16-Aug-19: Children with knives and another Arab-on-Israeli stabbing frenzy

Photo montage from an online source [here] shows the stabbers

as depicted today in the social media and via security cam footage

In the latest such attack, two Palestinian Arab children armed with knives ["Cop injured in Jerusalem stabbing attack; 2 assailants shot", Times of Israel, August 15, 2019] were stopped from killing their Israeli targets on Thursday.

Both are minors. At least one is 14 years old. Some reports, but not all, say the other is too.

Two teenage assailants stabbed a police officer, moderately injuring him, in an apparent terror attack in Jerusalem’s Old City on Thursday, officials said. The assailants were shot by security forces at the scene. One of them was pronounced dead at the scene, the second was critically wounded and taken to the hospital, a police spokesperson said.
Graphic video footage from the scene showed the two teenagers walk up from behind a group of police officers stationed in the Old City. As they approached, they suddenly pulled out knives and began repeatedly stabbing one of the cops. Other officers at the scene opened fire at the pair as they were stabbing the victim.
The injured police officer was approximately 40 years old. He sustained multiple stab wounds to the upper body, medics said.
“We gave him medical care, including stopping the bleeding and bandaging him, and we took him to the hospital,” one of the medics on the scene said. The officer was taken to Jerusalem’s Shaare Zedek Medical Center.

Via social media [click to view], there's high quality graphic security cam video of the actual attack and of the quick and focused response by the Israeli security personnel.

The location is said to be the Old City's Chain Gate. It's one of the dozen open gates (though sometimes closed) that lead to the Temple Mount and is limited, in accordance with current Israeli security measures, to Muslim worshipers and visitors only. In Arabic, they call it Kubat A Silsila.

Shortly after the attack [Image Source]

Haaretz names the 14 year old knifer as Hamuda Khader a-Sheikh who is being treated for his wounds, and a 17 year old (in their version) they name as Nassim Abu Rumi who is said to have died at the scene. (In its report, Ynet says the dead attacker was also fourteen.)

Both evidently, though not confirmed, are from Al-Azaria, a village on the slopes of Jerusalem's Mount of Olives. It's better known to some as the Biblical town of Bethany, the home of Lazarus (hence its Arabic name).

Arab reports include wide-ranging claims that deny and distort:

• Eyewitnesses refuted the IDF's allegations and confirmed that there was no stabbing. They explained that a settler tried to storm the Al-Aqsa Mosque, and when the guards tried to stop him, he opened fire on the guard's foot... [Sabaharabi, Egypt]
• The police opened fire on two citizens at the Gate of Chains [in the Old City] from the outside, then announced the martyrdom of one of them. The injury of the other is described as medium. An Al Aqsa guard was shot in the foot. [Arabic edition of Ma'an News, Bethlehem]
• The Zionist media reported that a cop was injured by two Palestinian stabbers who attacked him in occupied Al-Quds (Jerusalem). The Israeli occupation troops shot directly at the two youths, injuring both of them, and closes the gates of Al-Aqsa Mosque, according to Palestinian sources. [Al-Manar, Lebanon]
• Video shows the pair approaching a group of Border Police officers and then lunging at them. The officers immediately open fire on the boys, and do not appear to attempt to subdue them with nonlethal means [from the especially loathsome propaganda mill of Electronic Intifada].
• From a Gaza-based Arab reporter: "2 palestinian kids got murdered by israeli occupation fire in occupied Jerusalem after allegedly stabbing operation #BDS" [Twitter account with more than 6,000 followers]

Source

How Palestinian Arab society weaponizes its children and encourages stabbing attacks in particular has troubled us for years. 

It's a chronic form of incitement that starts at the highest levels of the Palestinian Arab power structure: click for indexed articles.

Three years ago we wrote about how there is no way of avoiding the reality of large swathes of Palestinian Arab society being in the obvious thrall of a passionate embrace of vicious bigotry, murderous savagery and explicit incitement of their own children and grandchildren to murder and to be killed.

Two outside actors deserve a special mention in this grotesquerie:

• The central role of UNRWA, ostensibly an agency that exists to ameliorate the suffering of Arab refugees (Palestinian Arab refugees to be more precise) but in reality a cornerstone of the seven-decades-long Arab strategy to keep the Palestinian Arabs displaced, as miserable as possible and in the news - ought to be acknowledged at this point. By their own reckoning, they play a huge role in the education of Palestinian Arab children. They are certainly part of the problem and not of the solution.
• Amnesty International's increasingly explicit identification with the practitioners of the Palestinian Arab brand of terror makes plain their abandonment of principle and betrayal of their supporters' values. As we have noted several times [most recently here: "20-Sep-16: Another Pal Arab boy with a knife died today - exactly as the PA intended him to"], there's no longer anything to expect from them.

More than 80 of our blog posts have the tag "Weaponizing Children". This would be an excellent time to re-acquaint ourselves with the betrayal of, and the outrages perpetrated on, the children of Palestinian Arab society by those responsible for their well-being.

It's a reality that's difficult to deny or ignore though plenty of reporters and their editors nonetheless do just that.

21-Jul-19: Jordan, peace and how little has actually changed

Today happens to mark the seventieth anniversary of a Middle East milestone:

The quote is from a scholarly tome dealing with the work of the United Nations Security Council. Turns out the military phase they mentioned had several more violent and deadly rounds to go over the following decades. So much has changed, especially here in Jerusalem where we live.

And in some ways so little too.

British-led soldiers of the Arab Legion, Jordan's state army, at the
renowned Tiferet Yisrael Synagogue in Jerusalem's Old City
shortly after conquering, and just before utterly destroying, the synagogue.
[Wikipedia]

Starting in 1948 when the Kingdom of Jordan's British-led military overran Jerusalem's eastern part and occupied the Old City and its unique holy places, unrestrained state-inspired vandalism became the fate of one of the world's most revered places.

Here's how the Jewish Telegraphic Agency described it in a 1967 report compiled shortly after Israel finally took over:

A shocking record of destruction and desecration of Jewish holy places in and around Old Jerusalem during 19 years of Jordanian rule was documented today in the report of an inter-ministerial committee that was appointed after the Six-Day War to determine the state of Jewish shrines in Jordan held territory. The findings of the committee were summarized by Zerach Warhaftig, Minister of Religious Affairs, at a press conference here. 

As examples of the wanton disregard of the religious rights of others, Mr. Warhaftig noted the destruction of all but two of the 58 synagogues in the Jewish quarter of the Old City and the almost total destruction of the Jewish cemetery on the Mount of Olives which has been in continuous use for more than 2,000 years. 

The cemetery was one of the Jewish holy places to which access was promised by the Jordanians in the 1949 armistice agreements although the promise was never observed. Tombstones were carried away for purposes ranging from fortifying mortar positions to building lavatories and the report says, documentary evidence and eye witnesses “make it clear beyond doubt that the desecration of the cemetery was carried out by Jordanian authorities for official purposes.”

The Jordanian Government, according to the report, had placed a special guard at the cemetery, but only to prevent tombstones from being pilfered by private persons. Their use was authorized for building military camps, fortifications, pathways and other installations and the walls of the building that housed the army commanders. Part of the road to the Intercontinental Hotel was paved with tombstones, the report said. And the Jordanians never bothered to remove the remains of the dead. In the Old City of Jerusalem, the report went on, only the synagogue of the Chabad Hassidim and the Torat Chayim yeshiva were left standing.

Dr. Warhaftig said that there was only one known instance of a clergyman protesting against the desecration and he was told by the Jordanian authorities to mind his own business. Moslem dignitaries whom Dr. Warhaftig questioned about the outrages disclaimed all knowledge. ["Cabinet Report Says Jordan Destroyed 56 Old City Synagogues, Desecrated Cemetery", JTA, November 2, 1967]

An armistice agreement signed almost exactly seventy years ago (April 3, 1949) in Greece governed relations between the new-born state of Israel and the Jordanians. The burden of the safeguards it included never really troubled the Arabs who ignored them totally. No one else seems to have cared:

• Jordan had undertaken to give free access to the Holy Places and to cultural institutions, and use of the Jewish cemetery on the Mount of Olives [Section III, Document 6, Article VIII, and Section V, subsection E, Documents 15 and 16]. It breached all of these obligations and it kept on breaching down through the years before its armed men were forcibly removed by the IDF in 1967. 
• Jews were entirely barred from the Old City and denied access to the Western Wall and the other Holy Places of incomparable importance.
• The Jewish Quarter in the Old City was systematically destroyed. (It took years, starting in 1967, for what was lost to start to be painstakingly reconstructed. The  job is still underway.)
• Moslem residents of Israel were not permitted to visit their Holy Places in East Jerusalem. 
• Christians didn't fare much better. In 1958, Jordanian legislation required all members of the Brotherhood of the Holy Sepulchre to adopt Jordanian citizenship. In 1965, Christian institutions were forbidden to acquire any land or rights in or near Jerusalem. 
• In 1966, Christian schools were compelled to close on Fridays instead of Sundays, customs privileges of Christian religious institutions were abolished. 
• In May 1967, the Temple Mount became a military base for the Jordanian National Guard.

On 24 April 1950, a year after the largely-ignored armistice, a joint session of Jordan's House of Deputies and its House of Notables adopted a resolution [source] seizing formal control of all of the West Bank and the eastern (and older) part of Jerusalem.

Viewed through the lens of today, the opening words of the annexation document are startling:

In the expression of the people's faith in the efforts spent by His Majesty, Abdullah [great-grandfather of the present-day king of Jordan who has the same name], toward attainment of natural aspirations, and basing itself on the right of self-determination and on the existing de facto position between Jordan and Palestine and their national, natural and geographic unity and their common interests and living space, Parliament, which represents both sides of the Jordan, resolves this day and declares:
First, its support for complete unity between the two sides of the Jordan and their union into one State, which is the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, at whose head reigns King Abdullah Ibn al Husain, on a basis of constitutional representative government and equality of the rights and duties of all citizens...

It's easy to forget now that when the Hashemite military was riding high, the Jordanians and the Palestinian Arabs had no problem seeing themselves as a single Arab entity with shared interests, shared living space, national unity.

Occupied territories? National self-determination for a Palestinian people? Two-state solution? In your dreams.

Most readers understand that Jordan - the Hashemite Kingdom and its absolute ruler King Abdullah II - gets a lot of our attention these days. This of course is mostly because they harbor our daughter's killer and so far at least refuse to hand her over for criminal prosecution in the United States despite a treaty that requires them to do just that.

Hussein, Clinton, Rabin at the 1994 peace treaty signing

Jordan has never publicly addressed this issue, but simply persists in refusing to extradite her despite the perfectly valid extradition treaty the two countries signed, and have basically honored, since 1994. 

In Israeli circles, and despite wars in which Israel has had to defend itself from Jordanian invasion, there's long been a sense that in the unstable and frequently violent and bigoted Arab world, Jordan's has been a voice (relatively speaking) of moderation and reason.

It's a complex situation, and is growing more complex as Jordan's troubles mount, particularly the widespread and deep dissatisfaction with how the country's economy is being managed.

But complex or not, when Jordan has the opportunity to join moderate Arab voices but pointedly refuses, then Israelis and those who care for Israel's well-being will notice and draw inferences. For instance:

Oman FM: Palestinians must reassure Israel it’s not in peril  | Associated Press Omar Akour | AP | April 6, 2019 at 2:40 PM

DEAD SEA, Jordan — Oman’s foreign minister urged Palestinians on Saturday to reassure Israel that it is not under threat in the Middle East, drawing a rare public rebuke from his Jordanian counterpart. Oman’s Yusuf bin Alawi and Jordan’s Ayman Safadi shared the stage at a regional gathering of the World Economic Forum, held on Jordan’s shores of the Dead Sea. Bin Alawi spoke at a time of warming ties between Israel and several Gulf Arab states, as part of an unofficial alliance against Iranian influence in the region. The Omani minister said that Palestinians “should help Israel to get away from” what he said was its mistaken sense of being threatened.
Safadi responded sharply, to applause from the audience. “I beg to differ on a number of issues,” said Safadi. He noted that in 2002, as part of the Arab Peace Initiative, scores of Arab and Muslim countries offered Israel recognition in exchange for a withdrawal from occupied lands sought for a Palestinian state. Safadi said the problem is whether Israeli occupation “is going to end.”
Lebanon’s defense minister and Bahrain’s foreign minister were also present on stage during the exchange.
The recent rapprochement between Israel and several Gulf states has been fueled by deepening rivalries between regional camps, led by Saudi Arabia and Iran, respectively. The Trump administration’s hard anti-Iran line has contributed to growing regional tensions.
In October, Israeli Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu made a surprise visit to Oman and Israeli officials visited the United Arab Emirates in recent months.
Meanwhile, the Palestinians feel increasingly sidelined, fearing Israel, Gulf states and the U.S. plan to strike a deal behind their backs about the future of war-won lands they seek for a future state.
Jordan, which has a peace treaty with Israel, considers itself a strong advocate for Palestinian political demands. A majority of the kingdom’s citizens are of Palestinian origin.

Jordan's public bellowing over how Israel deals with Muslim rights in Jerusalem provides a sadly rich source of intemperate and frankly ugly stamping of the foot by Jordan's foreign ministry. This is from just a few weeks ago:

Jordan has called for an immediate halt to Israeli “provocations” at East Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, warning of a new cycle of violence in the Middle East region, Anadolu reports. Hundreds of settlers forced their way into the flashpoint site on Sunday, in a rare tour in the final days of the fasting month of Ramadan, which ends this week. The tour has triggered clashes between Muslim worshippers and Israeli police, which chased assaulted a number of worshippers during the violence. In a statement, Jordan’s Foreign Ministry warned of the “dangerous consequences of Israel’s provocative and repulsive escalatory Israeli practices, which will drag the region into a new cycle of violence that may threaten the security of the region as a whole”. It called on the Israeli authorities to “immediately cease all these provocations”, which it described as “absurd, irresponsible, rejected and condemned”. ["Israeli ‘provocations’ will lead to violence: Jordan", Middle East Monitor, June 2, 2019]

For anyone who knows something of the history of the region and the devastation wrought by Jordan's heavy-booted occupation over nearly two decades, it's odd to note those ridiculous adjectives. Jordan, when it had the opportunity during the 19 years of its illegal and violent military occupation of Jordan and the West Bank, carried out deliberate, massive and systematic destruction and desecration of Jewish holy sites in and around Jerusalem.

The "provocations" are the sight of polite, respectful Israelis and Jews visiting Judaism's single holiest ancient place. For certain kinds of political analysts, politicians and politically-warped media reporters, this sight is just unbearable.

Note how certain especially bizarre elements play a role:

Image Source: Turkey's Anadolu Agency, a source of rabidly anti-Israel news

• Jewish and Israeli visitors to the Temple Mount never walk, stroll or simply visit. They storm. The word is used religiously these days. (A quick Google search produces more than 600,000 hits.)
• The Arab sources quoted in shabby reporting like this always seem to know, without ever speaking with them, that the Jews are "settlers". Even if they're visiting from Brooklyn or Brussels or Bangkok.
• These Jewish and/or Israeli visitors don't actually go anywhere near the mosque constructed on the ruins of the First Temple and Second Temple. But in ideologically-obsessed parts of the Arab media, the entire football-field size plateau is lately termed "the Al Aqsa complex" to confer some spiritual air to the largest possible space. And yes, football is indeed played there by Arab boys.

Intemperate news reporting is a problem. But some other problems carry greater weight. For instance these three which bear a disturbing integrity-of-the-homeland similarity to each other:

• This past October, Jordan decided to terminate the lease by Israel of two small areas on the Jordan River, roughly a thousand acres of agricultural ‎land‎, which had been farmed by Israelis for the past 25 years. The leases were part of the 1994 Jordan/Israel peace treaty. As the Jerusalem Post noted: "The 30 families which reside [there] live off these lands and export millions of dollars' worth of crops to the world as well as to the Israeli market." Jordan's king announced that he seeks “full sovereignty on our land”. There's surely a message in the unexpected and unwelcome move. From our conversations with relevant people, there's some doubt what that message is.
• Another important deal between Jordan and Israel, a far larger and more strategic one signed in 2016, is arousing angst and furor as a result of a bizarre speech by a member of Jordan's parliament a couple of weeks ago. The deal concerns the sale of natural gas which is to be piped from Israel's Leviathan offshore gas field to Jordan's electric company. It's a $10 billion deal to be executed over 15 years; the first gas is due to be delivered early next year. But as  critically important as this is to Jordan's need for energy, it's (of course) opposed by a range of Jordanian political factions including the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas' local affiliate, on the customary grounds that if it involves normalization and cooperation with Israel, it has to be bad. Tareq Khouri, a Christian and an opponent of the transaction said at a Muslim Brotherhood gathering on July 3, 2019 that good Jordanians should bomb the gas pipeline. "Every lover of freedom in Jordan [should] give up his life and the lives of his children in order to bomb any gas pipeline [from Israel] that passes through Jordanian territory. We shall all be potential martyrs [and] prevent this pipeline from entering one centimeter of Jordanian soil."
• A decade ago, reports emerged of the uncovering of an ancient Jerusalem pathway with considerable historical significance. Haaretz said: "Israel Antiquities Authority researchers have re-exposed a stretch of road in Jerusalem dating to the Second Temple period that is believed to have been used by pilgrims on their ascent to the Temple. Existence of the 40-meter segment of road, cleared over the past few months to open it to visitors, has been known of for more than a century. The excavation is taking place in the neighborhood of Silwan near the Siloam Spring." Then on June 30, 2019, this Israeli update: "After six years of extensive archaeological excavations led by the Israel Antiquities Authority, a 350-meter-long section of the Pilgrimage Road was unveiled at a festive ceremony in the City of David." Cause for celebration, right? Not necessarily, since Jerusalem is involved. So here's the full text of Jordan's official reaction: ["Amman condemns Israeli opening of "pilgrims road"", PETRA Jordan Gov't News Agency, June 30, 2019]: 

"Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates Sunday slammed Israel for opening a tunnel beneath the Silwad town that is called the "pilgrims road" towards al-Aqsa Mosque/ Haram al-Sharif, issuing a warning that such "illegal and irresponsible" actions escalate tension. The official spokesperson of the ministry Sufian Qudah underscored Jordan's utter rejection of Israeli attempts that seek to alter the identity of the occupied city of Jerusalem, especially the al-Aqsa Mosque and its surroundings.  Such Israeli actions are "vile violations" of the international and human law, he said, calling on the international community to assume its moral and political responsibilities in promptly halting these practices and to emphasize the importance of respecting East Jerusalem's status as an integral part of the Palestinian territories, which have been under occupation since 1967, in accordance with the international law and resolutions of the international legitimacy."

She's King Abdullah II's long-serving ambassador to Washington.
A talented lady but not above blocking a pair
of pesky bereaved parents from Jerusalem

When they want to, Jordan's official representatives can be quite talkative. A shame that on the subject of extraditing Ahlam Tamimi, they have not uttered a single official word as a government, leaving it to the media and their highest court to say the relatively little that has been offered to explain their indefensible policy.

As for their official spokesperson in the United States, Ambassador Dina Kawar of Jordan's Washington embassy blocks us on Twitter.

That of course doesn't change very much and certainly doesn't mean we will stop our efforts to be heard. But along with plenty of other evidence of Jordan being today very far from its moderate image, it contributes to the sense that they haven't really come a great distance since the days of blowing up ancient synagogues on a massive scale and maliciously denying Jewish history.

* * *

[This post, like a number of others before it, has been translated to Polish ("Jordania, pokój i jak niewiele się naprawdę zmieniło") by courtesy of Malgorzata Koraszewska over on the Listy z naszego sadu website. Our sincere thanks to her, and great appreciation to readers of this blog in Poland.]

31-May-19: Al Quds Day kicks off with double-stabbing attack in Jerusalem's Old City

The Times of Israel caption to this photo: "Israeli security forces 

and medics remove the body of a Palestinian man who had 

stabbed two Israelis in the Old City of Jerusalem, 

on May 31, 2019. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

At least two people were injured, one seriously, in stabbing attacks in Jerusalem’s Old City this morning. Times of Israel reports that the suspected terrorist was shot by police officers at the scene. His condition is not currently known (it's 7:20 am here).

But according to the rather laconic Haaretz version, "Israeli police said officers at the scene apprehended the suspect." (It appears now, some hours later, that Haaretz understated the impact on the terrorist. See below.)

Medics were treating one victim in serious condition, an approximately 50-year-old man, near the Old City’s Damascus Gate, which has seen a number of stabbing attacks in recent years. The Magen David Adom ambulance service said a second man was also lightly wounded near the Hurva Synagogue... [Times of Israel]

From Israel National News:

A man was very seriously wounded in a stabbing attack on Friday morning in an area in the Muslim Quarter of Jerusalem. The man was stabbed in his upper body and Magen David Adom paramedics are making efforts to save his life. A short time later, reports were received about an 18-year-old who was lightly wounded in a stabbing attack in the vicinity of the Hurva Synagogue. An initial investigation into the attack revealed that a terrorist arrived at the Damascus Gate, stabbed a man, and then stabbed another man in the Old City. The attacker was neutralized by police forces... Magen David Adom reported that at 6:31 a.m., a report was received of two men who were stabbed, one near Damscus Gate and the other near the Hurva Synagogue in the Old City of Jerusalem.

Jerusalem Post (7:30 am) also believes the two attacks are the work of one knifer:

Israel Police spokesman Superintendent Micky Rosenfeld told The Jerusalem Post that a "terrorist stabbed one person at Damascus Gate, critically injuring him, and made his way into the Old City and stabbed a second person inside injuring him moderately."

We're not yet seeing reports stating the obvious - that it's Al Quds Day:

an annual event held on the last Friday of Ramadan that was initiated by the Islamic Republic of Iran in 1979 to express support for the Palestinians and oppose Zionism and Israel... [and] also held in several other countries, mainly in the Arab and Muslim world, with protests against Israel's occupation of East Jerusalem.Rallies are held in various cities by both Muslim and non-Muslim communities around the world.

Urged on by Iran [here], there are large-scale Al Quds Day events scheduled for this weekend in Sydney and Melbourne, in London and other locations.

UPDATE May 31, 2019 at 10:00 am: From Times of Israel:

“Around 6:20 a.m., the assailant entered through the Damascus Gate. He stabbed a man inside and began running from the scene. Along the way, he saw [a 16-year-old boy] and stabbed him as well,” police said. The suspected terrorist, a 19-year-old Palestinian man from the West Bank, was shot dead by police officers at the scene, a police spokesperson said.

A quick scan of Arabic social media, mainly Twitter, shows the attacker is now called "martyr" which strongly suggests the financial future of another Palestinian Arab family has gotten a lot stronger thanks to Al Quds Day.

UPDATE May 31, 2019 at 11:00 am:  No names announced yet but it's reported that the first of the two stabbing victims this morning was a 16-year-old boy, attacked as he made his way from Shacharit morning prayers at a synagogue in the Old City back to his yeshiva.
From Israel National News: 

“On his way back from the Hurva synagogue to the yeshiva, someone jumped him from one of the courtyards,” the victim’s father told Reshet Bet... The victim had been learning overnight at his yeshiva [a tradition on Thursday nights], then went to the Hurva synagogue for morning prayers. “At first he didn’t realize that he had been stabbed by a knife,” his father continued, “he thought he had been punched in the back. His brother was with him, and they started to run towards the Hurva synagogue, and there they called for help.”
During the terror attack another victim, estimated to be about 50 years of age, was also stabbed, leaving him in critical condition. He was evacuated to Shaare Zedek Medical Center. He has been admitted to the hospital’s intensive care ward, and is unconscious and on assisted breathing.
Authorities say the terrorist entered the Old City at around 6:20 a.m. via Damascus Gate, stabbed his first victim on a side street, then fled the scene. As he ran, the terrorist spotted his second victim, stabbing him before being shot to death by Israeli police officers... The terrorist has been identified as a 19-year-old Palestinian Authority resident.

There's no coverage at this point on the scurrilous Maan News Service English-language site. But on its Arabic site, under a headline that calls him "martyr", it says

"Israeli occupation forces shot dead a Palestinian in the West Bank town of Jerusalem... The Israeli occupation forces closed all the doors of the Old City and the Al-Aqsa Mosque and prevented thousands of worshipers from reaching the Al-Aqsa Mosque."

No mention of today being Al Quds Day.

UPDATE May 31, 2019 at 2:30 pm: We have the names of the stabbing victims. One is 16-year-old Yisrael Meir Nachumberg, in moderate condition at the Hadassah Hospital on Jerusalem's Mount Scopus.. The other is Gavriel Lavi, 50, who underwent emergency surgery at Shaarei Zedek Medical Center this morning and is now hospitalized in SZMC's intensive care unit. Israel National News quotes one of the doctors there saying "He arrived at the trauma unit with stab wounds all over his body - scalp, neck, back, chest and legs."

Video of the attack and its aftermath is posted on YouTube and embedded below.



UPDATE June 2, 2019 at 4:00 pm: Times of Israel says Gabriel Lavi who was seriously injured in Friday's stabbing attack is now breathing without the help of a respirator though he remains in intensive care at Shaare Zedek Medical Center. May he continue to a complete recovery. 

12-Mar-19: Arab-on-Israeli attacks edge upwards again

Image Source

It's shaping to be a violent and tense day here in Israel.

Experience suggests this isn't because of some unusual weather pattern. Broadly speaking, violence is something that the Palestinian Arab leadership switches off and on at will. It's clearly on right now.

Some of the more persuasive analysts put this down to the coming together of at least four main factors: Israel's April elections; the expectation of a comprehensive Trump Administration peace agreement proposal; rising tension in the endless jockeying for power and supremacy between the Fatah-controlled Abbas regime and Hamas; and the Palestinian Authority's 's move ["PA Reduces Wages to Employees Israel's payment deduction"] to substantially cut salaries across a wide swathe of the population under its control, unilaterally making an already on-the-ropes economy even more fragile.

Among the acts of violence:

Monday 11:30 pm: Still-unidentified shooters attacked an Israeli vehicle in the northern Samaria district last night (Monday) on a road near the Israeli community of Rehelim (population about 800), south of Nablus/Shechem and located between Kfar Tapuach and Eli. No one was injured, thankfully. But the vehicle was damaged, suggesting the fire could have exacted a heavier toll. Israel National News reports an attempted infiltration this past Friday night just as the Sabbath was being ushered in. The community's "security guards... identified two suspicious figures approaching the town. Rehelim's military security coordinator arrived first, fired a light bomb, and noticed the two suspects running away."

Tuesday 12:45 pm: Israeli soldiers shot dead a Palestinian man as he tried to stab them in the West Bank city of Hebron on Tuesday, the IDF said according to Times of Israel. No one else was injured in the thwarted attack:

IDF soldiers spotted the terrorist armed with a knife as he ran toward them. The soldiers pushed the terrorist back as he tried to run into a nearby civilian building. The soldiers shot the terrorist, thwarting the attack, and he was killed,” the military said... The suspect, armed with a knife, entered the contentious Beit HaShalom building in Hebron, near the Kiryat Arba settlement. A resident of the building, one of the few Jewish-owned structures inside the overwhelmingly Palestinian city, saw and called Israeli security forces to the scene, according to reports from the scene. A video filmed at the scene showed the attacker lying on the ground in the entrance hall of the building with what appeared to be a gunshot wound to the chest. The knife was seen on the ground several feet away from him."

Images of the attacker appear in the Hebrew-language social media, here for instance. The would-be knifer is identified by Palestinian Arab officials as Yasser Fuzi Shuweiki. The Ma'an News Agency site (English language edition) calls him Yasser al-Shweiki and rather enigmatically quotes his father saying the son "was distributing notices from the Sharia Court across Hebron City", presumably trying to deflect any suggestion that he was a knifer looking for Israeli stabbing victims. (An Israeli social media commentator says he was the local mailman.) In the Arabic version of Ma'an's account, but not the English, its editors call the would-be knifer, not surprisingly, a martyr:

Palestinian Civil Affairs demanded that the Israeli authorities hand over the body of Yasser Mohammed Fawzi Shweiki, who was killed by Israeli soldiers [and] who worked as a clerk in the Hebron District Court, where he was working before being shot by Israeli soldiers who claimed he had a knife and attempted to stab Against soldiers.

Tuesday Noon: The Temple Mount in Jerusalem's Old City was sealed off by Israel Police today in the wake of Arab violence that included a firebomb being hurled at officers, followed by arrests and clashes. Times of Israel says:

"Police quickly deployed across the hilltop compound, scuffling with worshipers in the area as they searched for the assailants. In one video, police were seen wrestling a woman to the ground. Ten suspects were arrested and an investigation into the incident was ongoing, police said... Police said they found flammable materials, firecrackers and Molotov cocktails during a search of the Temple Mount after it was closed... The Damascus Gate entrance of the Old City of Jerusalem was also closed and police were dispatched throughout the Old City and East Jerusalem “to prevent and respond to any attempt to disturb public order in response to the serious incident,” police said in a statement."

The president of the Palestinian Authority Mahmoud Abbas complained of “dangerous Israeli escalation” and warned of “serious repercussions.”

Tuesday 4:45 pm: Security forces of the IDF took a Palestinian Arab woman into custody who aroused their suspicions near Beit Hashalom (House of Peace), the site of another, earlier Arab-on-Israel stabbing in Hebron (above). They found, after a careful search of her clothing and person, that she had a knife concealed somewhere not yet reported. Times of Israel says she was promptly arrested and is in the hands of the security forces for questioning.

13-Dec-18: On Jerusalem's Hagai Street in the Old City, another Arab-on-Israeli knifing attack this morning

Image Source: Haaretz

A little before a chilly dawn in Jerusalem's Old City today, a 26 year-old Palestinian Arab is caught by a security camera pushing a recognizably ultra-Orthodox man to the ground in Hagai Street, one of the pedestrian lanes running down the hill from the Damascus Gate (in Hebrew, Sha'ar Shechem).

That location is the favored entry point for observant Jews on their way to early morning prayers at the Kotel.

It has also become a popular site for recent Arab-on-Israeli knifings and is heavily patrolled. (Clich here for past Hagai Street attack reports.)

Times of Israel describes how the surveillance footage from the scene shows the attacker using a  knife to try to stab the worshiper. This does not work out, and an instant later [as the video shows] the assailant's attention is directed at two nearby Border Guard police. 

The male officer is (in the favored manner of Palestinian Arab knifing attacks) stabbed in the face, near his eye. The female border guard is stabbed in the leg. Ynet says she is 19, the male 21. The attacker was shot dead by the officers. His weapon was recovered at the scene.

Haaretz, quoting Arab sources, says the knifer's name is Majd Matir. He was a resident of the Qalandiya neighborhood on Jerusalem's north side.

The Arabic edition of the European-financed Ma'an News Agency (but not the English) names him as Majed Jamal Mutair, 25, and in traditional terror-incitement fashion calls him a martyr.

18-Aug-18: Friday afternoon Arab-on-Israeli stabbing attack is thwarted by police - who are accused by attacker's family

Screen-cap from the security video

Security camera video has emerged of a stabbing attack on Israeli police keeping order in Jerusalem's Old City on Friday afternoon.

The would-be knifer, identified subsequently as Ahmed Muhammad Mahameed, 30, an Arab resident of the Israeli city of Umm al-Fahm in northern Israel, is seen walking briskly from the direction of the Temple Mount, turning sharply in the direction of a small group of on-duty police, then quickly pulling a knife out and attempting to stab someone. There follows a scuffle which is shown only briefly and then - according to a Times of Israel report - the assailant is shot by one of the police who came under lethal attack and he is killed.

The report goes on to focus on the complaints of the dead attacker's family. They say he was mentally ill and had twice tried to take his own life. They deny that he carried out the attack for nationalistic reasons but fail to offer an explanation - beyond mental illness - for what happened. They also deny that the response of the police was reasonable and say the officer who fired at him was “light with his finger on the trigger.”

“They didn’t have to kill him,” said the assailant’s father, pointing to other instances where police managed to neutralize attackers by shooting at their legs instead of their upper bodies. Mustafa Abu Megged, a friend of Mahameed’s, called his family a “normative” one that would never endorse such conduct. “They could have neutralized him in another way. When it comes to Arabs, they [the police] are easy to pull the trigger,” Megged charged. In addition, the Umm al-Fahm Municipality released a statement Saturday condemning police for what it called the “cold-blooded murder” of its resident.

Members of the family are quoted as well in a Ynet report:

"He suffers from a mental illness and he tried several times to commit suicide. We did not know he was in the Al-Aqsa Mosque on Friday, he never usually goes there,” said Ahmad’s brother Naseem, in an interview with Ynet... "My brother is a mentally ill person who never thought of harming people... We thought at first that he was misidentified. My brother is not a terrorist. Everyone needs to understand his mental state and not jump to conclusion that are so far from the truth," Naseem vented... ["Family of stabbing attack suspect: He has mental illness", Ynet, August 17, 2018]

There's a video embedded in the Times of Israel report that concludes with an officer reassuring the uniformed men on duty that they acted correctly in defending themselves and that doing so was in accordance with police values. It's hard to disagree with him.

Umm al-Fahm is home to more than 50,000 Arabs, overwhelmingly Muslim and almost all of them Israeli citizens.

For the past two decades, its public life has been increasingly viewed as directed by the outlawed (since 2015) Northern Branch of the Islamic Movement whose leading figure, former mayor of the city (between 1989 and 2001) Sheikh Raed Salah, is identified with Hamas. Salah is notorious for inciting under the slogan "Al-Aqsa is in danger":

In 1996, as events surrounding the authorization of a northern exit to the Western Wall tunnels were unfolding (and which led to violent riots), Salah became aware of how to capitalize politically on matters regarding the Temple Mount and the Al-Aqsa Mosque.
He started to hold an annual rally titled “Al Aqsa [Mosque] is in danger” in the northern city of Umm al-Fahm. Thousands usually attended. [Avi Issacharoff, "The Islamic Movement’s Northern Branch — long a thorn in Israel’s side", Times of Israel, November 17, 2015]

We may be about to see the flames of that particular kind of incitement being fanned again.

UPDATE August 21, 2018:

The stabber's funeral in Umm Al-Fahm drew hundreds of participants, turning it into yet another sickening mass rally in support of #PalArab terror. The family had committed to the police to limit its scale and may now have to forfeit the bond they posted: https://t.co/PvkHiME34n pic.twitter.com/O7mBY009Yk

— This Ongoing War (@ThisOngoingWar) August 21, 2018

20-Apr-18:"Moderate" Palestinian Arab president-for-life rolls out red carpet for a murdering "Fatah knight"

Image Source: Times of Israel

While Palestinian Arab extremism is currently being driven from Gaza, and along with it the bulk of media attention from the Arab world and more broadly, the envious Fatah factionists of the Palestinian Authority are not far behind. And constantly on the look for opportunities to grab some of the limelight.

Mahmoud Abbas, who in addition to regaling in the title of president of the Palestinian Authority heads Fatah, features in a Times of Israel news report that shines some light - or perhaps it's more appropriate to say darkness - on how the moderate strain of Palestinianism views the cold-blooded murder of Israeli civilians.

The report describes the gala welcome-home reception bestowed on Rajaei Haddad. He recently completed serving a 20-year sentence in an Israel prison for murder. Naturally, he's hailed in their circles (literally) as “a leader, a hero, and a fighter.”

Palestinian Authority TV showed footage of the meeting between Abbas and Haddad, who spent two decades in prison for his role in the November 1997 murder of yeshiva student Gabriel Hirschberg הי"ד in Jerusalem's Old City of Jerusalem.

Here's how the terrorist murder was reported in the New York Times

At about a quarter past midnight, Mr. Hirschberg, 26, was walking with a friend in the dark alley when a gunman believed to be a Palestinian militant sprayed them with automatic weapons fire. Both of the students were unarmed and unaccompanied by the yeshiva's security guards or border police who guard the area. 

Mr. Hirschberg, an immigrant from Hungary, was killed; his friend was badly wounded. (Initial reports said the second man also died.) The police said the weapon used was an AK-47 assault rifle. No arrests were reported, and there was no immediate claim of responsibility... 

In the alley where Gabriel Hirschberg was cut down by a burst of automatic weapons fire early today in Jerusalem's walled Old City, four of his fellow yeshiva students held a study session opposite a makeshift memorial of Israeli flags and a candle. Bent over religious books, the students from the Ateret Cohanim Yeshiva -- run by a right-wing group that has been buying homes in the Muslim quarter and elsewhere in East Jerusalem -- recited their lessons as Palestinian schoolgirls walked by warily, averting their eyes. 

''This is to wake people up,'' said one of the yeshiva student, sitting near a bullet-scarred wall. ''Something happened here.'' ["A Jew's Slaying Fuels Tensions in Jerusalem's Muslim Quarter", NY Times, November 21, 1997]

On April 10, 2018, the PA's official television station aired a report on the festivities surrounding the convicted murderer's return to Palestinian Arab society. It emphasized, according to the Times of Israel report, 

that our leadership gives top priority to the issue of our prisoners. "The president asked me about each and every one,” Haddad said. 

It also mentions - quoting an Arabic language report translated to English by the MEMRI Middle East Media Research Institute - that the gala event, held in Jerusalem, was graced by the presence of senior members of Fatah, the dominant faction in the ruling Palestinian Authority.

Some nauseating violence-adoring quotes worth noting:

• The convicted murderer: "The president [Abbas] asked me about each and every one. Let me thank the president for this meeting – he cleared his schedule so that we could meet immediately after my release. We sat together for a full hour, and he listened to me. He asked me about the prisoners, listened to me, and wrote down everything. The president sends his regards [to the prisoners]. He heard what I had to say."
• “First, let me salute our prisoners who are languishing in prison,” said Fatah Revolutionary Council secretary Adnan Ghaith, “Here, in our capital of Jerusalem, our people welcome a leader, a hero, and a fighter, who sacrificed 20 years for the sake of Jerusalem, Palestine, and our great people.”
• Fatah said the celebrations were intended to send a message to the Israelis that the issue of prisoners and “martyrs” was non-negotiable.
• “I am very happy to join the people of Jerusalem, our eternal capital, in welcoming this Fatah knight, who spent 20 years in the prisons of the Israeli occupation, in defense of our land, our people, our independence and our freedom,” said Fatah Central Committee member Jamal Moheisen. “This (event) is a message of loyalty to the prisoners, the heroes. It is also a message to the occupation that the issue of the prisoners and martyrs is where we draw the line.”

To remind ourselves of the unbridgeable gulf between us and the blood-lusting thugs arrayed against Israeli society, a brief video clip from the November 1997 funeral of Gabriel Hirschberg of blessed memory:

As far as we can tell, there was trivial-to-no news reporting coverage (other than in Israel) for the public honoring by our peace partner of this unrepentant murderer of Israeli civilians.

May Gabriel Hirschberg's memory continue to be a blessing for the people of Jerusalem and Israel.

18-Mar-18: Near Lions Gate in Jerusalem's Old City, an Israeli is stabbed by an Arab attacker

Image Source: Reuters

The Palestinian Arab days of rage continue to exert their hideous influence.

There has been a late-Sunday-afternoon stabbing attack in Jerusalem's Old City near the ancient and famous Lions Gate. Times of Israel's report says a terrorist attacker stabbed and critically injured an Israeli on Hagai Street in Jerusalem’s Old City Muslim Quarter. He was quickly shot dead at the scene by an Israel Police officer.

The victim is said to be in “very serious” condition with multiple stab wounds to the upper body. He is about 30 years old. He was rushed from the scene of the attack to the trauma center of Jerusalem’s Shaare Zedek Medical Center for treatment.

What we know about the stabber is that he was 28 years-old and from the village of Aqraba, near Nablus, known in Hebrew as Shechem. His name is given as Abd al-Rahman Bani Fadel. It's a common Arab surname in the Nablus area.

Arab-on-Israeli attacks in the vicinity of Lions Gate are far from unknown. We have reported on these in the past three years (and there may have been more): 13-May-17: In Jerusalem's Old City, a Jordanian stabs an Israeli and the Jordanians are outraged (so are we, for different reasons); 13-Mar-17: Jerusalem and the (alleged) knife-men; 03-Oct-15: Arab violence escalates in Jerusalem: Multiple stabbings in Old City tonight.

The Arab view, as exemplified by this quote from a Naharnet news report, is that "tensions" are high

after Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas called for a day of rage on Friday to commemorate 100 days since U.S. President Donald Trump's controversial recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital.

Yes, tensions. Tell that to the family of the young Israeli fighting for his life this evening.

Image Source

UPDATE Monday morning, March 19, 2018 at 12:15 am: We're sorry to have to report that the Israeli victim of today's stabbing attack has died. Israel National News says he is Adiel Kolman, a resident of Kochav Hashahar, originally from the community of Keshet in the Golan Heights - married and the father of four children.

The Jerusalem Post says

Kolman, 32, a father of four, was killed in a terror attack on Sunday evening as he left his job at the City of David museum in the Old City and headed in the direction of Jerusalem’s light rail. It was a route he took every day to return to his home in the Kokhav HaShahar settlement, just outside of the capital. A terrorist stabbed him in the upper part of his body as he neared the area of the Lion’s Gate entrance to the Old City of Jerusalem. He was rushed to the Shaare Zedek Medical Center in serious condition and died just before midnight. Kolman grew up in Moshav Keshet in the Golan Heights. He leaves behind children in third and second grade as well as in kindergarten and day care. His wife, Ayelet, is a social worker.

19-Jul-17: The Al-Aqsa factor: Rats, snakes and chickens

Jerusalem: Al Aqsa, Old City walls and new Jerusalem [Image Source: AP]

The police helicopter flying over our home as we type this is a reminder of where the attention of the security services here in Jerusalem is focused tonight.

We're in the middle of another official Palestinian Arab temper tantrum. They call it something else, of course. And while foreign news media are paying scant attention, the reality on the ground here as well as throughout Israeli and Jewish news media is heavy enough to cause a rising sense of anxiety about where the Palestinian Arabs are going to take this.

Here's what we knew last night:

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah party called for a “day of rage” to take place in eastern Jerusalem and the Palestinian territories on Wednesday.
Additionally, Fatah’s military branch, Tanzim, determined that Friday prayers this week would be conducted in Palestinian public squares, and that sermons would be devoted to supporting the Al-Aqsa Mosque and protesting Israel’s bolstered security at the Temple Mount. The calls follow clashes that broke out in Jerusalem’s Old City on Sunday when Muslim worshipers blocked a road in protest of new metal detectors placed by Israel at the entrance gates to the Temple Mount, three days after Arab terrorists killed two Israeli police officers near the flashpoint holy site. The protest was prompted by the Islamic Waqf, which together with other Muslim groups issued a statement calling on Muslims “to reject and boycott all the Israeli aggression measures, including changing the historical status quo including imposing the metal detectors.” ["Fatah Incites ‘Day of Rage’ in Jerusalem and the Palestinian Territories" | Algemeiner/JNS.org | July 18, 2017]

Image Source

From the same source, reports during the day today speak of serious disturbances and a rising drumbeat of officially-instigated Arab-on-Israeli violence:

Clashes erupted between Muslim rioters and Israeli police officers in Jerusalem’s Old City on Wednesday for the fourth consecutive day. Around 200 protesters convened near the Old City’s Lions’ Gate and performed Islamic prayers to protest the bolstered security implemented at the Temple Mount following last Friday’s terror attack that killed two Israeli police officers near the holy site.
Several of the protesters began shouting chants in support of the Temple Mount complex’s Al-Aqsa Mosque, and were asked by police to leave the area. When one of the protesters refused to comply with the police order, several other protesters began rioting and throwing water bottles at the officers. The police responded by implementing crowd control measures and arresting the man who defied the police order.
Wednesday’s protests came after Muslim rioters clashed with police in the Old City Tuesday night, after Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah party called for a “day of rage” to take place in eastern Jerusalem and the disputed territories. Riots also broke out in Jerusalem’s Old City Sunday when Muslim worshipers blocked...["Riots Continue in Jerusalem Amid Heightened Temple Mount Tensions", Algemeiner/JNS.org | July 19, 2017]

It's not hard for an observant bystander to detect just how calculated the whipping up of the current violence actually is. The larger challenge is in seeing how this is part of a much longer narrative - an effort over generations to depict the Arabs, then later the Palestinian Arabs, and the Islamic world in general, as being under attack by Israel and the Jews.

We tweeted earlier today about the importance of looking at history and understanding the deep old roots of this week's violence. It may have been triggered by three similarly-named, murder-minded clansmen - all Mohammeds from the Jabarin clan - traveling up to Jerusalem on Friday to have themselves a shooting attack. But it started a lot earlier:

Attn news editors: Before your reporters fall prey to this notorious Pal Arab shell game, insist they read https://t.co/HZguqXN3F0 pic.twitter.com/f2lVXsxEPe

— This Ongoing War (@ThisOngoingWar) July 19, 2017

Making that point more concisely is one specific caricature - this one:

Evidently posted by Fatah during 2014 and still online here

The website hosting it is an official one: the "Fatah Information and Culture" website and snapshotted for an analytical piece [here] on November 16, 2014 by Israel's Foreign Ministry. Fatah is headed by the president-for-life of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas. That's his portrait next to his predecessor's in the screen-shot's top-left corner.

Many will see the drawing as a revolting piece of bigotry but it's more than that: Their sacred Al Aqsa under attack by ravenous, insatiable rats. Jewish rats. It's the work of a noted Palestinian Arab cartoonist, Mousa Ajoa whose bio emphasizes that he holds a BA in history (yes!). His work and career are profiled here on the Arab Cartoon Award website. He's a celebrity.

But the malevolence runs deep. The fact it's still online three years later indicates this cartoon touches a responsive, angry and - above all - useful spot in the Palestinian Arab psyche. (If they do take it down for some reason, we took the precaution of perma-archiving it here for future reference.)

Cartoons have a unique way of being the fuel for fires that ignite passions, violence and wars: this archive illustrates the point.

We're indebted to Gregg Mashberg (@gregg_mashberg) for alerting us to the existence of this hideous piece of agit-prop. Gregg downloaded the screenshot himself from the Fatah site in November 2014 and noted that, in his words, "It covers all the bases":

• Published by Fatah, not Hamas
• With the “moderate” Abu Mazen’s face on it side-by-side with that of the ultimate Palestinian hero
• Depicts Jews as rats, as vermin, clearly marked with Stars of David for ease of identification as they swarm around, gnawing hungily away at the religious site's foundations
• And, by the way, what is it that people do with vermin?
• Particularly with vermin eating away at your key religious symbol?
• This is Fatah and its leader Mahmoud Abbas calling for an “exterminator” to stop the Jews from destroying the Muslim shrine.

Not fake news - just ask the editors [Source: Al Jazeera]

(There's Palestinian Media Watch commentary on it here.)

Given what’s happening now - along with the reality that a picture often is worth 1,000 loud and vicious words – the conscious, systematic resort to inflammatory messaging and imagery like this is not an encouraging sign.

That's especially true given the long history that Al Aqsa's so-called "defenders" have of warning it's about to be defiled or destroyed or worse.

On that point, we recommend reading Nadav Shragai's comprehensive review of a century of "Al Aqsa is in danger" lies, libels and incitement to murder. It's online and downloadable from the JCPA site. It will help many readers get a better understanding of the scurrilous process that lies behind Al Jazeera's signature articles blaming Israel and warning against Israeli plots. When confronted with malicious witch-hunts and lethal journalism, as we all are at this moment, being equipped with facts and factual analysis can be its own reward.

Interestingly, we see, and you might have noticed, the absence of foreign leaders and leading figures in the peace-making movement and analysts of complicated world situations who are turning to Palestinian Arab civic and religious leaders with appeals to tone down the fury and rage. In other words, for a more proportionate response.

You might imagine that at least some of those personages - who in the past decried what they termed Israel’s “indiscriminate,” “heavy-handed” and “intentional” measures - might have had something equally helpful to offer Abbas and his raging cronies.

Evidently not.

Perhaps they have learned not to mix in when the subject is, you know, about religion and sensitive stuff. Or perhaps there's a current shortage of courage and backbone?

17-Jul-17: Two images: Do the things that offend people say something about them?

Two photos here.

The first represents a cause around which large swathes of Palestinian Arabs and citizens of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, including most of the members of its parliament, have rallied.

Are those Arab populations offended? They certainly are.

The photo shows new enhanced security devices that were installed on the approaches to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem following Friday's lethal shooting attack by three Arab gunmen from the northern Israeli city of Um Al-Fahm.

They attackers managed to kill two Israeli Border Guard security men, both of them from Israel's Druze minority, who were protecting the Moslem holy sites. Scanning and detecting devices just like these have been used to screen every visitor to the nearby Kotel for years. Those visitors are not all Jews, but it's a site holy to the Jews and Jews are a very large of the crowds that throng the Kotel plaza.

Muslims heading for the Temple Mount have had the privilege of being exempt from security measures like these till now. This change evidently offends them deeply even as it will almost certainly enhance their safety and ours.

The second shows the funeral of the two victims of that shooting attack.

Haiel Sitawe, 30, from Maghar, a mostly Druze and Arab city in northern Israel, who signed up with the Border Police as part of his mandatory national service in 2012 and served in the unit responsible for securing the Temple Mount ever since; and Kamil Shnaan, 22, from Hurfeish, an almost entirely-Druze village also in Israel's north. Sitawe is survived by a wife, Irin, and a three-week-old son, as well as parents and three brothers. Shnaan was to celebrate his engagement party to his girlfriend in a week. He leaves behind parents, a brother and three sisters.

The deaths by shooting of the two men whose self-endangering presence was meant to protect the Al-Aqsa precinct and its worshipers from terrorist attack has aroused no expressions of their honor offended - not from Jordan (see our post from yesterday: "16-Jul-17: The Friday killings: Jordan condemns but pay attention whom") and not in any meaningful way from the Palestinian Arabs.

It's almost as if they want attacks like this to happen.

16-Jul-17: The Friday killings: Jordan condemns but pay attention whom

Arabiyat

You can take seriously this report in today's Times of Israel if you like: "Jordan king condemns Temple Mount attack in call with Netanyahu". But note that it is barely re-reported outside Israel and the actual language of the Hashemite king's "condemnation" is hard to find.

On the other hand, Petra, the official voice of Jordan's government, still has its condemnation of Israel in the name of its Minister of Awqaf and Islamic Affairs Wael Arabiyat. 

 He manages to include

• "violations committed by the occupation authorities" 
• "and Jewish extremists against the Al-Aqsa Mosque"
• "Jordan rejects Israel's closure of Al-Aqsa Mosque" 
• [which prevents] "worshipers from praying under any circumstances"

In other words, for the Jordanians and their global audience Israel is the real culprit. As for condemning the shooters, if that's on the Petra site, we haven't found it.

It's a traditional game, played for decades by Jordan's kings and recently the subject of our comments here: "11-Jan-15: Does the king need to fly to Paris to stand with terror victims? He can do it better back in Jordan." Read that and you will realize it's easier and safer for the Jordanians to condemn a jihadist attack inside a French kosher food store than on the grounds of one of their holy places which - did you notice? - is formally under their guardianship:

The Hashemite monarchy, descended from the house of the Prophet Mohammed, who in Muslim belief rose to heaven from the Dome of the Rock, is guardian of the city’s Islamic holy places [i.e. Islamic sites in Jerusalem], by tradition and by the 1994 treaty. Any challenge to the religious status quo in the holy city strikes at the heart of Hashemite legitimacy, in Jordan and throughout the Arab world... ["Jerusalem’s holy places are a minefield for Jordan", Financial Times, November 4, 2014]

Obviously it's orders of magnitude easier for Jordan to blame Israel than to bite the bullet of Palestinian Arab and Jordanian (essentially one and the same) adoration of terror, jihad and killing Jews. It's called speaking from both sides of your mouth at the same time - but it's far, far less dangerous to those doing the speaking.

UNESCO is bound to start calling the Hashemite Kingdom to order any minute now. Not.

UPDATE Sunday July 16, 2017 at 940 am: Turns out, thanks to the alert editors at JewishPress.com that Petra, the official voice of the Jordanian regime, did condemn the shooting attack in the middle of last night - and then, for reasons about which we can and absolutely ought to speculate, removed it.

It's all here.

Here's the Jewish Press report on the part that briefly condemns the terrorist Palestinian Arab gunmen who desecrated an important Islamic sacred site - and then uncondemns them:

The condemnation did not address the details of the attack, and it did not send condolences to the dead and wounded police officers. Instead, the press release said that King Abdullah of Jordan spoke with Netanyahu about the need for “de-escalation” on the Temple Mount. Abdullah then reiterated his generic “condemnation of the attack in Jerusalem on Friday and the rejection of violence in all its forms, especially in holy sites and places of worship.” And of course, Abdullah then demanded that PM Netanyahu reopen the Temple Mount to Muslim worshipers, and warned Netanyahu 

and so on. A screen shot of the full text is at the JewishPress.com link.