Bulldozer Attack in West Jerusalem
A Palestinian bulldozer operator rammed his vehicle into a bus in West Jerusalem, killing 3 and wounding 44.
Aljazeera International reports:
Sometimes the British tabloid press, precisely because it is sensationalistic, gives a vivid sense of the panic and mayhem in this deplorable act of violence.
Acts of violence such as this one are typically reported without context in the US. Aljazeera International notes that the bulldozer operator had been working on a controversial rail line connecting West Jerusalem to Arab East Jerusalem, which many Palestinians feel will further disadvantage them.
The use of a Caterpillar bulldozer in the attack is probably a symbolic reversal, since Israeli authorities have been demolishing Palestinian buildings in East Jerusalem on "administrative grounds" of lack of permits. The chief cause of a lack of permits is Israeli refusal to grant building permits to Palestinians in East Jerusalem. But they have to live somewhere.
Rapid Israeli encroachments on the Palestinians in the West Bank are raising fears of a water crisis for the native inhabitants of this region. This according to B'tselem.
Those encroachments are attended by violence of Israeli colonists (many of them Americans) against native Palestinians, violence that does not make headlines because Israeli military authorities suppress video and other evidence of it.
Although a truce was recently concluded between Israel and the Palestinians, June was a hot month:
" International Soldiery Society for human rights issued its monthly report for June 2008 on Monday. During the reported period the Society stated that the Israeli army has killed 35 civilians and kidnapped at least 320.
The report shows that during the month of June 2008 the Israeli army killed in total 35 Palestinians, 29 in the Gaza Strip and six in the West Bank.
In addition the International Solidarity Society said in its report that the Israeli army continued to use the policy of extra-judicial assassinations, the report shows that out of the 29 killed in Gaza 22 were killed by this policy meanwhile one out of the six killed in the West Bank was killed in the same way.
The human rights group reported that the Israeli army has kidnapped more than 230 Palestinians among them 40 children who are under the age of 19, during the month of June 2008. All were taken to unknown detention camps."
The bulldozer operator appears to have been acting alone and was apparently seized with a fit of rage over accumulated grievances in his own mind, real or imagined. Violence against innocent civilians is always condemnable and deplored by IC.
Some are speculating as to whether the incident will affect the peace process. You can't have a peace process that is hostage to the actions of individuals. If peace is held to benefit two parties in conflict, they will pursue it. If one side or both feel something more might be gained from breaking the truce, they will, whatever the pretext.
posted by Juan Cole @ 7/02/2008 01:21:00 PM
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12 Comments:
This, I imagine, has occurred in the Jerusalem that Barack Obama wants to be the "undivided" capital of Israel.
I wonder what he'll have to say about it and reprisals that are sure to follow.
one clarification: the work project you reference is not a road. it's a light rail line
A Palestinian committing murder with a bulldozer is the lead story with most of the broadcast and print media. You can't turn on the TV, visit a news website or pick up a paper without seeing, hearing or reading about it.
On the other hand, when American citizen Rachel Corrie was murdered in cold blood by an israeli driving a bulldozer that gruesome killing barely rated a mention in the American Establishment media. When they did occasionally and briefly report it Rachel Corrie was portrayed as being at fault and that poor, innocent, harmless israeli bulldozer driver only murdered her due to Rachel Corrie's recklessness.
That, along with the non-investigative reporting of the israeli Assault on the USS Liberty are perfect illustrations of who really calls the shots in the American Establishment media. And it ain't the Presbyterians.
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mark Konrad makes an interesting point when combined with Juan's point about the British tabloids. It is because the event is so dramatic that it is getting so much coverage.
So the media spreads the trauma round the world. Is this such a good thing. What is the motivation for the British tabloids doing this. (Being a Briton I get to see the effects of the British tabloids on public life.)
I would say we are a lot closer to much more mayhem in the M.E. thanks to this and other reports like it.
This is all so sad.
A country that repeatedly produces massacres by criminally-deranged persons (Columbine, Virginia Tech, Luby's, Northern Ill U, and on and on and on) can hardly presume to draw an existential judgment on a people from this incident. Doubtless the fact that the attack attacked Israelis, reflects that he believed he was striking a blow for some cause and he obviously killed civilians. But he appears to ultimately be deranged. That he was working on a controversial project perhaps led him to link his own grievances with some greater cause and to project his grievances on Israelis.
In any event, the episode shows the futility on defining peace based on the absence of "terror attacks." While non-aggression by the PA is an appropriate demand (one that has been complied with for years by the PA from all reporting I've seen), the notion you will obtain zero attacks as the definition of peace is naive and preordained to failure. Mature people must recognize the nature of the world in which we live and choose the "good over the perfect."
Please get your equipment terminology correct, that piece of heavy equipment was a Payloader, not a Bulldozer. A bulldozer is a crawler (caterpillar tracked tractor), equipped with a substantial metal plate (known as a blade), used to push large quantities of soil, A Payloader is A trademark used for an excavating machine with a large scoop in front exactly what was shown on TV.
To achieve parity, the operator of the bulldozer who murdered Rachel Corrie should be tried ... for murder.
What about Jenin when homes were ruined by IOF (Israel Occupation Forse) WITH people in?
See the article from an Israel paper Yeiot Aharonot http://www.gush-shalom.org/archives/kurdi_eng.html
"Moshe Nissim, nicknamed "Kurdi Bear(1)", the D-9 operator who became the terror of the Jenin refugee camp inhabitants, speaks with no censorship about his time of glory.
"I entered Jenin driven by madness, by desperation, I felt I have nothing to loose, That even if I 'get it', no big deal.
I told my wife: "If anything happens to me, at least someone will take care of you!"."
Now there is PLENTY info with films as well, but to SEE it one has to WANT see. I want. The majority of so-called civilised world do not
Just to be clear, because I know there are plenty of people who will gleefully misinterpret me, this was a terrible act. Just like the similar terrible acts the Israelis commit against the Palestinians.
The use of the term terrorist here to describe a local, who seems a somewhat ordinary guy, a petty criminal if the policeman speaking on the report is to believed, who went postal with a mechanical digger aptly shows the Orwellian nature of the term.
The primary meaning of terrorist is claimed to mean "one who kills innocent civilians for political ends" but the popular understanding is "one who kills innocent civilians who is not authorized by the state". The challenge for party members is to sustain both meanings in the mind, whilst only acknowledging and using explicitly the first; of course, any actor can be described as political with very little creativity required. Whether their actions were to achieve a political end, rather than motivated by a belief coloured by their politics is immaterial.
Correction: It was not a buldozer.
Although the word "bulldozer" is more sensationalistic, it should be noted that bulldozers are on tracks. The vehicle use in the attacks was not a bulldozer. It was an end loader.
Forgive the post if someone has already pointed this out.
Peace, JK
Some are speculating as to whether the incident will affect the peace process. You can't have a peace process that is hostage to the actions of individuals. If peace is held to benefit two parties in conflict, they will pursue it.
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IS THAT A JOKE?! How can there be a peace process if the Pals can't or won't stop such attacks? Hamas shoots rockets in the South, Hezbollah plots up North... Why should Israel offer any more concesions. They already left Gaza to Hamas, they already left much of Judea/Samaria, they left Lebanon; the result? increased Jewish deaths! All this for another Palestinian State (was Jordan not enough, 70% of Palestine, promised to the jews in Balfour Declaration, which was ratified into International Law by the League of Nation but then given to the ARab "Palestinians") even though a country called Palestine never existed on this planet!
You story ignores that the man yelled "Allah Akbar".
You ignore that various terror organizations have claimed responsibility. You ignore that his mother praised him as a martyr.
You also don't mention that his despicable family is blaming the Jewish woman HE RAPED as the cause for the attack.
Lovely.
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