Jerusalemites
who lived through the Second Intifada remember those years, from 2000 to 2003,
all too well. Simply being out on the streets was a gamble.
Almost every month, sometimes every week, suicide bombings hit the city, and destroyed any sense of security here. Jerusalem was worst hit, but it was not unique: The suicide bombers targeted almost every Israeli city.
attacks in Jerusalem in recent weeks have marked the return of the suicide terrorists. There are differences this time. These are not attackers wearing belts laden with explosives or driving cars carrying bombs. They are “merely” using their cars and tractors as weapons. And they are overwhelmingly concentrated in Jerusalem.
Another difference is that the suicide bombings of the Second Intifada were orchestrated in large part by a Hamas terror infrastructure. This time, it appears that general instructions from the Hamas leadership, without an organized military infrastructure, are sufficient to prompt a wave of attacks, and again to destroy Jerusalemites’ sense of security.
Israel’s security forces tried often during the Second Intifada to put together a profile of the “typical” suicide bomber, the better to thwart the attacks. And they couldn’t. Sometimes the bombers were young males. Sometimes they were youths. Sometimes they were married women, sometimes divorcees, sometimes widows. In short, there was no typical bomber. The notion that suicide bombings were overwhelmingly the work of young, single, impoverished men was disproved time and again.
The same is true now, as well. It is hard to point to common denominators among the perpetrators of the recent attacks, including the attempted assassination last Wednesday night of Yehudah Glick, except, that is, that they identify with Islamist organizations, especially Hamas.
Wednesday’s terrorist on Route One in Jerusalem, Ibrahim al-Akary, was a 48-year-old father of five, from a family closely identified with Hamas. Not your “typical” terrorist. Last Wednesday’s would-be assassin Mu’taz Hijazi was much younger, as were the perpetrators of the two previous attacks in which Jerusalem pedestrians were targeted by suicide drivers, in August and October.
What is common to the 2014 terrorists and those from the Second Intifada is that they set out expecting that they will not return; their motivation to kill Israelis prevails over their desire to live.
Indeed, these attacks do not resemble the widespread uprising of the First Intifada (from 1987-1993), and nor does it mirror the Second Intifada. At present, the riots in Arab neighborhoods of East Jerusalem are drawing dozens, sometimes hundreds, but not the masses that confronted Israeli security forces in Gaza and the West Bank in the early days of the two intifadas.
This new mix refuses to disappear. Weeks pass, and the violence in Jerusalem continues. Sometimes it ebbs for a few days, but then it returns.
Israel’s decision-makers tend, almost instinctively, to point the finger of blame at Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, and to assert that he is responsible for this violence. It is evidently more convenient for them to play down both the significant support among East Jerusalemites for the violence and Hamas’s central responsibility for it — ideologically if not always practically.
It is Hamas that is encouraging the terrorist attacks and the riots. And that means the Israeli government needs to deal with those who are responsible — that is, the Hamas leadership in Gaza. But nobody in Israel — or in Hamas’s Gaza leadership for that matter — wants another escalation of violence there.
In the absence of any substantive diplomatic process with Abbas, it is hard to imagine that the new form of Jerusalem violence is going to end anytime soon. Whether or not it is a third intifada, it shows every sign of continuing to batter Jerusalem.
Almost every month, sometimes every week, suicide bombings hit the city, and destroyed any sense of security here. Jerusalem was worst hit, but it was not unique: The suicide bombers targeted almost every Israeli city.
attacks in Jerusalem in recent weeks have marked the return of the suicide terrorists. There are differences this time. These are not attackers wearing belts laden with explosives or driving cars carrying bombs. They are “merely” using their cars and tractors as weapons. And they are overwhelmingly concentrated in Jerusalem.
Another difference is that the suicide bombings of the Second Intifada were orchestrated in large part by a Hamas terror infrastructure. This time, it appears that general instructions from the Hamas leadership, without an organized military infrastructure, are sufficient to prompt a wave of attacks, and again to destroy Jerusalemites’ sense of security.
Israel’s security forces tried often during the Second Intifada to put together a profile of the “typical” suicide bomber, the better to thwart the attacks. And they couldn’t. Sometimes the bombers were young males. Sometimes they were youths. Sometimes they were married women, sometimes divorcees, sometimes widows. In short, there was no typical bomber. The notion that suicide bombings were overwhelmingly the work of young, single, impoverished men was disproved time and again.
The same is true now, as well. It is hard to point to common denominators among the perpetrators of the recent attacks, including the attempted assassination last Wednesday night of Yehudah Glick, except, that is, that they identify with Islamist organizations, especially Hamas.
Wednesday’s terrorist on Route One in Jerusalem, Ibrahim al-Akary, was a 48-year-old father of five, from a family closely identified with Hamas. Not your “typical” terrorist. Last Wednesday’s would-be assassin Mu’taz Hijazi was much younger, as were the perpetrators of the two previous attacks in which Jerusalem pedestrians were targeted by suicide drivers, in August and October.
What is common to the 2014 terrorists and those from the Second Intifada is that they set out expecting that they will not return; their motivation to kill Israelis prevails over their desire to live.
Indeed, these attacks do not resemble the widespread uprising of the First Intifada (from 1987-1993), and nor does it mirror the Second Intifada. At present, the riots in Arab neighborhoods of East Jerusalem are drawing dozens, sometimes hundreds, but not the masses that confronted Israeli security forces in Gaza and the West Bank in the early days of the two intifadas.
This new mix refuses to disappear. Weeks pass, and the violence in Jerusalem continues. Sometimes it ebbs for a few days, but then it returns.
Israel’s decision-makers tend, almost instinctively, to point the finger of blame at Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, and to assert that he is responsible for this violence. It is evidently more convenient for them to play down both the significant support among East Jerusalemites for the violence and Hamas’s central responsibility for it — ideologically if not always practically.
It is Hamas that is encouraging the terrorist attacks and the riots. And that means the Israeli government needs to deal with those who are responsible — that is, the Hamas leadership in Gaza. But nobody in Israel — or in Hamas’s Gaza leadership for that matter — wants another escalation of violence there.
In the absence of any substantive diplomatic process with Abbas, it is hard to imagine that the new form of Jerusalem violence is going to end anytime soon. Whether or not it is a third intifada, it shows every sign of continuing to batter Jerusalem.
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