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Arab's rampage leaves Israel perplexed over terror ‘within’Was Jerusalem Arab worker a drug felon who simply ‘went beserk’?By ICEJ News  The lingering trauma from yesterday’s attack is best illustrated by the story of a mother who quickly unbuckled her young baby from a car seat and handed the child out the window to a passerby an instant before the huge front-end loader smashed the vehicle flat with her still trapped inside. Batsheva Onterman, a 33-year-old kindergarten teacher, was among the three victims killed in the macabre assault. The others were identified as Elizabeth (Lili) Goren-Friedman, a 54-year old teacher of the blind, and Jean Relevy, 68, who would have become a grandfather in one month.  It appears , the 30-year-old east Jerusalem Arab who marauded through the streets of the capital with his Catepillar scoop bucket yesterday, was acting alone and for ‘nationalistic motives.’ His family insists he had no links to any Palestinian terrorist organizations and had even once lived with a Jewish woman in his home village of Sur Baher, in east Jerusalem. His attorney is also arguing that his client simply “went beserk” and thus was "a murderer and not a terrorist.”But much of their protestations may be meant to save the family home, as Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and other senior Israeli leaders are now calling for the demolition of his house as a punitive measure aimed at deterring other Arabs from perpetrating similar terrorist acts. Home demolitions are an anti-terror policy first introduced by the British during the Mandate era to combat Arab terrorism even then. Witnesses, however, said he was shouting “Allahu Akbar” (Allah is Greater) as he used his heavy machinery to flatten cars, topple buses and run over pedestrians. Police say Dwayat had a criminal record likely connected with a drug habit. It may be that, whatever set him off, he went on a sudden killing spree after years of hearing Palestinian leaders deliver promises that jihad martyrdom earns automatic entry into paradise no matter how ‘bad’ one has been. As police continue to sort out Dwayat’s precise motive, the government and judiciary are wrestling with how to prevent the next such rampage by an Arab from ‘within’ the country. Like the shooter in the Mercaz Harav yeshiva massacre in early March, Dwayat was an east Jerusalem Arab with residency status in Israel that allowed him to travel and work anywhere in the country. The IDF’s vigilance and the security barrier around the West Bank have dramatically reduced suicide missions from Palestinian areas, but they can do little to stop Arabs living and working inside the Jewish State. Besides leveling the family home, Israeli authorities are threatening to cut off national insurance payments and other welfare benefits to the families of terrorists, as well as revoking their residency status and work permits. Israeli Arabs, however, are concerned this was a random act of violence that will be used to punish their entire community. A recent poll showed that despite their complaints of inequities and discrimination, most Israeli Arabs (71%) prefer living in Israel to any other country in the world. |
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