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November 22, 2006
How'd you know he was a terrorist?
So asks Robert Avrech, a self-described observant Jewish screenwriter, of his friend.
"So, how'd you know he was a terrorist?"
"I didn't. I mean I knew him. He worked here in Efrat. For years."
"So what made you think he was suddenly dangerous?"
I'm in shul with Karen's brother David. We've just finished davening Ma'ariv. I've run into an old buddy of mine from Bensonhurst. We went to yeshiva high school together and have not seen each other in years. But Larry, not his real name, is well known -- for a few years ago he shot down a terrorist here in Efrat. Larry is no John Wayne. He's middle-aged, has an infectious smile, wears a yarmulke. Larry is ... a regular guy from Brooklyn.
"Look," say Larry, " he was an Arab worker, we got along just fine. But the day I saw him wasn't one of the days he was supposed to be here. Also he was heading into the neighborhood supermarket, a place he never ever went into. Plus he was wearing an overcoat on a very hot day. It was all wrong."
"What did you do?"
"I was outside when I spotted him. I followed him inside and I looked at his face and he looked, I don't know, all drugged up."
"How did you know you weren't shooting an innocent man?"
"He sizzled."
"Excuse me?"
"He tried to self-detonate. There was a malfunction. I saw smoke. I didn't want to take a chance on there being a second trigger. We were in a supermarket. Women and children all around. I drew and and shot him in the chest."
"Shot him dead?"
Larry shrugs and half smiles: "Hey, us Bensonhurst kids had to grow up tough, right?"
"I guess."
Larry and I make plans to get together again. He lives a few blocks away from David. As he walks away, a night breeze kicks his jacket aside and there's his Glock, sitting in a Fobus speed holster. I think to myself: This is Dodge City. Thank G-d for my buddy from Bensonhurst and others like him; valiant citizen soldiers ready and willing to strike at the genocidal jihadists who are living within our gates.
That's the reality of life in Israel; unrelenting hatred manifesting itself in an desire to kill men, women and children, even though they may know and trust their would-be murderers.
I like the imagery, of Brooklyn-born gunslingers walking the streets of this Middle-Eastern Wild-Wild-West, ready to defend the innocent bystanders from the bad men who come to town, seeking to sow their wild oats with C-4 and shrapnel.
The only Jews I've known who aren't allergic to guns are Israelis, for whom an armed citizenry are the first responders, the only ones in a position to stop the bomber before he can begin the killing.
Posted by Mike Lief at November 22, 2006 08:41 AM
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