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Israel and Islam: Brit Terror Attack Exposes Stark Contrast

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JERUSALEM, Israel – Wednesday's deadly terror attack in London revealed the stark differences between how Israelis respond to terrorism, compared with supporters of the Islamic State.

The knife-wielding terrorist rammed his vehicle into a group of pedestrians on Westminster Bridge before stabbing a policeman to death near the parliament building, where he was shot dead.

Following the attack, Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely extended condolences to the British people.

"Israel expresses its deep shock at the terror attack in London today and its solidarity with the victims and with the people and government of Great Britain. Terror is terror wherever it occurs and we will fight it relentlessly," she said in a statement.

Though no group claimed responsibility for the attack, ISIS supporters took to social media, calling it "blessed," The Telegraph, reported.  

One tweet in the report included a poster of Big Ben under attack, with the headline, "Soon our battle on your land not started yet be upon you only waiting."

Hotovely's statement expressed the sentiments of many Israelis, all too familiar with stabbings, drive-by shootings and vehicular attacks.

In Jerusalem, it began with bulldozer attacks in 2008 and 2009. Vehicular attacks followed suit. During most of 2015, car ramming and stabbing attacks took place nearly every day. By year's end more than 25 Israeli were killed.

In November 2014, CBN News reported on how Palestinian terrorists began employing these tactics.  

When the government changed the rules, allowing Israeli security personnel to shoot to kill instead of injure, the attacks began to lessen. Despite knowing they would be honored as martyrs by the Palestinian governments in Ramallah and the Gaza Strip, the attacks waned though they didn't stop.

In January of this year, a Palestinian Arab rammed his truck into a group Israeli soldiers, killing four and injuring more than a dozen others, several critically. Hamas praised the attack, calling it "heroic."

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu likened the attack to those inspired by ISIS.

"This is part of the same ongoing battle against this global scourge of the new terrorism. We can only fight it together, but we have to fight it, and we will," Netanyahu said.

In a speech on the steps of her official residence, British Prime Minister Theresa May vowed that Great Britain will not be defeated by the "sick and depraved terrorist attack."

The location of the attack, she said, "was no accident."

"The terrorist chose to strike at the heart of our capital where people of all nationalities, religions and cultures come together to celebrate the values of liberty, democracy and freedom of speech," she said. "Any attempt to defeat those values through violence and terror is doomed."

 

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About The Author

Tzippe
Barrow

From her perch high atop the mountains surrounding Jerusalem, Tzippe Barrow tries to provide a bird’s eye view of events unfolding in her country. Tzippe’s parents were born to Russian Jewish immigrants, who fled the czar’s pogroms to make a new life in America. As a teenager, Tzippe wanted to spend a summer in Israel, but her parents, sensing the very real possibility that she might want to live there, sent her and her sister to Switzerland instead. Twenty years later, the Lord opened the door to visit the ancient homeland of her people.