Terrorists Murder Students; Gazans Celebrate
Ynet: Terrorists kill 8 in Jerusalem
Two terrorists infiltrate rabbinical seminary in Kiryat Moshe quarter, open fire at dozens of students. At least eight people reported killed. Police still in pursuit of second gunman. Celebrations already underway in Gaza
This is why Egypt should take over Gaza and Jordan should take over most Arab portions of the West Bank. Neither country needs encouragement to rule with an iron hand.
This is why Israeli Arabs (who are Israeli citizens) should swear a loyalty oath to the State of Israel (and not commit crimes against the sovereignty of the state) or face deportation with revocation of citizenship.
Eight people were confirmed dead in a terror attack at Merkaz Harav Yeshiva, near the entrance to Jerusalem on Thursday evening. According to Channel 2, the “Galilee Freedom Brigades”, which claimed responsibility for the attack, is a Hizbullah-affiliated organization.
Magen David Adom have confirmed 10 wounded civilians, including three seriously. One terrorist was said to have been killed by a student.
Witnesses said that only one terrorist had entered the building and that he managed to fire 500-600 bullets over the course of 4-10 minutes before he was killed.
Although witnesses said only a single terrorist carried out the attack, police were searching the building for an additional terrorist, preventing the entrance of rescue workers. Later Police Chief David Cohen confirmed that there were no additional attackers.
The terrorist entered the Merkaz Harav Yeshiva in the neighborhood of Kiryat Moshe carrying weapons. He was not wearing a suicide-bomb belt as earlier reported.
The gunman entered the library where about 80 people were gathered, witnesses said, and opened fire.
Statement from Hamas:
We bless the operation. It will not be the last
Haaretz Report: East Jerusalem resident behind attack
Nine Mercaz Harav students hurt, three in serious condition; most students are high school age
AND
In Gaza City, residents went out into the streets and fired rifles in celebration in the air after hearing news of the attack on the yeshiva.
29 Responses to “Terrorists Murder Students; Gazans Celebrate”
This is tragic news. Unfortunately the US is more interested in fostering violence and instability in the region and crippling any attempts at real peace. I understand 126 civilians were killed by IDF in Gaza in the last week.
lurxst,
tsk, tsk, you've interrupted Holly's neo-con, Likudish rant with facts and reality. She will now hate you forever.
[...] of the Galil Liberators/Imad Mughnieh and the Martyrs of Gaza. My sourwww.debbieschlussel.comTerrorists Murder Students Gazans Celebrate – The Moderate VoiceTwo terrorists infiltrate rabbinical seminary in Kiryat Moshe quarter, open fire at dozens of [...]
Loviatar – are you saying you support the killing of seminary students?
Wow Holly, your suggestions are as extreme as those Palestinian terrorists espouse, if completely opposite. In no way would the taking over of Palestinian territory by Arab nations lessen the problems facing Israel, likely they would only aggravate them giving the few criminals in Palestine greater access to weapons. Egypt and Jordan crack down? You have got to be kidding. They would risk an uprising from their own citizens leading to governments with less kind intentions to Israel.
Palestinians have a right to their own, independent country just as Israel. I also find it disturbing that you are shocked and appalled by the murder of a few Israelis, but don't ever mention the murder of Palestinians, many of them also innocent civilians, by the Israeli military. Is a Palestinian life less valuable than that of an Israeli?
Egypt doesn't want Gaza and Jordan doesn't want the West Bank. It's not merely that they enjoy continuing to exploit the Palestinian Arabs as political pawns, as do the other Arab nations. They also don't want to adopt terrorists like you have there. in the Territories (who have sympathy by the moral defectives who hate Israel or blame Israel for terrorism against it).
Israel vacated its Gaza settlements. Look at what the Arabs have done to Gaza.
I agree with your comment, DLS, especially having lived there for a year in the mid-80s when it was actually somewhat peaceful. Coming back to the states made this concept of how both populations are pawns even more stark a reality to me.
There's also inter-Arab (constant inter-Arab) warfare, much of it religious-based. We see it in Iraq and a friend of mine back in the 1980s in LA fled Lebanon after it no longer was the Switzerland of the Mediterranean but had experienced civil war.
He was pragmatic and fatalistic about Israel and Hizballah, for while there is no moral equivalence between the two (nor with Israel and the Palestinian Arabs, much less Hamas), while Israel doesn't engage in terrorism and other crime, and tries to avoid civilian casualties while attacking criminals, others do get harmed, and this is a constant source of new terrorism recruits (same is true for Iraq now, not only with our latest war there but with the civil warfare that's even more hateful and destructive — similar to Lebanon's civil war). “Often a terrorist is a young guy, could have little or no education and no job, who has lost the rest of his family [due to violence, by Israeli air strikes, by whatever other means] and sees no future.” He also said the obvious thing (but he was emphatic when he said this, unlike anything else he had to say about the Middle East), that if the USA and the West weren't ready to defend, “the Arab nations and Iran would E A T I S R A E L A L I V E like wolves if they ever could.”
It was an interesting group I was in, in LA — a true rainbow coalition that included not only my Arab friend from Lebanon but two office mates, from Israel and from Iran.
And you know what? That is not uncommon, DLS, those affiliations and friendships when communities that support, encourage or otherwise foster mingling on any level between people from a variety of backgrounds. I've never understood, I mean, really understood – beyond a fear of the unknown and a worry about change – why people who seek out the same often also reject embracing what's different. I know – naive – but I've always felt that way. I LIKE feeling that kind of discomfort – there are ways to pursue that so that people feel safe, checking out what they don't know.
Oh well – now I'm just dreaming I guess.
DLS, I was listening to NPR a couple years ago and they were talking to a Jordanian prince that flatly said that the modern Palestinian problem was a cause of Arab politics that Israel happened to get dumped with. He referred to it as the Arab Civil War.
Anyway, this is very bad news. As far as I've read, for the most part the Israeli Arabs have stood by their Jewish brethren and condemned terrorism (despite some legitimate gripes that they are second class citizens) and I hope this isn't the beginning of an unraveling of that relationship.
Holly: you're wrong! It's Barack Obama's fault!
Cosmoetica said: “Holly: you're wrong! It's Barack Obama's fault!”
Yes, it would be nice to say I can see see a Tony Rezko connection…but this is sorta sad for that.
I would say, however, that George Bush is at fault in a way.
It is sorta pathetic that he has only discovered the Palestinean problem in the last year of his Presidency. I mean, it took him 2 terms…2 TERMS!…before he visited Israel.
I say this as a conservative, who has defended Bush in the past.
Yes, it may have all been useless. But Bush could have tried, at least.
It's really too bad. To speak of dreams: I've mentioned before that a two-state solution that would permit not only isolated Jewish settlements but the same for Arabs, supporting an effective “right of return” (for those who fled in 1948; their descendents have no claims) as well as Arab-Muslim autonomy would simply not be possible there — something resembling the Cooch Behar enclave complex involving dual nationalities in the same part of the Mediterranean. (see below) It's just not possible there (Israel and the disputed Territories).
http://strangemaps.wordpress.com/2007/05/08/
Even the following, reasonable idea isn't achieveable (yet):
http://www.legalaffairs.org/issues/September-Oc…
And everyone “knows” that obviously all this, too, is Bush's fault.
Macan — he probably discovered the problem when the Saudis said it was a problem.
Jillmz,
– Loviatar – are you saying you support the killing of seminary students? -
Nice rhetorical spin, its dishonesty is so great it almost reaches the level of something Holly would write, you're only missing the accusation of antisemitism.
So because I bring attention to lurxst pointing out that “the US is more interested in fostering violence and instability in the region and crippling any attempts at real peace” And his additional point of “126 civilians were killed by IDF in Gaza in the last week.” I am advocating “killing of seminary students”.
See this is the problem with discussing the Middle East with some Jewish Americans, point out that the Palestinians are suffering under Israeli rule and all of a sudden you hate Israel, point out that Israel's indiscriminate attacks into Gaza and the West Bank will feed the cycle of violence and your “advocating “killing of seminary students”.
Jill I expect better of you, I know what I'll get from Holly, but you at least should strive to be more honest. Please don't follow her reactionary, neo-con, Likudish model.
DLS said: “Macan — he probably discovered the problem when the Saudis said it was a problem.”
Heh. Yah, I didn't want to be one of the — “Not a sparrow falls from the tree but that it is the fault of Bushitlerchimpy” — but it is a sad waster that he never paid much attention to that file until now.
Interesting points folks have raised here, though…proceeding from Holly's rather draconian solution.
It is also worth noting that Palestinian society is also becoming more radically Islamic. Last year I made the acquaintance of a Palestinian Christian family who had been dispossessed…not by the “evil, vicious, monstrous” Jews…but by the terror of Islamic gangs. I gather towns like Bethlehem — that once had a large Christian population — are now almost entirely Muslim.
Loviatar – my point is, as I'm sure you know, that your line is rhetoric. Why don't you say what you are thinking, rather than responding with the rhetoric? I would actually be interested in reading what you have to write on this topic.
Jillmz,
– Loviatar – my point is, as I'm sure you know, that your line is rhetoric. Why don't you say what you are thinking, rather than responding with the rhetoric? I would actually be interested in reading what you have to write on this topic. -
Great post can I paraphrase and use it;
Jill – my point was, as I'm sure you know was rhetorical. Why didn't you say what you were thinking, rather than responding with inflammatory rhetoric? As I said, I'm also interested in reading what you have to write on this topic.
I don't engage in “I know you are but what am I?”
If you want to explain what your feelings about this incident are, by way of your comment, “lurxst, tsk, tsk, you've interrupted Holly's neo-con, Likudish rant with facts and reality. She will now hate you forever.” please do – I am interested.
If you're not interested in explaining your feelings about the topic in this post (as opposed to picking on the person who posted it), then you're not. No one is here to force you one way or the other. Your comments speak for yourself as far as your interest in debate and discussion. So be it.
Jill,
I must tell you Jill, your initial comment to me was offensive, you were the one who leaped to the assumption that I would feel glee or some type of joy at the terrorist attack and you did this all without reason. Why should I have to explain my feelings about the terrorist attack, any decent person would be horrified and repulsed by it. However, my being horrified and repulsed by the terrorist attack should not stop me or anyone else from acknowledging that another horrendous act was committed in the ME this week (126 civilians killed by IDF in Gaza).
Also, Holly is a target by me because she has shown herself to be one of the more right wing, neo-con members of this site and as I've learned from the past 7 years if you allow the neo-cons to flourish without calling them on their egregious comments you will end up suffering in the long run.
I appreciate your comment here, Loviatar, because it puts it in perspective.
But I have to believe, based on what seems to be some decent level of sophistication on your part, that you know that when you make a comment like that, and someone who either isn't familiar with you, or with Holly or with your opinion of Holly, what you wrote begs the question, from someone who is interested in the topic and not picking on the messenger or how she put out the message, of what you mean and intend.
Again – I would much rather be conversing back and forth with you on the content and import of the topic. If that's not an interest of yours, I understand – I don't comment on 90% of what I read, but I still enjoy reading.
Macan — there's a group that hates Bush in a more deranged manner than they used to hate Ron E-Raygun (and US-Western defense of all kinds against Soviet aggression and interventionism). Then there are the normal folks like you and I who simply are disappointed to disgusted with the guy and his faults, mainly of omission or failure to commit rather than of commission.
there's a group that hates Bush in a more deranged manner than they used to hate Ron E-Raygun
Bush has only caused the death of a million Iraqis, created a couple of million refugees and the internal displacement of another million Iraqis, I can't imagine why he shouldn't be despised by all civilized people. Hell he made Saddam look like a humanitarian.
And as for Egypt, it wants no more border breaches by Hamas and is building a new wall, reputedly with towers — you know, kind of like what Israel has been building to keep terrorists away, which the Usual Suspects hate so much (because such a defense is to the aid of the wrong, politically incorrect, side). Large walls are medieval and so are, come to think of it, the terrorists. Even some legitimate Arab leaders like the Saudis are medieval. What a remarkable occurrance.
Even the Arabs say, “Keep 'Em Out!”
Um, except that the “civilians” in Gaza were Hamas militants that have fired over 7,000 missiles into impoverished Israeli border towns since Israel's withdrawal.
But don't let the facts confuse you…
Elizabethanne,
As I said earlier I refuse to allow the right wing, neo-con meme to flourish with out challenge. We in the center didn't challenge the neo-cons the last time they spewed their garbage and over 4,000 Americans and many countless more Iraqis died.
Bloomberg:
“At least 120 Palestinians were killed and dozens wounded in air attacks and a ground offensive started by Israel on Feb. 29 after an Israeli was killed by a rocket launched from the Gaza Strip”
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601116…
BBC:
“Last week, Israeli forces launched a raid into northern Gaza in which more than 120 Palestinians – including many civilians – were killed.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7282269.stm
Fox:
“Abbas had briefly suspended talks to protest an Israeli offensive in Gaza that killed more than 120 Palestinians”
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,335730,00.html
Al Jazeera:
Abbas severed contacts with Israel in protest against the latter's military offensive in the Gaza Strip that killed 120 Palestinians.
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/CBAFD8A7…
Elizabethanne,
You know what really jumped out to me while I was gathering the facts to shut you up was that every single article referenced above came from a news article dealing with the Israeli terrorist attack today, not one was headlined by the Palestinian death toll, I guess 120 Palestinians dieing doesn't even warrant a headline.
P.S.
The Gaza Strip – A Humanitarian Explosion:
“Eight Human Rights organizations warned that Gaza is facing the worst humanitarian crisis since Israel occupied the territory in 1967. Israel keeps the 1.5 million Gazans stateless and under perpetual siege, denying them needed fuel and supplies, even food. Statelessness and immobilization on this scale can only be described as a form of slavery.”
http://i.l.cnn.net/cnn/2008/images/03/06/gaza.i…
“This is why Israeli Arabs (who are Israeli citizens) should swear a loyalty oath to the State of Israel (and not commit crimes against the sovereignty of the state) or face deportation with revocation of citizenship.”
Excuse me? Oath of loyalty? So you're basically saying that an Arab Israeli is a borderline traitor by definition and is in no way equal to a Jewish Israeli, and therefore must go above and beyond to prove they aren't a terrorist. That's lovely.
So you'd revoke the citizenship and deport any Israeli Arab who perhaps thought it was unbelievably insulting to be forced to swear “I am not nor have I ever been a terrorist”, I'm assuming even the ones who have been Israeli from birth, even the ones who are Christian Arabs, right? Perhaps you think we should do the same with Arabs in the US. The bigotry implicit in this demand is stunning.
One of the factors that has NOT been highlighted in any discussions of this tragic episode is the origin and nature of the yeshiva attacked. My first comment is that I absolutely abhore the deaths of the 8 students – I want that on the record. Nonetheless I want to add some context to this situation.
The yeshiva, Mercaz HaRav, was founded by Rabbi Zvi Yehuda Kook, a fundemental messianic Jew, who believes that Jewish settlements across Eretz Israel will deliver the Messiah to the Jews. This yeshiva is the foundation of Israel's National Religious Party (NRP) Everyone who goes thru this Yeshiva, including two of my cousins, is indoctrinated to move to the West Bank and either expand or build new settlements. Having met many of these students they are quite vociferous in their desire to transfer all Christians and Muslims out of Eretz Israel. In fact, some of the ugliest language I have heard in my life comes from the mouths of Mercaz HaRav students and staff.
The gunman was apparently a driver for the yeshiva and would be well aware of the student's attitudes towards arabs. I don't think it was just a coincidence that this yeshiva was attacked, even though in no way shape or form do I agree with it. This yeshiva is at the forefront of efforts to derail peace talks on the Israeli side. Obviously, they have plenty of company on the Palestinian side.
The hatred and cycle of violence will not cease by doing the same things as have been done the last 40 years. If I were President I would lock Abbas, Haniyeh and Olmert in a room and not let them out until they came to an agreement on peace.