UN-Truth

Standing on Jaffa Road with a group of journalists waiting for transport to Tel Aviv for a briefing by senior former Israeli military analysts about “Alternatives to a Two-State Solution”, we saw first a black security motorcycle with two black-helmeted and clothed men riding on it, racing in the direction of the Central Bus Station. Then, a stream of other cars. Police cars. Military cars. White vans with blackened windows. Even a blue rented Eldan (civilian sedan) car. All packed with uniformed Israeli personnel, and careening around. It was clearly not, as some of the journalists present initially speculated, an escorted VIP convoy.

Then, another motorcycle, coming from the street right beside us, with a yellow and red medical case on the back seat.

Something bad — probably very bad — was clearly happening.

It was minutes before the best-connected journalists got the first SMS messages from news alert services that there had been an attack in downtown Jerusalem, not far away from where we were standing.

One or two colleagues abandoned the trip to cover the story.

The rest of us, who were working in teams with other staff, got on the bus.

The driver had to change the route to get out of Jerusalem — the fastest was would have been to go straight ahead on Jaffa Road, in the direction of the attack (though we did not know exactly what had happened, or where it took place at that time).

The checkpoint on Road 443 was very tight, and traffic was backed up there, as soldiers and border police checked every vehicle.

On the way, the bus driver had Israeli radio broadcasting news bulletins, and the updates were announced on the loudspeaker system of the bus.

And journalists with good connections got calls from their colleagues.

It was a Palestinian on a tractor.
(In downtown Jerusalem?)

Then, it was a Palestinian who had hijacked a tractor.

Then, it was a Palestinian on a bulldozer (also called “traktor” in Hebrew) that he had seized to make a deliberate terror attack on Jews.

Then, reports that the driver/attacker had been shot dead.

Then, reports of initial casualties — two critical injuries, then two deaths, then three.

Not for one instant did anyone think this might — just possibly might — have been an accident.
That the driver might have been lost control of his vehicle, and then panicked.

No, everyone in Israel immediately believed without a shadow of a doubt that this was a deliberate terror attack on Jews because they were Jews.

It is now clear that this was, somehow, for some reason, a deadly rampage.

MORE TO COME LATER …

Postscript: I am sorry I could never revisit this post.

Filed under: Human Rights, Israel, Journalism and Journalists, Middle East Peace Process, Palestine & Palestinians