Palestinian stabs Israelis, and here come the excuses

(JNS)—In what crazy, upside-down world does a Palestinian Arab randomly stab Jews in Jerusalem, get shot dead by Israeli policeman and then become the focus of an Associated Press article with a headline about Israelis killing Palestinians?

In our crazy, upside-down world, that’s where.

The latest craziness began when the terrorist was strolling through the Old City of Jerusalem on Friday morning when he happened to see a Jewish man. So, the Arab stabbed the Jew. The stabber then went a little further along, until he spotted a Jewish child walking along. So, he ran up and stabbed the child in the back.

You can already imagine Excuse #1 bubbling up in the fertile minds of the rationalizers and justifiers: The Old City is “occupied Arab East Jerusalem”... meaning that the Jewish victims actually were “settlers”... which makes them “legitimate targets” for “resistance.”

Resistance to what? Why, to the existence of Jews, of course.

Israeli policemen approached the terrorist. He was literally caught with the bloody knife in his hand. Instead of surrendering, he ran, which is why the police shot him. It’s about as black-and-white a case as one can imagine. Yet, incredibly, the Associated Press characterized him as “an alleged Palestinian attacker.”

It seems that as far as the AP is concerned, when it comes to Palestinian terrorists, they’re always “alleged” and never “terrorists.” Isn’t that curious?

The would-be murderer turned out to be 19 years old. Get ready for Excuse #2. Technically, the terrorist was a teenager. And the word “teenager” can be morphed into “child.” Which brings us to a pending congressional resolution about “Palestinian children.”

The bill in question, H.R. 4391, was authored by an extremist congresswoman from Minnesota named Betty McCollum. It’s called the “Promoting Human Rights by Ending Israeli Military Detention of Palestinian Children Act.” It calls for slashing U.S. aid to Israel as punishment for arresting “Palestinian children.”

According to McCollum, it is immoral and illegitimate for Israel to ever detain a “Palestinian child.” Even if the “child” was caught trying to stone, stab or shoot Jews to death. Children must never be detained! I guess that includes the “child” with the bloody knife in Jerusalem on Friday.

When McCollum introduced the bill last year, it attracted 30 co-sponsors, all Democrats. One was Massachusetts Congressman Seth Moulton, who is now a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination. It will be interesting to see if Moulton again signs on to the re-introduced McCollum resolution.

Elsewhere on Friday, another Palestinian Arab tried to cross into Israel by infiltrating the security perimeter near Bethlehem. When he refused to halt and desist, Israeli soldiers shot him.

Now the folks at the AP had their headline: “2 Palestinians Killed by Israelis in Separate Events.” They took a story about a Palestinian Arab terrorist attack and a potential second attack, and turned it into a story about trigger-happy Israelis murdering Palestinians.

And here comes Excuse #3. Why would a Palestinian Arab be trying to penetrate the security perimeter, instead of just applying for a permit to enter Israel? The AP found a way to excuse this obviously suspicious behavior: “Younger Palestinian men must request an entry permit from the military, which are [sic] hard to obtain.”

Oh well, that’s different, then. If it’s “hard” to obtain a permit to enter somebody else’s country, then certainly you have a right to break into that country. Or so the AP apparently wants its readers to believe.

The AP interviewed the infiltrator’s father, one Louai Ghaith. It’s odd how they couldn’t manage to find and interview any of the stabbing victims’ relatives. Or friends. Or neighbors. Or any other Jew in the Old City of Jerusalem. I guess they were all busy.

The father insisted that his son was just “going to fulfill his religious duty; he was going to worship” at the Al-Aqsa mosque. What a coincidence—a knife-wielding man entered Jerusalem on a permit to pray at Al-Aqsa. Maybe the Israelis do have a reason to carefully scrutinize and restrict the foreign citizens who they allow to enter their capital city, after all.

Stephen M. Flatow, an attorney in New Jersey, is the father of Alisa Flatow, who was murdered in an Iranian-sponsored Palestinian terrorist attack in 1995. He is the author of “A Father’s Story: My Fight for Justice Against Iranian Terror.”