Fresno Zionism noticed an interesting item in the news. One Arab country took action against boasting about the massacre at Merkaz Harav, Jordan.
The relatives [of Ala Abu Dhaim, the murderer], who live near Amman, tried Friday to erect a large tent to receive mourners, but were ordered by Jordanian security officers to dismantle it immediately…They were also instructed to remove Hamas and Hizbullah flags that were hanging on rooftops and electricity poles…
Israel’s now followed suit:
The gunman who murdered eight students at Mercaz Harav Yeshiva in Jerusalem last Thursday was acting on instructions from Hamas leaders in Damascus, in coordination with Hezbollah, Palestinian defense sources said.Over the weekend, eight East Jerusalem residents were arrested in connection with gunman Ala Abu Dhaim’s shooting attack. Abu Dhaim’s father, two of his brothers and two cousins are among those detained.
The father also removed Hamas and Hezbollah flags from a mourners’ tent the family had erected, after being instructed to do so by police
Why do we allow people who openly support our destruction be citizens of Israel, and obtain the benefits citizens enjoy?
While no one has explicitly taken responsibility for the atrocity, Palestinian sources attribute it to a joint operation between the Hamas leadership in Damascus and Hezbollah.
So far no Palestinian or Arab organization has claimed responsibility for the attack, although Palestinian sources have said that the attack had been planned by a Hamas network in the West Bank acting on orders from its leaders in Damascus. Hamas’ leadership in Gaza was not privy to the plan, which was drawn up in coordination with Hezbollah, the sources said.The Palestinian Authority believes this was the first of a number of planned attacks by both Hamas and Islamic Jihad, independent of each other.
Is this accurate? Clearly this attack was well planned.
An initial police investigation has revealed that the shooting was not a spontaneous attack, but had been planned in advance. Police also learnt that Abu Dhaim had personally chosen the location and time for the shooting. To this end, he carried out extensive reconnaissance and intelligence-gathering work on the yeshiva.The gunman had also stockpiled weapons and ammunition, only some of which he took to perpetrate the attack – an AK-47 assault rifle, two pistols and a few magazines.
Since Abu Dhaim, an East Jerusalem resident, had a blue identity card, and since he transported people in the area, he was able to move freely in the city’s western part, too, and seems to have been well-acquainted with the attack site. The key question is where he obtained his AK-47 assault rifle, which he used to attack the yeshiva.
Another thing, is that he was pretty familiar with the weapon. According to reports he changed magazines during the attack.
Israel Matzav asks some other questions:
I wonder how Abu Dhaim knew the Yeshiva’s routines so well if he didn’t work there. Thursday night is the most crowded night of the week for many yeshivas. It’s the first night of the weekend, and not only do the regular yeshiva students tend to stay later, but also outsiders – like people from the neighborhood or alumni of the yeshiva – will come to study on Thursday night. Second, most yeshivas (and synagogues for that matter) have little or no security. During the bad years of the Oslo War, that’s how restaurants were attacked and eventually all of the restaurants got security guards (and most of them still maintain them). Will yeshivas and synagogues need armed security guards as well?
(via memeorandum)
UPDATE: Roger L. Simon
So what would you do? I think I am basically a hothead and would not exercise restraint. Tonight I think, if I were the Prime Minister of Israel, I would sat to the citizens of Gaza “You want a state? From today, you’ve got one. Behave like one.” And when the inevitable katyushas came, I would do to them what the United States did to Dresden….
and In Context
Will there come a day when the righteous rage of the Jewish people will reach critical mass and boil up in a conflagration the likes of which the world has never seen? Or will we just continue nursing it and smothering it and keeping it in check, hoping it will recede again, hoping against hope that we can prevent an event that will ignite it again. It had been 1,261 days since the last major terrorist attack in Jerusalem, so …. Never mind Sderot. And Ashkelon. And the summer of 2006. Where, exactly, is that fuse?
both contemplate the point when Israeli patience is exhausted.In an article that seems almost prescient, Yossi Klein Halevi wrote last week (before the terror attack on Merkaz Harav, of “The end of the ‘guilty Israeli.’”
The result of all this is that today the guilty Israeli has become nearly extinct. Just as we came to realize during the first intifada that the occupation was untenable, so we have now come to realize that peace is impossible with Palestinian leaders for whom reconciliation is a one-way process.So far, the rockets aimed at Israel have been primitive and mostly terrorize and wound rather than slaughter. But it is only a matter of time before Hamas’ allies in Iran and Hezbollah upgrade the rockets’ lethal effect.
The government now has been restrained in its response to the attack on Merkaz Harav. Part of it no doubt is that the terrorist managed to work undetected Israel’s radar. I can only hope that the silence indicates that plans are afoot to hit back and hard. Better a surprise retaliatory attack on terror masters than a counter attack that fails to meet its stated objectives.
Crossposted on Soccer Dad.
