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Government and police spokesmen would have us believe that the carnage in Jerusalem on Wednesday was unavoidable. Husam Taysir Dwayat, the convicted rapist, burglar and drug dealer turned jihadist who mowed down innocent people with his bulldozer on Jaffa Road was not suspected of links to terrorist organizations. The sociopathic, violent criminal who had "returned" to Islam over the past month raised no red flags. There was nothing to be done. No one is to blame.
If the protestations of the government and the police that nothing could have prevented Dwayat from using his bulldozer to murder three people sound familiar, it is because they are. Immediately after Ala Abu Dhaim entered into Mercaz Harav yeshiva on March 6 and massacred eight students, government and police spokesmen said the same thing. There was no way to prevent the attack. No one is to blame.
These statements are no more than easy excuses for incompetence. While it may be true that neither Dwayat nor Dhaim were members of a terror group, it is certainly true that both of these Jerusalemite terrorists operated in an atmosphere that engenders both radicalism and lawlessness. Their decisions to murder innocent people were products not only of their own evil natures, but of an atmosphere of permissiveness that naturally intensifies any latent desire to cause death and mayhem. If they had been operating in a different environment, it is possible they would have behaved differently.
Four months ago, Dhaim was able to enter Mercaz Harav by dint of his job as a driver for the Jerusalem Arab-owned transport company HaPnina.
HaPnina had a city contract to transport school children. Dhaim, who arrived at the yeshiva in a company van, aroused no suspicion when he entered the yeshiva with a large box where he hid his rifle.
After Dhaim committed his massacre, the municipality immediately tried to abrogate its contract with HaPnina. HaPnina sued and the Jerusalem Magistrate's Court issued a temporary injunction requiring the city to continue using HaPnina until the judge ruled on the case. When Judge Hagit Mack-Kalmanovich finally decided in the municipality's favor on June 13, she noted that that the company had ignored a court order to provide documentation showing that its drivers had no criminal records and were qualified to transport children.
If the municipality were more vigilant in overseeing its contractors, it could have discovered that HaPnina was employing criminals well before the massacre. Perhaps then Dhaim wouldn't have been able to enter the yeshiva.
It is a criminal offense to praise acts of murder. When hundreds came to pay their respects for Dhaim and proclaim him a hero, the police could have arrested and interrogated all of them. Among those who arrived at the Dhaim's mourning tent was Wednesday's terrorist, Dwayat. If he had been arrested then, it is possible that police would have discovered that this convicted rapist had recently become a jihadist. It is also possible that Dwayat himself would have been intimidated.
But rather than enforce the law, the police did nothing. Rather than arrest the hundreds who came to praise Dhaim, the police excused their inaction by bemoaning the fact that the due process rights of Jerusalem Arabs made it impossible to destroy the homes of Arab terrorists in the capital without proper legal authorization. That is, they justified their decision to do nothing by complaining that they can't do everything.
The police's permissive behavior is nothing new. In Dhaim's and Dwayat's Arab neighborhoods in Jerusalem, as in the Beduin settlements in the Negev and the Arab cities and villages in the Galilee, the police simply refuse to enforce the law. They do not patrol the streets. They do not arrest religious, educational and political leaders who solicit terrorism or incite hatred. They do not enforce building laws. They do not protect state and privately owned land from squatters. Today some 90 percent of Arab construction in Israel is carried out without permits. Whole towns in the Negev have been built on stolen state land. And the police do nothing.
As a consequence of police inaction, thieves, smugglers, terror solicitors and other dangerous criminals are allowed to operate in the open. Fearing the wrath of human rights groups on the one hand and Arab rioters on the other, the police simply do not enforce Israeli law in the Arab sector.
This police passivity manifests itself not only in times of relative calm but also in emergency situations. For instance, at both Mercaz Harav and on Jaffa Road, the police were inexcusably passive. In both attacks the terrorists were only stopped by citizens who took the initiative when the police failed to act.
On Wednesday Dwayat killed two motorists and overturned a truck before a policeman and a security guard climbed into the cab of his bulldozer. And then, instead of shooting him, the policeman simply tried to restrain him. Due to the police's refusal to shoot, Dwayat killed 33-year-old Batsheva Unterman while the policeman was standing next to him in the bulldozer's cab. It was only the intervention of "M.," an unarmed IDF commando soldier on furlough, that ended the carnage.
M. climbed onto the bulldozer, took the security guard's gun and shot Dwayat in the head three times. Another policeman only shot Dwayat after M. had already killed him.
At Mercaz Harav, it took the police some 20 minutes to show up in force. Until then, only one police officer was at the scene. And as he heard the anguished cries of teenagers being murdered, he opted not to go in and protect them. He stood outside and did nothing. Dhaim was only stopped when yeshiva student Moshe Dadon and furloughed paratrooper Capt. David Shapira killed him. As luck or providence would have it, Shapira is M.'s brother-in-law.
In failing to act against Arab Israeli lawlessness and the terror it engenders, the police are little different from the government. Like the police, the government turns a blind eye to the radicalization and lawlessness of Arab Israeli society. And when the unchallenged lawless and jihadist atmosphere leads inevitably to massacre, the government talks of how its hands are tied and makes angry, tough declarations not backed by policy. Then it quickly moves to change the subject.
With great misfortune, Yossi Zur has a deep understanding of Arab terror.His son, Asaf (nicknamed Blondi), was a victim of a deadly terror attack, which occurred nearly five years ago in Haifa.
Recently, Yossi asked that we publicize this moving tribute to his son, and all of the victims of terror in Israel.
Please Read, place a flower and forward on ....
2008 Campaign: Let's place 60,000 flowers in remembrance of Terror victims for Israel's 60 birthday
Terror victims Remembrance campaign 2008 - Israel's 60th birthday
This year, on Wednesday May 7th, Israel's memorial day, we will remember the Israelis fallen in the long battle for the existence of the state and for our right to a normal, sane and peaceful life in this small piece of land we call home.
We will remember the soldiers fallen in wars and battles and also the civilians and children fallen in busses coming back from school, in restaurants dining with their families, and in the streets going to shop or to visit friends.
On the next day, May 8th, we will celebrate the 60th Independence Day of the State of Israel. The mixture of remembrance and mourning with happiness and hope symbolizes the life we live in Israel day after day.
On March 5th 2003, my son Asaf, almost seventeen years old, nicknamed by his friends Blondi, came back from school riding a city bus. A suicide murderer exploded on the bus killing seventeen men, women and children. Nine of them were school children on their way home from school – including Asaf.
Shortly after Asaf's death, I started looking and learning how Israel and Israelis commemorate their fallen dear ones. Terror didn't start in year 2000. The Israeli Arab conflict has cost the lives of many Jews during the last 100 years, and these are commemorated in many ways.
I documented hundreds of commemoration sites, and created a web site that lists the sites in Israel, from as early as 1913, and all the way to today, after the second Lebanon war.
Each site has its own web page, text explaining the event, and pictures from the commemoration site.
I ask all of you getting this letter to participate in this remembrance campaign. Enter the web site, find a place you know or want to see, search for a commemoration, read about it and look at it.
Then at the bottom of the web page, place a virtual flower on the memorial.
Let's get to the 60th Independence Day celebrations with 60,000 flowers laid by people from all over the world on fallen terror victims' commemoration sites.
's make the crossing from remembrance to celebration the biggest ever and let's stand there for a moment, remembering those that are not with us to celebrate.
The Hebrew version web site is www.ezy.co.il , clicking on "English" will take you to the English version of the web site. For direct access to the English version .
By clicking the 'search' button on the top you can search for an attack place (free text search) or search for a commemoration by city or area (from a list of values) and even by range of dates.
IANS via Yahoo! India News Thu, 13 Sep 2007 5:08 AM PDT Gaza, Sep 13 (Xinhua) The Popular Resistance Committees (PRC), a militant group, Thursday announced rocket attacks against Israel lasting until the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which began today.
Zionsake: It has long been a proven fact that scores more demons get whipped up during Ramadan and that more terror attacks (statistically) are perpetrated during this UN-HOLY month. And then Israel's ungodly governments go out of their way to make goodwill gestures to the Muslims in honor of the month in which they perpetrate more EVIL (ala Bush) than usual!
Once again we see that the term "innocent civilian" can not be applied to Arabs in Israel.
(IsraelNN.com) Police have released closed circuit video footage of the terrorist incident in Jerusalem's Old City on Friday which clearly shows that the terrorist grabbed a security man's gun, fired on a security guard from close range, and was not the victim of an execution-style gunshot at close range.
Shoebat explains that the need for salvation, not poverty, drives Muslims to martyrdom; that of the 99 names of Allah in the Quran shows that he is Lucifer himself; that Islam is a bruised religion since the Ottoman Empire was diminished; that it wants to re-affirm itself.
U.S. soldiers pray in a circle before leaving Camp Victory for their patrol mission on the streets of Baghdad July 7, 2007. REUTERS/Nikola Solic (IRAQ)
By MOHAMMED DARAGHMEH, Associated Press Writer Tue Jun 19, 1:35 PM ET RAMALLAH, West Bank - Hamas leaders in the West Bank have been driven underground by a Fatah campaign of kidnappings and arrests, but the Islamic militants warn they'll eventually come out of hiding to try to destabilize the rule of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas with car bombings and assassinations.
Hamas is too weak now for a frontal assault on Fatah in the West Bank, but Iranian funding for Hamas, Abbas' political weakness and Fatah infighting could one day change the balance, Fatah leaders, Hamas militants and Israeli analysts say.
Security forces allied with Abbas say they're determined to snuff out Hamas in the West Bank. The president has declared the Hamas militias illegal, and his security chiefs said they wouldn't just go after Hamas' weapons, but also its money.
"The only way to deal with Hamas ... is by dismantling every single military cell in the West Bank, and that's what the security apparatus is doing now," said Kamal Abu Rob, a Fatah lawmaker.
The best insurance against a Hamas takeover might come from elsewhere: Israel's relentless pursuit of Hamas has kept the militants on the defensive and the resumption of foreign aid to the West Bank, after a 15-month boycott, could swing public opinion strongly in Abbas' favor.
Hamas leaders are keeping their heads down. In the past week, some 120 Hamas activists have been arrested by security forces or kidnapped by a violent Fatah offshoot. Gunmen have stormed the parliament building in Ramallah, burned offices of Hamas lawmakers in Nablus and warned some government employees with Hamas ties not to return to work. One Hamas member has been killed and another seriously wounded. Several others have been shot in the legs.
Khouloud al-Masri, a Hamas member of the Nablus municipal council, was forced from her office Tuesday. She said Fatah gunmen told her she wouldn't be able to return the next day. Al-Masri said her husband is in hiding and their five children are with grandparents.
In response, Hamas has made threats. "They (Fatah leaders) think Hamas is weak in the West Bank, just as they thought Hamas was in Gaza," said Mahmoud Zahar, a Hamas hard-liner in Gaza. "The West Bank may surprise the world with what they don't expect, and it's best for them not to fall into this trap."
Hamas' military strength in the West Bank is difficult to assess. Some Israeli analysts say only a few dozen gunmen escaped arrest by Israel. But a top Palestinian security official in Ramallah said Hamas has recruited hundreds who are organized in sleeper cells, outfitted with guns and uniforms, and ready to move. Hamas, which carried out dozens of suicide bombings in Israel in recent years, can also draw on explosives experts and runs secret bomb labs, he said, speaking on condition of anonymity in line with the rules of his security service.
A senior Hamas militant leader said the group has recruited about 4,000 gunmen in Nablus and Hebron, and has thousands of weapons. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he is wanted by Israel.
He said that when the signal comes to act, Hamas would carry out car bombs and try to assassinate Fatah leaders to destabilize the West Bank. On Tuesday, civilian cars were banned from security headquarters in the territory amid concerns about car bombs.
Money might help tilt the balance.
Fatah's former Gaza strongman Mohammed Dahlan alleged that Iran funded Hamas' onslaught on Gaza with some $250 million. "If we are not careful, it (the Iranian-directed campaign) will move to the West Bank," he told Palestine TV. And Hillel Frisch, an Israeli analyst, said Iranian money could buy off Fatah security officers who haven't been fully paid for months. He also noted that militants have moved from one group to the other in the past, and that money could be a strong incentive.
With the foreign aid embargo lifted, Abbas expects full Western support for his government. The resumption of aid will allow him to pay his 27,000 security forces in the West Bank and ensure their loyalty.
Palestinians are following the power struggle with trepidation. "I hope that this new government will control security and control the street," said Medhat Hanans, 45, a shopkeeper in Ramallah. "The foreign aid that we will receive will help the government a lot."
The Ramallah security chief said he has orders to block money to Hamas, some of which he says is funneled through West Bank businesses. He said Hamas' social institutions, such as welfare organizations, will also to be targeted. Fatah's greatest weakness — its petty internal rivalries — may yet sabotage its stand against Hamas. Behind the scenes, there's angry finger-pointing over the loss of Gaza, but Fatah activists are under orders not to go public.
Kadoura Fares, a Fatah leader in Ramallah, said the shock of recent days might finally shake up the movement, which failed to make reforms even after its election defeat to Hamas in 2006.
"Fatah activists have now realized the importance of defending their movement and building it, and the necessity of halting the internal battles," he said. "For the first time, you find a kind of harmony in the movement, because it is threatened by Hamas, and our national project (of a state) is threatened too."
(IsraelNN.com) Dromi moved out to the site of the ranch in 1987. Since then he has been repeatedly robbed, seen his home burned down, and suffered repeated losses at the hands of local Bedouins. The latest intrusion ended with Dromi shooting two thieves in the legs. One died, and Dromi has been imprisoned ever since without bail as his family struggles to keep the farm alive. Mira Dromi, Shai’s mother, who immigrated to Israel from the Bronx in 1950, was not surprised by the arrest. “When I was informed of what happened, I knew what would happen. But I was surprised at the rigor with which they tried to make a case of it. They said he is dangerous, when the real issue seems to be impotency of the government and its various arms in dealing with the reality here.”
Click "play" to watch the IsraelNN TV Report click here if video does not appear
In this desert, Bedouin tribal leaders used to call the shots. Interested in preserving their way of life and benefiting from the desire of the Jewish State to foster good relations with its Arab citizens, many Bedouins serve in the IDF and have benefited from the Jewish tourists’ penchant for authentic desert hospitality. But now a new guard has risen. Groups of young Bedouin men have formed organized crime rings, cruising nightly for agricultural equipment and livestock to steal from the dozens of Jewish farms and ranches.
“Everyone knows you can pay a certain amount to a certain Bedouin and receive ‘protection,’" says Y., a farmhand who volunteers at the ranch in exchange for room and board. “But the amount is exorbitant and besides, why should someone pay for the police not to have to do their job.”
Everyone on the ranch has stories of police unwillingness to go after the Bedouin crime rings. “I was working on another farm in the region, and they just pulled up in a car, casually got out, held a gun to a guy’s head and just cleaned him out,” Y. says. He asked that his name not be used because he fears that the tribe of the thief who was killed will come after him. Other farmhands say that the man whom Shai shot, Khaled al-Atrash, had been shunned by his own tribe after he was suspected of stealing from another tribe member. He had been forced by his tribe members to swear that he did not commit the crime. It was decreed by the tribunal that if he was lying something terrible would happen to him within two weeks.
That was a few days before al-Atrash and his gang paid their last visit to Shai Dromi’s farm.
They had stealing from the Jewish farmers down to a science. First, they threw poisoned meat to the guard dogs manning the perimeter, killing them within minutes. Then they cut the padlocked gate, and made off with generators, farm equipment and entire herds of livestock.
This was probably not al-Atrash’s first visit to the Dromi Ranch either. Just months ago, an expensive tractor was stolen and the well-trained guard dogs were all killed. Since then, Dromi began sleeping out in a small room built into the sheep pen. Several meters away is an old bus, which serves as a residence for three of the volunteers.
Al-Atrash and his men were inside the sheep pen when Dromi awoke. He grabbed the old .22 caliber rifle his father had brought with him when he immigrated from the U.S. and ran outside. When the thieves stayed their ground and did not flee, Shai shot at the thieves’ legs.
Dromi had no way of knowing whether the men were armed. A recent shooting attack in the region was carried out by a Bedouin man, and firearms are smuggled in great numbers through the lengthy Egyptian border - particularly following the withdrawal from Gaza - much of which is unsealed and unguarded.
The plague of crime is not only financially motivated, farmers say. The Bedouin simply do not want to see the settlement of the Negev by Jews – a project that is embraced as a noble goal by Israeli and Jewish organizations around the world.
Many Jewish organizations have transferred funds to the Negev, which once went towards settlement building in Judea and Samaria. To that end, Vice Premier Shimon Peres’s ministerial portfolio is responsible for development of the Negev, as well as the Galilee.
There is a struggle for the Negev that nobody will admit is underway. The Bedouin see themselves as the indigenous inhabitants of the land, and are often supported by human rights groups.
Police arrived as Shai was performing CPR on al-Atrash. Dromi was immediately arrested and has only been home to reenact the incident as required by Israel’s police.
Dromi has now become a symbol to many. Hadas, his niece, who is taking care of Shai’s infant and managing the house in his absence, says that there has been a flood of volunteers pitching in to ensure that the farm does not suffer financial loss in addition to the crippling blow to all its residents' morale.
Chaya Kurant is from Pardes Chana. She came to the Dromi Ranch just a week before the incident in order to volunteer. “I got more than I bargained for,” she said. “But it is all the more important that I am here.” She says that her faith in Israel’s justice system has been badly shaken by the imprisonment of a man who was so obviously acting in defense of his family. “I don’t understand why, before there has even been a trial, he is being kept in prison.” Others venture a guess. They say his incarceration is meant to be a deterrent for other Jewish farmers forced to swallow the stream of losses and bear the police inaction.
A Mother’s Words Shai’s mother Mira came on Aliyah at the age of 17. Mira first settled in the Negev at Kibbutz Kvutzat Urim, together with a core-group of friends from the Labor Zionist HaBonim Dror youth movement.
The Dromi children were raised in Be'er Sheva, the Negev’s largest city, where they stayed until Shai decided to apply for farmland in 1987.
“This area was designated as grazing land and made available for those slightly crazy individuals who were willing to forgo the comforts of urban living in order to establish a farm,” Mira says. “Without electricity, without telephones, without decent roads and without any subsidies, [my son] came out here in order to live in harmony with nature.”
Shai purchased a small herd of sheep, which he hoped to cultivate into a larger herd. “It is a slow painful process,” Mira recalls, “where you forgo simple comforts in order to buy just one more sheep and one more sheep.”
The entire herd was stolen several times over. “Three times Shai managed to get some or all of them back, usually on his own, without any help from the police – but three times, he just lost everything,” Mira recalls, with the sadness of a mother who has seen her child’s dream crushed again and again. “The last time it happened was six years ago,” Mira recalls. “Shai was so happy that he had finally arrived at a good-sized herd – 300 head – which is the number at which it starts to be financially viable. The whole herd was stolen. I thought he would be broken, but he just started again.”
Today, the herd totals 150 sheep. The heads of all the sheep are all striped blue. The mark, meant to help identify the sheep later in case of theft, renders them looking like punk bleaters. Many times since then Shai prevented his sheep from being stolen again. He built a bedroom out in the middle of the sheep pen and would wake up upon hearing the creaking of a gate or the snap of a cut latch. “But other times you wake up in the morning and see they have cut through six-inch bars and stolen one of your horses,” Mira says.“One time, when Shai was away in Be'er Sheva for the night, they burned the house he was living in to a cinder, with everything that was in it. As far as I know, over all these years, I don’t know of any arrest that has been made.” Just two weeks before Shai’s arrest, thieves returned, killed Dromi’s dogs and stole the ranch’s only agricultural tractor. “This is the fifth time our dogs have been poisoned,” Mira says. “The dogs, by the way, are generally our main line of defense, because we have no electric alarm system. Until now, we have had no electricity altogether.”
The electricity now lighting up the usually candle-lit ranch at night comes from a generator brought by a man who has a farm in the Jordan Valley. “He just heard what happened, looked us up in the phone book and called to see what he could do to help,” Mira says. “We have received many expressions of support from all walks. From kibbutzim, city dwellers, people from the Golan – really all over.”
Mira and her granddaughter Hadas both agree that the family is holding up quite well, considering the circumstances. “Shai is holding up well,” she says. “He believes in himself. The most frustrating thing for him is that he is not involved, that nobody is running my shop (a clothing and gifts store in Be'er Sheva). We can’t call him to consult where to put this tree, what to give that sheep.”
Volunteers have been coming to the ranch to shoulder the responsibility of guard duty. “The police stationed someone at first, but now they cut it down and come by a couple times a night,” Mira says. She says she is not worried about retribution for Shai’s actions. “I am frequently told that the guys who broke in, according to their culture, got what was coming to them. That’s more or less what they say.” The symbol that Shai has now become is not lost on his mother. At a time when so many members the government are under investigation for criminal activity and corruption, many people have their eyes on Shai Dromi. “What will be the fate of a man whose actions were so straightforwardly just in a world of unjust and corrupted considerations?” they ask. “For many, Shai’s case is the litmus test of the Israeli justice system.”
Shai’s appeal of his continued pre-trial incarceration will take place on February 11. In the meantime, help is welcome by the family. The Hitachdut HaChaklaim B’Yisrael (The Israel Farmers Association) has opened an account to help pay Dromi’s mounting legal expenses (Bank HaPoalim Branch 532, Account #249909) and volunteers are welcome to call Mira Dromi directly at 054-755-7920 (from abroad, replace the leading 0 with 972).
The Honenu Legal Aid organization is handling US-tax deductible contributions (Tax ID: 30-0198003) Click here to contribute via website. In the box "My donation is for:" note "Shai Dromi Defense Fund." Checks should be labeled "For Shai Dromi Defense Fund" and send to: Honenu, 8204 Lefferts Blvd, Suite 381, Kew Gardens, NY 11415
“It is good if people let us know what they can help us with," she says. "Are they skilled in some way, can they fix things, are they available to help with guard duty. Any help at all is so greatly appreciated by Shai and by us, his friends and family.”
Asked about her feelings if her son is in fact convicted of manslaughter and sent to a long prison term, the veteran Israeli-by-choice says she would still refuse to lose hope in eventual justice. “It will still be my Israel, for better or for worse. But they would be missing the mark. When the victim has to pay the price, the criminals will soon be out to operate again."
Fax the Justice Ministry at: (Photos: Josh Shamsi, Arutz-7 Photojournalist, and Ezra HaLevi)
The photos show that the sword is central in Islam. They say they kill the Jews on Saturday and the Christians on Sunday, but that's a lie, they kill them any day of the week. Of course killing each other is also part of the price they pay for Allah's blood lust - or is it Molech, Allah represents about 360 other gods.
