At approximately 8:30 this evening (20:30) on 6 March, two terrorists entered Merkáz haRáv Yeshivá in the Kiryát Moshé neighborhood of Jerusalem and killed eight students and wounded approximately forty people, as they sprayed the yeshiva with several hundred rounds from Kalashnikov rifles they were carrying.
One of the yeshiva students had a gun and killed one of the terrorists, a resident of Jébel Mukábr, a southeast Arab neighborhood just north and east of Armón haNetzív (where I used to live).
When residents of Gaza heard of the news on their own radios, they broke out cheering, shooting rifles in the air in celebration of the attack on students in a yeshiva.
The first hint of trouble came to me as I was sitting guard in the guard booth at the gate of Ma'alé Levoná. Someone got on the walkie talkie asking, "Have you heard the news?" Asked what news, he answered, "Of a shooting attack or something like that."
I turned up the volume of the radio in the guard booth and minutes before the news was due to come on at 21:00, the announcer on Radio Jerusalem said that there had been a shooting incident in Jerusalem with lots of wounded and two terrorists attacking.
The news came in thick and fast, and it was a task taking notes in Hebrew from the radio and opening and closing the gate at the same time. It was shortly known that several yeshiva students had been killed, and that many were wounded, being taken off in ambulances to Sha'aré Tzédeq Hospital and to Hadássah 'Ein Qérem Hospital, both in the western portions of the city.
As people called in to Radio Jerusalem with reports, the announcers went back and forth between six and eight dead, with fluid reports coming in on those who were wounded and in hospital. By 22:00 it was clear that eight students had been killed and that over 35 people had been wounded. Initial speculation on the terrorists coming from Gaza was ended when it was reported towards 23:00 that the dead terrorist was a Jerusalem resident. By this time, the Jerusalem police brass had already given a press conference indicating that increased police and border patrols would be on hand tomorrow in the Old City when Jews gather to recite special prayers to mark the beginning of Adar Bet, the month during which Purim takes place. The terror attack will put a pall of sadness on the prayers, which are supposed to inaugurate a month of joy with its joyful holiday of Purim.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - JustOneMan
Wake up America...once these assholes destroy Israel its only a matter of time till they destroy the US by spilling blood or by buying off our moronic politcally correct politicians....
Ruvy...praise the Lord and pass the ammunition!
JOM
2 - Kolobos
Did you not hear about the terrorist bombing in New York today?
3 - Dr Dreadful
Kolobos is talking about the small bomb blast in Times Square last night.
Bizarrely, the BBC report quotes the White House as saying that it didn't appear to be terrorism. [Raises hand] What is a bomb if not a terrorist attack?
4 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
I'm going to make one correction to the story now before someone embarrasses me and points it out. The name of the yeshivá attacked should be Merkáz haRáv.
It should also be noted that this is a very important yeahivá to the religious Zionists who are followers of Rav Kook z"l.
Many of the ideas you see me espouse here come originally from Rav Kook, z"l.
And now I have to get to bed. It is almost 02:20 in the morning.
5 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
This is the link to the English version of Gazans celebrating the death of yeshiva students in Jerusalem. Hopefully it will work....
6 - mullah cimoc
Mullah Cimoc say:
Look like him israeli student school big connect to israeli military.
How many Palestinian student killed by israeli and no complaint? But when zionist terror enablers are attack so much the big sad?
This show bias of usa media. For usa media there is never time when wrong for jew to kill muslim and never a time when it is right for a muslim to kill a jew. This the double standard.
For this amriki society now so destroy. Economic destroy then aemriki to fight aztec for the scraps. AM this the just punish?
7 - Baritone
You know Ruvy, I hate to be the devil's advocate as you can imagine.
The attack this morning was terrible. No question.
Were the sixty some odd Palestinian deaths in Gaza over the last several days terrible? How many Palestinian families had to bury those dead?
Of course, they were killed to revenge the persistent Palestinian rocket attacks on Israel.
The Palestinian rocket attacks were done in revenge for. . .
Well, let's see. How far back can we take it? Two years? Ten years? 60 years? Two thousand years? How many attacks? How many dead? How many wounded, crippled, maimed? How many families devastated? How many homes and other property destroyed?
You and most Israelis hate Palestinians. Palestinians hate you.
Presumably there will be vengeance for today's attack. Presumably there will be revenge taken in response. Yada, yada, yada.
I'm not being sarcastic or trying to be clever or ironic. I know this is an old argument. But, looking at it from outside the lines of the bloody drawing, this is how it looks.
You can demonize the Palestinians. You can site Talmudic scripture and other historical texts. But murder is murder. War is war. Pain is pain.
Where does it end? Can it end before all Israelis or all Palestinians die? Can the only solution be that all of both sides die? Do your respective gods demand all this blood for the sake of your disputed so called "holy land?"
I wonder if you can imagine how profoundly tragic and yet, how incredibly idiotic all this appears to the world outside your disputed borders? Again, I say this without derision.
How brave must someone be to seriously try to stop all the revenge and consequent death?
B-tone
8 - Bennett
yikes.
9 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
As promised last night, I'm updating the names of the murdered.
1. Yochai Lipschitz, z"l, hy"d, 18, of Jerusalem;
2. Yonatan Yitzchak Eldar, z"l, hy"d, 16, of Shiloh;
3. Yonadav Chaim Hirschfeld, z"l, hy"d, 19, of Kochav Hashahar;
4. Neriah Cohen, z"l, hy"d, 15, of Jerusalem;
5. Roey Roth, z"l, hy"d, 18, of Elkana;
6. Segev Pniel Avihayil, z"l, hy"d, 15, of Neveh Daniel;
7. Avraham David Moses, z"l, hy"d, 16, of Efrat;
8. Maharata Trunoch, z"l, hy"d, 26, of Ashdod.
Zikronatám l'brakhá 'aleinu, v'hashém y'nakém damám.
May their memories be only for a blessing upon our people, and may G-d avenge their blood.
10 - Bennett
"and may G-d avenge their blood"
but will you let this happen? Or will your countrymen play G-d and seek to avenge the crime yourselves?
11 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
UPDATE...UPDATE...UPDATE...UPDATE...UPDATE...
First of all, thank you to whomever corrected my embarrassing mistake at the beginning of the article.
1. The proper name of the yeshivá attacked last night is Merkáz haRáv Kook, the Rabbi Kook Center, but the secularists running Radio Jerusalem, as well as the writers at Ha'áretz and Yediót AHronót call it Merkáz haRáv, refusing to refer to a rabbi whose ideas they hate. This is something I didn't fully understand until I read the story about the attack at Arutz Sheva.
2. To understand all this more thoroughly, let's go back to my hastily composed article and fill in some of the details that ought to have been put in, but weren't, partly due to my desire to file a story quickly, and partly due to my problems understanding Hebrew.
I wrote in the article Initial speculation on the terrorists coming from Gaza was ended when it was reported towards 23:00 that the dead terrorist was a Jerusalem resident. By this time, the Jerusalem police brass had already given a press conference indicating that increased police and border patrols would be on hand tomorrow in the Old City when Jews gather to recite special prayers to mark the beginning of Adar Bet, the month during which Purim takes place.
I listened to the press conference and there was considerably more to what was conveyed to the press than this announcement. Reporters were trying to get an accurate description of who had killed the Arab terrorist, there being a question of whether he had been a yeshivá student or a soldier. In what amounted to a smackdown of reporters' questions, the police spokesman insisted that it had been an IDF soldier who had killed the terrorist, refusing to go further in his description.
Now let's look at the Arutz Sheva story and find out the truth:
So the bitter reality is that the Olmert government had armed the terrorist who killed the yeshivá students by handing out Kalshnikovs - paid for with my tax money - to Arabs so that they could "secure" the PA.
What a pile of shit.
The plan was, when Olmert gave the Arabs the weapons, that they would be used to kill "settlers", as the scum refer to people like me, with the goal of scaring us out of their homes. But Arab bloodthirstiness won the day, and any Jew was a target.
3. This then will determine the nature of the response to this terror attack.
The appropriate response would be to say nothing and DO the following:
a. Send in three or four combat brigades to the Arab cities in Judea and Samaria and massacre all the terrorists there, no matter which Arab group they belong to.
b. Declare the Palestinian Authority at an end, and announce that the entire territory of Judea and Samaria was being annexed to the State of Israel.
c. Request that the Kingdom of Jordan grant Jordanian citizenship to the resident Arabs here, AFTER agreements had been reached with individual mukhtars, mayors and clan leaders, that no terror actions would be launched from each individual jurisdiction involved.
d. Expel all UNWRA
offalofficials from the refugee camps and have Israelis take over the governance of the camps. Have military forces enter to kill all Arab rebels within.e. Cut off all water, gas, food and fuel to Gaza, and retake the Philadelphi Corridor (on the Egyptian, Gaza border) with orders to shoot to kill any Arab or foreigner to the region who approaches the Corridor. In addition, all food should be prevented from entering by sea by sinking all vessels attempting to reach the Gaxa coast. However, no raids, other than air raids to prevent the Arabs from having food, water or fuel, should be undertaken at all, and no Israeli soldier should be put at risk in this exercise.
f. Finally, if the United States government or the EU or anybody else protest and complain, declare their foreign ministers etc. persona non-grata on the soil of Eretz Yisrael. Egypt should be warned that any attempt to interfere with the foregoing would result in the destruction of the Aswan High Dam, an act that would effectively destroy Egypt.
None of the above will happen. Instead a "response" will occur that will only prolong the agony of war for both Jews and Arabs. More funerals will take place, both at Jewish and Moslem cemeteries, and more parents will mourn loved ones.
Eventually, in the coming weeks or months a massive missile attack will destroy the structure of this traitorous government.
Shabbat Shalom u'Hodesh Tov,
Sabbath peace to you all and may we have a better month, blessed with joy instead of marked by death.
Reuven
12 - troll
Baritone asks: "Where does it end?"
killing is a matter of individual free will...it will end when each of us decides not to participate
13 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
troll,
I guess you either cannot read or refuse to understand what you see. I have provided a solution to the problem that allows me to sit down with my Arab neighbors and work with them, a solution that allows me to tear down the village gate and that allows Arab and Jewish kids to play together instead of trying to kill each other.
In my previous essay, I said that we would have to go beyond the ideas of Rav Meir Kahane, z"l, hy"d. The ideas in my previous comment go beyond his ideas.
I didn't type "they must go," a typical Kahanist response. I prescribed the execution of those who murder and who advocate the murder of innocents.
I didn't call for "punitive" responses. I outlined a solution that would allow all of us to live in peace, aiming our hostility against those who would divide us against each other.
There is a sharp distinction between the two that you and many others miss.
It is my considered opinion that in the final analysis, Arabs want to live in peace - but they have been misled for nearly a century by fanatics who worship death rather than G-d. These fanatics must be cleansed from Arab society - just as the secularist fanatic élite who hate G-d and who ruin our lives here must be cleansed from our society.
14 - Christopher Rose
Hmm, mass murder of a group of people presented as a rational solution, where have we seen that before?
15 - troll
Ruvy - any 'cleansing' process that involves killing will simply perpetuate...killing
16 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
Hmm, mass murder of a group of people presented as a rational solution, where have we seen that before?
Ruvy - any 'cleansing' process that involves killing will simply perpetuate...killing
The facts are gentlemen, that neither of you have a solution. A "Palestinian" mini-state is a non-starter; the Arab "ruled" lands are divided and too dependent upon the Israeli economy as it is - any "Palestinian" mini-state will need to federate with either an Arab state like Jordan, or with Israel.
I'm at least providing something that can work, and most importantly end the Arab refugee problem that has been created artificially as a thorn to vex us. Taking over and closing the refugee camps can be accomplished by building homes for Arabs (trust me, Arabs know how to build) to live in. In addition, it would end a lot of the foreign (read American and European) influence that ruins lives here.
In the final analysis, we do not need you - you need us. We are providing the creative ideas (that's what all those start-ups are all about) that keep your economies going. If we do not need to kow-tow to your bullshit countries, with its bullshit culture, and bullshit ideas of exploitative economics, we can solve the region's problems easily.
17 - troll
free and fair trade
private micro funding for factories
pre 67 borders
right of return
etc
18 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
Final news update before the Sabbath.
One of the big questions that vexed people was how the terrorist (apparently, there was only one) got into the yeshivá in the first place. Apparently he was a van driver who drove a lot of the students from their homes to the yeshivá (many schools provide such a service - partly because of Arab terrorism) and he knew which gates were guarded and how to get in and out.
So, now, one of the questions will be, "should Arabs be allowed to drive vans with Jewish students in them?" This is not an abstract question of law or discrimination. This is a real issue of lives at risk. Yesterday's attack demonstrated this fact.
19 - Christopher Rose
Ruvy, the more you yammer on like this, the more you remind me of another loudmouthed extremist, the Rev Ian Paisley. He blustered on for years and years saying never and no a million times to making a deal with the Irish republicans and then did.
Thankfully though, you're not involved in politics in any meaningful way, you're just an extremist having tantrums and shouting from the sidelines whilst entirely failing to acknowledge or apparently even understand how things actually get done by responsible adults.
20 - The Obnoxious American
Ruvy,
Thanks for writing this article. I think it's important that the story of terror attacks in Israel continue to be reported. In the US, the media generally makes passing reference to "militant" attacks on Israel, usually after a story about the oppression of the Palestinians.
21 - Dan Miller
Having little better to do, I am sitting here in peaceful Panama re-reading Sir Winston Churchill's "The Gathering Storm." I would encourage others to read or re-read it as well. It has at least marginal relevance here in view of Venezuelan President Chavez's recent peace loving provocations.
In 1933, the Oxford Union passed an interesting resolution: "That this House will in no circumstances fight for its King and Country." We are certainly living in "interesting times" now as well.
Of course, that is ancient history and, therefore, obviously irrelevant in the modern world. The fact that the Oxford Resolution, which well reflected the pacifist outlook of Great Britain up until the failure of "Peace in our Time" brought to Europe by PM Chamberlain in 1938, is equally obviously irrelevant.
The problem is, however, that when we decide that history is relevant only when we remember it as well as we remember the names of the current pop tarts, we tend to create problems for ourselves.
Twenty odd years ago, I was arguing a case before an appellate court and commented that something or other (I no longer remember what) was "irrelevant." One of the judges winked and replied, "but Mr. Miller, an Irrelevant [elephant, I suppose his pun meant] never forgets." How soon WE forget.
How long will Israel and the rest of the civilized world pursue "peace," as Great Britain did until war was trust upon her as the only remaining option? There is, obviously, peace in death. I sincerely hope that we are not all striving for that variety of peace.
Dan Miller
22 - David Ben-Ariel
I don't blame Annapolis (as it is merely a symptom of Israel's spiritual sickness), because Israel has only itself to blame. Why? They chose - in effect - to become an accessory to every Arab terrorist attack against innocent Jewish men, women, children, and babies in strollers...and even against Gentile kibbutz volunteers and tourists. Here's how...
Truth or consequences: Israeli leaders, and the Jewish people, rejected the preventive measures called for by Meir Kahane against such mass murder attacks that Jerusalem has suffered again; Israeli leaders, and the Jewish people, have failed to remove the threat clearly presented by their resident sworn Arab enemies as the Law of Moses commands (Malachi 4:4) and treacherously chose the lying peace process instead, living a lie and dying because of it, suffering the curses for disobedience (Daniel 9:11).Will the Israelis, will the Jews, repent and confess Kahane was right and act accordingly?
Israel's Betrayal of the Jews
23 - Baritone
Well, then, if peace and cohabitation is not an acceptable end, then I guess might makes right.
What is the state of the Palestinian military? What of the Palestinian air force or navy? Not much, huh? So, Israel, kick some ass!
Then, the only recourse, and apparently the only honorable thing for Israelis to do is to commit genocide. Kill ALL Palestinians. It's the ONLY tenable answer. Kill all of them. You can shoot them. You can blow them up. Hey, you could gas them! I think the logistics can be worked out. There IS an existing model of this type of extermination somewhere, isn't there?
Keep in mind, as has been pointed out, this is part of god's design, so it's okay. Apparently, god put the loathesome Palestinians on the planet so that the Jews could exterminate them. So, do it already, so we can all finally move on. Be done with it.
B-tone
24 - Arch Conservative
Welcome to planet earth.
Same shit.
Different day.
25 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
Re: Comment #22.
David, please be more specific in your statements. The "Israel" you are referring to is the State of Israel; it is the G-d hating secular governing élite that has brought us to this low condition that we are in.
If you are going to refer to the "People of Israel" also be clear in whom you mean. The People of Israel are not just Jews; they are Pathans, and quite possibly groups of Celts and others. If you are going to refer to Jews, again be clear. There are Jews living here, and Jews living overseas.
You and I are both making accusations, accusations that can eventually result in trials and executions. When making accusations that can ultimately cause another's death, it is very wise to be very specific.
You would not like it if people pointed a finger at you loosely with charges that could result in you dying.
Indeed, too many at Blogcritics and elsewhere talk about this region with just such carelessness and laziness of thought.