Man, they are getting more and more inventive about their murdering ways. These attacks hurt not just Israeli citizens and the Israeli psyche, they also damage the reputation of Israeli Arabs. Any attack perpetrated by Arabs/Palestinian citizens of Israel will only make integrating them into mainstream Israeli society harder. The Palestinians do not just miss every opportunity to miss every opportunity, they prevent opportunities from forming.

Speaking of words, I was a bit troubled by official Israeli descriptions of this as "terrorism." Not all violence by Palestinians against Israelis is "terrorism." Terrorism is a subset of the category of violence; the defining feature of terrorism is that the violence is done in the hopes of achieving political ends. Terrorists don't kill people to kill people; they kill people to influence other people. Early reports sure make it sound like this was a deranged individual who simply went on a violent spree; like any other spree killer (as at Virginia Tech, say, or Columbine) the point seems to have been simply to kill people as victims of opportunity. That's terrible, and a great crime, but it's not "terrorism." (Just as an attack against Israeli soldiers is not "terrorism" but rather either simply "war" or "guerilla war.")

Now, perhaps investigations will reveal that this was in fact part of a political plot by Hamas or PIJ to, I don't know, undermine Israeli trust in Palestinian construction workers and thereby provoke Israeli reactions that further alienate Israeli Arabs or something. Palestinian terrorists are pretty devious people, and I wouldn't put it past them. We'll see if there are further construction-equipment rampages in the days to come. If so, then the bulldozer rampage would rightly be called "terrorism." But until then, calling every act of Palestinian-on-Israeli violence "terrorism" devalues the concept of terrorism as a distinct crime. Sometimes, a murderer is just a murderer.

(Which distinction I think Marty got right by referring to "atrocity" and "murder" -- I'm just ruminating on words and the importance of precise language, not criticizing or objecting to anything Marty wrote here.)

“Speaking of words, I was a bit troubled by official Israeli descriptions of this as "terrorism." Not all violence by Palestinians against Israelis is "terrorism." Terrorism is a subset of the category of violence; the defining feature of terrorism is that the violence is done in the hopes of achieving political ends.”

Rhubarbs

Rhubarb, you named yourself well. You seem to have a vegetable brain.

It’s not intelligent to argue against the obvious. This was an act of TERRORISM because it did have a political aim.

“Three Palestinian militant groups took responsibility for the attack, but the claims could not be independently verified.”

ap.google.com/.../ALeqM5hB-bGKoESTficXMN6fCrJ1FQ-0qQD91LS80O3

Besides, Hamas and Islamic Jihad endorsed the attacks and if you haven’t noticed they are at war with the Jewish State.

Your comparison to the Virginia Tech incidents is about as mindless a comment as anyone has ever made here.

Get real rhubarb.

I understand that this so-called Israeli Arab was shouting "Alluha Akbar" during his rampage on the bulldozer.  This makes the perpatrator an Islamic terrorist whether he was directly woking under Hamas, Al-Aksa Maryrs Brigade, or any fly-by-night Islamist Terror group

So what is the political motive for this lone-wolf terrorist?  To rid Jerusalem and the Islamic Palestinian homeland (a.ka. all of Israel) of the Jews.  

I am glad to see that courageous Israeli citizens acted quickly to stop this terror attack before more people died or were injured.  Hopefully, the Israeli citizen will step up to defend Israel because the Israeli government is failing this first responsibilty to it's citizens.

Jackson, you took the words out of my keyboard and you do it so well (and regularly at that).  I do hope you will look me up on your next trip to Israel.

Rhubarb, aside from the TERRORIST repeatedly shouting Alauhu Akhbar, when the police went to his house to question the family, his aunt stuck her head out the window and repeatedly shouted with great joy that he is a Shaheed, Shaheed, Shaheed, intermixed with the the high pitched vocalization characteristic of weddings (after all, 72 virgins....).

I am sure the MSM and the usual Palestinian apologists will piously note that the TERRORIST attack was condemned (in English, of course) by P.A. bigwig and negotiator Saeb Erikat, who did condemn the act stating it was counterproductive to the Palestinian interests.  The jury will note (at least those with a modicum of intellectual honesty) that the act was condemned because it makes the Palestinians look bad, but **NOT** because it just might be immoral to randomly attack innocent civilians (ah but therein lies the rub... by definition, Israelis (at least Israeli Jews) are not innocent civilians).  Indeed the P.A, has **NEVER** condemned any TERRORIST attack against Israeli for being immoral.

And just so that the P.A. will not, Gd forbid, be shown to be prevaricators, I think Israel should make it a point of making sure that the attack is not in the Palies interest.

Hershel G.

Efrata / Jerusalem

jackson, the claims of responsibility are neither here nor there -- unless you believe that this bulldozer rampage actually was planned in concert by three different terrorist groups. (Which, if true, would be very good news: Three different Palestinian terror groups get together to mastermind a joint attack, and the worst they can do is steal a bulldozer? Not exactly a supervillain operation.) The reason these organizations claim credit for attacks they didn't plan is because they want Israel to be afraid of them. Jumping to call every murder an act of terrorism helps to empower and embolden these terrorist groups by lending plausibility to their lies.

As to Hamas and PIJ "endorsing" the attack, well. If a Palestinian man caught his wife in bed with his Israeli friend and shot and killed his Israeli friend in a lover's rage, Hamas and PIJ would "endorse" that, too. But that endorsement wouldn't make the killing an act of terrorism. An event is or is not terrorism no matter what Hamas and PIJ say about it.

Then again, perhaps I am some kind of terror-symp anti-Semite to entertain the possibility that some Palestinian killers are simply crazy. Since I don't live in Israel, it's possible that I've missed the evidence that all Palestinians are hyper-rational intellectual supermen entirely devoid of passion or mental defect. But from the comfort of America, "a good percentage of Palestinians are simply lunatics" sure seems like a reasonable hypothesis. And if that hypothesis is true, then some percentage of Palestinian violence against Israelis will be the banal violence-for-its-own-sake of dangerously crazy people, rather than the politically directed violence of terrorists.

(And why the debate on the point? Am I the only one who thinks that it's a bad thing for a crazy Palestinian to kill Israelis even if he's not a card-carrying member of PIJ? When a deranged lunatic is driving a bulldozer down the sidewalk, you don't stop to ask whether he's an Islamic terrorist, and if it turns out that he seems to be a Lutheran you let him have at it. No, you do what you can to stop him, and thank God someone had a firearm and the presence of mind to use it to stop further bloodshed, whether the killer was at the spearpoint of a vast terrorist conspiracy or simply a solitary lunatic.)

At any rate, all I'm saying is, let's wait until we have real evidence of terrorist intent before we call every murder an act of terrorism. And rumors on the street about a Muslim saying "Allahu Ackbar" don't cut it -- we've been down that road too many times, with too many false alarms, to take that as proof of anything. As soon as Israeli investigators say they believe the rampage to have been a planned attack, that will be good enough for me to call it "terrorism." I just think we reduce the value and importance of the word by using it too casually or assuming it rather than seeking to prove it.

And don't even get me started on reporters who use the word "accident" to describe car crashes ...

Rhubarbs: "Then again, perhaps I am some kind of terror-symp anti-Semite to entertain the possibility that some Palestinian killers are simply crazy."

No, just a vegetable brain, is all.

The killers could be both, crazy and terrorists. Ever think of that?

Rhubarb, for the record, the TERRORIST's repeating Allahu Akhbar is NOT a rumor.  The off-duty soldier who struggled with the TERRORIST in the cab of the bulldozer and who ultimately killed him, stated explicitly that the terrorist repeatedly shouted Allahu Akhbar.

No one here, except for some in terrorists immediate family, is questioning whether or not it was a terrorist attack.  Even the usual Palestinian apologists here are treating it as a terrorist attack.  The only question here is whether he was a lone wolf or whether he was backed by one of the myriad of Palestinian terrorist groups.

Hershel Ginsburg

Efrata / Jerusalem

Rhubarbs, I initially was also not sure if the word "terrorist" was applicable, or if this man was just not all there. The "Allahu Akhbar" persuaded me, though.

"The "Allahu Akhbar" persuaded me, though."

AKA sudden Jihad syndrome.

www.ynetnews.com/.../0,7340,L-3563218,00.html

Miracle on Jaffa Road: Baby saved from terrorist's killing spree

www.haaretz.com/.../998412.html