Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By admin on July 6, 2024

In Palestinian Arab towns, its a death sentence to make a wrong turn that is, if youre a Jew.

Thats one of the lessons to be learned from the recent news about an elderly Jewish man who was attacked by Arab rock-throwers and nearly murdered after he took a wrong turn and found himself in the town of Kalandiya, just north of Jerusalem.

Thanks to social media, you can see for yourself what happened. It was an ordinary Saturday night in Kalandiya, warm and pleasant until somebody spotted a Jew. Its not so easy, at night time, to notice the slightly different color of an Israeli license plate. But apparently the haters in Kalandiya have become experts at this sort of thing.

The next thing you know, theyre hurling rocks at the car. Not just one attacker, but an entire mob is chasing the car down the street. You can see people joining the mob, streaming from all directions, throwing rocks. And they dont give up! The chase continues for block after block.

Palestinian Arab rock-throwers know that stoning Jews can be lethal thats why they do it. Sixteen Israelis four of them American citizens have been murdered by Arab rock-throwers since the 1980s.

In some of those attacks, the rocks directly killed the target. For example, on the evening of June 5, 2001, US citizens Benny and Batsheva Shoham were driving home after paying a condolence call in Raanana. Their five month-old son, Yehuda, was asleep in the back, strapped in his car seat. As they passed near the Arab village of Luban a-Sharkiya, rock-throwers attacked. One heavy rock crashed through the front windshield and struck the baby in his head, killing him.

IN OTHER instances, the rocks smashed the front windshield of a moving car, causing a fatal crash. Eleven year-old Chava Wechsberg, a US citizen, was murdered when the car in which she was riding was attacked in the Gush Etzion region on February 24, 1993, causing it to crash.

On September 23, 2011, Asher Palmer was driving on the road to Jerusalem. His infant son Yonatan was in his car seat in the back. Rocks were thrown at their car from Arabs in a car that was traveling in the opposite direction. The impact of the rocks shattered the front windshield of Palmers car and fractured his skull, causing him to lose control of the vehicle. Asher and Yonatan, both American citizens, were killed in the crash.

Rock-throwers have also used improvised roadblocks. An Israeli family returning from a visit to the Western Wall on September 11, 2014, made a wrong turn and accidentally drove into the Jerusalem Arab neighborhood of Wadi Joz. The mother, Mrs. Etti Cohen, later said that when their car slowed down to exit the area, there was shouting in the street and three Arab cars suddenly blocked them from moving forward. In other words, it was a spontaneous but well-coordinated ambush.

Rocks and bricks were thrown at the Jews from all directions. Both the front and rear windshields were smashed, barely missing the children in the back seat. The car escaped only when Cohens husband drove wildly onto the sidewalk, getting around the car-roadblock.

Sometimes, a stoning sets up the kill. Amnon Pomerantz drove by mistake into the Arab town of El-Bureij on the first day of Rosh Hashanah in 1990. Arabs stoned the car until he crashed. Then, as he lay slumped unconscious over the driving wheel, they burned him alive.

Yehoshua Weisbrod, a young father of five, made a wrong turn into Rafah, in Gaza, on March 4, 1993. Arab rock-throwers attacked, causing the car to crash. Armed terrorists then walked up to the car and fatally shot him in the head, chest, and stomach.

THE ELDERLY Jewish man in Kalandiya last weekend came within seconds of becoming another Amnon Pomerantz or Yehoshua Weisbrod. Like them, he lost control of his car as a result of the massive rock-throwing attack, causing him to crash into a concrete barrier. Despite sustaining various injuries, he managed to flee on foot just before the mob could catch him. They settled for lighting his car on fire.

The reason the victim wasnt murdered is that he managed to reach a nearby Israeli Army checkpoint. Those are the same checkpoints that J Street and the US State Department are always claiming are so humiliating and such an inconvenience for Palestinian Arab travelers. In this case, the checkpoint inconvenienced a lynch mob.

Can you imagine the UN condemnations there would be if the tables were turned? If an Arab driver made a wrong turn into an Israeli Jewish neighborhood, and a mob of Jews spontaneously attempted to stone and burn him to death, it would be headline news around the world for weeks.

Of course, Arab drivers make wrong turns into mostly-Jewish neighborhoods all the time, and nothing happens to them. In fact, many Arabs live in mostly-Jewish neighborhoods, so the turns theyre making are not wrong turns at all. And nobody tries to harm them. But thats not newsworthy.

Dont expect The New York Times or CNN to report the near-lynching in Kalandiya. Acknowledging the deep levels of violent Jew-hatred among Palestinian Arabs would upset the international news medias preferred myth of peaceful, moderate Arabs mistreated by violent, racist Jews. They wouldnt want reality to intrude on that narrative.

The writer is a past board member of the American Zionist Movement and was a delegate to the most recent World Zionist Congress.

Excerpt from:

Palestinian Arab towns are a persistent threat to Jewish Israelis - The Jerusalem Post

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