Lessons of the French Train Heroes

The planned massacre of passengers on a train in France by a heavily armed Islamist terrorist is a horror too awful to think about. But thinking about it needs to happen.

What if something actually were learned from the quick, brave actions of three American 23-year-olds, a French-American dual citizen, and a grandfather from England who fought the terrorist with their bare hands and protected the lives of all the passengers and crew? What if celebrating the heroes were a step toward turning attention to terror vulnerabilities in Europe and also America?

What if honor for the heroes brought with it public demand for Western leaders to focus on stopping the continued plans of jihadists?

Reuters was still publishing stories with titles like "Train gunman dumbfounded by terrorist tag" when the three friends from Carmichael, California, Airman 1st Class, Spencer Stone, Oregon National Guardsman, Alek Skarlatos, and Sacramento State University student, Anthony Sadler were asked, "What do you think of the claim that it was a robbery attempt?"

The three had succeeded in disarming the terrorist, beating him unconscious, and tying him up.

"It doesn't take eight magazines to rob a train," Anthony Sadler said wisely.

As a recently retired Sacramento State professor, I paid special attention to the coverage of Anthony and his friends, and I think they have something to teach.

In Sacramento, they are hometown heroes. They are also, suddenly, world famous recipients of France's highest award, the Legion d'Honneur medal. President Hollande said they have given the world a "lesson in courage."

Just before the Legion of Honor ceremony, the press asked the three young men what could be learned from their experience. Anthony answered: "I want the lesson to be learned that in times of terror to please do something -- don't just stand by and watch."

If "times of terror" unfold in our train car, we hope we are lucky enough to be surrounded by people with the instinctive, selfless reactions of Spencer Stone, Alek Skarlatos, and Anthony Sadler.

But we do know it can't be left up to college students and off-duty US military, no matter how brave, to save the day. Anthony's spontaneous response, "in times of terror...please do something -- don't just stand by and watch," should be heeded at the highest city and national levels.

For starters, Europe and the US might want to make a few adjustments. The attacker, Ayoub El-Khazzani simply walked onto the train with a bagful of weapons, box cutters, and ammunition. It doesn't seem that complicated to need to place one's bag on a conveyor and at the same time walk through a metal detector gate at the entrance to train stations. It works well in Israel.

Of course, in Israel there are other security measures as well, like personnel trained and equipped for emergency. And yet the atmosphere (not counting the rush hour crowds and general noise) is relaxed.

But on the Amsterdam-Paris train not only was security lacking, according to French actor, Jean-Hugues Anglade who was injured while breaking an emergency glass, when the terrorist appeared the train crew disappeared without so much as a warning to the passengers.

Along with no bag checks there were also no ID checks. El-Khazzani had already been identified as a terrorist by Spain, and Spanish officials had alerted the French. He was on watch lists in France, Spain, Belgium, and Germany, the same lists as the perpetrators of the Charlie Hebdo murders. Are these lists something officials "just stand by and watch"?

Amid the well-deserved praise for the actions of the heroes, the lessons learned should not be simply for passengers but for crews, not just for everyday citizens but for agencies and governmental leaders who are responsible for helping preserve our freedom to live lives that are anathema to jihadist inspired terrorists.

"I'm just a college student," said Anthony Sadler. "It's my last year of college. I came to see my friends on my first trip to Europe and we stopped a terrorist. It's kind of crazy."


An earlier version of this post appeared in AmericanThinker.

Iran Deal -- Red Flags

                                                                                                                   Investers.com cartoons

It is hard to believe that when faced with the obvious problems of the Iran “deal,” the most powerful country in the world just gives in.

Here is a top 10 of Iran agreement red flags:

10.“Death to America”

Apparently it is out of fashion to take literally the words of world leaders, the same leaders with whom you are negotiating about nuclear weapons, words they keep repeating, shouting and loudly encouraging others to believe, the words of rulers for whom “death to America” is a goal, an agenda. If someone states clearly and repeatedly that he hates you and wants to kill you, why would you help him to more firepower?

9.  Destroying Israel is “Non-negotiable”

The familiar talk of wiping Israel off the map has continued, even escalated, during discussion of Iran’s nuclear program.  And if we doubt the literal nature of these words, or imagine that they are simply bluster, we need only notice the way Iran’s actions are consistent with these threats:

8. Iran arms Hezbollah.

7. Iran arms West Bank terror groups and pays terrorists’ salaries.

6. Iran arms Hamas and builds terror tunnels.

5. At the same time, Iran backs militias in Yemen, in Iraq, in Lebanon, and in Syria.

4. Iran has not been required to stop any of its terrorist activities.

3. Whatever else Iran’s leaders say, they say clearly that they intend to become the one dominant, ruling, and Islamist power in the Middle East.

2. The deal isn’t really a deal, anyway. If the intention had been to stop Iran’s nuclear program, it is a failure. There’s nothing in the agreement that does this. In fact, even if the intention had been to slow down the program, it is a failure, for it doesn’t do this, either, as there is no guarantee of inspections.

1. Iran is already the biggest sponsor of terror in the world, making it the most dangerous place in the world for nuclear weapons.

Looks like the negotiators ignored the red flags and raised a white one.

The Terrorist is being Treated in the Hospital

                                                                                              photo  by Sebastian Schiener

                                                                                                                   published at Times of Israel

There is something jarring about this sentence in the news. “The terrorist is being treated in [the] hospital.”

Wounded by security personnel too late, the terrorist had already murdered 26-year-old, Dahlia Lemkus, whose neighbors knew her as “the kind, giving, loving young woman” who was studying to be an occupational therapist. He had already stabbed two other people and sent a third into shock.

Islamic Jihad has taken responsibility for this attack. By responsibility it is meant that Islamic Jihad has congratulated itself for supporting and accomplishing the bizarrely un-brave act of jumping out of a car and stabbing random people with a knife.

Meanwhile, Israel mourns Dahlia, and the others killed by Palestinian terrorists this month: on the same day as Dahlia, 20 year-old Almog Shiloni from Modi’in who died after being stabbed in Tel Aviv as he was on his way back to his base; Chief Inspector Jadan Assad, the Druze border patrol officer who was killed by a terrorist ramming his vehicle into people in Jerusalem, and teenager, Shalom Baadani, who had been riding his bicycle and was killed by the same terrorist at another location nearby. The week before, American-Israeli 3-month-old baby, Haya Zissel Braun and 22 year-old Karen Yemima Mosquera from Ecuador were killed by another “car terrorist” at a Jerusalem light rail stop. While all these funerals have been going on and over a hundred Israelis this month have been dealing with injuries from terrorism, “the terrorist is being treated in the hospital.”

And, rightfully so. Because, as in America, perpetrators in Israel who survive their own acts of terror get quality medical treatment and the benefit of Western law.

Fatah and Hamas leaders have stated that stabbing people with knives or running into them with cars is a “natural response.” If this is the case then treating, in an Israeli hospital, someone who has set out to murder any Israelis he happens to see must be an unnatural response.

But both are learned responses.

It does not come naturally to decide to stab passersby with knives or to intentionally run over a baby with a car. Nor is it simply natural to try to treat humanely even those who commit such actions. These are learned behaviors.

At Dahlia’s funeral, her sister, Michal, implored Israelis to go on, emphatically, with every day life.

Treating the terrorist in the hospital; going on with life in Israel; not letting hate take over: some things to stand one’s ground for.

                                                                                                      comments welcomed at Times of Israel

UPDATE:  And now there are four more murders.  Four people killed and others injured while praying in their Jerusalem synagogue. 

When The Neighborhood Bully Fires Back

                                                                                                              photo: Hirek Israelbol                                                                                     

The neighborhood bully just lives to survive

He’s criticized and condemned for being alive

He’s not supposed to fight back, he’s supposed to have thick skin

He’s supposed to lay down and die when his door is kicked in

He’s the neighborhood bully

                                               -- Bob Dylan, “The Neighborhood Bully”                 

Much of English language media is returning to an old standby: Israel as the neighborhood bully. Sometimes this perspective is stated outright; more often it simply underlies the way stories are presented.

Hamas is usually referred to as a “militant group,” without indicating that it is also the elected government of Gaza. We get the impression of a renegade gang acting outside any official capacity. Working with Hamas is Islamic Jihad; though the two are aligned against Israel they are also in conflict with each other within the larger context of their shared Islamic extremism.

Yet, rarely is “Islamic extremism” mentioned, the widespread phenomenon that greatly overshadows the size of tiny Israel and negates its image as neighborhood bully.

Sometimes Hamas is referred to as a terrorist organization, often by saying Israel “considers” them so, suggesting this is Israeli propaganda.  But Hamas is designated a terrorist organization by many other countries, by the EU, US, Japan, Canada, Egypt and Jordan. And all of the rockets being fired from Gaza into Israel are aimed at civilians, pretty much the definition of terrorism. 

Even the Palestinian ambassador to the UN freely acknowledges that “every missile” from Gaza coming into Israel is “a crime against humanity.”  There have not been a lot of headlines conveying this message. Also a war crime is the launching of rockets from residential areas and endangering one’s own people.

When targeting Hamas fighters and their weapons, the IDF has many methods of warning civilians to leave. They call cellphones, send texts, and distribute leaflets so that people will get out of the way. They have a system of “knock on the roof” as warning and if they see people still in an area they will abort their mission.  During this week the Israeli government helped over 800 foreign nationals who wanted to leave Gaza to do so. 

But there are casualties. It is impossible to call people casualties without stopping right there to say: we should have no wars, ever. Yet, in the world as it is at the moment, in which Israel’s cities are under rocket fire, its government has the responsibility to protect its citizens.

Mention of that responsibility deflates the bully image, as does attributing Israel’s far fewer casualties to its building of bomb shelters, its requirement since the 1980’s that apartments have safe rooms, and its investment in a technology that dissolves incoming rockets in the air before they can do the damage they are intended to do.

Hamas has been firing rockets into Israeli towns for years. In 2008 and 2012 when the rocket firing escalated, and again now, the IDF fired back.  A lot of news coverage begins with Israeli strikes on Gaza as if the neighborhood bully just decided to flex his muscles for no reason.

Reporting that sirens sounded in particular cities or that the Iron Dome stopped rockets over Tel Aviv without ever suggesting that what is transpiring is the attempted murder of families in their homes helps create a familiar storyline in which Israel, because it is the stronger country, is to blame for there being a war at all. 

Bob Dylan wrote “The Neighborhood Bully” about Israel in 1983.

published at Honest Reporting