A man with an axe to grind

Ah, these endlessly evil Palestinians! If suicide bombings fail, they'll try rockets; if rockets fail, they'll try bulldozers; and if bulldozers fail, they'll try -- axes!

The following is a news item from the beginning of the Cast Lead operation Israel has just finished in Gaza with unclear achievements:

An ax-wielding 20-year-old man from Jenin attacked passersby on Rehovot's main Herzl Street on Friday, lightly wounding two people.

The assailant then stood with the ax and shouted "Allahu Akhbar" before being arrested.

A 17-year-old suffered light cuts near his ear. He was treated at the scene. A second person also sustained light wounds, but left before paramedics could reach him.

The attacker told police he came to avenge the death of a friend who died in the IDF's Gaza operation.

"We view this as a sporadic incident, not an organized attack," a Shfela Police spokeswoman said.

The suspect was transferred to the security forces for further questioning.

One of the commenters unsurprisingly proposed:

9. Destroy this man's hometown
That is the only way to fight the terror - destroy the hometown of the terrorist - terror will stop very very quickly. It's up to you Israel, do you want to stop the terror or do you want to be a nice goody two shoes always genuflecting to the internazional community?
Rami - (01/10/2009 22:55)

With most standard dictionaries now defining "disproportionate" as "not done by the Israeli army," I guess this proposal must by now be considered part of the mainstream.

But I see two interesting aspects in this report:

1. The man came all the way from Jenin to Rehovot. It's not exactly a short walk (CLICK ON IMAGE TO ENLARGE):



He must have crossed a few checkpoints and the Apart... Security Fence, yet he wasn't stopped. This would suggest that the dramatic decrease in terror attacks coming from the West Bank may not have to do with walls and roadblocks after all, but with an actual decision by most Palestinians to drop terror as a means to fight Israel.

2. The young man explicitly mentioned his friend who died in the Gaza op. This appears to indicate that terror attacks may not be the result of a Palestinian lust for Jewish blood after all, and that they may be related to actual suffering --be it material deprivation or the loss of their loved ones-- imposed on them by Israel. For God's sake, it even looks like these killing machines are capable of human emotions such as friendship!

Of course, one case is not a sample, but I was impressed by how easily the man made it to Rehovot with his axe, and by how deeply a death can be felt even in a region where seeing people violently die is a daily occurrence.