The terror attacks that don’t count

Can you imagine the international reaction if in the month of August, there had been 90 attempts by Jews to murder Palestinian Arabs?

Moshe Phillips | Sept 10, 2024

Israeli security forces near the scene of a car-bomb explosion in the settlement of Karmei Tzur in Judea and Samaria on Aug. 31, 2024. Photo by Yonatan Sindel/Flash90.

There’s been a huge increase in attempts to murder Jews in Judea and Samaria in recent weeks, but you wouldn’t know it from reading The New York Times or watching CNN. Because, it seems, some terrorist attacks just don’t count.

According to newly released Israeli government statistics, 53 terrorist attacks were foiled in July. That number rose to 90 attacks against Israelis in August.

What constitutes a “foiled” attack? Maybe the security services had been tracking a potential terrorist and caught him just before he struck. Or it could be that the police received a tip about an impending attack just in the nick of time. Perhaps the shooter had bad aim. Or maybe the bomber connected a wire incorrectly. Might be that the car that was going to ram people at a bus stop just wouldn’t start that morning.

In other words, the difference between a successful terrorist attack and an unsuccessful one is extremely narrow. A few more minutes or a slightly more skilled bomb-maker would have meant a catastrophe.

Consider the recent attempted attack at the Israeli community of Ateret. Palestinian Arabs filled a car with explosives and parked it at the entrance to the town. A small camera inside the car live-streamed footage to the terrorists, who were hiding in some nearby location. They were waiting for a school bus full of children to exit, at which point the car bomb would be detonated. But the mass-murder weapon was discovered shortly before it would have exploded.

Just because an attack is classified as “foiled” doesn’t mean nobody was harmed; it means that the terrorist did not completely achieve his goal.

Take, for example, the recent suicide bombing in Tel Aviv. The bomber’s suicide vest ignited just before he reached the crowded area he intended to target. Nonetheless, an innocent passerby was wounded. The victim will have to live with his injuries and scars for the rest of his life. The public will never hear about the ways in which his life will be impacted, whether from physical handicaps or terrifying nightmares or other trauma. The public will never even know his name. But his pain is real.

His pain apparently doesn’t matter much to The Washington Post or MSNBC. They don’t report attempted mass murders by Palestinian Arabs. And when the attempts succeed, they slant their coverage so that they can blame the non-existent Israeli “occupation” for the terrorists’ actions.

Nor does the bombing victim’s pain matter much to those who populate the world of pundits and diplomats. The U.S. State Department spokesperson won’t mention the attempts either. The United Nations won’t adopt any resolutions condemning those who sponsor or perpetrate this Palestinian terrorism. The Middle East “experts” who appear on talk shows and op-ed pages won’t talk about the Jews who were almost murdered.

Can you imagine the international reaction if in the month of August, there had been 90 attempts by Jews to murder Palestinian Arabs? It would be front-page news around the world. Biden administration officials would issue denunciation after denunciation. The United Nations would meet in an emergency session. That’s the world of hypocrisy in which we live.

The new Israeli government statement with the statistics on attempted terror attacks included another important point. It said that the majority of the attempted massacres originated in the area of Nablus (Shechem).

That city is governed by the Palestinian Authority. The P.A. police and security forces there are trained and equipped by the CIA. They are more than capable of squashing terrorism. Indeed, because the world couldn’t care less about how the P.A. treats prisoners, its security forces are free to use whatever methods they want to extract information from captured terrorists.

But they don’t. Because there aren’t any captured terrorists. The P.A. Authority doesn’t want to capture them. It treats terrorists as brothers, not enemies. P.A. chief Mahmoud Abbas simply disregards obligations as part of the Oslo Accords to arrest terrorists, confiscate their weapons, and extradite them to Israel.

And the world looks away—just as it looks away every time a Palestinian Arab comes within inches, or seconds, of perpetrating yet another mass slaughter of Israeli Jews.

Moshe Phillips is national chairman of Americans For A Safe Israel (AFSI), a leading pro-Israel advocacy and education organization.