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Riding The Bus While Jewish

There’s something about an up-close act of violence that illustrates an attacker’s viciousness ... in this case, with a screwdriver.

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A Palestinian Arab on a bus near the Ramot junction in Jerusalem suddenly started stabbing one of the passengers with a screwdriver. The driver immediately stopped and the terrorist and other passengers got off the bus; a Ynet photograher passing by noticed what was happening and shot the terrorist. The civilian who was stabbed is in a fair condition. (Screencap: Facebook)

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(JNS) Another day, another stabbing.

Doesn’t it seem like that has become the standard news from Israel? It’s all too easy to fall into the trap of getting used to recurring violence and treating it as something routine, starting to think “That’s just how it is,” and then turning the page or changing the channel.

But this week’s stabbing in Jerusalem, like every terrorist attack, had unique elements and lessons that deserve a closer look.

Let’s start with the site of the attack. It was on a civilian bus, making its ordinary stops along the streets of Israel’s capital city. As it reached one of them, a Palestinian Arab man suddenly stabbed a Jewish passenger.

Pause right there. Mideast “experts” and J Street types are always claiming that Jews provoke Arab violence. How, exactly, did this bus passenger provoke the stabber?

The victim was not establishing a settlement. He wasn’t “occupying anybody.” He wasn’t “obstructing peace.”

Civil-rights activists in the United States have coined the term “driving while black” to describe unjust arrests of African-American motorists. I guess the victim on the Jerusalem bus didn’t realize that to some Palestinian Arabs, it’s a crime to ride a bus while Jewish.

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The Jerusalem Post and other Israeli media agencies published a photograph of the blood-stained weapon lying on the ground after the attack. It was a screwdriver.

A screwdriver is not nearly as sharp as a knife. In order to stab somebody, the attacker would have had to use much more force than if he had used a sharp blade. And, of course, in order to carry out any kind of stabbing attack, the terrorist has to be within inches of his victims.

I’m pointing this out because it’s important to recognize something about the psychology of stabbers.

A Palestinian Arab terrorist who plants a bomb in a movie theater never sees his victims at all. A terrorist who shoots people with a rifle or machine gun doesn’t have to look into the eyes of the people he is trying to murder. But this screwdriver terrorist had to be right up against the person he was stabbing.

To commit such brutal violence, a terrorist has to possess a profoundly cruel and barbaric mentality. It’s not that terrorists who use bombs or machine guns are any less barbaric. But there’s something about such an up-close act of violence that illustrates an attacker’s viciousness in a way that more “anonymous” types of murder can disguise.

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Now let’s consider the broader implications of the attack.

If a Palestinian Arab state was established next to Israel—as the U.S. State Department and the United Nations are constantly demanding—this is what Israelis would face: an entire sovereign country representing the mentality of the screwdriver terrorist.

How do we know that a state of “Palestine” would act in the spirit of such stabbers? Because the Palestinian Authority regime itself constantly says so.

The official P.A. news media relentlessly praises stabbers and holds them up to Palestinian society as heroes and heroines. Since the stabber was shot dead by an armed bystander, his family will receive a lifetime of monetary payments from the P.A. If the stabber had survived, then he would have been paid a salary by the P.A., as it pays all imprisoned terrorists.

The P.A.’s policy of paying terrorists is a statement about the values that Palestinian Arab society holds dear and that a state of “Palestine” would embody.

One final thought.

It’s been said before, but it has to be said again. If the attacker had been a Jew and the victim had been an Arab, the assault would be on the front pages of newspapers around the world. Americans for Peace Now and B’Tselem would be shouting about “settler violence.” (Of course, the bus was driving through Ramot, a part of northern Jerusalem that is beyond the 1967 lines, so the critics would have called it a “settler bus.”) The Biden administration would express “concern” about “the escalating violence.”

But since the attacker was a Palestinian Arab and his victim was a Jew, the international community is silent. And that silence speaks volumes.

Stephen M. Flatow, is an attorney and the father of Alisa Flatow, who was murdered in an Iranian-sponsored Palestinian terrorist attack in 1995. He is author of “A Father’s Story: My Fight for Justice Against Iranian Terror.

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Thank you for choosing TheJ.Ca as your source for Canadian Jewish News.

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Our positioning as a Zionist News Media platform sets us apart from the rest. While other Canadian Jewish media are advocating increasingly biased progressive political and social agendas, TheJ.Ca is providing more and more readers with a welcome alternative and an ideological home.

We revealed the incursion of anti-Israel progressive elements such as IfNotNow into our communities. We have exposed the distorted hateful agenda of the “progressive” left political radicals who brought Linda Sarsour to our cities, and we were first to report on many disturbing incidents of Nazi-based hate towards Jews across Canada.

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Happy reading!

Thank you for choosing TheJ.Ca as your source for Canadian Jewish News.

We do news differently!

Our positioning as a Zionist News Media platform sets us apart from the rest. While other Canadian Jewish media are advocating increasingly biased progressive political and social agendas, TheJ.Ca is providing more and more readers with a welcome alternative and an ideological home.

We revealed the incursion of anti-Israel progressive elements such as IfNotNow into our communities. We have exposed the distorted hateful agenda of the “progressive” left political radicals who brought Linda Sarsour to our cities, and we were first to report on many disturbing incidents of Nazi-based hate towards Jews across Canada.

But we can’t do it alone. We need your HELP!

Our ability to thrive and grow in 2020 and beyond depends on the generosity of committed readers and supporters like you.

Monthly support is a great way to help us sustain our operations. We greatly appreciate any contributions you can make to support Jewish Journalism.

We thank you for your ongoing support.

Happy reading!

Now I want to be clear, B’nai Brith does great work, and the organization has been especially busy in Toronto and Montreal. And their leaders say the right things:

“This assault (in Montreal) shocked the Jewish community, causing a great sense of unease,” said Michael Mostyn, Chief Executive Officer of B’nai Brith Canada. “Sadly, antizionism is the new driver of antisemitism. Quebec and other provinces must invest more in education to address these issues.”

But what Zionists experienced in my community was a failure of leadership.

The safety, indeed the dignity, of the women, men, teenagers, seniors and even the pro-Israel Christians who saw an anti-Zionist riot engulf them in seconds, weren’t a priority to the national Jewish leadership based in Eastern Canada. And certainly not to the local machars, who behave like fundraising from Jews is more important than protecting their donors.

As you’ll see in this edition of TheJ.ca, critical voices are saying INSERT HYPERLINK American Jewish Leaders Should Lead Or Get Out Of The Way. In the article, Charles Jacobs and Avi Goldwasser proclaim that their coalition, The Jewish Leadership Project, calls on all Jews to demand their leaders finally stand up and fight against the tsunami of antisemitism.

For decades, both of us have been fighting our external enemies—the biased media, the professoriate, spineless college administrators, leftist anti-Zionists, high schools with poisoned “lesson plans,” radical Muslim antisemites and antisemitic demagogues like Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan… We have finally concluded that the Jewish community cannot prevail against this organized tsunami of bigotry under its current establishment leadersJewish community leadership needs to declare a state of emergency and reprioritize all community initiatives in order to protect the Jewish community.”

cOMING SOON…….

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