===
Our enemy. Hopefully not our future!
Obama, hopefully, is our past!
===
Just back from Athens.
As the year comes to a close we have made very little progress when it comes to:
a) Improving public education
b) Rebuilding the family structure
c) Reducing the impact that PC'ism has on how we go about being the type of American we used to be
d) Having an effective strategy of eliminating ISIS - no longer a JV Team if they ever were
e) Bringing federal spending under control
f) Closing the widening gap of racial discord
g) Forming an effective coalition with teeth to defeat ISIS
h) Improving our health delivery system at a reasonable cost
i) Restoring American's faith in government as an institution than can solve problems at a reasonable cost
j) Returning America to its former position of being respected and even feared
k) Closing the divide between our two primary parties
l) Restoring hope through change
m) Strengthening the Middle Class and increasing their numbers
n) Rebuilding our military
o) Improving trust in our police departments
===
Tomorrow The Fed will probably raise rates by a 1/4 of a percent. I believe the market has already discounted this but in the event The Fed does not raise rates I believe the market will drop because this would mean The Fed is concerned about the health of our paltry economic recovery.
I believe the greatest threat is deflation not inflation though there is plenty of inflation in the area of the cost of living but the government's index does not capture the inflation we experience when we go shopping and pay bills for most of what it costs us to live. The best evidence of deflation is the decline in virtually every commodity.
Tax selling will continue for the rest of the year but if The Fed , in addition to raising interest rates, also signals it will continue to do so gradually and in conjunction with improving indices it measures then I also believe the market will be relieved.
Corporate earnings next year should continue at their modest pace and I would expect the rout in the energy markets will calm down because, as I noted in a previous memo, I do not believe the demand for energy can be satisfied by the Saudis, Russia and other Middle East producers so American companies will fill the gap. That said, I do not expect oil prices to rise significantly.
Though world economies remain subdued I believe the three biggest wild cards remain China's economy, the threat of radical Islamism and the American presidential election.
===
Is Iran's radical leader about to be challenged internally? (See 1 below.)
===
Another way of looking at Islam. (See 2 below.)
Jonathan is a friend. (See 2a below.)
===
Meanwhile, an Israeli toddler loses his leg because of a Palestinian terrorist. (See 3 below.)
====
Dick
========================================================================
1) Khamenei's Counterrevolution Is Underway
TEHRAN — It was, in the words of the Washington Post‘s executive editor, Martin Baron, “the grimmest” of milestones. On Dec. 3, Jason Rezaian, the newspaper’s Tehran correspondent, spent his 500th day in Evin Prison. He has now been detained in the Iranian capital two months longer than the 52 Americans who were held captive in the U.S. embassy by radical students who stormed the building in 1979, heralding a revolution and the end of Iran’s formal diplomatic relations with America.
For the moment at least, the prospect of Rezaian being freed appears based more on hope than solid facts. There is no sign Iran’s judiciary, in spite of last summer’s nuclear deal with the West, is softening its stance. If anything, it has been sending strong indications that it will refuse to be influenced by outside pressure. On Nov. 22, a judiciary spokesman in Tehran confirmed Rezaian had been convicted on charges of espionage and that his punishment included jail time. The length of his prison sentence was not disclosed; the offenses are thought to carry a maximum jail term of 20 years.
Having first warned of foreign “infiltration” in September, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei took an even harsher line on Nov. 25. “There is a deceitful, crafty, skillful, fraudulent, and devilish enemy,” he told commanders of the Basij militia, a volunteer paramilitary force that takes orders from the country’s powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps. “Who is that enemy? Arrogance. Of course today, the manifestation of arrogance is America.”
Khamenei went further, suggesting foreign investment and cultural influences would be the first way the West would try to bring down Iran’s Islamic system. “The most important means are two things: One is money and another is sexual attraction,” he said, warning that Iran’s “decision-makers and decision-builders” would be targeted by foreigners who want to change the beliefs and lifestyle of Iran’s people.
The comments are a world away from the pragmatism Khamenei showed in agreeing to the nuclear deal just months ago. While the supreme leader seemingly wanted a deal to end sanctions so that Iran could rejoin the global economy, his actions since suggest he doesn’t want to upset loyal elites who have been enriched in the past decade.
Basij commander Mohammad Reza Naqdi wasted little time in following the supreme leader’s cue. Two days after Khamenei’s remarks, he claimed the United States had allocated $2 billion to depose the regime in Tehran. He explicitly placed Secretary of State John Kerry, the man with whom Iranian diplomats negotiated the nuclear deal, at the center of the conspiracy. “Some $200 million out of this sum was given personally to John Kerry,” he said. “Kerry has so far headed 34 projects to depose the Islamic regime.”
Both Rezaian’s imprisonment and Naqdi’s allegations signal not only a split within Iran’s political elite over its future relations with the United States, but also a deeper divide between its politicians and long-suffering people. While the religious power center of the Islamist establishment seems more vehement than ever about the need to protect the principles of the 1979 revolution, many of Iran’s technologically savvy young population shun the mosque and look outward to the West for its entertainment and inspiration.
As such, many are still leaving the country, convinced their hopes cannot be realized. “I am not free,” said Golnaz, a 33-year-old MBA graduate who recently moved to Canada to join a tech firm. Being friends with foreigners led to her being followed and her emails being hacked. She believes President Hassan Rouhani is trying his best, but, given the resistance he faces, it is not worth the risk of continuing to waste years of her career.
Rouhani and his top officials are caught in the middle between the people and the regime. Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif initially said that he hoped Rezaian would be found not guilty but has since backed off that line when questioned about the reporter’s fate, probably sensing the backlash in an increasingly abrasive domestic climate. “The charges are serious and it’s a judiciary process,” Zarif said on Oct. 17, five days after the Washington Post first reported Rezaian had been convicted.
Rouhani, meanwhile, has openly raised the possibility of a prisoner swap, thought to involve at least three Americans, including Rezaian, for 19 Iranians convicted of sanctions offenses in the United States.
“If the Americans take the appropriate steps and set them free, certainly the right environment will be open and the right circumstances will be created for us to do everything within our power and our purview to bring about the swiftest freedom for the Americans held in Iran as well,” Rouhani said of the 19 jailed Iranians at the U.N. General Assembly in New York on Sept. 27.
His remarks, however, were followed by a sharp reminder at how little control he apparently exerts over many of his country’s security institutions. Barely two weeks later, the intelligence section of the Revolutionary Guards arrested an Iranian-American businessman, Siamak Namazi, at the home of relatives in Tehran. Around the same time it emerged that a Lebanese IT expert with residency in the United States, Nizar Zakka, had disappeared after a conference in the Iranian capital a month earlier. Adding to Rouhani’s image of powerlessness, Zakka had been invited to Tehran by the government. State television, a fiefdom of hardline conservatives who operate under Khamenei’s authority, later said Zakka was arrested for spying.
Namazi, though long based in Dubai, is well known in Iran. His family’s Atieh Group had strong business connections with the government during the presidency of Ayatollah Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, from 1989 to 1997. Namazi also spoke out in favor of better Iranian-American relations and, while serving as a partner of Atieh’s Tehran consultancy, had advised foreign companies on how to do business in the Islamic Republic.
The latest arrests are another embarrassment for Rouhani who has made a major play for foreign investment to rebuild Iran’s sanctions-ravaged economy. On Nov. 28, more than 100 foreign companies in the oil industry, headed by Shell, BP, Total, and Petronas, came to Tehran and heard Iran’s oil minister make a pitch for $30 billion of investment. There was undoubtedly interest among the visitors — but if the IRGC continue to arrest foreign businessmen, the enthusiasm could quickly disappear.
As harsh as Khamenei’s remarks appear, a more optimistic interpretation is that the government is willing to take symbolic actions that signal a staunch anti-American stance — while in reality having no practical effect. On Nov. 5, for instance, the Ministry of Industry, Mines, and Trade announced it would ban the import of all American consumer goods. A push “to boost national production” was necessary instead, officials said.
The announcement was greeted by laughter among many Iranians. “They are already here,” Sara Ahmadi, a 30-year-old business executive, said of foreign brands, pointing out that there are three Nike stores on one Tehran street alone. Those shops, stuffed with clothing and exercise equipment bearing the famous “swoosh” logo of the world’s largest sports manufacturer, feature genuine merchandise — not the Chinese knock-offs sold in street markets in the capital. Several of the massive malls that have opened in Tehran in recent years also have Nike stores.
But it’s instructive that those malls were all built by companies linked to the IRGC. Iran has had commerce in Western goods in recent years, but it has mostly been restricted to regime loyalists. The hiked prices of the Nike goods on sale in Tehran suggest they were smuggled in to the country, likely from Dubai or Turkey, with the cooperation, whether tacit or explicit, of the Iranian regime. The inflated prices for premium Western products also mean that only the country’s economic elite, which overlaps strongly with its political elite, can afford to buy them.
While such contradictions perturb Iran’s rapidly aging clerical leadership, they leave Rezaian and his fellow captives looking like bit part players in a much bigger puzzle.
The nuclear deal may well have made the diplomatic deals struck in the past considerably more difficult today. In 2010 and 2011, for instance, three American hikers detained by Iran were freed after Oman brokered their release. Then-President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had ordered them to be freed, only to be temporarily thwarted when the judiciary cancelled their release.
Iranian authorities, such as the IRGC and the judiciary, seem inclined to play the same game with Rouhani. Even talk of a prisoner exchange in the aftermath of the nuclear deal seems certain to provoke hard-liners dead set against any broader opening toward the United States.
“To the hard-liners that would look like another deal with America, and they don’t want to send that signal,” said a Western diplomat in Tehran.
The growing list of people languishing in prison, including dozens of Iranian nationals on political charges, continues to dent Rouhani’s “moderate” reputation ahead of parliamentary elections in February next year, seen as a crucial test of the president’s clout and his hopes of re-election in 2017. Though most Iranians see the judiciary rather than Rouhani as the culprit, he is a potential fall guy for the frustrated.
“The government has been backed into a corner and, whatever they do, Rouhani and his people face a problem in getting out of this mess that the judiciary has created,” the diplomat said.
But more hopeful Iranians say Rouhani retains public confidence and shouldn’t buckle in the face of provocations from the most anti-Western elements of the regime. If the hard-liners are routed in the February elections, Rouhani will have a stronger mandate to pursue his agenda.
“Ahmadinejad and his cronies are not coming back,” a veteran political analyst said. “The public mood has shifted and this is the hard-liners’ last hurrah. The worst thing Rouhani could do would be to kowtow to them. But for now at least, none of that helps Jason Rezaian.”
=================================================================================
Islam has never overcome its adolescent origin. G. E. Von Grunebaum put it differently. In Modern Islam (1962), he says, “Islam is inherently unprogressive.” “Islam,” he explains, “is not vitally interested in analytical self-understanding.” This describes an adolescent mentality.
More recently, Bernard Lewis, in “The Roots of Muslim Rage” (1990), portrays Islam's overweening arrogance and utter contempt for Western civilization.
Ethnocentrism goes well with adolescence: Muslims are not interested in what a non-Muslim says about mankind and the universe.
Contrast Maimonides: “The identity of an author, be he a prophet or a gentile, is of no concern [to us]. We don’t rely on [the personal authority of] the individual who made [such and such] statements … but on the proofs he presented and the reasons he made known.”
Islam is not really interested in truth, which is why the Taliban says “reason stinks of corruption.” Islam knows only “Islamic” truths. Hence, Grunebaum and Lewis say that any intelligent Western statesman will understand why Muslims, steeped in the mentality of the Qur’an, lack the ability to moderate their demands in disputes with non-Muslims.
This Islamic mind-set makes nonsense of Barack Obama’s “outreach” policy to the Iranians, just as it makes nonsense of Benjamin Netanyahu’s “reciprocity” policy toward the Palestinians. Indeed, it’s idiotic to insist on reciprocity with Muslims whose sacred scriptures call for your destruction.
Obama’s mindless posture, however, stamps the liberal West, whose leaders live in a cringing state of denial of Islam’s childishly proud, 14-century record of punctuated murder and mayhem!
There is but one adult conclusion to be drawn from this 14-century reality: Israel will not enjoy genuine peace with its neighbors so long as Muslim adults behave like adolescents! Syrian-born psychiatrist Dr. Wafa Sultan said as much when she said Islam must be “transformed,” not merely “reformed.” Let’s draw some “politically incorrect” conclusions.
First, as advised by theologian George Weigel, we must stop speaking of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam as the “three Abrahamic faiths” or the “three monotheisms.” These tropes, says Weigel, obscure rather than illuminate. They “ought to be retired.”
I would go further. Islam should no longer be dignified by the term “religion.” A basic aspect of religion is “altruism,” a concept wholly foreign to Islam. Altruism is intrinsically alien to Islam since its distorted theology rejects the Jewish concept of man’s creation in the image of God, the ultimate source of human dignity and of the moral unity of mankind.
Moreover, whereas the Genesis concept of imago Dei teaches Jews to emphasize the primacy of reason and persuasion in human affairs, the denial of this concept conditions Muslims to exalt the primacy of force and coercion. This syndrome can be traced to Islam’s bellicose, polytheistic origin, which prompts Muslims to behave like rival gangs of teenagers.
It follows from the preceding, and as indicated by Dr. Wafa Sultan, a Syrian-born psychiatrist living in Los Angeles, Islam can’t be reformed by moral suasion from within. She rightly says Islam must be “transformed,” hence transformed from without. But to transform Islam from without, certain measures must be taken to desacralize what Muslims worship, above all the Qur’an, which virtually no one thinks of doing, even though the Qur’an is the foundation of every Islamic regime, from Iran to the Palestinian Authority.
Focus, however, on what the Qur’an high lights, namely, the “enemy,” the “infidel.” We are not going to expunge this word from the Qur’an by “changing hearts and minds” via a “Voice of America.” As “infidels,” we are Islam’s enemy, which means that Islam is our enemy.
So let's be grown up about this enemy and cease behaving like adolescents, mindless of Islam’s history of genocide, which exceeds that of the Nazis. We have an unprecedented and implacable enemy.
We are not wide-eyed teenagers or sentimental old ladies. Nor are we academics that exaggerate the influence of ideas on behavior. We have a deadly enemy. Mankind has always thought of the enemy as one you must kill or destroy first, otherwise, sooner or later, he will kill or destroy you.
But living in effete liberal democracies, we do not think this way. “We are caught,” says Lou Harris, “in the midst of a conflict between those for whom the category of the enemy is essential to their way of organizing all human experience and those who have banished even the idea of the enemy.”
The conflict is between adolescents weaned on hatred and adolescents weaned on pap! We are being led by politicians who have made a career on pap.
2a)Here’s what all those terror terms actually mean
2a)Here’s what all those terror terms actually mean
After the attacks in Paris and California, the debate in America has again erupted over the appropriate lexicon for discussing terrorism. Here’s an extremely abridged, alphabetized list of words and phrases to avoid like a suspicious package in a crowded train station.
Became Radicalized: Jihadism isn’t a virus that one suddenly contracts. It’s not a passive event. Terrorists choose the path of religious violence. Relatedly, one cannot point to one specific location as a key factor for how someone “became radicalized.” Do we ask where murderers visited before they “became homicidal?”
Contained: One cannot contain terrorism or the ideology that powers it. Counterterrorism is, at best, about encumbering the enemy. This problem is spreading, and it continues to require new resources. Declaring it contained will come back to bite you.
Degrade and Destroy: Choose one. If you’re merely degrading a terrorist group, you have probably yet to determine how to destroy it. If you’re destroying the group, there’s no reason to degrade it. Why not just say you want to vanquish your enemy? That way, it’s not a multiple-choice quiz.
Moderate Gulf Arab Allies: This term is used to describe Saudi Arabia and Qatar, among others. Other than oil, the Saudis’ top export is Wahhabi Islam, which breeds generations of hate we have yet to even confront. Qatar is the piggy bank for the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas, and it supports a range of bad actors in Syria. But other than that, these countries are moderate.
New threat: Unless you’re a high-school freshman right now, none of this is new.
We’ve been at war with this radical ideology since Sept. 11, 2001. And that’s ignoring the first World Trade Center bombing (1993), Khobar Towers (1996) and the USS Cole (2000), to name a few. Don’t forget the Iranian revolution (1979), the Beirut embassy bombing (1983) and the Salman Rushdie affair (1989). Sure, the Islamic State is a new terror group, but it’s got a very familiar beard.
We’ve been at war with this radical ideology since Sept. 11, 2001. And that’s ignoring the first World Trade Center bombing (1993), Khobar Towers (1996) and the USS Cole (2000), to name a few. Don’t forget the Iranian revolution (1979), the Beirut embassy bombing (1983) and the Salman Rushdie affair (1989). Sure, the Islamic State is a new terror group, but it’s got a very familiar beard.
Un-Islamic: They call themselves the Islamic State. That should help clarify a few things. The good news is they only represent a minority of the faith. And their numbers may be dropping with every vile act they commit. But let’s not pretend people actually buy this is divorced from Islam.
Rebalancing our foreign policy: Also known as pivoting. These are euphemisms for retreat. Here’s a tip: Withdrawal doesn’t work as a strategy in war (or the bedroom). Here’s another: In the Middle East, you don’t get to choose your enemies. Your enemies choose you.
Rivalry between ISIS and al Qaeda: Sorry, but the reason jihadis in Syria are beheading Westerners isn’t to make some Yemeni jealous because he’s merely killing Shi’a. Sure, there may be competition among the groups. But they need no excuse to kill.
Root cause: If you think that the Iraq invasion, the Iraq withdrawal, Israeli settlements or American colonialism explains the current jihadi problem, you need to read a history book. You might as well blame jihad on the overabundance of gluten in our daily diets. Actually, if you think one thing is the root cause of any global phenomenon, you need to rethink how you think.
Shocking: See “New threat.”
Violent Extremism: For the love of hummus, make it stop. Nobody knows what this means. A black diamond snowboarder with a short temper can be described as a violent extremist. Can we be a little more honest about what we’re fighting?
We can’t win this alone: Maybe we shouldn’t, but we can. It might not be fun. We might lose friends and allies. We might lose blood and treasure, too. But we also have the largest and strongest military in the world.
War on Terror: A holdover from the George W. Bush presidency, this term may be the worst of them all. Terrorism is a tactic. It’s not an enemy or an ideology. This is akin to declaring war on strafing or sniping. Little wonder we haven’t won the war yet. We might want to make sure we know who we’re fighting before we devise a strategy on how to win.
Jonathan Schanzer is vice president for research at Foundation for Defense of Democracies
=================================================================================
3) Official source: Baby boy injured in Monday terror attack lost his leg
Both The Hadassah Medical Organization and the family of the 18-month-old boy - religious immigrants from France - who was seriously injured in Monday’s vehicular terrorist attack refused to confirm a report in the Jerusalem Post's sister paper Maariv that the toddlers leg had to be amputated under the knee.
The toddler is the only victim still being held at Hadassah University Medical Center in Jerusalem’s Ein Kerem.
Meanwhile, Shaare Zedek Medical Center reported on Tuesday that five of Monday's victims were hospitalized there.
One woman in moderate condition is attached to a respirator and ventilated in the intensive care unit. A man who was wounded and in moderate condition underwent surgery and is being treated in the orthopedics department. Another woman is in the ear-nose-and-throat department, and two others are under observation in good condition.
Eleven people were wounded in the vehicular terrorist attack carried out by an east Jerusalem Palestinian near the Central Bus Station in Jerusalem on Monday afternoon. Police shot dead the Palestinian assailant while he was still inside his car.
At approximately 3 p.m., the suspect, identified by Palestinian media as Abd al-Muhsam Hasuna, 24, of Beit Hanina, drove his vehicle into a large group of pedestrians waiting at a bus stop on Herzl Street, adjacent to the iconic Bridge of Strings, said Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld.
“Officers and security personnel patrolling the area responded immediately and neutralized the terrorist as he attempted to exit the car with an ax, killing him,” Rosenfeld said minutes following the attack. “Of the 11 injuries, one victim is a 68-yearold woman, and another is an infant. Both are in satisfactory condition; the nine others are in good condition.”
Rosenfeld said all of the victims were treated at the scene by Magen David Adom and ZAKA paramedics before being rushed to Jerusalem’s Shaare Zedek Medical Center and Hadassah University Medical Center in Ein Kerem.
By Tuesday morning, most of the wounded victims who were treated in the emergency room at Hadassah Ein Kerem were released, the hospital announced.
Two exceptions included the baby, and his mother, who was transferred to Hadassah during the night.
The toddler is the only victim still being held at Hadassah University Medical Center in Jerusalem’s Ein Kerem.
Meanwhile, Shaare Zedek Medical Center reported on Tuesday that five of Monday's victims were hospitalized there.
One woman in moderate condition is attached to a respirator and ventilated in the intensive care unit. A man who was wounded and in moderate condition underwent surgery and is being treated in the orthopedics department. Another woman is in the ear-nose-and-throat department, and two others are under observation in good condition.
Eleven people were wounded in the vehicular terrorist attack carried out by an east Jerusalem Palestinian near the Central Bus Station in Jerusalem on Monday afternoon. Police shot dead the Palestinian assailant while he was still inside his car.
At approximately 3 p.m., the suspect, identified by Palestinian media as Abd al-Muhsam Hasuna, 24, of Beit Hanina, drove his vehicle into a large group of pedestrians waiting at a bus stop on Herzl Street, adjacent to the iconic Bridge of Strings, said Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld.
“Officers and security personnel patrolling the area responded immediately and neutralized the terrorist as he attempted to exit the car with an ax, killing him,” Rosenfeld said minutes following the attack. “Of the 11 injuries, one victim is a 68-yearold woman, and another is an infant. Both are in satisfactory condition; the nine others are in good condition.”
Rosenfeld said all of the victims were treated at the scene by Magen David Adom and ZAKA paramedics before being rushed to Jerusalem’s Shaare Zedek Medical Center and Hadassah University Medical Center in Ein Kerem.
By Tuesday morning, most of the wounded victims who were treated in the emergency room at Hadassah Ein Kerem were released, the hospital announced.
Two exceptions included the baby, and his mother, who was transferred to Hadassah during the night.
3) Official source: Baby boy injured in Monday terror attack lost his leg
Family members refused to comment on the report.
Both The Hadassah Medical Organization and the family of the 18-month-old boy - religious immigrants from France - who was seriously injured in Monday’s vehicular terrorist attack refused to confirm a report in the Jerusalem Post's sister paper Maariv that the toddlers leg had to be amputated under the knee.
The toddler is the only victim still being held at Hadassah University Medical Center in Jerusalem’s Ein Kerem.
Meanwhile, Shaare Zedek Medical Center reported on Tuesday that five of Monday's victims were hospitalized there.
One woman in moderate condition is attached to a respirator and ventilated in the intensive care unit. A man who was wounded and in moderate condition underwent surgery and is being treated in the orthopedics department. Another woman is in the ear-nose-and-throat department, and two others are under observation in good condition.
Eleven people were wounded in the vehicular terrorist attack carried out by an east Jerusalem Palestinian near the Central Bus Station in Jerusalem on Monday afternoon. Police shot dead the Palestinian assailant while he was still inside his car.
At approximately 3 p.m., the suspect, identified by Palestinian media as Abd al-Muhsam Hasuna, 24, of Beit Hanina, drove his vehicle into a large group of pedestrians waiting at a bus stop on Herzl Street, adjacent to the iconic Bridge of Strings, said Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld.
“Officers and security personnel patrolling the area responded immediately and neutralized the terrorist as he attempted to exit the car with an ax, killing him,” Rosenfeld said minutes following the attack. “Of the 11 injuries, one victim is a 68-yearold woman, and another is an infant. Both are in satisfactory condition; the nine others are in good condition.”
Rosenfeld said all of the victims were treated at the scene by Magen David Adom and ZAKA paramedics before being rushed to Jerusalem’s Shaare Zedek Medical Center and Hadassah University Medical Center in Ein Kerem.
By Tuesday morning, most of the wounded victims who were treated in the emergency room at Hadassah Ein Kerem were released, the hospital announced.
Two exceptions included the baby, and his mother, who was transferred to Hadassah during the night.
The toddler is the only victim still being held at Hadassah University Medical Center in Jerusalem’s Ein Kerem.
Meanwhile, Shaare Zedek Medical Center reported on Tuesday that five of Monday's victims were hospitalized there.
One woman in moderate condition is attached to a respirator and ventilated in the intensive care unit. A man who was wounded and in moderate condition underwent surgery and is being treated in the orthopedics department. Another woman is in the ear-nose-and-throat department, and two others are under observation in good condition.
Eleven people were wounded in the vehicular terrorist attack carried out by an east Jerusalem Palestinian near the Central Bus Station in Jerusalem on Monday afternoon. Police shot dead the Palestinian assailant while he was still inside his car.
At approximately 3 p.m., the suspect, identified by Palestinian media as Abd al-Muhsam Hasuna, 24, of Beit Hanina, drove his vehicle into a large group of pedestrians waiting at a bus stop on Herzl Street, adjacent to the iconic Bridge of Strings, said Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld.
“Officers and security personnel patrolling the area responded immediately and neutralized the terrorist as he attempted to exit the car with an ax, killing him,” Rosenfeld said minutes following the attack. “Of the 11 injuries, one victim is a 68-yearold woman, and another is an infant. Both are in satisfactory condition; the nine others are in good condition.”
Rosenfeld said all of the victims were treated at the scene by Magen David Adom and ZAKA paramedics before being rushed to Jerusalem’s Shaare Zedek Medical Center and Hadassah University Medical Center in Ein Kerem.
By Tuesday morning, most of the wounded victims who were treated in the emergency room at Hadassah Ein Kerem were released, the hospital announced.
Two exceptions included the baby, and his mother, who was transferred to Hadassah during the night.
=======================================================
No comments:
Post a Comment