
When motorists with murder on their mind do it in Nice, London, Charlottesville, or Barcelona they are “terrorists”.
When they do it in Jerusalem “They had a reason to do it”.
Such verbal gymnastics has a name – it’s called anti-Semitism.
Until we have in the words of the Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy to confront such “Jihadist terrorism” with “a global response” that includes the experts in the field, namely Israel, blood will continue to be spilt on the streets of Europe and it’s the same colour that is spilt on the streets of Israel!
