Orli Goldklang is a prominent Israeli journalist and Deputy Editor-in-Chief of Makor Rishon Hebrew weekly where she writes a weekly column. This article appeared on 28.08.26 and was translated from Hebrew by Rochel Sylvetsky.
"They threw rocks at us. We're fine. We're getting off the road at Adam to pull over and take stock."
She didn't sound right. My daughter's voice trembled as she tried to communicate her feelings without the children in the back seat realizing how shaken she was. They, too, sounded upset. I was driving a few cars behind hers, right before the turnoff to the community of Adam.
We were on the way from the city of Maale Adumim after an afternoon with the girls at an indoor air-conditioned amusement park with a food court. We had intended to leave earlier, but somehow the time flew by, and just as we were finally leaving, a magic show began. You try telling little girls enamored with a trick left over from the last century of a rabbit coming out of a hat that it's time to leave. At the Mishor Adumim intersection's traffic light, our cars were in adjoining lanes- she and the girls, me and my aching back. We opened the windows and made faces at each other and managed to say we were exhausted before the light changed.
Right before the large Arab village of Hizme, minutes from Jerusalem's Pisgat Ze'ev intersection, a large truck had moved between us and for a few minutes her small car was ahead of mine, but not in my line of sight. During those few moments, a few yards from the entrance to Hizme, on route 60, the main road we take to Jerusalem, to work, to everywhere - stood figures in black who hurled rocks at her car and fled into their "sanctuary city", confident that no one would bother to search for them and that not one of the villages' residents would turn them in.
Her driving continued to be steady, regular, no hint of any problem, so I convinced myself that the rocks probably just hit the car's metalwork. There is a traffic jam at the entrance to Adam, so I told her to continue to the Shaar Binyamin industrial center turnoff. And it was only there that the extent of the attack hit me - a shattered front window, glass shards all over the seat on which my nine-year old granddaughter was sitting. That's when I saw the girls' hysterical crying, heard the shaking voice of my daughter explaining what happened to the local security hotline. And that's when thoughts of "what if..." began rushing through my brain.
Let's say it like it is. On Tuesday they tried to murder my daughter and granddaughters.
Two of the children witnessed the attempt to murder them. The little one slept the "sleep of the just" in her infant seat throughout the incident. This did not happen while hiking near a village, not on a side road, not in a situation where the media can shamefully condone murdering Jews and blame the victims, as it usually does. It occurred on busy route 60, Israel's main north-south traffic artery, which tens of thousands frequent daily on their way to Jerusalem. It occurred at a spot adjoining the city, a few minutes walk from Israel's capital.
It's not personal
Two policemen and two female soldiers arrived at the Shaar Binyamin strip mall where I was stuffing the girls with comfort food in the form of colorful ice cream cones. The soldiers smiled pleasantly, the police did the same, asked questions and called the MDA first responders so they could make sure we were okay. When the girls were happily sticky with melting ice cream, and my daughter's husband had arrived to hug and comfort, one of the police officers asked my daughter: "Is there someone who wants to hurt you? Are you in a conflict with someone?"
Two soldiers, one policeman and a traumatized family stared at him. "Listen, five hours on my feet at an amusement park is tough," I answered, "but I am not that angry with her." My daughter burst out laughing, not at my cynical retort but at his question. I suddenly realized what he had done, that he had made each of us entertain a moment of doubt.
Did he really ask if someone had stood on Route 60, near the burgeoning Arab village of Hizme, equipped with large rocks, and waited to hurl them at her, to hurt her and her daughters because of a personal grudge?
Nu, let's look at the positive side. He made my daughter laugh after a highly tense half hour. The soldiers whispered something and he said: "Okay, okay, I have to ask this question."
And this, my friends, is what we call the "conceptsia." This is exactly the mindset that sees an attempted murder and is sure that it is just local Arab folklore in a lawless wild west that has no justice system and no judges - but is not expected to have either of them anyway.
I took the girls to my home, while my daughter and her husband and infant continued on to the Shaar Binyamin police station to continue the investigation. No one was surprised when the investigator ended the long bout of questioning with the words: "We have a large number of incidents like this one every day, so don't expect any developments or for the perpetrators to be caught."
So, tell me, who is strewing the gunpowder in the area?
Of late, "settler violence" is once again the subject of public conversation and endless media interest. As usual, the alleged lawless acts of a tiny minority out of an overwhelmingly law-abiding, hard-working, patriotic and ethical sector of Israeli citizenry manage to indict all the Israelis living in Judea and Samaria, painting them all with the same collective brush. Pre-election rhetoric fans the flames, questioning the legitimacy of the now huge "settlement project" consisting of a half million Israelis and encouraging the shedding of its members' blood.
No one asks the so-called "victims of Jewish terror" if they have an ongoing vendetta with their Jewish attackers.
No one asks if there is a conflict - like 100 years of Arab terror - that awakened a post-traumatic desire for counter violence.
Maybe that question is worth asking...
Any Jewish law-breaking must be condemned and punished. That is absolutely necessary. But when we hear expressions like "Judea and Samaria are on the verge of exploding" it is worthwhile asking who is strewing gunpowder on the roads, who is really a threat to all the communities and the roads skirting the center of the country, who is endangering innocent men, women, infants and children.
The fact that a man bit a dog does not free the media and law enforcement authorities from dealing with the much more common man-biting species.