Tuesday, December 5, 2017

Opuscula

U.S. media:
Blind in one eye,
Can’t see with other

Cite EU terror attacks; ignore attacks on Israelis


In a not-at-all-surprising evidence of “Israel doesn’t exist” thinking, U.S. networks, discussing the latest Islamist attack in New York City, cited similar attacks in Europe.

Israel, which has suffered similar attacks for many years, was ignored with the exception on one (1) instance noted by CNN.

But then, so was the alleged “white supremist” attack in Charlottesville, VA.1

A quick sampling from the Internet

In 2016 alone, there were 12 vehicular ramming attacks and 100 stabbing attacks thwarted by security forces in Israel. From September 13, 2015 to August 2017, 55 people were killed in terrorist attacks and 812 people (including uninvolved Palestinians) injured. There were 184 stabbing attacks and 129 attempted stabbings; 161 shootings, 60 vehicular attacks, and one vehicular (bus) bombing – as well a higher rate of miscarriages, depression, and a 50% increase in post-traumatic stress disorder among young children. 2

In Israel, car-ramming attacks have featured heavily in a wave of Palestinian terrorism and violence that has killed at least 34 Israelis, two Americans, an Eritrean and a Sudanese since October last year. Some 215 Palestinians have been killed in the terror wave; Israel says most were attackers or would-be attackers who died in the course of carrying out attacks. Additional car-ramming attacks, some of them lethal, were carried out by Palestinians in Jerusalem and the West Bank in late 2014.

In May 2013, two Islamists smashed their car into British soldier Lee Rigby before attempting to behead him on a London street in broad daylight.

The pair, who were of Nigerian heritage, said they attacked the 25-year-old fusilier to avenge the deaths of Muslims at the hands of British troops.

Just 18 months later, a man claiming to be acting in the name of radical jihad ran over and killed Canadian soldier Patrice Vincent, also injuring a second man.3

A snapshot of planned and executed attacks on Israelis in Israel ... and elsewhere (including NYC): http://tinyurl.com/y9smgvdg 4

A Palestinian terrorist struck and wounded three soldiers as they walked with their unit on the side of Route 60, near the Shiloh junction in the West Bank around 3 p.m. on Thursday.

Two of the soldiers were seriously wounded, and were transported – one by helicopter and the other by ambulance – to Hadassah University Medical Center in Jerusalem’s Ein Kerem. The third soldier, Lt. Daniel Albaz, was taken to Beilinson Medical Center in Petah Tikva where he described for reporters how the white four-door car plowed into them.5

Benjamin Netanyahu, flanked by security service agents, spoke into the television camera. The truck attack that had just resulted in the deaths of four Israeli soldiers in the Jabel Mukaber neighborhood of Jerusalem was “part of the same pattern inspired by Islamic State, by ISIS, that we saw first in France, then in Germany and now in Jerusalem. This is part of the same ongoing battle against this global scourge of the new terrorism. We can only fight it together, but we have to fight it, and we will.” Netanyahu, speaking on January 8, was referring to the ISIS-claimed truck attacks in Nice, which left 86 people dead on Bastille Day, and in Berlin, which left 12 people dead at a Christmas market in the center of the German capital.

Anyone reading Netanyahu’s statement at face value would believe that the Islamic State militant group (ISIS) had inspired scores of Palestinians to conduct vehicle attacks in the group’s name. The Jerusalem attack was perpetrated by a 28-year-old Palestinian named Fadi Qunbar. While Qunbar may have been inspired by the extremist group—evidence for that is yet to surface—this is not the case more generally in vehicle attacks perpetrated by Palestinians, experts say. They say that ISIS and other jihadist groups witnessed the success of vehicle attacks used for years by Palestinians, and then adopted those tactics for attacks in Western countries.6

(CNN) Once again, a driver has plowed into a crowd of innocent pedestrians, turning a car into a lethal weapon.7

This time, it was in New York's lower Manhattan, where the driver of a rental truck drove down a busy bicycle path near the World Trade Center. The city joins a list of cities worldwide that have fallen victim to a growing trend.

Here's a look at some recent similar attacks and the possible motives behind them.

CNN then lists a number of vehicle-as-weapon attacks; with one exception (Charlottesville VA) the vehicles all were driven by Islamists. The list includes:

— New York, October 31, 2017 (I)

— Barcelona, August 17, 2017 (I)

— Charlottesville (VA), August 12, 2017 (Racist)

— London, June 3, 2017 (I)

— Stockholm, April 7, 2017 (I)

— London, March 22, 2017 (I)

— Nice, July 14, 2016 (I)

— Berlin, December 19, 2016 (I)

— Columbus (OH), November 28, 2016 (I)

— Jerusalem, January 8, 2017 (I)

— St.-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Quebec, October 20, 2014 (I)

All other attacks in Israel were ignored by CNN’s “journalists,” but other media ignored even that.

(CNN) Here is some background information on terror attacks involving vehicles used as deadly weapons by radicalized individuals or terror groups.8
Al Qaeda's Yemeni branch encouraged its Western recruits to use trucks as weapons. A 2010 webzine article, "The Ultimate Mowing Machine" called for deploying a pickup truck as a"mowing machine, not to mow grass but mow down the enemies of Allah."

In September 2014, ISIS spokesman Abu Mohammad al-Adnani called for lone wolf attacks using improvised weaponry, "If you are not able to find an IED or a bullet, then single out the disbelieving American, Frenchman or any of their allies. Smash his head with a rock or slaughter him with a knife or run him over with your car or throw him down from a high place or choke him or poison him."

While only a few of the attacks happened on U.S. soil, President Trump has called on Homeland Security to use extreme vetting for potential visitors and immigrants to the U.S. The left, as expected, objects to this as focusing on Islamists . . . despite the fact that of the majority of the vehicles were driven by Islamists.

NOT ALL MUSLIMS are jihadists, terrorists. I have known and worked with Muslims — some observant and some not — a number of times in the U.S. and ridden in Arab buses and taxis without concern in Israel. I do not believe “the only good (pick an attribute) is a dead (attribute).” AT THE SAME TIME, given the preponderance of attacks on “infidels,” — that is, anyone who is not a member of Daesh9 or similar extremist group — by Islamists, I fail to understand why the U.S., or any country, would welcome, sans “extreme vetting” by qualified personnel, people whose goal is to maime and murder the country’s citizens. I’m not convinced that Homeland Security has the ability to perform the vetting, but I am convinced U.S. embassies and consulates lack any capability in this area. Should the U.S. continue to let locals vet potential tourists and immigrants – that is, to this scrivener’s mind, akin to having the fox watch the chicken coop and, as the attacks around the world prove, not a satisfactory option.

Bear in mind that ramming vehicles into people is just one of many ways vehicles have been used by Islamists, Basques, home-grown crazies (e.g., Timothy McVeigh) and others10.

Resources

**1 New charges for Charlottesville car attack suspect James Fields Jr.: http://tinyurl.com/y96cnst4
**2 Sacrifice the Children: http://tinyurl.com/y769r4zx
**3. Before Nice, Palestinian terrorists used cars as lethal weapon: http://tinyurl.com/ybosng6r
**4 Jewish man among 5 Argentineans killed in NY attack: http://tinyurl.com/y9smgvdg
**5 Palestinian strikes three IDF soldiers with vehicle in west bank terror attack: http://tinyurl.com/qa8jrvo
**6 Experts say ISIS ramming attacks were inspired by Palestinians, not vice-versa: http://tinyurl.com/ycfos63f
**7 Vehicles as weapons: http://tinyurl.com/m4sr8e8
**8 Terrorist Attacks by Vehicle Fast Facts: http://tinyurl.com/ybshehae
**9 What does Daesh mean? ISIS 'threatens to cut out the tongues' of anyone using this word: http://tinyurl.com/o7dzwyq
**10 List of mass car bombings: http://tinyurl.com/ycxlzscc

PLAGIARISM is the act of appropriating the literary composition of another, or parts or passages of his writings, or the ideas or language of the same, and passing them off as the product of one’s own mind.

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