Railing at the ‘Jewish KKK’ and reviling terrorism

Two manifestations of violent extremism, one Arab and the other Jewish and both in Jerusalem, find themselves on the front pages of the Hebrew press on Thursday. The papers are outraged by a deadly stabbing outside the Old City’s Jaffa Gate in which one of the two fatalities was killed by police gunfire, and appalled by a video of right-wing extremists at a wedding celebrating the death of a baby killed in a suspected Jewish terror attack.

The two victims killed in the Jaffa Gate attack were Reuben Birmajer, 46, and Ofer Ben Ari, 45, both from the Jerusalem area. Birmajer, the papers report, was an Argentinian-born rabbi, father of seven, who taught at a yeshiva in the Old City. Haaretz reports he was on his way home from work when he was stabbed outside the Old City walls. Ben Ari, a resident of Har Homa and father of two, got out of his car when he saw the attack taking place. His family tells Haaretz that he exited the vehicle in order to help and was accidentally shot by one of the Border Police officers who killed the two terrorists involved. His daughter is quoted by the paper telling Walla news that “it’s incomprehensible. They just murdered him. It’s important for you to know that the policewomen shot my father in order to kill the terrorist… he wasn’t a threat.”

According to Israel Hayom, the family was incensed by the circumstances of Ben Ari’s death, and says “there were some who called for an investigation to see if [Israeli] forces erred in thinking he was one of the terrorists and shot him, causing his death.”

Yedioth Ahronoth reports on the attack by marking the day as the 100th straight day of terrorism since violence reignited at the end of September, warning that “and there’s no end in sight.” The paper notes that it’s unclear whether Ben Ari was stabbed as well, but the other papers make note of the fact that he died of a gunshot wound. The family reportedly asked initially for an autopsy, but later rescinded the request.

“I want to know what killed him,” his widow Yifat tells the paper. “I want to know what distance he was shot at, I want to know everything.” Police said they will investigate the incident.

A video published on Channel 10 Wednesday night gets all kinds of hackles up in the papers the next morning after politicians lambasted the spectacle: right-wing extremists at a wedding singing a song of vengeance, dancing with guns, knives and a Molotov cocktail and stabbing the photo of Ali Dawabsha, an 18-month-old killed in a suspected Jewish terror attack in the West Bank village of Duma in July.

Israel Hayom and Yedioth Ahronoth both call the video “the wedding of hate” in their ever-so-clever headlines. Israel Hayom leads with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s condemnation of the participants’ actions as “a threat to Israeli society and Israeli security.” It follows up with similar excoriations by senior Likud party members and the chief rabbi of Israel.

Haaretz reports that the police intend to investigate those who brandished weapons unsafely and possibly strip them of their license.

Yedioth Ahronoth talks to one of the guests at the wedding who witnessed firsthand what the video showed. “These youngsters were really hate-washed,” he says. “I’ve been coming to weddings like this for years, and these songs keep getting repeated — but weapons and stabbing photos of the baby Ali Dawabsha was really crossing a red line.”

The manager of the wedding hall where the celebration took place tells the paper that he’s worried by such behavior. “The police knew about the wedding, and undercover cops were there throughout who witnessed it all,” the anonymous owner says. “There are dozens of weddings like this each month, and always after the older folks leave the youths remain, the youths — they start dancing and with these songs. Sometimes they arrest them afterwards, too.”

Haaretz also reports that Jewish Home leader Naftali Bennett responded to critics of the Shin Bet’s interrogation of the suspects in the Duma firebombing, and allegations of torture, saying the methods used by investigators were no different for Jewish terror suspects than for Palestinian ones.

Yoaz Hendel, a former senior adviser to Netanyahu, writes in a Yedioth Ahronoth op-ed that the extremists in the film are “young Jews who look like Hamas people” and “the Jewish Ku Klux Klan.” He says that with all the Palestinian terror, “the last thing the security forces need is the addition of Jewish terror in the struggle.”

“For too long the right has ignored this problem,” he says. “They preferred not to deal with it. This was a fateful mistake. [The extremists] became a fire that threatens to consume [the right’s] entire good part.”