Murder by stoning: Palestinian terrorists’ forgotten weapon
By Stephen M. Flatow/JNS.org
The weapons used by Palestinian terrorists against Jews are well known: suicide bombs,
like the one that killed my daughter Alisa in 1995; knives, like the ones used to slaughter
the Fogel family in Itamar two years ago; rifles, like the one used in the sniper shooting
of the infant Shalhevet Pass in Hebron in 2001. Sometimes we forget that there is another
terrorist weapon that can be lethal: the rock. Last week, there were two reminders of that
tragic fact.
One of the terrorists released by the Israeli government last week was Taktuk Ibrahim,
who was serving a sentence of life imprisonment for his participation in the murder of a
24 year-old reserve soldier, Binyamin Meisner. In February 1989, Ibrahim and several
fellow terrorists lured Meisner into an alley in Nablus, where they ambushed him and
stoned him to death. Binyamin and his family had immigrated to Israel from Argentina.
They lived in the town of Kiryat Tivon, where Binyamin was the star of the local water
polo team.
By coincidence, on the same day that Meisner’s killer went free, an Israeli military court
convicted one of the participants in the 2011 murder-by-stoning of Asher Palmer and his
11-month-old son, Yonatan. Ali Sa’ada and his friend Waal al-Arjeh, a member of the
Palestinian Authority security forces, carried out the attack in September 2011. Three
fellow terrorists helped with the planning. They decided to throw rocks from a moving
car at an Israeli car traveling in the opposite direction, because the combined speed of the
vehicles would significantly increase the damage they could do.
Their target, Asher Palmer, an American citizen, was driving on Highway 60, not far
from his home in Kiryat Arba. Yonatan was strapped in a baby seat in the back. They
were on their way to meet Asher’s pregnant wife when the terrorists struck. The rocks
smashed through the front windshield, hitting Asher directly in the head and causing the
car to crash, killing both father and son. A Palestinian passerby, Shehada Shatat,
witnessed the attack. Instead of calling for medical assistance, he stole Asher's wallet and
gun, and fled the scene.
At least 11 other Israelis have been murdered by Palestinian rock-throwers. In 1983,
Esther Ohana, 20, was on her way to her wedding rehearsal when the car in which she
was riding was attacked by rocks, near Hebron. One struck Esther in the head, killing
her. In 1990, a 4-year-old Arab boy was killed when he was hit in the head by a rock
thrown by Palestinians who mistakenly thought the car in which he was riding was an
Israeli auto. Eleven year-old Chava Wechsberg was a passenger in a car traveling in the
Gush Etzion region in 1993, when Arab rock-throwers attacked, causing the car to crash;
Chava was killed.
Many other Israelis have suffered severe injuries from Palestinian rocks. In fact, not long
before Binyamin Meisner was stoned to death in that Nablus alley, another young soldier,
20 year-old Dan Cohen, was permanently paralyzed after being struck in the head and
neck by rock-throwers on the very same street.
Most Americans have no trouble recognizing the lethal danger of rock-throwing. Recall
the case of three drunken teenagers who threw rocks at cars on the Capital Beltway in
Washington, D.C., in 1990. Thirty drivers or passengers were wounded, including a girl
who suffered irreversible brain damage. The attackers were convicted of “assault with
intent to murder” and each sentenced to 40 years in prison. An editorial in the
Washington Post at the time correctly asked, “What’s the difference between assault with
a deadly weapon—a shooting—and assault with rocks that hit cars at potentially lethal
speeds?”
There is no difference, of course, to any reasonable person. But there’s a very big
difference to New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman and some of his
colleagues. In an April 2012 column, Friedman endorsed what he called “nonviolent
resistance by Palestinians”—and then listed boycotts, hunger strikes, and rock-throwing
as examples of such “resistance.”
A New York Times Sunday magazine cover story in March 2013 glorified the Arab
village of Nabi Saleh as a center of “unarmed resistance.” Amidst his cheerleading for
brave young Arab “demonstrators” confronting cruel Israeli soldiers, author Ben
Ehrenreich mentioned, in passing that “unarmed” activity includes throwing rocks or, as
he put it, “throwing stones while dodging tear-gas canisters and rubber-coated bullets.”
The Times’s bureau chief in Israel, Jodi Rudoren, followed in August with a page one
story depicting a heroic Arab teenager who seemingly has no choice but to throw rocks at
Israelis—it’s a “rite of passage,” according to Rudoren. Her article was headlined “‘My
Hobby is Throwing Stones.’”
Rock-throwing is not non-violent. It’s not unarmed resistance. It’s not a “hobby,” a word
which conjures up images of playing chess or collecting baseball cards. It’s attempted
murder. Last week’s release of Binyamin Meisner’s rock-throwing killer, and the
conviction of one of the Palmers’ rock-throwing killers, is a grim reminder of that.
Stephen M. Flatow is an attorney who lives in New Jersey. His daughter, Alisa, was
killed in a Palestinian suicide bombing in 1995.