Issue link: http://viewer.e-digitaledition.com/i/628707
The Terror Of One How Israelis are living with the new "lone wolf " terror attacks. T he news alert flashed across the iPhone screen on my way to Kabbalat Shabbat services. Even though Shabbat was already in, I took a peek and learned that security forces had located 29-year-old Nishat Milchem in the Arab-Israeli village of Arara and shot him dead. Our Friday night services include a part where congregants are encouraged to meditate for a few moments on events of the week gone by; to exhale the past week and inhale the Shabbat. It was a dis- tinct collective exhala- tion of relief I sensed among those of us who knew that the nationwide manhunt for the Tel Aviv terrorist was over. But it's not over. As I write these words, a Jerusalem Post alert comes across my screen for Beit Shemesh, where a police manhunt is under way for at least one Palestinian who reportedly stabbed a young Israeli outside a grocery store after a bus driver refused to allow them to board. There's no resolution to this new kind of "lone wolf " terror. In the last few months, dozens of Israelis have been killed and wounded in car rammings, stabbings and, as in the Milhem attack, shooting at civilian targets. The attacks take place on streets, in buses, at busy intersections; in middle-class neighbor- hoods in quiet suburbs; anywhere and everywhere. People call them "random," but they are not. They are carried out by Muslims with access to illegal weapons and weapons of opportunity who set out to kill Israeli Jews. It's the terror of one, and this is very different from the exploding buses and suicide bombers of previous decades carried out by Hamas- and PLO-linked extremist factions. It differs from the constant firing of kassam rockets at communities adjacent to Gaza or the roadside bombs on the border with Lebanon. Intelligence and counter-terror agencies are finding it difficult to pinpoint and prevent these unpredictable, ruthless and hard-to-contain assaults. Understanding what motivates them to plot and kill — social media incitement, Jihad ideology, revenge, a sense of hopelessness or a com- bination — will take time. The security establishment is also dealing with a fairly new phenomenon, we are told. Terrorists such as Nashat Milhem come from a small group of Arab Israelis who regard themselves as enemies of the state and identify with ISIS. The General Security Service (Shin Bet) has arrested several suspected cells of ISIS from villages around Nazareth and dozens of Israeli Arab citizens have reportedly gone to Syria to fight with ISIS. Israeli officials are urging the public not to blame the entire Israeli Arab community while law enforcement and security experts wonder just how likely there is another Milhem in in our midst. Because it is so unpredictable, we are all potential victims and we are all vigilant. Our routines are maintained as best we can in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, in Ra'anana and Beit Shemesh, in Judea and Samaria. We look twice at construction and road workers, at the Arabic speakers, guys in hoodies and burka-wearing commuters on the bus, the train, even mothers walking with strollers. I have even heard that people have stopped shopping at certain popu- lar supermarkets because they employ Palestinians. The unstable situation is a kind of low frequency hum of the soundtrack of our lives. We hear one siren and wait, know- ing if it becomes two or more, we check our cellphones for alerts, mindful of the fact that we may need to locate our fam- ily and friends. Nevertheless, we go to work, send our children to school, go to the gym or jog with pepper spray in our pockets; we shop and do errands, argue and love, always with one ear to the radio or an eye on the smartphone screen waiting for the alert that we dread but know will come. It took a few days, but Tel Aviv came back slowly to life. The Simta pub reopened but without music, and a memorial ceremony was attended by Tel Aviv Mayor Ron Huldai. Locals are returning to the neighbor- hood pub, drinking beer and talking about "the situation." One side of the small bar is still illuminated by candles lit in the memory of Alon and Shimi, two of the three victims of the terror attack who were at the bar on that New Year's Day, a Friday afternoon. A neighborhood resident who stopped by said he was there to pay his respects to those who were killed and to the eight others who were wounded. "They would all want us to continue to live life to the fullest," he said. "And we will." * Idele Ross, a former Detroiter, lives in Jerusalem. She is a broadcast journalist with Kol Israel English News Service and editor with MediaCentral, an NGO that works with foreign correspondents in Israel. world » c o m m e n t a r y Two people were killed and six others wounded in a shooting at a crowded pub on Dizengoff Street in Tel Aviv on Jan. 1. 28 January 21 • 2016 Jewish News/Great Britain Idele Ross Times of Israel D afna Meir, who was stabbed to death in a terror attack at the West Bank settlement of Otniel, was buried Monday in Jerusalem, the day after she was murdered as she tried to fight off a stabber who entered her home in a terror attack. Meir leaves behind her hus- band and four children, ages 11 to 17, as well as two foster chil- dren, both below the age of 5. Initial investiga- tions indicated that Meir wrestled with the attacker in an effort to protect three of her children who were in the home dur- ing the attack. The stabber fled the scene without continuing the attack before he could reach the children. Media reports said her daughter Renana, 17, witnessed the attack and described the terrorist to authorities. Meir's neighbor, right-wing activist Yehuda Glick, surmised the terrorist likely would have attacked the three children in the house at the time if not for Meir fighting them off. "The terrorist tried without a doubt to hurt the kids, and Dafna, who was so small and short, fought him," he told the Israeli news site Walla. Meir, 38, worked as a nurse in the neurosurgery department of Soroka Medical Center, Beersheba. She was also a pre-marital counselor for brides. As family and friends gathered for the start of the funeral procession on Monday, the assistant director of the Soroka Medical Center, Professor Yohanan Feizer, said: "Dafna dealt in saving lives, and her life was plucked from her in front of her children." Overnight on Monday, a 16-year- old Palestinian male was arrested in a village less than two miles from the murder scene. Residents of the village told security forces of his presence there, allowing the arrest to proceed without resistance, Israeli Channel 10 reported. The arrested teen's father said on Tuesday that he was "proud" of his son for carrying out the attack, reported Walla, quoting Palestinian media outlets. * Dafna Meir Mother Slain In In Her Home, In Front Of Children