There was yet another
Arab tractor attack in Jerusalem today. Apparently employing potential murderers to save on building costs is still considered good economics for some:
A Palestinian driver rammed a bulldozer into a bus and police car on a Jerusalem highway Thursday, lightly wounding two officers before he was shot dead - the latest in a string of attacks by Palestinian terrorists using heavy machinery against Israeli civilian targets...
[Editor's note: The story is still breaking so some of the facts in the article have not been updated. It was a tractor, not a bulldozer, and apparently he only attempted to ram the bus but was unsuccessful, as explained below:]
A taxi driver who saw the tractor trying to approach the bus opened fire at the tractor driver, and a police officer also fired shots at the tractor driver...
An initial police investigation indicated that the tractor driver reached the intersection near the Teddy Stadium and managed to push a police vehicle for about 30 meters. After that, he tried to push the police vehicle into a bus, but was blocked apparently by an electrical post.
According to ZAKA, the bus was full of girls dressed in Purim costumes en route to Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital to cheer up patients in advance of the holiday...
ZAKA operation commander Haim Weinrot said that "the girls were hysterical. They saw the enormous scoop heading toward them and saw death approaching, but they were saved at the last minute by the post. It is a Purim miracle."
Within a half-hour after the attack, Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barakat was on the scene to personally inspect the situation.
"The attack targeted us for no reason other than the fact that we live in Jerusalem," said Barkat on the scene. "This was an attack carried out exclusively for the purpose of harming civilians."
He also thanked police, security forces and civilians who stopped the attack, and vowed that "everyone involved in the attack" would be brought to justice.
This appears to be another example of the very high cost of using "cheap" Arab labor. It is well known that crime of all sorts goes up when such workers are in a given area. Worse than the actual cost of the crime is the cost of the ubiquitous security guards at Jerusalem banks, restaurants, malls, etc., and the increase police and army presence required.
The solution is as simple as it is obvious. Want to guess what it is? Hint: it won't come from the contractors and other business owners who are forced by the market to use Arab labor to keep their prices down.
UPDATE 17:00 Israel time (10:00 US Eastern time):
Unlike those who were there,
Al Jazeera is not sure if it was really a terror attack:
"A police officer at the site saw the tractor lifting the police vehicle into the air and opened fire at the driver," Niso Shaham, deputy head of Jerusalem police, said...
Jacky Rowland, Al Jazeera's correspondent, said: "It is always possible that it could have been an accident but there have been a number of tractor attacks in the last year in Jerusalem, where Palestinians have used diggers as weapons against pedestrians and motorists."
Yep, could have been an accident... A tractor lifting a police car in the air? Happens all the time.
Here is another gem from the same article:
Hamas, the Palestinian movement which has de facto control of the Gaza Strip, said it supported the apparent attack.
"The operation in Jerusalem was a natural response to aggression against our people. The Zionist enemy should realise that they alone bear the responsibility for displacing our people in Jerusalem and for the killings in Gaza and the West Bank," Mushir al-Masri, a senior Hamas official, said.
As usual, for Hamas there is always a ready excuse for someone who tried to kill a busload of schoolgirls.
