Posted on 09/03/2013 7:09:55 AM PDT by SJackson
- FrontPage Magazine - http://frontpagemag.com -
Mass Attack Thwarted in Jerusalem
Posted By P. David Hornik On September 3, 2013 @ 12:27 am In Daily Mailer,FrontPage | 14 Comments
As Rosh Hashanah (the Jewish New Year) approaches on Thursday this week, the mood here in Israel has been oddly schizoid. On one hand, the usual rush on apples, honey, pomegranates and the like for the holiday; on the other, a rush on gas masks as Syria and Iran threaten retaliation against Israel for a possible U.S. strike on Syria.
This week there was more news on the grim side of the ledger. It turned out Israels Shin Bet (internal security service) had arrested five Hamas operatives who were planning a terror attack on a Jerusalem malltimed for, and exploiting, the holiday season (reports here and here).
The leader of the cell was 22-year-old Hamdi Romana of Ramallah in the West Bank. He recruited two other West Bankers to make the explosivesand two East Jerusalem residents with Israeli ID cards, who worked as maintenance men in the mall, to plant the bomb.
The plan was to cover the bomb in wrapping paper to make it look like a present, then place it in a restaurant, cafe or store while the mall was filled with shoppers . The explicit aim was to kill the maximum number of Jews.
The cell was also
planning other attacks, including planting a bomb in Ramallah that would target Israeli soldiers, firing homemade rockets at Israeli settlements near Ramallah, and firing at soldiers stationed at [a] checkpoint in northeast Jerusalem.
A few things are worth pointing out here:
● The West Bank remains a terror tinderbox. The Shin Bet said the cells discovery demonstrates that terrorists in the West Bank, led by Hamas, are highly motivated to carry out terror attacks in Israeli territory .
In other words, even with the West Bank under Palestinian Authority rule and ultimate Israeli security control, Hamas remains strong there. This at a time when, intensively pushed into it by Secretary of State John Kerry, Israel and the PA are engaged in peace talks aimed at an Israeli withdrawal from the area. But if Hamas remains potent and dangerous there even when Israeli security forces are active, one is hard pressed to understand why, or how, anyone thinks Hamass takeover could be prevented if those forces were goneany more than upheavals and takeovers have proved preventable recently elsewhere in the region.
● While the cells three operatives from the West Bank are part of a population widely regarded in the West as living under occupation and having a grievance against Israel, the two East Jerusalem bearers of Israeli ID cards hadrationally speakingno such grievance. While the reports dont mention whether they had taken out Israeli citizenship, as East Jerusalem residents they had that option. Indeed, as Ive noted,
the numbers of [East Jerusalem Arabs] requesting Israeli citizenship have dramatically climbed in recent years. Polls find that, even if the Palestinian state was established, most East Jerusalem Palestinians would prefer to remain Israeli.
And yet, in the wake of this incident, the Shin Bet warned of a high risk of West Bank-based terrorists exploiting those who have Israeli identification and enjoy freedom of movement, and using them to carry out terror attacks inside Israel.
The two East Jerusalem members of the cell, in other words, were representative of the Arab worlds real, fundamental grievance against Israel: its existence, not its control of any specific territory.
● As Rosh Hashanah nears, Israelis can look back at another year in which lethal terror attacks have been kept to a minimum. But as the Shin Bet keeps emphasizing, the reason is not any drop in motivation or attempts to commit them but because Israel retains security control over the land between the Jordan and the Mediterranean. There could be no more fervent prayer than that situation should continue.
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Sounds like attempted workplace violence to me. After all, two of the men worked at the mall.
There is nothing schizoid. about it. The Israelis are a people of remarkable courage and resilience. Their ability to continue with full and meaningful lives in the face of an insane and implacable enemy deserves the admiration of the world.
Let us be faithful in praying for the peace of Jerusalem... such as it is possible while waiting for the return of Jesus!
I was very surprised after spending 3 months in Israel how relaxed they are about terrorist plots.
No “head in the sand”, more “hey these things happen, deal with it”.
Definitely not schizoid.
Israels Shin Bet (internal security service) had arrested five Hamas operatives who were planning a terror attack on a Jerusalem mallfrom the FRchives:
They were just protesting bad working conditions./s
Where’s OBayMe, Hagle, Reid, Kerry, McLame, Pelosi, Boxer, et al. who feel sorry for Al Qaeda in Syria??
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