Emily Amrousi, a resident of Samaria, is one of the journalists most fiercely disliked by her leftist colleagues, and has lately been earning personal attacks on leftist radio shows and Facebook pages for daring to voice her opinion in an effective way.
In her latest column in Israel Hayom, she lives up to her reputation, showing that Arab terrorism is no longer mostly something that happens in Judea and Samaria, but has crept past the so-called Green Line and is thriving within the 1948 Armistice Line.
The terror Amrousi describes is not necessarily organized and directed by large groups like Hamas or Hizbullah. Perhaps more troubling, it is mostly home grown – and thus very hard to prevent through intelligence work. Moreover, as she notes, the media is complicit in the terror, in that it ignores it completely, making it impossible to discuss the phenomenon and deal with it.
"News consumers, test yourselves,” she writes. “Have you heard about the terror attacks against Jews in Ramla? Only this week, about ten cars had their windshields smashed in: these were families that were taking a child to an afterschool activity or returning from the supermarket, and were pummeled with rocks. Did you get to see a photo or a report about the 10-year-old child from Lod with a black eye, who was beaten by a group of 17-year-old Arabs when he returned from school? Did you hear a trace of a report about the Jewish school that had to leave the Kiftzuba park after violence, swearing and spitting by Arab students who were there?”
Amrousi notes that terror in Judea and Samaria is on the rise, and that a firebomb was thrown at a school bus, while rock ambushes on the way to peaceful communities have become as ubiquitous “as rain in January.” Maybe journalists think that is not interesting because it is only to be expected, she says. But what about the attacks within the Green Line?
"What about violent attacks by Bedouin marauders against the residents of Retamim in the Negev,” she asks. “A sample from the past few days: rock attacks on women and children; deliberate arson; an attack on a married couple with a steel bar; violent ambushes against farmers in their fields; attempted terror attacks on the roads. In the Negev.”
"And what about the fire bombs thrown last Tuesday at residences on Har Hatzofim, not far from Hebrew University? Did you hear anything about that? And the hateful graffiti in Arabic on the synagogue at Safra Square in the center of Jerusalem? And the large scale desecration of graves at the Mount of Olives? And the Haohel synagogue in Bat Yam, that was desecrated four times last month – crosses sprayed on its walls, and its door damaged? And the nationalist arson at Armon Hanatziv forest?
“Last Tuesday, the Israel Railway was attacked in the station in “occupied” Ramla. Two female students from Tel Aviv University were slightly injured by the flying glass. If you heard about that, you deserve a prize.
"And another surprise newsflash: a few days ago, charges were filed against two Israeli Arabs who tried to burn a Jewish family near Nahariya. They prepared a fire bomb, waited at the side of the road in the western Galilee, and threw the fire bomb at the car, which had turned toward Tal-El. Then they rolled a burning tire onto the road. All of the news media received this information from the Ministry of Justice. All of them chose to ignore it. A resident of Shfar'am who met a Hizbullah agent in Mecca and gave him secret security information received less air time than the weather forecast.”
Meanwhile, notes Amrousi, relatively benign acts like graffiti allegedly scrawled by Jews is treated by news media as if it were the Twin Towers bombing. “In the Newspeak dictionary, 'terrorism' is an offensive nationalistic act carried out by a person whose mother is Jewish,” she writes bitterly.