This isn’t exactly the Badge of Courage, is it?
In the course of IDF activity Tuesday in an Arab village south of Jenin, an IDF force noted another manifestation of this worrisome trend amongst Arab terrorists – the second time in a week.
The soldiers had surrounded a house in the Arab village Sanur – not far from the evacuated-and-destroyed Jewish town of Sa-Nur – hoping to catch wanted terrorist Nabil Hanani. Hanani then came out of the house holding a small child.
The soldiers refrained from shooting, as he expected. He then quickly passed the child to a man standing near him and opened fire at the soldiers. The soldiers recovered quickly and killed him with their return fire. No soldiers were hurt.
A similar case occurred last Tuesday in Bethlehem, during the arrest of terrorist cell leader Ali Tzalhat. Tzalhat headed a cell – of which all the members have been killed or arrested by Israeli forces – that was responsible for murdering four Israelis as well as a series of shooting attacks in southern Jerusalem. When the soldiers arrived to arrest him, he came out of the house with a baby in his hands. The soldiers did not shoot, arresting him peacefully instead – as was their plan from the start.
Army sources told Arutz-7 correspondent Haggai Huberman that these cases are not isolated ones, but rather indicate a growing phenomenon among Palestinian terrorists about to be arrested or caught.
But, then again, perhaps like so many other things we need to redefine what bravery, courage, and nobility are (according to what fits our political agenda).
And if that doesn’t work, just attack the source who reports the incident (or the source reporting the source who reports the incident) which helps deflect attention from the controversial incident itself.
To see an example, watch this video.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.