A question for you, my dear readers.
What is your impression of this young man? What words immediately come to mind?
Clean-cut?
Boy next door?
Pleasant?
Handsome?
Certainly looks like the kind of guy who might help a little old lady across the street, right?
Wrong.
He’s Maher Hamdi al-Hashalmoun, an Islamic Jihad member previously jailed by Israel, who just stabbed a young woman to death and wounded two others, after his earlier attempt to run over some Jews was less successful.
Some four hours after a Palestinian from Nablus stabbed an IDF soldier in Tel Aviv, critically wounding him, another Palestinian stabbed three Israelis at the entrance to the settlement of Alon Shvut in Gush Etzion on Monday evening, killing a young woman and wounding two others.
A young woman was seriously wounded but attempts to resuscitate her failed and she was pronounced dead at the scene.
A man in his mid-20s was stabbed in the stomach, suffering light-to-moderate wounds, and was taken to the Hadassah Medical Center in Jerusalem’s Ein Kerem, a third man in his 50s was lightly wounded, suffering from stab wounds to the jaw, and was taken to the Shaare Zedek Medical Center, also in Jerusalem. The man in his 50s was a driver passing by who saw the attack taking place and stopped to try to stop the stabber.
The terrorist, Maher al-Hashlamun, apparently intended to commit a vehicular terrorist attack. When he failed to run over anyone and drove into the concrete bollards at the hitchhiking stop outside the West Bank settlement, got out of the vehicle and started stabbing the civilians who were there.
He was shot in the chest by Alon Shvut’s security guard, and was also taken to Ein Kerem in serious condition.
The terrorist, Maher al-Hashlamun, 30, from Hebron, is a member of Islamic Jihad. He was jailed in Israel from 2000-2005 after he was convicted of throwing Molotov cocktails at an IDF patrol.
Now imagine seeing his smiling face on placards calling for his release from Israeli prison.
Heck, he’s just a young man with his future in front of him, unjustly jailed just because he was resisting the “occupation.”
If you were not familiar with what we are dealing with, you’d see a photo of this man and may even empathize with him.
Because he looks like a regular, decent guy, and not some caricature villain. And surely the victims of his aggression must be the cause of his breaking bad.
Wrong again.
People like this terrorist are brainwashed in to believing either that the Jews stole their land or the Muslim’s rightful place is to rule over this land (and, in fact, the rest of the world).
The scary thing is there are thousands of such people living and working among us, in addition to the decent Arabs and Muslim citizens.
I have no answers. Only the desire that you all understand what we are experiencing.
Update: Here’s our smiling friend in action.
The video shows how Maher Hamdi al-Hashalmoun first drove his car into the bus stop, knocking over and injuring his victims. Chillingly, the CCTV footage then shows him running up to one of them – identified as a 25-year-old woman – and stabbing her to death as she lay injured on the floor.
He then attacks another passerby, who briefly struggles with him as he stabs and slashes with his knife.
Finally, a guard from the gate of Alon Shvut runs to the scene and appears to shoot the attacker, who runs away as the guard gives chase.
