Eitan Haber
Photo: Shalom Bar Tal
Scene of Tuesday's attack
Photo: Dudi Vaaknin
Stopping the bulldozers
Well-armed civilians may be only way to counter bulldozer attacks
During the dozens of years of terrorism faced by the State of Israel throughout its history, we have seen all sorts of “terror fads.” For example, in the early 1990s there was a “trend” of terrorists who used knives to stab their victims. All sorts of Palestinians who possessed knives and even pocketknives would appear behind the victim’s back and stab him or her.
The most well known attack of this sort was the murder of a teenage girl, Helena Rapp, who was stabbed to death in the town of Bat Yam, south of Tel Aviv, in 1992. Some observers argued that this murder helped decide the general elections held that year in favor of Yitzhak Rabin, after a large public became fed up with the terror undertaken by knifemen.
For us here in Israel, Tuesday’s bulldozer terror attack in Jerusalem, the second one in the series of such attacks, is a danger sign – if only because in such cases the terrorists usually operate on their own. They also do not need to acquire weapons, they do not talk to other people about their plans, and they do not embark on their attacks after they get “pissed off” or planned the assaults cold-bloodedly.
In the best case scenario, such attacker can be stopped at an early stage, as was the case in the attack in Jerusalem on Tuesday. In the worst case scenario, the terrorist is stopped too late, after he already hurt and killed a great number of people.
Yet the only apparent solution, at this time, to this type of terrorism is to have many brave civilians carrying arms, alongside more police officers and other security officers at sites that can be expected to be targeted. This is what happened on Tuesday.
So who should we be thanking and congratulating? The two people, a civilian and a Border Guard officer, who sent the latest “crazy guy” for medical examinations with God. We should say thank you on behalf of those who do not even know they owe these two people their lives.
