Israeli authorities finally have admitted that the two Palestinian Authority terrorists who murdered a retired IDF colonel last month acting out of “nationalistic motives,” but they still could not bring themselves to use the “T” word.
Hevron area Arabs Oudeh Fareed Taleb Harub, 18, and Bashir Ahmed Oudeh Harub, 21, beat Sariya Ofer to death with an axe and a crowbar outside his Jordan Valley home shortly after midnight on October 11. His wife Monique was wounded in the attack but escaped, crawling her way to the main highway where she flagged down help. She still is hospitalized.
The IDF said at the time that it was not certain that Ofer was a victim of terror and that they were investigating the possible that it was your usual day-to-day murder.
The deadly attack occurred shortly after two soldiers were killed by Palestinian Authority terrorists in two separate attacks. As has been pointed out before on these pages, senior IDF officers, especially those looking for a promotion, are very hawkish on terrorists in Gaza but are anxious to show their superiors, and perhaps the Obama administration, how the Palestinian Authority does so much to cooperate to stop terror.
This writer was security officer on our Jewish community in the Judean Desert during the euphoria of Oslo. One of the colonels in charge of the Hevron Brigade assured the security offices in the area that the Palestinian Authority are working hand in hand with the IDF and even suggested that we meet with their general.
We turned down the offer. Two years later, the same Palestinian Authority “security forces” used their rifles, handed over to them by Israel, to shoot and kill Israeli soldiers and civilians.
Almost every brigade commander who wants a promotion, pants after the “peace process” and plays down attacks on Jews. Hundreds of Jewish motorists have been wounded, and some have been killed, by terrorists who have roamed the highways because the IDF reduced patrols to show the Arabs how much they can be trusted.
Ofer’s murder was a classic example of make believe.
Most media parroted the IDF and police response that, yes, the murderers were Palestinian Authority Arabs, and, yes, they struck in the middle of the night, but who knows? Maybe they were not terrorists.
Authorities clutched to the fact that the terrorists had planned for two weeks to rob Ofer’s home. The Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet) revealed on Thursday that that once the two Hevron Arabs realized their victim was a retired IDF officer, it was time “to present a gift to the Palestinian people.”
Nevertheless, two major English-speaking websites carried the report Thursday without using the word “terror.” That would create an atmosphere of distrust of the peace process among the rank and file.
Security forces and media exhibited the same fairy tale mentality two months ago when a nine-year girl was attacked in the Jewish community of Psagot, adjacent to Ramallah.
Initial reports bent over backwards to say it was not certain it was a terrorist attack. What could it have been? An Arab who lost his way and attacked a girl out of self-defense because he was afraid she would kill him?
Even on Wednesday, when a Palestinian Authority terrorist at the age of 16 – they start them out young these days – stabbed to death an IDF soldier while he was asleep in a nearly empty bus that was parked at the Afula bus station during a break, one English-speaking website wrote it was a “suspected” terrorist attack.
It is kind of weird how the “peace process” exists but terror does not exist.
Even weirder are the constant threats by Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas, and now by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, that if Israel does not do as Abbas says, it will face terror.
In other words, Israel is not facing terrorists now.
It simply is facing criminals who commit homicide because of the Occupation, and when the “peace process” fails, the murderers will suddenly be called terrorists, just as Abbas and Kerry predicted.