The Jewish man who was attacked by an Arab terrorist in Petah Tikva on Tuesday and managed to kill his attacker with his own knife even after being stabbed spoke with the media about his ordeal.
The victim, aged in his 40s, pulled the knife from his own neck after being stabbed and then stabbed the terrorist to death. He was evacuated to Beilinson Hospital in the city for treatment, while suffering from moderate wounds.
"Everyone imagines that it could happen to him, I think," he said from his hospital bed. "Everyone imagines that but it doesn’t take hold of you. You don’t look around you all the time. Sometimes but not all the time."
"But when it happened to me, I thought I would die. I thought that was it. I think it took me a little time but I got a hold of myself. When I realized it was a terrorist I said to myself that I have to fight him. So he doesn’t kill me or others."
The man recalled saying to himself the famous adage of the Jewish sages: "if I am not for myself, who will be for me? And when I am only for myself, what am I? That is, even if I act on my own behalf, if God did not want me to be here, I wouldn’t be here. We learned from the tzaddik to always think about our last day. The truth is that after the stabbing, I thought this was my last day. But here I am thanks to God."
The attack was one of three major attacks on Tuesday, aside from a shooting in Jerusalem in which two officers were seriously wounded and a stabbing spree in Yafo in which an American tourist was murdered and 12 others were wounded.
A new poll released Tuesday found that 73% of Israeli citizens are not satisfied with the performance of the government in handling the current Arab terror wave, which has been raging since last September.