Shortly before Barack Obama was due to arrive in Israel’s de jure capital, an Israeli Arab ran amok with a bulldozer. Luckily, he was killed before he could murder anyone. (Sixteen people were wounded.) A Jerusalem Post columnist suggests a lesson that the candidate might want to ponder:
Although subsequent investigation may prove different, there’s good reason to believe Ghassan Abu Tir’s bulldozer terror attack was deliberately staged as a greeting gift for you, Senator Obama.
He belongs to the same Jerusalem family clan as imprisoned Hamas official Muhammad Abu Tir, so he is likely to have had ties to radical Islamist elements. He was shot dead as he was driving his bulldozer up King David Street straight in the direction of the King David Hotel, which you were due to check into later in the day.
And the timing of the incident was logical, since such an attack would have been much harder to pull off after your arrival, when the heavier police presence on the street would have stopped Abu Tir’s rampage even sooner than was the case.
What was the message, then, that Abu Tir was likely trying to deliver to you? Well, let’s consider some of the few facts about him that we already know. His village of Umm Tuba is one of those fortunate Arab neighborhoods on the periphery of Jerusalem that is not cut off from the rest of the city by the security barrier. Thus it is one of the better-off Arab communities in the capital – just like Jebl Mukaber and Sur Bahir, the neighboring Arab villages that produced the perpetrators of the previous two terror attacks in Jerusalem, including the original bulldozer rampage just three weeks ago.
So keep in mind, Senator Obama, that the gainfully employed Abu Tir was probably not one of those Palestinians you spoke about earlier on your trip, whose motivation to carry out terror was primarily due to economic deprivation. Nor is he likely one of those who shared your dream to see a Palestinian state rise up alongside Israel.
His message to you was that some things are not negotiable, and some people do not really wish to be negotiated with, at least not on any terms but their own; that Israel’s crime is not what it does or where its borders are, but its very existence; and that no matter which president sits in , those basic – or, one might say, sacred – principles will remainunchanged. . . .
[W]e need a US president wise enough to understand the need for diplomacy, yes – but equally so, one strong and courageous enough to utilize America’s incomparable might when diplomacy fails.
In short, we need a president who won’t be bulldozed by those who hold in contempt the values that both the US and Israel stand for. That, Senator Obama, is the message you can send back home from Jerusalem, on the day after the blood spilled by Ghassan Abu Tir practically on your doorstep ran down King David Street.
And what did Senator Obama say a few hours after the act of terrorism?
What I think can change is the ability of the United States government and a United States president to be actively engaged with the peace process and to be concerned and to recognize the legitimate difficulties that the Palestinian people are experiencing right now and recognize that it is not only in the interest of the Palestinian people that their situation improves – I believe that it is in the interest of the Israeli people.
It looks like Ghassan Abu Tir’s message was not successfully delivered.
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