What Happens When a People Have Had Enough!

Today another bulldozer drove through a street in Jerusalem, killing none but injuring 16. These attacks are coordinated by Hamas and meant to terrorize the people of Jerusalem into leaving the city.

It was bound to happen that Israelis would finally have enough. For a few hours after the Palestinian attack, ultra-orthodox Jews attempted to lynch two Palestinians, Army Radio reported.

The incident occurred in the Makor Baruch neighborhood, known for its unlikely mix of religious study institutions and orthodox residents, and stores selling construction materials and power tools, carpentries, and other such outlets which draw many Arab shoppers and employees.

According to eye witnesses, two battered and bleeding Palestinians barged into the yard of a family sitting Shiva [the Jewish week of mourning], followed by a raging mob.

The family in the house protected the Palestinians and repelled the mob, which was comprised of furious yeshiva students.

A member of the family said yeshiva students yelled at him from the balcony of the yeshiva, overlooking the house, calling to "kill Jews who protect Arabs."

The two east Jerusalem residents were taken to Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem for treatment.

After so many years of attacks by Palestinians, the exchange of Samir Kuntar, who was convicted of killing a 4-year-old girl, her father, and two police officers in 1979, and the daily attacks upon the City of Sderot and the Western Negev is it any wonder that the average Israeli man and woman is fed up with it.

Israeli TV news programs Sunday night aired distressing video footage. It showed a Palestinian who had been arrested, blindfolded and handcuffed during rioting against the security barrier apparently being shot with a rubber bullet, at practically point-blank range.

As a lieutenant-colonel positions the man, identified as Ashraf Abu Rahma, 27, near the door of an army jeep, a soldier is seen taking aim at him. We hear a shot, but the film clip is not continuous so we do not actually see the shooting. Footage resumes with Abu Rahma on the ground.

If these images accurately portray what happened, Israelis can only be disheartened by the brutality of the perpetrators, and by the lack of discipline such cruelty and stupidity exposes. If guilty, those involved should be punished appropriately.

Most people would have run to another country, but being Jews, there are very few nations to run to. Plus Israel is the only Jewish nation in the world, and Israelis have a stubborn streak. And yet there is a different side to Israelis. For when the mob tried to lynch the 2 Palestinians, Israelis came to their rescue.

The family that protected them remained mostly unscathed but one of its members was also attacked. "They would have killed me if they could," he said. The two men had told him the altercation began after an argument they had with a store owner drew some bystanders who within minutes intervened and started beating the Arabs.

Waiting for the fury to subside, the man and his son led the Arabs to an alleyway so that they could escape.

But then, the man recounted, hundreds of yeshiva students stormed after the two, beating them "to a pulp," the man said. Protecting them with his own body, he was confronted by two haredi men, one of whom was brandishing a 20 centimeter-long knife.

He was wounded in his abdomen, at which point the crowd began to disperse and large police forces arrived.

"All hell broke loose. After the terror attack, the public's blood boiled, and people became hot-headed, insane. These people that call themselves religious almost killed me and the two Palestinians. I was raised to defend any person. Luckily for me, I'm strong, but [if I would be stabbed] one centimeter above or below, and this would become a murder," the man said.

If these were 2 Jews and the mob was Palestinian, not one person would have come to their rescue and the mob would have handed out sweets after the killings. A big difference in peoples. One being civilized (even when a group of them become a maddening mob) and the other being vicious savages.