US training, Israeli concessions implicated in drive-by terror killing of Rabbi
The announcement by the Fatah Al Aksa Martyrs organization that its men killed Rabbi Meir Avshalom Chai implicates the United States, which is providing military training to Fatah under the supervision of Gen. Keith Dayton, with the approval of Israel Defense Minister Ehud Barak. Al Aksa Martyrs formally joined Fatah's security forces at the Fatah convention in August. Fatah receives military training from US military forces.
Rabbi Chai's bullet-riddled minivan was discovered by a road between the communities of Einav and Shavei Shomron in Samaria where he lived. Terrorists in a car apparently overtook him and opened heavy fire. Ten bullets hit Meir in the head. He was mortally wounded and died a few minutes later. It appears that his attackers escaped to the nearby village of Asira Al-Shamaliyah using a road from which an Israeli security checkpoint was removed only last week, under pressure from the US Administration, just 150 meters (500 feet) from where he was shot. The roadblock monitored traffic around Nablus in the direction of Tul Karm, the officer said. According to Haaretz, the car used by the attackers was found later burned out.
Army Radio reported Friday that in recent months Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu had turned down requests by ministers for a cabinet debate on the issue of the removal of roadblocks, according to the Jerusalem Post. According to the report, one of the ministers, Eli Yishai, had claimed "past experience shows that the removal of roadblocks as part of the easements granted to Palestinians has led to attempts to carry out terror attacks against Jews."
Following Thursday night's terror attack near the northern Samaria settlement of Shavei Shomron, hundreds of residents of Kedumim and other settlements marched from the community to the area of the shooting and held a prayer and protest rally. The local residents demonstrated against the decreasing number of West Bank roadblocks.
One of the protesters, Menorah Hazani, accused the government of abandoning Judea and Samaria residents. "I already have several friends who are widows, and I'm simply fed up of the fact that no one cares when roadblocks are removed and we pay with our lives," she told Army Radio. "We have been abandoned and the government is busy fighting settlers instead of terrorists. I don't know what the defense minister is doing, but he's certainly not handling defense."
According to Palestinian reports, the Imad Mughniyeh Group - named after the Hizbullah commander assassinated in Damascus two years ago - claimed responsibility for the attack. It also claimed to be affiliated with Fatah's Aksa Martyrs Brigade. The group said its members "withdrew from the area safely." It also warned of "a series of attacks to come."
MK Michael Ben-Ari (National Union) blamed the Prime Minister for the attack, saying that "Netanyahu is surrendering to terrorism." The 10-month moratorium on settlement construction and a possible prisoner exchange deal to free IDF soldier Gilad Schalit indicated that "Jewish blood has been forsaken."
Chai, a teacher, leaves behind a wife and seven children. He was buried Friday on the Mount of Olives.
Head of the Samaria Regional Council, Gershon Mesika, said Friday that the murder in northern Samaria Thursday was the inevitable result of Israeli concessions to US pressure. "We have been crying out to the Prime Minister and to the Minister of Defense in recent months, that removing checkpoints and redirecting the IDF to fighting settlers instead of fighting terror, would lead to terror attacks and murders,” Mesika said. He demanded that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and the Minister of Defense Ehud Barak come to the funeral of slain Samaria resident Rabbi Meir Avshalom Chai, and “look in the eyes of the widow Elisheva and the seven orphans, because they cannot say 'our hands did not spill this blood...'”
Neither Netanyahu nor Barack attended the funeral. Ministers Eli Yishai and Yaacov Neeman, and National Union MKs Ya'akov Katz and Uri Ariel, were among those in attendance at the funeral.
Read more in Jerusalem Post, Israel National News, Haaretz and YnetNews.
Rabbi Chai's bullet-riddled minivan was discovered by a road between the communities of Einav and Shavei Shomron in Samaria where he lived. Terrorists in a car apparently overtook him and opened heavy fire. Ten bullets hit Meir in the head. He was mortally wounded and died a few minutes later. It appears that his attackers escaped to the nearby village of Asira Al-Shamaliyah using a road from which an Israeli security checkpoint was removed only last week, under pressure from the US Administration, just 150 meters (500 feet) from where he was shot. The roadblock monitored traffic around Nablus in the direction of Tul Karm, the officer said. According to Haaretz, the car used by the attackers was found later burned out.
Army Radio reported Friday that in recent months Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu had turned down requests by ministers for a cabinet debate on the issue of the removal of roadblocks, according to the Jerusalem Post. According to the report, one of the ministers, Eli Yishai, had claimed "past experience shows that the removal of roadblocks as part of the easements granted to Palestinians has led to attempts to carry out terror attacks against Jews."
Following Thursday night's terror attack near the northern Samaria settlement of Shavei Shomron, hundreds of residents of Kedumim and other settlements marched from the community to the area of the shooting and held a prayer and protest rally. The local residents demonstrated against the decreasing number of West Bank roadblocks.
One of the protesters, Menorah Hazani, accused the government of abandoning Judea and Samaria residents. "I already have several friends who are widows, and I'm simply fed up of the fact that no one cares when roadblocks are removed and we pay with our lives," she told Army Radio. "We have been abandoned and the government is busy fighting settlers instead of terrorists. I don't know what the defense minister is doing, but he's certainly not handling defense."
According to Palestinian reports, the Imad Mughniyeh Group - named after the Hizbullah commander assassinated in Damascus two years ago - claimed responsibility for the attack. It also claimed to be affiliated with Fatah's Aksa Martyrs Brigade. The group said its members "withdrew from the area safely." It also warned of "a series of attacks to come."
MK Michael Ben-Ari (National Union) blamed the Prime Minister for the attack, saying that "Netanyahu is surrendering to terrorism." The 10-month moratorium on settlement construction and a possible prisoner exchange deal to free IDF soldier Gilad Schalit indicated that "Jewish blood has been forsaken."
Chai, a teacher, leaves behind a wife and seven children. He was buried Friday on the Mount of Olives.
Head of the Samaria Regional Council, Gershon Mesika, said Friday that the murder in northern Samaria Thursday was the inevitable result of Israeli concessions to US pressure. "We have been crying out to the Prime Minister and to the Minister of Defense in recent months, that removing checkpoints and redirecting the IDF to fighting settlers instead of fighting terror, would lead to terror attacks and murders,” Mesika said. He demanded that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and the Minister of Defense Ehud Barak come to the funeral of slain Samaria resident Rabbi Meir Avshalom Chai, and “look in the eyes of the widow Elisheva and the seven orphans, because they cannot say 'our hands did not spill this blood...'”
Neither Netanyahu nor Barack attended the funeral. Ministers Eli Yishai and Yaacov Neeman, and National Union MKs Ya'akov Katz and Uri Ariel, were among those in attendance at the funeral.
Read more in Jerusalem Post, Israel National News, Haaretz and YnetNews.
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Tags: meir chai, terrorist attack
Add a Comment
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Comment by Sharon Elizabeth Kerr on December 30, 2009 at 1:39am -
I agree with Ronald.
The US. has always been involved in training 'terrorists' Al Quida is one of them. The more I read about Israel and it's weakness in cowing to US pressure and also the World's, I'm extremely angry. Missionaries groups are building in Israel and allowed to bring in their groups to stay for up to two years.
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Comment by Robert Bernier on December 26, 2009 at 10:15am -
The hypocrisy of Mahmoud Abbas.
Even putting aside Hamas organs and looking only at the media, mosques and schools under Mahmoud Abbas’s control, their message is consistently one of demonization of Jews and delegitimization of Israel along with calls for its destruction. In the weeks leading up to last fall’s Annapolis conference, Fatah-TV, the television outlet of Abbas’s party, broadcast many times daily a song whose lyrics claimed that all of Palestine belongs to the Arabs by “history and identity” and explicitly named cities and regions of pre-1967 Israel as part of the territorial patrimony of the Arabs, again “by history and identity.” While Abbas was talking compromise and peace, the song was clearly intended to convey the illegitimacy of the Jewish presence and of Israel. It was one more strand in the incessant indoctrination of Palestinians to regard Israel’s Jews as alien usurpers whose state must be destroyed. Palestinian society imagery and texts sanctified violent struggle as the miracle cure for Palestinian problems as described at :
http://israelagainstterror.blogspot.com/2008/03/fatahs-embrace-of-i...
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Comment by RonaldH on December 25, 2009 at 7:35pm -
The US is out of bounds with their training of Al Aksa Martyrs and forcing Israel to remove roadblocks which are vital to Israel's security. I think Israel needs to push back against US demands to weaken their security. The Obama administration is now one year old and the US public understands that Obama brings bad news where ever he goes. His power is not what it was. Israel should be able to just say no to ridiculous US demands.
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