6 | APRIL 21 • 2022 

PURELY COMMENTARY

1942 - 2022

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opinion
Fear Terrorism, Not the Israelis 
Defending Against It
A

t a Tel Aviv cafe on 
the morning of April 
11, I overheard a 
couple talking about the ter-
rorist surge responsible for the 
fact that the normally packed 
establishment 
was as relatively 
empty as the 
adjacent Carmel 
Market.
On such 
a beautiful 
day, and with 
Passover fast 
approaching, both venues 
ought to have been teeming 
with Israelis taking a time out 
from grocery shopping to sip 
espresso in the sun. But the 
shooting spree the week before 
at one of White City’s popular 
pubs, as well as other deadly 
attacks by Palestinians and 

like-minded Arab Israelis, has 
people on edge.
This makes perfect sense. 
Less logical was the conclu-
sion that the husband and wife 
reached about the perilous 
situation.
In their view, the greatest 
threat to their safety at the 
moment is not a potential 
assault from residents of the 
Palestinian Authority or their 
Arab-Israeli brethren. The 
danger lies, rather, in the slip-
pery trigger fingers of Israeli 
security forces and members 
of the general public in pos-
session of firearms.
The conversation turned 
to Prime Minister Naftali 
Bennett’s recent call on 
licensed gun owners to carry 
their weapons. That this 
directive came on the heels of 
heroic acts by armed civilians 

against terrorists on a rampage 
didn’t enter the discussion.
They cited two examples, 
both of which occurred on 
April 10, to justify their fears. 
The first involved the shoot-
ing to death of an unarmed 
Palestinian woman in the 
town of Husan. The second 

was the killing of a Jewish-
Israeli man at an intersection 
near Ashkelon.
It’s not clear whether the 
spouses had bothered to learn 
the details of each case. Their 
unified position, which they 
indicated by nodding and 

Ruthie Blum
JNS.org
Israelis light memorial candles at the site of the April 7, 2022, terrorist 
attack in Tel Aviv. 

PHOTO BY NOAM REVKIN FENTON/FLASH90/JNS.ORG

continued on page 10

