Showdown with Olmert over Mercaz HaRav Terrorist
The showdown with Olmert at Jabel Mukaber (in time may that name be blotted out) in Yersuahalyim is yet another road sign in the implosion of a government helpless to fight terror and yet determined to crush its own political opposition. Like every gang of left wingers who have scrabbled to power on lies and deceit and the backing of their media friends, they are anti-democratic and incompetent at everything but stealing the country blind and shrieking constantly about the dangers of right wing extremism.
The reality of their crimes though is creeping up on them and not Shas or any of their other partners in crime will be able to keep them in power forever. It is a race between the survival of Israel and the eviction of Olmert, Barak, Ovadya Yosef and the rest of that gang of liars, thieves and appeasers from power.
More on Jebl Mukaber and the support for terrorism.
On Monday afternoon, four days after Ala Abu Dhaim waged mass slaughter at Mercaz Harav Yeshiva before being killed by an IDF soldier and police, the succa-like mourning tent that the prosperous Palestinian family has put up around the balcony is hung with a couple of dozen posters of the terrorist. With the golden Dome of the Rock as background, the photo shows him young, clean-cut, smiling.
"The Islamic movement of Jebl Mukaber in Al-Kuds [Jerusalem] announces that the shahid [martyr] Ala Abu Dhaim has given his soul in a heroic act," the posters read.
The schools, public organizations and many of the stores in this Muslim village of about 25,000, which at certain points sits very literally a stone's throw from the Jewish neighborhood of Armon Hanatziv (East Talpiot), are closed in mourning and solidarity with the murderer's family... the demonstrative shutdown of public life in the village since Ala Abu Dhaim walked into Mercaz Harav and, with a assault rifle and two handguns, fired more than 500 bullets at the cowering yeshiva boys, killing eight of them and wounding nine.
Sitting in my car, Jamal says that from talking with "dozens and even hundreds" of Jerusalem Arabs in different homes, at work, at cafes, in the street and from reading and hearing comments in the local and foreign Arab media, he finds overwhelming support for Abu Dhaim's atrocity.
"Ala has become a hero," he says. "Not just in Jebl Mukaber, but throughout the Palestinian territories and the Arab world."
An acquaintance told him of hearing an Arabic radio show in which Arab girls called in and said that if Abu Dhaim had survived, they'd marry him. "I didn't hear that myself, but I believe it," says Jamal.
Most Arabs seem to feel outright pride over Abu Dhaim, Jamal observes. This was the boldest Palestinian attack on Israel in a long time. "Of course they won't say this publicly or on camera, but when they're sitting together, watching the news, you see in their reactions that they're really proud of it. I'm talking about ordinary people, and I'm sure it's the same with Palestinian academics and journalists - if they aren't proud, they aren't opposed, either.
For example, says Jamal, the terrorist's father, Hisham Abu Dhaim, is a surveying engineer "who does a lot of work for the Jerusalem Municipality. I know him very well. He has about twice as many Israeli friends as Palestinian friends."
The municipality, however, denies the connection. "Hisham Abu Dhaim of Jebl Mukaber does not do work for the Jerusalem Municipality. He is a private building contractor," the city maintains.
The name Jebl Mukaber means "the hill of the one who says Allahu akbar - God is great," says Cohen. The name comes from the traditional belief that Omar ibn el-Khattab, who conquered Jerusalem for Islam in the seventh century, uttered the words when he first saw Jerusalem from a hill where the village now stands.