war

Scenes from the Tel Aviv terror attack (this time)

By / December 1, 2020

Confusion seemed the order of the day in the minutes after a gunman had opened fire on a pub and a café on Dizengoff Friday afternoon, killing 2 and wounding 8 before vanishing without a trace. A rumor caught wind – from a reporter, maybe, or a random cop – that a suspect had been spotted a few blocks north on Nordau, and plainclothes cops with assault rifles started to give chase. It was then that something I’d never seen before happened …

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After the knives are put away

By / December 1, 2020

The uniforms and pistols make them look like police, but they aren’t cops. They’re members of the Tel Aviv municipal public order patrol – set up by the city this past year to deal with public disturbances, noise ordinance violations, and petty quality of life issues. After a terror attack in the city earlier this month and as the daily attacks known as the “Knife Intifada” continue across the country, the patrol members are now receiving firearms, to be force multipliers …

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Knife bait at the park – watching my daughter’s blind spot

By / December 1, 2020

Ask yourself: Could you fend off a crazed attacker armed with only a stick of sidewalk chalk? Could you subdue a man with a knife, hold him until the police arrive, and give a man-on-the-street interview that will go viral? Most crucially, could you spend an hour and a half at the park with a group of toddlers, without checking your cell phone even once? All these questions went through my mind on Tuesday morning, when it was my turn for …

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Deadly force in deadly times

By / December 1, 2020

The video that went viral in Israel on Monday left little room for debate. Three Special Patrol Unit police officers are standing outside Damascus Gate in Jerusalem, when one of them asks a young man for his ID and all hell breaks loose. The man, later named as Muhammad Ali, 19, from Shuafat, takes a knife and stabs the neck of one of the police officers and then jumps and stabs a second one, before he is taken down in a …

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They came to watch the bridge explode

By / December 1, 2020

Judging by the pre-game hype in the national press, something akin to the moon landing or the planting of the US flag on Iwo Jima took place in Tel Aviv on Friday morning, as hundreds gathered in the center of town to see the iconic Ma’ariv Bridge blown up and brought to Earth.   The situation on the ground at judgment hour didn’t live up to the hype, but it was a carnival of sorts nonetheless.   Ori Benaim was sober …

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Police vs politicians on the Temple Mount

By / December 1, 2020

(This post was originally published in the Jerusalem Post weekend magazine on December 4th, 2014) One gets the impression as of late that if left up to the top command of the Israel Police and the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency), the entire Temple Mount would be sealed off to all visitors, left to gather dust atop the Old City. That’s not possible, of course, as it would entail a radical change in the status quo, and banning access to one …

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Before the shitstorm

By / December 1, 2020

Already neck-deep in tragedies, it feels like Israel is sailing into uncharted waters these days, ever since the abduction of teenagers Naftali Frenkel, Gil-ad Shaer, and Eyal Yifrah almost two weeks ago. At the moment no one can say for certain what will be the fallout, what will be the reckoning after they pull back the curtain and show us what’s not being said. Or months down the road, after the committee of inquiry submits its findings. For now the only …

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‘You only notice us when there’s a rocket or a rape’

By / December 1, 2020

Did you come to see the house that was hit by the rocket?” asked a little Ethiopian-Israeli boy. “The whole world’s already been here,” The child ran off to play soccer in a run-down courtyard nearby and I continued to the site of the attack that claimed the lives of three Israelis two weeks earlier.

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