The terrorist attacks in Jerusalem on Wednesday morning were a stark reminder that there are real challenges and threats Israel needs to confront in the wake of this month’s elections.
In a gruesome scene that we’ve come to know all too well – through decades of Palestinian terrorism but in particular during the Second Intifada – one person was killed and 19 were wounded in two explosions at bus stops at separate entrances to Jerusalem, in what police are treating as a coordinated double terrorist attack.
The fatality was identified as 16-year-old Aryeh Shechopek, who was on his way to a yeshiva in a nearby community when the explosion occurred. The Canadian citizen lived in the capital’s Har Nof neighborhood.
While headlines in recent weeks have focused largely on what portfolio Bezalel Smotrich will get and what legislation will be needed to ensure that Shas chairman Arye Deri can serve as a minister, the explosions that rocked the entrance to Jerusalem were a reminder that Palestinian terrorism is still rearing its head. It is here, it is real and it is deadly.
The attacks were far more sophisticated than the type of terrorism that Israel has grown accustomed to in recent years. This was not a lone attacker who took a knife, an assault rifle, or a car and embarked on a terrorist rampage like we have seen happen far too frequently in recent weeks.
Attacks that are carried out by lone attackers are usually more difficult to thwart. They can be perpetrated by people who wake up one morning and decide to try and kill some Jews without any prior warning. An attack like the one that took place on Wednesday is something else.
This was an attack that required the involvement of a number of people – to assemble the bombs and obtain the necessary ingredients, smuggle the bombs into Israel and plant them next to their targets.
This is already what is called “terrorist infrastructure,” the kind that likely is affiliated with a known organization, which should have been on the Israeli intelligence community’s watch list.
What this also shows is the need to focus now on establishing a government. The sooner there is a stable government in Jerusalem the sooner Israel will be able to create a clear strategy for how to stop the terrorist wave that is not going away.
Fights about ministries and portfolios
Fights about ministries and portfolios might interest the politicians who are supposed to occupy those offices, but they are not of real interest to Israelis, who want to see safe streets and to know that their children – like Shechopek – are safe when they stand at a bus stop waiting to go to school.
Comments like the one made by an Army Radio reporter on Wednesday – that the attack was connected to the pending appointment of Itamar Ben-Gvir as the next public security minister – do not do any good. Neither are appearances at the scene soon after the crime by Ben-Gvir, who promised as presumptive internal security minister to wield an iron fist against terrorism.
After 75 years of statehood that has been marred by wars and terrorist attacks, we do not need to look for excuses for why Arab terrorists want to try and kill Israeli Jews. This has been part of the Israeli story since it was created as an independent state and will, sadly, likely continue as long as some of our neighbors refuse to come to terms with our existence here.
There was terrorism when there were left-wing governments in power and there was terrorism when there were right-wing governments. Israelis have not forgotten, for example, how Benjamin Netanyahu promised to topple Hamas in the Gaza Strip during an election campaign in 2009 and how through 12 consecutive years as prime minister he refrained from ordering the IDF to do so.
Netanyahu was quick to respond to Wednesday’s attack, saying his administration would once again make the country safe. What Israelis need right now is security, not boasting of how the incoming government is going to do things differently. Let’s hope they can put their actions where their mouths are.