Israel Matzav

A European-trained murderer

I already noted on Wednesday that the IDF soldier who was murdered at Tapuach Junction on Wednesday afternoon was murdered by a 'Palestinian policeman.' More details have come out regarding the murderer and they're not pretty and don't bode well for the possibility of giving any kind of security control to 'Palestinians' in Judea and Samaria. The murderer was a high ranking officer in the 'Palestinian police.'

IDF sources said it appeared Hatib had acted alone and had lain in wait for a military target, since he had waited on the side of the road when he could have attacked Israelis at a nearby hitchhiking post.

Khatib is survived by parents and five siblings. Several years ago, his uncle was killed in action while serving in the army and during the Second Lebanon War, his aunt was killed when a Katyusha rocket fired by Hizbullah hit her house.

IDF sources said the attacker was the head of bureau for the PA’s Ramallah police chief. IDF sources said that the PA police were trained by a European Union organization, based in Ramallah, called the EUPOL COPPS (the EU Police Co-ordinating Office for Palestinian Police Support).

EUPOL COPPS representatives were unavailable for comment.

Brig.-Gen. Yoav Mordechai, head of the Civil Administration of Judea and Samaria, spoke with senior PA officials and updated them on the attack. The Palestinians told Mordechai that they planned to conduct their own independent investigation into the incident.

Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad denounced the attack and said it “conflicts with our national interests.” He pledged to take steps to prevent such incidents in the future, while endorsing “peaceful resistance” against settlements and the security barrier.

Note Fayyad's reaction: It's not that the attack is wrong because it's wrong to murder people in cold blood or because it's wrong for 'Palestinians' to attack Jews. It's wrong because it 'conflicts with our national interests.' That's the same kind of 'condemnation' of terror attacks that we got from Yasser Arafat in the '90's. It says "It's okay to attack Jews, but please coordinate your attacks with us so that we don't look bad." All the European training in the world - even if it is well-intentioned (about which I have my doubts) - is not going to make it safe for Israel to give any 'Palestinian' entity security control over any significant part of Judea and Samaria unless and until they can bring themselves to say that murdering Jews and Israelis (the victim was a Druze soldier and was not Jewish) is wrong - and not just because it 'conflicts with their national interests.'

I don't believe the 'Palestinians' are capable of saying that with a straight face and I don't believe they ever will be - certainly not in our lifetimes. And I have my doubts about the Europeans as well.

Read the whole thing.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 12:21 PM