Arab rioters attacked Jewish motorists in eastern Jerusalem Tuesday night in what has become a “silent intifada” thanks to establishment media’s generally ignoring frequent violence.
Arab rioters attacked several cars whose occupants were on their way on the eve of Hoshana Raba, the last day of Sukkot, to learn Torah at the “Beit HaHoshen,” in the heart of a hostile and almost entirely Arab neighborhood above Wadi Joz in eastern Jerusalem.
Shuki Set wrote on the Rotter.net website that he and his son were driving to Beit HaHoshen when they got stuck in a traffic jam, a ready-made setting for Arab violence.
“Arabs suddenly struck our car with rocks at point-blank range,” he wrote. “The kicked the car and smashed the side mirrors, but there was nowhere to flee. We simply stood there like sitting ducks, hoping we would not be physically harmed.
“Suddenly, one of the rioters heaved a huge rock and smashed the back window.”
The driver barely was able to escape the ambush, and he called the police. He discovered that there were other families who were on their way to learn and who also were attacked.
“This Jerusalem!” he wrote. [It is] two minutes from Hebrew University. Where are the police” Where are the authorities?
“I never felt so ashamed and helpless in my life.
“I hope the government will start to exercise its sovereignty over our capital. If we don’t stop this erosion in Beit Hanina, the rioters will get to the Mount of Olives and then Rehavia,” an upscale neighborhood near downtown Jerusalem.
We have news for Shuki. Arab attacks on Jews traveling to and from the Mount of Olives as well as the nearby Maaleh Zeitim neighborhood are almost daily events.
The establishment rarely report on them.
Why?
Because their agenda is that “United Jerusalem” includes Ramot and Gilo, maybe Talpiot, Pisgat Ze’ev and French Hill, but does not include anywhere else where Jews live in eastern, southern and northern Jerusalem.
The media silence is somewhat reminiscent of the Arab violence in Gush Katif from the 1990s until the day in the summer of 2005 that the Sharon administration expelled 9,000 Jews from Gaza and withdrew the entire military, down to the last soldier.
The establishment newspapers, website and TV and radio stations only reported violence when someone was killed or badly injured, and they twisted the reportage to push their agenda that things would be a lot more peaceful if the Jews simply would go away.
Even the media snobs in Tel Aviv know today that the result was they also had to hide in bomb shelters to protect themselves from missiles fired in Gaza.
If Israel’s media and political leaders really had learned the lesson, they would not ignore the daily violence in eastern Jerusalem that, thanks to the self-muzzling, has become a “silent intifada.”
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu last week finally broke the silence and ordered police to crack down on Arab attackers “to ensure the safety of Jerusalem.”
Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat occasionally stands up and makes a nice speech that the police are not doing enough to protect Jews in eastern Jerusalem.
Public Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovitch, arguably one of the worst ministers ever to hold the portfolio, insists that his office has zero tolerance towards the rioters” and that hundreds of arrests have been carried out.
Arrests usually end up in in the revolving door, but he often claims violence is on the decrease. He usually does so at almost the same time rioters prove him wrong.
The attitude of the establishment media was best-expressed in a recent editorial in Haaretz, the left-wing bastion to which foreign media turn for their “knowledge” of Israel.