Reflexively telling

Yesterday, Boker Tov Boulder aptly observed that following a terror attack:

… there’s the attack by the media that inevitably follows. Then there’s the aftermath, in which we can see the results of the first two, usually along the lines of Israel being weakened and our enemies further emboldened.

The attack she referred to was by the BBC.

It didn’t take long elsewhere.

via memeorandum

The New York Time reported on yesterday’s terror attack. There’s nothing remarkable about the headline:

Palestinian Kills 3 With Construction Vehicle.

However that wasn’t the original headline, that read:

Construction Vehicle Kills 3 in Israel Attack

However as we all know construction vehicles don’t kill people, people kill people.

(h/t LGF’s link viewer)

Similarly Meryl observed that the AP headline used words as if:

… it was an accident, instead of a deliberate, murderous attack.

McClatchy’s Jerusalem correspondent showed his true colors with:

The video also shows a policeman shooting the lifeless man at point-blank range, a move that could spark questions from Israeli human rights groups about whether the officer’s shot was necessary and if he might have unnecessarily killed the man.

(Though, from the footage, it looks as if the first shots probably killed him.)

My first thoughts on observing this action would have been amazement at the heroism of the shooters; his first thought was of the possible human rights violation. The truth is that Israeli security forces follow a protocol of “confirming the kill.” This is especially important when terrorists may have explosives strapped to their bodies.

The Israelis intervening yesterday had no idea, of course, if the terrorist was indeed wearing explosives but it wasn’t a chance they could take. And given that he was at the controls of a construction vehicle, if he were still capable of controlling it he presented a danger.

Just for a reminder here’s what happened in Dimona a few months ago:

Shalom Bar Avi, a journalist speaking to Channel 10, said “I am here no longer as a journalist but as a simple citizen … I pray and hope my wife is okay.”

Bar Avi praised the police’s quick response to the attack, and said Mor, the officer who identified the second attacker shot “four or five times … he took no chances.”

Later Mor’s heroism was revealed in detail: He shot the terrorist in the head, and when the latter in his last breath still tried to press the detonator button, shot him four more times and killed him. Mor managed to kill the terrorist before he could explode and without hitting his explosive belt, thus preventing a much more devastating attack.

You don’t take chances. And while this isn’t the reason the terrorist was killed, Seraphic Secret notes:

Here’s the good news: this is one Muslim terrorist who will not be used in a disgraceful and damaging prisoner swap.

The reaction to terror against Israel is telling of the mindset of those reporting the news. Though it was reported that the terrorist yelled “Allahu Akbar” most press accounts still try to raise doubts that this was a terrorist attack rather than an accident or criminal act.

(There are those who complained that Al Jazeera’s coverage of the attack was too pro-Israel!)

Ha’aretz reports on the Israelis who stopped the attack.

“I approached the bus on my bicycle, and then began to run to the site, looking for a weapon to use against the terrorist,” he told reporters yesterday. The military censor imposed a gag order on his identity.

Near the bulldozer the young soldier found a civilian, Oron Ben-Shimon, 28, a regional manager of a security firm in Jerusalem, who was armed. “Together we tried to neutralize the terrorist, at least to lift his feet off the pedals.

“He shouted ‘Allah Akbar.’ At that moment I pulled the pistol that Oron carried and shot the terrorist three times in the head. After I verified that he was dead, I raised the pistol to make sure that passersby were not hurt,” he recounted.

“I went out on Jaffa Road,” says Oron, “and as I was driving I saw a crowd of people shouting ‘terrorist’ and ‘mad man.’ I put on a police hat, and took my pistol and ran toward the bulldozer.”

“I saw a policeman on the bulldozer with a drawn gun. I holstered my weapon and the policeman told me there was no need to shoot him because he passed out and we need to pull him out of the bulldozer.

“And then the terrorist woke up and grabbed the wheel and tried to run over more people. I was already on the bulldozer and I hit him with my fists in the face in an effort to take over the wheel. I shouted to the young man near me to shoot him. He drew my pistol from the holster and shot him three times in the head.”

Oron confirms that the terrorist was dead when shot by the policeman. Still even here, the terrorist apparently out of commission started his attack again.

Then there’s the heroism of a mother who saved her baby:

Seconds before being crushed to death by a bulldozer, 33-year-old Batsheva Unterman succeeded in unbuckling her 5-month-old baby from the car-seat and passing her out through the window to safety.

“Just as I took the baby out, he reversed on top of the car. The baby is okay, but not the mother,” Jeremy Aronson, the man who helped save the baby, told The Jerusalem Post quietly as he sat alone in the waiting room of Hadassah-University Hospital in Mount Scopus.

I am amazed by those who can act quickly at times of crisis. Unfortunately Mrs. Unterman didn’t survive.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.