Terrorists Using Primitive Methods

Last night's Security Zone program on Army Radio, with Tali Lipkin Shachak, discussed the dual issues of nuclear and conventional threats to Israel's security.

At one point in the program they referred to the current horrors of knife and vehicle attacks by Palestinian terrorist as "primitive". Certainly when compared with the Iranian Nuclear Threat, etc.

Spontaneous attacks by people who, generally, do not have previous records of terror activities, or even training, armed with a kitchen knife (or even scissors) or simply aiming their car at a group of pedestrians and running them down, are methods which could have been practiced hundreds or even thousands of years ago (perhaps a horse instead of a car). Yes, they are primitive.

Additionally, they have tended to aim for 'hard' targets, such as soldiers, armed security guards and 'settlers' (many of whom are armed).

With promises of a direct path to heaven, these terrorists have a death-wish.

Not surprisingly therefore, their record for getting killed is high, and of 'successfully' murdering Jews is low.

This  rather irrational formula has the odds very much stacked against the terrorists.

So far over 90 Palestinians have died, mainly the terrorists, and 22 Jews were tragically murdered.

While this is horrific, compare this, for example, with the second intifada, where trained operatives armed with manufactured explosives, supported by organizations, money and infrastructure, would blow up restaurants and buses full of civilians - costing over 1000 Israeli lives.

While mourning for our tragic losses, stamping down decisively on inciters and killing/neutralising any would-be terrorists, we should bear in mind that things could be, and indeed have been, much worse.