UPDATE: Security forces and at least one Israeli official have stated that it now seems as if the vehicular terror attack was an honest-t0-God car accident. The perpetrator turned himself in and said he lost control of the car. I do not believe this is the case for a variety of reasons:
1) I had information from a medic on the scene of the Palmer murders that it was a stoning and not a car accident. The police hushed it up for as long as they could. They think that if we call a murder a murder, it will rouse violent sentiment. This is why some of us are calling this new form of attack The Silent Intifada. The truth may never come out on this particular story and people can call it an accident forever. But I saw the video and know what I saw.
2) The perpetrator left the scene, went elsewhere and then PARKED his vehicle and abandoned it. It is difficult in light of this information to believe that the perpetrator lost control of the vehicle. He had enough control to drive away and park the vehicle elsewhere. More likely, he doesn’t want his house destroyed and knows that the police are eager to call this an accident.
DISCLAIMER: Blogs pieces are opinion pieces. This is an opinion piece. It is my opinion and does not necessarily reflect the opinions of other Israellycool bloggers.
Did you see that horrible video? The one you can never unsee? The unearthly groan you can never unhear?
Three guys just shooting the breeze on night patrol and then out of nowhere VROOM. Mowed down.
How did the Times of Israel see fit to report this event?
“Possible” they called it. As if it might not be a terror attack. This after an earlier attack in Jerusalem, taking exactly the same form, and another one prior to that in which an infant and a young woman were murdered.
So call me foolish, but I like to give the benefit of the doubt. I went to the article to see when it was originally posted. And actually it was soon after the attack, when the IDF would have still been investigating the incident, when the security footage might not yet have been reviewed.
The Jerusalem Post had a similar headline on its piece, IDF investigating possible terror attack in West Bank, posted one minute prior to the Times of Israel report.
The Times of Israel later edited that early headline so that now it looks like this:
This headline seems to be getting closer to the truth: that an Arab purposely plowed down three soldiers. Unfortunately, it’s just an illusion.
What the headline really says is that a vehicle, belonging to an Arab, smashed into soldiers. A more accurate headline would say, “Palestinian driver uses car to run over IDF soldiers in Gush Etzion”
But okay. They did make the attempt to change that title. So hopefully the earlier idea, that it might NOT be a terror attack, was discarded once the facts were known.
Except the lede, the photo caption, and the body of the article still uses way too many qualifiers.
The lede refers to suspicion:
Suspect flees scene, police suspect incident was second terror attack of day following earlier incident in Jerusalem
The photo caption refers to suspicion:
Israeli soldiers stand near a ambulance at the scene of what police suspect was a terrorist attack in which three soldiers were run down by a Palestinian driver.
The first line refers to appearance:
Three Israeli soldiers were injured when a Palestinian vehicle rammed into them on a West Bank road Wednesday evening in what appeared to be the day’s second vehicular terror attack.
Here it repeats the assertion of the headline, that the vehicle is responsible:
A Palestinian vehicle hit the soldiers
Same thing here:
The IDF confirmed that three soldiers were injured after a Palestinian vehicle ran them down.
Here, the responsibility finally shifts from vehicle to actual human being:
The driver of the vehicle fled the scene and a manhunt was underway to find the perpetrator.
I don’t know when the article was last updated. But I would think that if the piece already refers to a “perpetrator” then we don’t need all these qualifiers that suggest it might NOT have been a terror attack and that it was a VEHICLE done the deed.
