They Were High School Students!

Alef d'Rosh Hodesh Adar Sheni 5768

I already wrote about the terrorist attack on Merkaz HaRav. Now that I have seen the list of victims, I'm too upset to write much more about this, so I'm doing a hand off to Batya at "Shiloh Musings." Please click "Another Grave to be Filled." Then click her main page, and scroll down through her coverage.

Yonatan Eldar HY"D of Shilo, and only 16, a junior in high school, was one those martyrs killed.

He lived next door to the Yerushalmi family, whose son Shmu'el Efraim HY"D survived the attack on another yeshiva high school, "Hitzim," six years ago, only to be killed himself a month later at the Givat Tzarfatit (French Hill) bombing, where I was the last one to see him.

I can't get Yonatan's face out of my mine: blond hair, glasses. He was only a student of mine for a short while, four years ago. He was only in the sixth grade, yet the principal and all of the teachers had to call upon him to install and operate software, or even fix their computers. He was that bright.

I just sat next to him in a tremp the other day. He was telling me that was studying at Yeshivah leTze'irim Yerushalayim [Yashla"tz], the Merkav HaRav associated High School, and most prestigious Religious Zionist yeshivah high school in the world.

I will miss you, Yonatan. May your blood be avenged!

When I go to visit your family, no doubt I will see more of my former students. It is a common custom for the martyr's classmates to sit with the family much of the time, and stay close by in the same town. They are after all like brothers.

Lately, I have bumped into many former students who are now serving in the Israeli Defense Forces [IDF]. I say to them "HaShem Yishmor Otcha" (May God watch over you).

From now on, I will have to remember to say this to every one I meet, even he's only on the way to school.

I don't know what else to say.

From Israel National News, The Jewish martyrs are:

Doron Mehereta, 26, of Ashdod
Yonadav Haim Hirschfeld, 19, of Kochav HaShachar (a community in the Binyamin region of Samaria)
Ro'i Rote, 18, of Elkanah (a community in Samaria)
Yochai Lipshitz, 18, of the Old City of Jerusalem
Yonatan Yitzchak Eldar, 16, of Shilo (a community in Samaria)
Neriah Cohen, 15, of Jerusalem
Segev Pniel Avichayil, 15, of N'vei Daniel in Gush Etzion
Avraham David Moses, 16, of Efrat, Gush Etzion

Doron, Yonadav and Ro'i were students in Merkaz HaRav; the others were students in the LeTze'irim Yeshiva High School of Merkaz HaRav in the adjacent building.

Seven of the ten wounded students remain hospitalized. The public is asked to pray for the recovery of: Naftali ben [son of] Gila from Sderot, Yonatan ben Avital, Shimon ben Tirza, Nadav ben Hadas, Reuven ben Naomi and Elchanan ben Zehava.

Cross-posted at Esser Agaroth.

SDEROT UNDER SEIGE

Palestinian Arms Dealer Detained after Shooting

Following a shooting attack at a roadblock southeast of Jerusalem in May 2007 Israeli security forces detained Hamas operatives and arms dealers from Jabal Mukabir (southeast Jerusalem).

Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center at the Israel Intelligence Heritage & Commemoration Center (IICC)

Following a shooting attack at a roadblock southeast of Jerusalem in May 2007 Israeli security forces detained Hamas operatives and arms dealers from Jabal Mukabir (southeast Jerusalem). One of the detainees supplied a gun used in the attack, which wounded two Israeli security personnel 1
Interior Minister Avi Dichter and Police Chief David Cohen visiting one of the wounded soldiers (Israeli Interior Ministry Website, May 27).
Shooting attack southeast of Jerusalem
1. On May 26 the soldiers manning the Sheikh Sa'ad roadblock near Jabal Mukabir (southeast of Jerusalem ) were the victims of a shooting attack. The roadblock was close to the security fence around Jerusalem . A Border Policeman was seriously wounded and a security fence guard was moderately wounded.
2. Two Hamas operatives carried out the attack: Mahmoud Naji Ahmad Khalisa and Midhat Ahmad Yussuf Shqirat. Both of them, 24 years old and residents of Jabal Mukabir, used handguns, shooting at short range. During the ensuing exchange of fire both were killed, as was a passing Palestinian, also a resident of Jabal Mukabir.
Hamas operatives detained following the attack
3. In the wake of the attack the Israeli Security Agency and police detained a number of Hamas operatives and arms dealers in the Jabal Mukabir region. The detainees held Israeli ID cards issued in East Jerusalem . The most important information revealed by their interrogation was the following:
A. One of the Hamas operatives acquired the gun from an arms dealer named Anan Mahmoud Halaileh a few hours before the attack. Halaileh, a resident of Jebel Mukaber, had previously been involved (as well as other detainees) in attempts to steal weapons from IDF soldiers in order to sell them. He was detained following his involvement in the affair.
B. The detainees admitted to large-scale arms dealing activities. The weapons were furnished by criminals, by Arab Israelis living in northern Israel and by Hamas operatives from the regions of Hebron and Ramallah. The connections between Hamas operatives and criminals with Israeli ID cards make it easier for them to acquire weapons used to carry out attacks against Israel .
4. The investigation revealed that one of the terrorists involved in the attack had belonged to a local Hamas group and had undergone clandestine religious indoctrination according to Hamas and Muslim Brotherhood ideology. Similar religious “study groups” are often the first stage in enlisting, indoctrinating and preparing Hamas operatives for terrorist missions . Besides the current incident, in past years there have been other instances in which Hamas operatives in East Jerusalem have shifted their religious studies to anti-Israel terrorist activities. In recent years, most of the Hamas operatives in East Jerusalem involved in particularly lethal terrorist attacks began the activities in such groups. 2
1 Based on an Israeli Security Agency report.
2 Including the attack at Café Hillel in Jerusalem in September 2003 and the attack in the cafeteria of the Hebrew university in July 2002.

ISLAMO-NAZIS RECRUITING ON-LINE WITH GREAT SUCCESS

The Blogosphere for Killers

Tech-savvy terrorists use the Web for propaganda and incitement.

BY DANIEL HENNINGER

Living as we do now afloat the incoming and outgoing tides of media, perhaps the aborted London and Glasgow car bombings of a fortnight ago are worth another thought before these attempted mass murders drift away on the sea of bad memories. What about those doctors? The apparent complicity of U.K.-resident Muslim physicians in the attempted murder of innocent British civilians had many in the West asking why. The short answer is that these trained M.D.s somehow convinced themselves that these British people didn't deserve to live--that it would be morally good to kill them. That's insane. Why would they think that?
The best answer I have seen in a long time is found in a new study of Islamic media propaganda by a research team from Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. "Iraqi Insurgent Media: The War of Images and Ideas" by Daniel Kimmage and Kathleen Ridolfo (with Radio Free Iraq correspondents, two of whom were abducted and murdered this year) is an astounding compilation of the high-tech methods being used by the insurgency in Iraq to propagate the ideology of the Islamic jihadist movement. This is the blogosphere for killers.
There is no more unchallenged verity in our times than that the World Wide Web, the Internet, is a boon to mankind. But as with nuclear or biological warfare, the Web is a dual-use technology. Technically adept Muslims, using out-of-the-box PC software and hardware, are outputting an electronic torrent of slick Web sites, discussion forums, videos, e-magazines and long-form movies, all with one purpose--to incite Muslims to join the jihad against the enemies of Islam in Baghdad, London, Glasgow or New York. Forget those Iraqi attack videos on YouTube; this is a sophisticated, globally distributed propaganda operation.
As always with the Web, anything done in the analog past--the propaganda of World War II or the Cold War--can be ramped up exponentially by Islamic jihadists on the Internet. In March, at least 11 self-identified insurgency groups posted 966 "statements" on the Web about battles and engagements, looking much like those put out by the U.S. Army. Their casualty claims often have no basis in reality, but that's not the point. The point is to convince credulous minds in their world that they are a potent, thriving force.
Example: Over March 26-27 this year, a Baghdad suicide bomber killed two people, a roadside bomb killed an Iraqi policeman, and a bombing killed four U.S. soldiers in Diyala. Press releases, or "statements," about events were sent over the Web by Al-Fajr Media Center, the Just Vengeance Brigades, the Mujahidin Army and Ansar al-Sunnah. The Al-Fajr Media Center's March 27 statement claimed that "our brother . . . detonated the car . . . killing more than 11 soldiers of the idolatrous Guard."
The language is invariably religious. There's no effort here to appeal to nationalistic sentiment; thus, for a global audience, the Islamic argument becomes wholly religious. Those produced for Islamic State of Iraq/Al-Qaeda (primarily by the Al-Furqan Institute for Media Production) refer to "martyrdom-seeking operations."
Many of the sites offer graphically attractive texts explaining "Who We Are" or "Our Creed." The texts can be shared on the Internet via free upload and download services such as sendspace.com or archive.org, using Microsoft Word or Adobe Acrobat. There are downloadable, full-color e-magazines with opinion pieces and jihadist articles ("The Courage of a Boy"). The Mujahidin Shura Council regularly produces elaborately formatted, full-color "biographies of martyrs."
According to the RFE study's authors, the utility of the written word is well understood by the jihadists: "The written word everywhere remains the preferred medium of record and authority. . . . Texts are also the traditional medium of ideological discourse." Nearly all this material, incidentally is "branded" with the group's unique logo floating in the corner of the screen.
They often embed audio clips from jihadist leadership in the texts. Audio polemics and hate speech are commonplace across the Islamic Web. Or they'll include links to attack videos, as noted in the "Top 20" graphic nearby. "Top 20's" seven-minute compilation of 20 attacks on U.S. forces comes with a rousing jihadist song, "Arise from Slumber." Its final lyric: "We have returned with the machine gun and now we are leaders."
A 28-minute film by Ansar al-Sunnah, "Just Vengeance," records the kidnapping, interrogation and execution of Shiite policemen. Another video of a suicide bomber's truck exploding reveals the centrality of distributable media: It was filmed from three different camera angles. Jihadist video comes in several file sizes: high resolution (up to 500 megabytes), medium (8 megabytes) or in highly compressed files for downloading to mobile phones, popular in PC-deficient Iraq. They enable free uploads of the videos via Windows Media Player, RealPlayer and DivX.
The reach of insurgent and jihadist propaganda increases exponentially when it is picked up by Arab TV--Al-Jazeera, of course, or the Al-Rafidayn satellite channel in Cairo or even the Iraqi Al-Zawra, which claims to be operating from a satellite truck in Iraq.
In an interview this week, RFE's Mr. Kimmage said they have presented the media study to both the House and Senate intelligence committees and to government national security agencies. Reactions range from "wow" to "we already know all that." In any event, what would they do? This is propaganda on an unprecedented scale.
If you are a young Muslim male, even a doctor, with a PC in Egypt, the Gulf states, Somalia, Morocco or Glasgow, as always with the Web you are marinating your mind in its content, and the content here is homicide on a mass scale. The answer--technical or political--is not obvious to me. But the one unacceptable answer is doing nothing.
Mr. Henninger is deputy editor of The Wall Street Journal's editorial page. His column appears Thursdays in the Journal and on OpinionJournal.com.

LET THE TERRORISTS GO BUT KEEP THE JEWS...NU????

Freedom for Jewish Prisoners Demanded

22 Tammuz 5767, 08 July 07 08:23

by Hillel Fendel

(IsraelNN.com) The Honenu civil rights organization demands freedom for Jewish security prisoners, in the wake of the release of Palestinian terrorists from Israeli prisons.

"We are against the release of any Arab terrorists from Israeli prison," emphasizes Shmuel (Zangy) Medad, the indefatigable founder of Honenu. "This includes the four Jordanian murderers who were freed this week, and the 250 whom Prime Minister Olmert is planning to release as a 'gesture' to Abu Mazen, and the hundreds or more that Israel may soon give in exchange for Gilad Shalit. The release of terrorists is a sign of weakness, adds experienced terrorists to the war effort against us, and is a dangerous precedent that encourages more terrorism and kidnappings."

"However, the fact is that Israel has already freed terrorists," Medad says, "and therefore, in all fairness and justice, Jews and Israelis in prison for security crimes must also be released."

Asked what recent terrorist releases he is referring to, Zangy - who lives with his wife Ettie and their ten children in Hevron - said, "There have been several, in addition to the release of the Jordanians today. Just a couple of weeks ago, when Hamas overrode Gaza and a host of Fatah terrorists ran for their lives, Israel deliberated for a couple of days, and finally allowed them to be taken safely to Ramallah - instead of arresting them on the spot, like a normal country would have done."

"In addition," Medad continued, "there was the release of hundreds for Elchanan Tenenbaum and three dead bodies. Shortly before that, a few hundred more were released." In August 2003, Israel released 339 Palestinian Authority prisoners as a goodwill gesture to the PA. Of these, 182 were in prison for terrorist activity, and 157 were administrative detainees.

Double Standard
Medad decried the approach of some Israelis who apply a double standard - to the detriment of Israel. As an example, Arutz-7 notes former Education Minister Shulamit Aloni. In October 1995, Aloni voiced her opposition to the release of Ami Popper (see below). At the same time, Minister Aloni said that Arab terrorists could be released because they were fighting for the "freedom of their nation" and acting in the service of a recognized organization. Dr. Aryeh Bachrach, the father of Ehud who had been murdered two months earlier by Arabs in Wadi Kelt, asked then-Attorney General Ben-Yair to remove Minister Aloni's parliamentary immunity and prosecute her for legitimizing the murder of Jews by terrorists.

Honenu has prepared a list of 37 men who are in prison or who are charged with security-related crimes. Virtually all of the alleged crimes were perpetrated, if at all, in response to Palestinian or other Arab terrorism. Jewish prisoners whose release, or an end to their legal proceedings, Honenu demands:

Shimshon Cytryn, 20, convicted of aggravated assault (though innocent of attempted murder) in a rock-throwing incident in Gush Katif two years ago. He is to be married in one month, and to be sentenced in two months.

Border Guard Policeman Shmuel Yechezkel, 22. In a clash with Arabs in eastern Jerusalem, one of whom was placed under arrest, he shot a terrorist who tried to run him over and free his arrested friend. Yechezkel was acquitted in trial, but the State is appealing.

Shai Dromi - Awoke in the middle of the night to find four Arab burglars who had poisoned his dog and were about to make off with his flock of sheep. Fearing for his life, he opened fire and wounded two of the Bedouin, one of whom later died.

Haggai Amir - in addition to his conviction on charges related to the assassination of Yitzchak Rabin, for which he has completed his sentence, he is also serving another four years for planning partisan attacks against Arabs in defense of Yesha towns.

Danny Halamish, Itzik Halamish, and Baruch Feldbaum - accused of firing in the air to scare off a group of Arabs who encroached on their grazing land in Gush Etzion. They were sentenced to 17, 8 and 9 months in prison, respectively.

Nissim Kurkus of Jerusalem. He was attacked by a group of Bethelehem Arabs, who wounded him in his head with knives and other means. He fought back and stabbed to death one of his attackers - and was ordered placed in an Israeli Prison Service psychiatric hospital for nine years.

David Emouyal of Rishon LeTzion - shot and wounded two Arabs in response to the murder of the 8-month-old Shalhevet Pass in Hevron. He was sentenced to 18 years in prison.

Ami Popper, who killed 7 Arab workers in response to a series of Palestinian terrorist attacks. Sentenced to life, but his sentence was later reduced to 40 years by the late President Ezer Weizman. His wife and son were recently killed in a car accident (Popper was driving), and his two remaining sons, with no parents to look after them, have been given over to the foster care of a generous Jerusalem family.

Gur Hamel, 35, of Itamar. On the one-month anniversary of the terrorist murder of his two friends Harel Bin-Nun and Shlomo Libman, and the day that Danny Vargas of Hevron was similarly murdered, he shot and killed an Arab in a neighboring village. He was sentenced to life in prison.

Four Jerusalem Jews, who were sentenced to 2, 3, 3, and 6 years respectively for membership in an organization to attacks Arabs in Jerusalem.

Honenu was established several years ago to help citizens whose spontaneous acts of self-defense in life-threatening situations had embroiled them in legal trouble. In addition, Honenu hired lawyers, at group discounted rates, to represent the hundreds of youths who were charged with crimes related to their protests of the Disengagement/expulsion of 2005.

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