Lone-Wolf Attacks in Israel?

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Lone-Wolf Attacks in Israel?

The latest spike in violence in Israel has garnered a new name from the left-wing media: “lone-wolf” attacks. Further peddling the agenda of the biased media, this term is deceitful at best, murderous at worst.

Here is a quick update of attacks this month in Israel:

  • An Israel Defense Force (idf) soldier was stabbed in Tel Aviv.
  • Hours later, a woman was stabbed to death and two others were wounded in the same attack.
  • A woman and child were killed in a hit-and-run.
  • Three idf soldiers were seriously injured by another hit-and-run.
  • Most recently, five Jews were killed by shooting or being hacked to death in a synagogue.
  • All these attacks were perpetrated by Palestinians. All happened during November.

    Yet the news media was quick to label the latest murders as a “lone-wolf” attack. Such has been the predictable terminology with each event, despite the obvious similarities in both perpetrators and their means of killing.

    Using the term “lone wolf” creates a scapegoat out of the murderers, alleviating blame from the shoulders of those it should rightly be placed upon: the Palestinian leadership.

    Consider the flaw in the term “lone wolf.” Taken from nature, a lone wolf is one driven from the pack. Typically, younger wolves are driven out by the breeding pair, forced to go it alone until they are accepted into a pack. This is the problem: The “lone wolves” that carried out the attacks in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv this month are not alone.

    As a matter of fact, they have the full support of the wolf pack!

    Take the latest incident. What did Hamas do when the murders took place? It cheered and handed out candy in the streets! Does that sound like these murderers were shunned or driven from the pack? One Hamas spokesman responded to the attack by saying it was “heroic” and that “we have the full right to revenge for the blood of our martyrs in all possible means.” Notice the term “we.” This isn’t some one-off occasion by a single person.

    “We” is plural. “We” refers to a group. Hamas ties itself to the attacks at the very least by condoning and inciting violence against Israel—not to mention participating in any way it can.

    That said, it may well be that the two individuals involved didn’t plan their attacks in conjunction with Hamas. This, however, doesn’t deny that this attack is just one of a series of attacks by different wolves.

    Let’s go back to the original lone wolf. In the wild, a lone wolf doesn’t hunt big game. It can’t bring down an elk by itself. A pack, however, is a different story. This is what we are seeing in Jerusalem. It may be that individual wolves are attacking, but they are by no means alone. And they are all after the same prey: Israel.

    The affiliations these murderers have to radical Muslim groups such as Hamas—coupled with the collective, ultimate goal of destroying Israel—moves these attacks out of the “lone wolf” status.

    While Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas can claim he doesn’t support the bloodshed we saw on Tuesday, his own advisers say otherwise. In a statement on Palestinian Media Watch, Abbas’s adviser, Mahmoud al Habbash, said, “We are behind them. The leadership is with them …. [W]e are with them in every movement, in every action and every deed.” Doesn’t that sound to you like the howl of a pack, not a lone wolf?

    The term “lone wolf” has been peddled constantly by the news media in the latest violence in Israel. It works to avoid the subject of Palestinian extremists within the very organizations the United States and other Western nations are attempting to work with. The U.S., in particular, has been pushing for a two-state solution between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. To acknowledge that the latest attacks are anything but “lone-wolf” attacks would be to admit that the PA and similar groups are not interested in peaceful negotiations—just the destruction of Israel.

    If you want to know more about the wolf pack attacks on Israel, read our article “A Third Intifada in Jerusalem—Happening Now?