The IDF has identified the victim of Wednesday’s Palestinian Authority terrorist attack as 19-year-old Eden Atias, of Nazareth Illit in the Lower Galilee.
The 16-year-old attacker, from Jenin, pounced on his helpless victim while he was sleeping on an Egged bus at Afula, approximately five miles north of Jenin.
The bus had stopped for a break before its scheduled trip to Nazareth Illit, and it was empty except for Atias and two other soldiers. The murderer ran out the back door but was quickly overcome by security guards who had been alerted of the attack by a women soldier, apparently unarmed, who fled the bus while screaming that a soldier has been stabbed.
The terrorist said he acted out of revenge for Israel’s having sentenced two of his relatives to jail, one of them with a life sentence for terror.
That is all the State Dept. needs to tone down its response to the attack, in contrast to Tuesday’s bellyaching over reports that Housing Minister Uri Ariel hired an architect to draw up plans for new homes and apartments in the controversial E-1 area in the city of Maaleh Adumim and in smaller towns in Judea and Samaria. When Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu got wind of the news, he promptly Ariel to back off and freeze his plans.
The State Dept. will say in a more diplomatic tone, “If Israel simply would release all terrorists and prisoners, there will be peace” and never mind the victims of the revolving door terrorists who return to their favorite occupation of killing Jews.
The latest murder at the hands of Palestinian Authority Arabs, the sixth this year, occurred only days after the liberal bleeding heart wing of the defense establishment served up warnings that Israel is about to face a third intifada.
Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon, a lot more level-headed than most of the “experts” who are panting after the Obama administration to show how much they cooperate with the United States, insisted, “There is no sign of a popular uprising or so-called third intifada.”
Almost every one of this year’s murders has been carried out by lone terrorists, not connected with any terrorist organization.
But U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, who thinks he knows more about Israel’s security needs than anyone else in Israel, piped up last week with a warning that Israel faces a “third intifada” if it doesn’t give up its crazy idea that 600,000 Jews in Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria have a right to remain there as Jewish people in a Jewish state.
Hamas, which praised Wednesday’s terrorist attacks, definitely agrees with Kerry and is active in Hevron, Jenin, Shechem and other areas, but there is no popular support in Judea and Samaria for a revolt against Israel.
The average Mohammed does not want another round of violence, retaliation and the resultant economic stagnation that only would further postpone into eternity the date for establishing the Palestinian Authority as a country.
The average Mohammed is more concerned with Abbas’ corrupt regime and his single-minded aim to head a new Arab state that is totally dependent on foreign handouts and ignores the daily needs of its own people.
Every effort by the Palestinian Authority to organize “million man protests” has succeeded in bringing out 1,000,000 Arabs minus the last there zeroes.
The people aren’t interested.
The violence comes from lone rangers, usually teenagers or young men who have grown up with 20 years of incitement from their PA schools and Muslim preachers.
They don’t need Kerry to teach them to kill, but the Secretary of State’s statement is music to the ears of Hamas and the terrorist arm, known as the “military branch,” of Abbas’ Fatah party.
The threat of an intifada is simply another gimmick to pressure the Netanyahu government to fold up, go back to the edge of the Mediterranean Sea, and wait for the next boat.
The problem is one of “adaptive expectation.” If you think inflation is going to go rampant, you go out and buy like crazy, which encourages sellers to raise prices and bingo – inflation.
If the Obama administration continues to spout off the threat of violence, it will happen.
When Kerry responded rhetorically to an Israeli reporter last week and said, ”Do you want a third intifada,” he really meant, “I want a third intifada if that is what it takes to earn the Nobel “Peace” Prize.