A partial view of Har HaZeitim
The sun strikes Har HaZeitim on a winter afternoon
See more photos hereToday's attack on Yaffo Street in the center of town received lots of press coverage and you have probably seen / read about it. However, some inaccuracies have also been reported - some of them quite significant - so I have some clarifications.
The attack occurred on the stretch of Yaffo Street between Sarei Yisra'el and the Israel Broadcast Authority offices in the former Sha'arei Zedek hospital. I have walked by there many times. A number of foreign press organizations have offices across the street so that some of them actually witnessed this extraordinary attack. They were able to provide immediate coverage, both from their windows overlooking the street and from the street level.
I have no doubt that the attacker would have continued on to the Machane Yehuda market, just a 1 minute walk from where the attacker was finally stopped. My mother was shopping there at the time; her cellphone didn't respond for a while and we were concerned. She later told me that the Arabs working in the market heard of the attack and stood proud with the events. This behavior has repeated in previous attacks, as well.
Many reports claim that an Israeli policeman shot the attacker, but this is not quite correct. The construction vehicle involved is a monstrously large vehicle. The attacker started his rampage near the corner of Sarei Yisra'el and was shot at by a policewoman. He then repeatedly rammed a bus several times with the front-end loader shovel before picking the bus up with the shovel and overturning it. Along the way, he drove over and crushed several vehicles. At least one van was run over several times. The silver Toyota had it's roof pulled off by the shovel; I believe that the woman at the wheel was killed but her baby in the back seat is safe.
An armed civilian managed to climb up on the vehicle and struggled to wrest control of the still-moving vehicle. An off-duty IDF soldier, about 19 years old, jumped off his bicycle and also climbed onto the bulldozer. The off-duty soldier, in short pants and a blue t-shirt, took the pistol from the struggling civilian and shot the Arab attacker, I believe three times. Only then did the bulldozer come to a stop. A uniformed anti-terrorist policeman (you may have seen them in Jerusalem; they ride around in pairs on trail bikes, dressed in black) then climbed up and fired a few more shots, to ascertain that this attack had stopped. (Remember that the attacker had already been shot at before and managed to kill people since those earlier shots.)
In what the Jerusalem Post described as "a surreal coincidence", the young off-duty IDF soldier who jumped from his bike onto the bulldozer is a brother-in-law of the man who shot dead the previous attacker, at Merkaz HaRav, just a few months ago. I heard the young fellow on TV and he said that he took his brother-in-law as an example of proper behavior and knew to do the right thing. He heard the Arab attacker screaming "Allahu Akhbar" (Allah is greater, i.e. greater than any other god) before he was shot dead (perhaps demonstrating that Allah is not so Akhbar after all).
I watched some of the video clips during live TV coverage, some of them I probably saw a few dozen times. In the video which shows a man holding a pistol as the bulldozer moves away from the camera before coming to a stop http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/998294.html (Beware: this contains some graphic images, AE), the bulldozer is seen to rock side to side before coming to rest. This is where it climbs onto and crushes another car, killing it's occupant immediately. This happened in the last two seconds of the attack. That person might be alive and well if the attacker had been shot dead just a few seconds earlier.
The wild claims of Leftist and "Palestinian" so-called "human rights" organizations have made Israeli police and soldiers very, very hesitant to fire upon terrorist suspects. The MainStreamMedia give the false impression that Israelis are trigger-happy, though this is the opposite of the truth. What if the attacker had been shot 4 or 5 seconds earlier? What if he had been shot dead 40 seconds earlier? Would we have been spared most of the dead and injured? Had the attacker continued into the crowded Machane Yehuda market, the dead and injured list would easily have risen ten-fold. (Last I heard, three people were killed besides the attacker, and about 70 were injured, at least one suffering an amputation.)
Comments on the web from the usual quarters try to justify this attack and also question the killing of the Arab attacker. Experience shows that the sooner such murderers are cut down, the fewer innocents are hurt.
This newest of Jewish holidays falls out today (28 Iyar) and marks the reunification of Jerusalem after the Six Day War in 1967. By all accounts it was an exciting time especially for frum Yidden as we were finally able to daven at the Kotel and walk in the old city of Jerusalem in relative safety.
Aish.com has some interesting articles and OU.org has some pictorial features about Yerushalayim.
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Chief Rabbi Shlomo Goren at the Kotel - 28 Iyar 5727This morning, the Israel Defense Forces liberated Jerusalem. We have united Jerusalem, the divided capital of Israel. We have returned to the holiest of our holy places, never to part from it again.It seems incongruous that a general - especially at wartime - would talk so strongly about peace with the enemy. It demonstrates Israel's strong desire for a secure and peaceful existence which, history seems to show, will only come about through Moshiach. May he come soon!
To our Arab neighbors we extend, also at this hour - and with added emphasis at this hour - our hand in peace. And to our Christian and Muslim fellow citizens, we solemnly promise full religious freedom and rights. We did not come to Jerusalem for the sake of other peoples' holy places, and not to interfere with the adherents of other faiths, but in order to safeguard its entirety, and to live there together with others, in unity.
Today, 28 Iyar, the 43rd day of the Omer, is Yom Yerushalayim. On this day in 1967 the old city of Jerusalem was liberated by the Israeli troops during the Six Day War. As a young child I remember the excitement of finally having our holiest city back in Jewish hands.
I took the above photos on trips to Israel over the last few years. The way the Kotel looks today is in stark contrast to the photo below of the Kotel in the 19th century where arab houses started just to the left of the picture.
For the historical facts of this day go to the Knesset site here. To read about the significance of Yom Yerushalyaim go to the Aish site here.
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I just received this email from Jake Livni in Israel. Jake used to live in Melbourne and just moved back to Israel earlier this year.
Please say tehillim for a refuah shleima for Tzur Pinchas ben Sarit.
There has been a nasty shooting near Jerusalem. It has not been reported in the press. A 10-year-old boy, connected indirectly to my family, was shot in the head yesterday by Arab attackers in a drive-by shooting near Jerusalem. He has suffered serious brain injuries. His name is Tzur Pinchas ben Sarit. Prayers for his full recovery would be appreciated.
This incident has not been reported in the international press, as far as I have seen. There were just a few reports in the Israeli press, saying that the boy is "stable". I got a phone call from a relative about this yesterday. It hardly got a mention in the news here. The Arab attackers shot the boy in a drive-by shooting, then set their car alight and escaped in another car, which was waiting for them.
Two things are noteworthy:
1) There are many, many incidents like this that get little or no media exposure at all. Even the Israeli press finds other things to report on. This goes on all the time.
2) When such incidents ARE reported, theyare mis- or under-reported. A "10 year old boy in stable condition" sounds like he's waiting for a visit from the hospital's resident clown to cheer him up; I am afraid that serious (and possibly permanent) brain injuries are really in a different category. And it's always like this.
Pray for Tzur Pinchas ben Sarit. And STOP GIVING GUNS TO THE KILLERS!!!!
Giving them territory won't increases anyone's security, either.
