The security camera footage reveals a scene that is deeply shocking, even in an era like ours, when so many shocking scenes flood our cell phones, televisions and computer screens.
We see a young man calmly walking up to the driver’s side of an automobile. Standing just a foot or two away, the young man points a gun at the driver’s window and fires repeatedly. Then he pauses, re-loads his gun and fires again. Inside are two middle-aged hassidic men who are unarmed, defenseless civilians.
In recent months, we have become accustomed to incidents of violence against visibly-Jewish men, women and children in places like Brooklyn. Angry press releases and emergency summits on antisemitism usually follow.
But the April 17 shooting seen on the security camera footage took place in Jerusalem, not Brooklyn. The two Jewish men had just completed morning prayers at the Tomb of Shimon Hatzadik. From Brooklyn to Jerusalem, the victims are indistinguishable and the motive of antisemitism is identical. The only difference is in the public’s reaction – or the lack thereof.
We have all seen those infamous photos from an earlier era of other enemies of the Jewish people carrying out executions at extremely close range. Who can fathom what could be going on in the mind of somebody who looks into the eyes of an innocent, defenseless person from a foot or two away and pulls the trigger? Can such depravity be described as anything else but the very personification of evil?
Two days after the attack in Jerusalem, the Israeli army caught up to the terrorist in Palestinian Authority territory and arrested him. It turns out he’s just 15 years old.
Nobody is born antisemitic. It requires indoctrination – a steady stream of lies, over a long period of time. The 15-year-old terrorist happens to be a resident of Nablus (Shechem), which has been governed exclusively by the Palestinian Authority since 1998. Meaning that during this terrorist’s entire lifetime, the newspapers, television, radio and school curricula to which he was subjected were all controlled by the PA.
The Oslo II agreement, signed by Israel and the PA in 1995, states (Chapter 4, Article XXII, clause 1) that the PA is required to abstain from incitement, including hostile propaganda against Israel. The teenage terrorist should have been raised in an incitement-free, antisemitism-free environment. Instead, the PA raised him on a diet of hatred of Jews and glorification of violence. The result: a violent, Jew-hating teenager.
The Israeli media reported that after attempting to murder the two hassidim, the terrorist then went to school. That makes sense in a grim way because everything he would have learned in class would have reinforced the idea that what he just tried to do was laudable and heroic.
IF IT were up to Americans for Peace Now and J Street, however, this teenage attempted murderer would not have been arrested at all. He would still be roaming Israel’s streets in search of other Jews to shoot at.
That’s because Americans for Peace Now and J Street are among the groups that have endorsed HR 2590, legislation introduced by Rep. Betty McCollum to penalize Israel if its military detains Palestinian Arab minors.
The 15-year-old would-be-killer is just one of the numerous Palestinian Arab minors who have carried out barbaric acts of terrorism.
Does anybody remember Ayyat al-Akras? In 2002, at age 17, she carried out a suicide bombing in a Jerusalem supermarket, murdering two shoppers – one was a teenage girl – and wounding 28 others.
How about Aamer Alfar? He was just 16 in 2004 when he blew himself up in the Carmel Market in Tel Aviv, murdering three Israelis and injuring 32.
If Americans for Peace Now had their way
According to Israeli Army statistics for the period 2000-2003, there were 29 suicide attacks carried out by Palestinian Arabs under the age of 18 – not to mention 40 attempted suicide bombings and 22 shooting attacks by teenagers under 18.
If McCollum and Americans for Peace Now had their way, Israel would have been penalized if its security forces arrested any of those murderers or would-be murderers, including this 15-year-old terrorist.
In the American judicial system, juveniles who commit certain heinous crimes are tried as adults. Terrorism surely qualifies as a heinous crime and its perpetrators deserve appropriate punishment, whether they happen to be younger than 18 or older. Israel should not be punished by the media, members of Congress or the Jewish Left for following this sound American principle.
I can’t say I’m surprised that openly extremist groups, such as the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and the American Friends Service Committee (Quakers), have endorsed the McCollum bill.
But Americans for Peace Now is in a different category because it is a member of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations. The Conference represents the mainstream of American Jewry. Groups that gain admission do not have to agree with every position taken by the conference, but they do have an obligation to stay within the parameters of the broad pro-Israel, anti-terrorist consensus that the Conference of Presidents represents.
So, I ask: How can penalizing Israel for arresting young terrorists possibly be considered to be within the pro-Israel, anti-terrorist consensus of the American Jewish community?
The writer is an attorney and the father of Alisa Flatow, who was murdered in an Iranian-sponsored Palestinian terrorist attack, in 1995. He is the author of A Father’s Story: My Fight for Justice Against Iranian Terror and is an oleh hadash (new immigrant).