Tuesday was a regular week day just like any other. But we live in the Middle East where within a split second reality changes. Within the space of hours the events went from planned rallies for the release of Gilad Schalit, peace talks between President Shimon Peres and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to a terror attack in the heart of Jerusalem that occurred just meters from the King David Hotel where Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama will stay during his visit.
Obama was plunged into Middle East reality seconds after his arrival in Israel, where he condemned the attack saying it was just one more reminder for the need to work diligently and urgently in a unified manner to defeat terrorism.
As the presidential candidate spoke to reporters at the airport, in Jerusalem members of the ultra orthodox community beat up two Arabs, who succeeded in fleeing to a nearby home where an ultra orthodox family sitting shiva, protected them from the raging mob.
Terror has been an integral part of Israel ever since the State was founded. But since the spate of suicide bomb attacks during the Al Aksa intifada that plagued the capital , Jerusalemites up until this year have been able to enjoy a somewhat brief respite from terror, and instead found themselves campaigning on behalf of the residents of the rocket beleagured city of Sderot.
Since the beginning of 2008, the capital's residents have witnessed one attack after another, but the terrorists who in the past came from the West Bank to blow up in the city are no longer able to enter the capital so easily, thanks to the existance of the security barrier. Instead Jerusalemites have to contend with a more worrying issue. Lone terrorists, all holders of Israeli identity cards who have permanent resident status allowing them freedom of movement, have pereptrated one bloody terror attack after another.
In March, an east Jerusalem resident gunned down 8 yeshiva students in cold blood, and in July, two east Jerusalem residents ran amok in the city streets, they weren't armed with bombs or weapons but drove bulldozers which they turned into the ultimate weapon as they slammed the heavy machinery into civilian cars and buses and passersby before they were shot dead,leaving in their wake a trail of death and destruction.
In all of the above cases the terrorists were shot dead by civilians and policemen on duty at the scene of the attacks. A fact that is enjoying increasing public consensus. Members of the public believe that not only may it assist in deterring future terrorists from perpetrating attacks, but that a dead terrorist is preferrable to a live terrorist serving a life sentence in Israeli jails, who after a number of years will be set free as part of a prison swap, only to return to terror.
Tuesday was a regular day, just like any other week day.
Margot Dudkevitch
July 23, 2008
Infolive.tv
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