JERUSALEM — Two early morning incidents yesterday shattered Israel’s
fragile peace, possibly forever, and has given new Prime Minister Ehud
Barak a wake-up call to the realities of Middle East politics.
It began in the dead of night when Israeli police stormed the Temple
Mount and sealed an opening near the Dome of the Rock shrine and al-Aqsa
mosque.
Then just before 8 a.m., Akram Alkam, a 22-year-old Palestinian
furniture salesman from Bethlehem, driving a red Fiat, tried to run down
Israeli soldiers near a bus stop at Nahshon Junction, 30 miles west of
Jerusalem. The driver, whom the Israelis called a terrorist, while the
Palestinians called him a car thief and drug addict, was killed in a
blaze of gunfire. Eleven soldiers were injured, at least one seriously
with multiple fractures.
There had been an air of congeniality yesterday morning when former
speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, Newt Gingrich, visited the
Knesset (Israel’s parliament) on Budget Day, however, it was quickly
shattered when Barak learned of the Nahshon incident.
Barak called it a “very serious act, which was perpetrated by a
cowardly and fanatic criminal.” Then he added, “His (Akram Alkam’s)
action will strengthen our determination to do whatever it takes to put
an end to terror and to do it in cooperation with the Palestinian
Authority.”
Since his overwhelming election victory over former Benjamin
Netanyahu in mid-May, Barak had been savoring a honeymoon period.
However, that ended yesterday morning.
“The peace process that will bring an end to the centuries-old
conflict will not be solved in three-and-a-half weeks. We can expect
further attempts, in the near future, against innocent women and
children by radical groups that oppose the peace process.”
There didn’t seem to be any danger at the busy Nahshon Junction.
Hitchhiking soldiers were milling around, waiting for their rides, when,
without warning the small French-made car struck two female Israeli
soldiers and drove off. Then Alkam made a U-turn and drove the vehicle
into another group of soldiers. That’s when a policeman fired at the
car, killing Alkam.
With the driver dead, the car veered out of control and slammed into
a cement truck. Believing it might be booby-trapped, the demolition
experts were called in. It wasn’t armed.
The Associated Press later learned that Alkam had called his mother,
Fadwa, on his mobile phone that he was on his way to carry out a suicide
attack in Bethlehem. She told AP that he was an admirer of Yehiyeh (The
Engineer) Ayyash, a notorious Hamas bomb-maker, who was assassinated in
the Gaza Strip in 1996. Alkam had been reading his biography.
Apparently, Alkam acted alone and didn’t have any known political
affiliations.
It was the fifth in a series of incidents reported by the news
agency, Israel Wire, during the past week. In the first incident, two
Jewish men, Baruch Ben-Yaakov and Ephraim Rozenstein, were wounded when
terrorists opened fire in Hebron near the Cave of the Patriarchs; in the
second incident, Edward Berdinchinsky was found burned to death near the
Samarian Jewish community of Dotan; in the third incident, two IDF
soldiers were injured in Hebron when attacked with a firebomb; and also
more than a dozen Israelis have been injured in rock-throwing incidents
throughout Judea, Samaria and Gaza.
Barak displayed his steel concerning the Temple Mount.
On Monday, the Muslim Waqf religious authority widened a window in
the southern wall near the Dome of the Rock, which Israeli Public
Security Minister Shlomo Ben-Ami called “a flagrant violation, not only
of the law, but also of the (religious) status quo.”
After Israeli police sealed the opening, Barak ordered reinforcements
to the highly volatile area to ensure there wouldn’t be any Palestinian
backlash. There have been no reported incidents.
Sources include Israel Wire, AP.
Kaye Corbett is a WorldNetDaily columnist and Middle East bureau
chief based in Jerusalem.
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