Another Successful Atrocity in Palestinian Hatred of Israel

Israeli security forces and onlookers at the scene of a suspected terrorist attack at the Sarona Market in Tel Aviv, June 8, 2016. (Miriam Alster/Flash90)

Two Palestinian Arab siblings from Hebron, said to have been dressed as Orthodox Jews, and on an unauthorized visit to Tel Aviv succeeded in their mission to continue driving viciously violent wedges of hatred between Jews and Arabs. Palestinian media identified one of the attackers as Khaled Muhammad Musa Sh'hadeh Salameh, and his unnamed brother. One of the two appeared on the watch list of the Shin Bet, Israel's security agency.

Which just goes to prove that sharp eyes cannot always detect danger. Certainly when the will is there the way will be found.

The shooting left four people dead and five wounded. One of the gunmen was also seriously wounded at the scene, and the other was later detained and taken into custody. Some witnesses to the carnage reported that the two men "were dressed up like haredim (ultra-Orthodox Jews)." The Sarona outdoor mall of shops, galleries and restaurants directly across from the Kirya military headquarters was the venue.

Ironically, Yousef Jabarin, a bartender at the Max Brenner Restaurant at the market saw the attackers arrive 15 minutes prior to the attack. At the upscale chocolate shop and cafe the bartender said he recognized immediately that they were Arabs, not Jews. According to him the two men were wearing black suits, white shirts and thin ties, a uniform that he recognized, as an Arab citizen of Israel, as "warrior" gear, identifying the men as being from the West Bank.

If this is indeed so, would he not have been suspicious about their possible mission? Might he not, as a loyal citizen of Israel, made an effort to contact and warn security? It wouldn't have been much of an effort physically given the co-location of the military headquarters. Perhaps an official enquiry will question this man, swift to show how perceptive he was, but slow to wear the responsibility of vigilance in a pluralist society beset by the violence of Arabs against Jews.

"We were sitting at a table, and suddenly somebody was standing across from me and there was gunfire everywhere. We didn’t know what to do. Everybody was screaming, and began to run away. We escaped from the restaurant, but outside everybody was also trying to find a place to hide", explained one young woman who presumably would not have been able to accurately identify the ethnicity of two young men whom she might have mistaken for religious Jews.

True to the charter of Hamas, its Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh was quick to post a triumphant tweet on the attack, complete with photograph of one of the terrorists whom he might conceivably have understood to have been shot and killed. This leader of a terrorist group holding Palestinian Gazans in thrall as living shields against IDF responses to Hamas attacks characterized the killer of four Israelis as a "hero". Nothing yet heard from PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas who, due to age has slower reflexes.

The tourist-popular Sarona Market had been cited back in April for lax security and safety violations. The problems appear to have included the manner in which security guards were inspecting visitors at the entrance to the mall, which problems were said to have been speedily corrected.