Tel-Chai Nation

On the evening when Benjamin Netanyahu goes off to the US for "negotiations" with Fatah, four Israelis were murdered:

Four Israelis were killed Tuesday night in a Hamas shooting attack in the West Bank believed to have been aimed at torpedoing the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, set to kick off on Wednesday in Washington.

Hamas military wing spokesman Abu Obeida told The Associated Press late Tuesday that Hamas carried out the attack.

The four victims, described by a settler spokesman as a couple and two hitchhikers – were driving on Route 60 near the entrance to Kiryat Arba when their vehicle came under fire.

The victims were named as Yitzhak Ames, 47, and his wife Tali Ames, 45, Kochava Ben- Haim, 37, and Avishai Schindler, 24, all from Beit Hagai. The Ames couple had six children, including a oneand- a-half-year-old toddler.

[...]

IDF troops immediately launched searches for the perpetrators and the Central Command raised its level of alert, out of fear that Palestinian terrorists will increase efforts to perpetrate attacks in the coming days with the goal of torpedoing the peace summit in Washington.

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, who heard about Washington to relaunch direct talks with the Palestinians, said upon landing that he would speak in the evening with US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton and tell her that this “criminal attack” proves again the need for Israel to stand steadfastly by its security demands.

Netanyahu said that his heart goes out to the families of the victims, and that terrorism would not determine Israel’s borders or the future of the settlements.

Netanyahu spoke on the plane with Defense Minister Ehud Barak, Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) head Yuval Diskin and Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi.

Netanyahu, according to his office, directed the security branches to act “without any diplomatic constraints against the murderers, and act aggressively against those who sent them.”

This is truly obscene, and the army - and Ehud Barak too - had better make a convincing effort to capture the murderers responsible for this. That aside, as One Jerusalem argues, the predictable observation that this was all a desperate attempt to kill the "peace process" is absurd. It's the "process" itself that's the problem.

Labels: anti-semitism, Israel, jihad, terrorism, United States