On June 30, 2016, a 17-year-old Palestinian-Arab teenage terrorist broke into the home of an American Jewish family in Kiryat Arba, Israel, and deliberately, brutally stabbed to death a young innocent 13-year-old Jewish-American-Israeli girl who was sleeping in her bed, Hallel Yaffa Ariel.  The Palestinian-Arab teenage terrorist then inflicted multiple stab wounds on a Jewish civilian guard who responded to this terrorist attack.  And sadly, this horrific murder was not an isolated incident.  As the partial list set forth below demonstrates, Palestinian-Arab teenagers and even children as young as 8 years old, armed with knives, have been perpetrating and/or attempting numerous vicious terrorist attacks against innocent Israeli men, woman and children.  So how does notorious anti-Israel Congresswoman Betty McCollum (D-MN-4) respond to the genocidal murders of innocent Jews by Arab teenagers?  Outrageously, Cong. McCollum introduced a bill to blame and financially penalize Israel for arresting and/or questioning the teen terrorists who are slaughtering innocent Jewish men, women and children! 

Cong. Betty McCollum gave her bill the Orwellian name: “The Promoting Human Rights by Ending Israeli Military Detention of Palestinian Children Act.”  If Cong. McCollum had a shred of honesty about the situation, the bill would be named: “The Penalize Israel for Arresting Teenage Palestinian-Arab Murderers of Jews Act.”  For, like the 17-year-old Palestinian-Arab murderer of Hallel Yaffa, the so-called “children” that McCollum’s bill refers to are armed teenage terrorists.  (ZOA also confirmed that “children” refers to teenage terrorists, when we attended a UN meeting of so-called “Palestinian Arab human rights lawyers.”)

Cong. McCollum has a long anti-Israel record.  She was one of only 2 Congresspersons in Committee (out of 38) and among only 8% in the full House to vote against the Palestinian Anti-Terrorism Act of 2006 (a bill to curb Hamas).  When local AIPAC representative Amy Rotenberg expressed disappointment with McCollum’s hostile-to-Israel vote, McCollum demanded a formal apology and boycotted AIPAC.  (“Minnesota Legislator Boycotts AIPAC,” Jerusalem Post, May 20, 2006.)  McCollum also spearheaded a letter falsely condemning Israel’s treatment of arrested or questioned Palestinian-Arab “children” (in reality, teenage terrorists).   Early this year, McCollum voted against House Resolution 11, which condemned the infamous anti-Israel UN Resolution 2334.  McCollum has a 100% rating from the Arab American Institute (AAI) – a rating that reveals that she always opposes Israel.  (Friends of Israel usually have a 0% AAI rating.)

The hostile-to-Israel group J Street PAC raises money for, and distributes money to Congresswoman McCollum, as well as to all nine of the McCollum anti-Israel bill’s co-sponsors:  Mark Pocan (D-WI-2), Earl Blumenauer (D-OR-3), André Carson (D-IN-7), John Conyers, Jr. (D-MI-13), Danny K. Davis (D-IL-7), Peter A. DeFazio (D-OR-4), Raul Grijalva (D-AZ-3), Luis V. Gutiérrez (D-IL-4), and Chellie Pingree (D-ME-1).  J Street PAC’s website notes that Pingree “has been a strong ally of J Street throughout her time in Congress.”

Several other anti-Israel and “boycott Israel” groups are backing McCollum’s bill, including the American Friends Service Committee – which promotes anti-Israel boycotts and policies that amount to “an end to Israel itself” (See, e.g., “When Friends Turn Anti-Semitic,” by Michael Rubin, Commentary Mag., Dec. 9, 2013); and Amnesty International, which calls on governments to ban Israeli goods from their markets, singles out Israel for false condemnation, and ignores the real human rights violations by Palestinian Arab groups.  (See “NGO Monitor report on Amnesty International”).

NGO Monitor’s excellent report, entitled “The NGOs that Wrote McCollum’s Legislation on Children’s Rights” (updated Nov. 16, 2017) further debunks the NGOs behind McCollum’s bill, and their propaganda/false claims (which McCollum’s bill falsely and misleadingly tries to pawn off as findings of fact).  The NGO Monitor report also sets forth the facts and legal background revealing that Israel is acting in compliance with international law.  The NGO Monitor report is “must reading” for anyone who wants to honestly examine McCollum’s bill. 

The NGO Monitor report also uses the McCollum bill’s own statistics to reveal that Israel arrests only an extremely tiny percentage and number of Palestinian-Arab teens – despite the wave of violence committed by Palestinian-Arab teens.  The NGO Monitor report notes that the McCollum bill’s own figures “that Israel arrests 700 children annually . . . amounts to [a] miniscule amount of 0.055% of Palestinian minors . . . In contrast, there are more than 1 million (1.42%) juveniles arrested in the US annually, and without the context of armed conflict. Therefore, these statistics do not point to Israel unreasonably targeting Palestinian minors.”

If McCollum and her co-sponsors really cared about stopping the arrests of Palestinian-Arab teenage terrorists, they should: (1) work to cut off the Palestinian Authority (PA)’s $300 million per year of “pay to slay” payments that incentivize teenage terrorists’ murderous attacks on innocent Jews; (2) work to eradicate recruitment of teenage terrorists by Palestinian-Arab terror groups (See, e.g., “Participation of Children and Teenagers in Terrorist Activity during the ‘Al-Aqsa’ Intifada,” Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Jan. 2003, documenting terror groups recruitment of Palestinian-Arab children and teenagers, ages 11 to 18, to become suicide bombers); and (3) work to eradicate the teaching of violence against Jews that permeates PA textbooks, etc.  

The 2017 Hebrew University study reproduced numerous vicious anti-Semitic, anti-Israel statements in PA textbooks at every grade level, for every subject, teaching “systematic hatred of all things Jewish/Israeli . . . Each student recites: ‘I vow I shall sacrifice my blood . . . will remove/eliminate the usurper from my country, and will annihilate the remnants of the foreigners.”

But instead of addressing the PA teaching of hatred and payments to terrorists, McCollum and her co-sponsors have produced a bill that provides further incentives for the PA to recruit and activate Palestinian-Arab teenage terrorists.  As liberal Democratic Harvard Law School Professor Alan Dershowitz points out:

“It is well established that recruiting and using young Palestinians to wage terror on Israeli civilians is part of the modus operandi of Palestinian terrorist leaders.   Israel has a right — according to international law — to protect its citizens from constant terror attacks, even those committed by young Palestinians. Indeed, it has an obligation to do so. . . . If Israel were to be punished for trying to protect its citizens from teenage terrorists, it would further incentivize terrorist leaders to keep using children in pursuit of their key objective: wiping the Israel off the map.”  (“How Ten Dem (Dumb) Members of Congress Encourage the Use of Child Terrorists,” by Alan M. Dershowitz, Gatestone Institute, Nov. 23, 2017.)

Palestinian-Arab teens have been significant perpetrators of both the Second Intifada suicide bombings (in which Palestinian Arabs maimed and murdered thousands of innocent Jewish civilians) and the recent wave of terror (since September 2015), in which Palestinian-Arab terrorists have murdered 59 innocent Jews and Americans, wounded 827 innocent Jews and Americans, and perpetrated many foiled attacks.

Below (from the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs compilation and confirming sources) are more examples (in addition to the 17-year old Arab terrorist who horrifically stabbed Hallel Yaffa to death in her bed) of what Palestinian-Arab teenage terrorists have been doing lately:

• On Friday November 17, 2017 (just a week ago!), a 17-year-old Palestinian-Arab terrorist rammed his car into Jewish pedestrians near Efrat, Israel, wounding a 70-year-old Jewish man (an ex-American marine) in the head, and critically injuring a 35-year-old man.  The Palestinian-Arab teenage terrorist then jumped out of the car with a knife and tried to stab some soldiers. They fired and took him down. (ZOA’s Israel director asked afterwards: “What would McCollum have us do, card him before stopping his attack?”)

• On Friday night July 21, 2017, a 19-year-old Palestinian-Arab teenage terrorist broke into an Israeli home in Binyamin and stabbed to death three Jewish Israelis (a 70-year-old and two of his children) while the Jewish family was sitting at their Sabbath table.  The teenage Arab terrorist also wounded other members of the Jewish family. 

• On October 26, 2016, two 8-year-old Palestinian-Arab children were given knives, driven by car to the Jewish village of Migdal Oz near Jerusalem, told to perpetrate a terrorist attack against Jews, and approached the village with the intent to carry out a knife attack.  Note that although the IDF (Israel Defense Forces) apprehended and briefly questioned these armed boys, due to their young age, the IDF promptly returned the boys to their families. 

• On May 20, 2017, a Palestinian-Arab 14-year-old girl was arrested while carrying a knife near the Qalandia checkpoint.  She stated that she intended to perpetrate a revenge attack against Jews.

• On May 7, 2017, a 16-year-old Palestinian-Arab female terrorist tried to stab police officers at the Damascus Gate in Jerusalem. 

• On April 25, 2017, a 17-year-old Palestinian-Arab terrorist perpetrated an attempted stabbing in Nablus.  His older cousin (age 21) did the same the next day.

• On April 23, 2017, an 18-year-old Palestinian-Arab terrorist stabbed and wounded four Israelis in Tel Aviv. 

• On Saturday April 1 2017 (a Sabbath afternoon), a 17-year-old Palestinian-Arab terrorist stabbed and wounded two Jewish pedestrians in the Old City of Jerusalem.  The teenage Arab terrorist also stabbed one of the police officers who chased after him. 

• On January 25, 2017, an 18-year-old Palestinian-Arab terrorist (who was also holding a knife) attempted to ram his vehicle into civilians waiting at a bus stop in Binyamin, Israel.  The attacker was the cousin of a 17-year-old Palestinian-Arab terrorist who had stabbed to death a sweet Jewish 23-year-old Jewish woman, Shlomit Kriegman, exactly one year before this.

• On December 8, 2016, an 18-year-old Palestinian-Arab terrorist tried to attack Israeli border police with a knife, at Tapuah Junction, Samaria, Israel. 

• On November 25, 2016, a 16-year-old Palestinian-Arab terrorist pulled a knife and tried to stab an officer during a routine check of a minibus, at Shuafat, Jerusalem.

• On October 19, 2016, a 19-year-old female Palestinian-Arab terrorist drew a knife and attempted to stab border police officers at Tapuah junction.

• On September 20, 2016, a 16-year-old Palestinian-Arab terrorist tried to stab an Israeli soldier at Bani Naim (near the Kiryat Arba industrial zone.

• Also, two Palestinian-Arabs (one age 17, and the other at bit older, at age 20) attempted to stab soldiers at a border police roadblock..

• On July 5, 2016, a 17-year-old female Palestinian-Arab terrorist tried to stab two Israeli soldiers near Ariel, Israel. 

• On May 30, 2016, a 17-year-old Palestinian-Arab terrorist stabbed an Israeli soldier with a screwdriver in Tel Aviv.

• On May 19, 2016, a 16-year-old Palestinian-Arab acting in a suspicious manner was arrested in possession of a knife and admitted his intention to carry out a stabbing attack in Shuafat, Jerusalem.

• On May 30, 2016, two young masked Palestinian-Arab terrorists attacked a group of elderly women going for a walk on the popular Armon Hanatziv promenade in Jerusalem, and stabbed and injured two women (ages 82 and 86).  The young Arab terrorists fled the scene, and were later arrested.  (“Shin Bet: 2 Minors Arrested For Terror Stabbing Of Elderly Women In Jerusalem,” Jerusalem Post, May 30, 2016.)

• On April 14, 2016, two 12-year-old boys were arrested for questioning when, at a checkpoint at one of the gates to the Old City, Jerusalem, 3 knives were found in one of the boys’ knapsack along with a goodbye letter to his parents.

• On March 25, 2016, a 15-year-old Palestinian-Arab girl terrorist approached a group of Israeli border police officers in the French Hill area, drew a knife and attempted to stab them.  

• On March 11, 2016, a 19-year-old Palestinian-Arab terrorist stabbed and wounded an Israeli man in the Old City of Jerusalem. 

• On March 25, 2016, a 15-year-old female Palestinian-Arab terrorist attempted to stab a group of police officers in the French Hill area of Jerusalem.

• On March 3, 2016, a 14-year-old Palestinian-Arab girl terrorist stabbed and injured an Israeli police officer who was directing traffic a tree collapsed at Al-Auja in the Jordan Valley. 

• On March 2, 2016, in Eli (north of Jerusalem), two 17-year-old Palestinian-Arab teenage terrorists waited outside a Jewish house, and when the Jewish man living there stepped out the door, one of the teenage terrorists rushed in and attacked and wounded the Jewish man with a knife and a wooden club.  The Jewish man succeeded in pushing the Arab teenage terrorist out and locking the door, thus protecting his wife and 5 children inside the house.

• On February 26, 2016, a Palestinian teenager tried to stab IDF soldiers at the Beit El checkpoint. 

• On February 21, 2016, at Tapuah Junction, a young Palestinian-Arab woman aroused suspicions of border policemen, when she attempted to approach Jews who were waiting for rides. A large knife was found in her possession. The woman was arrested and taken in for questioning, where she confessed that Palestinian social networks, which encourage violence against Jews, influenced her decision to carry out an attack.

• Also on February 21, 2016, near Hebron, A 14-year-old Palestinian-Arab tried to open the door of a military vehicle and stab one of the soldiers inside the vehicle.

• Also on February 21, 2016, at Bitot Junction (near Nablus), a 15-year-old Palestinian-Arab terrorist was arrested when trying to stab a soldier.

• On February 20, 2016, near the Damascus Gate in Jerusalem, an 18-year-old Palestinian-Arab terrorist pulled out a knife in an attempt to stab border policemen.

• On February 14, 2016, near Hinanit, two Palestinian-Arab teenagers shot at an IDF patrol.

• On February 4, 2016, two 13-year-old female Palestinian-Arab teenage terrorists stabbed a security guard at a building in the center of Ramle that houses a mall, the central bus station and government offices.  The assailants were taken into custody by police with knives in their possession. One was also carrying a school backpack.

• On January 30, 2016, a 16-year-old Palestinian-Arab terrorist stabbed and wounded a 17-year-old recent immigrant from the US near Damascus Gate in Jerusalem on Saturday afternoon, while the young US immigrant was returning from the Western Wall.

• On January 27, 2016, an 18-year-old Palestinian-Arab terrorist stabbed and seriously wounded a Jewish man at a gas station restaurant in Givat Ze’ev (north of Jerusalem.

• On January 25, 2016, a 17-year-old Palestinian-Arab terrorist and a 23-year-old Palestinian Arab terrorist stabbed two innocent Jewish woman, murdering one of the Jewish woman (Shlomit Krigman, age 23) in Beit Horon (between Jerusalem and Modi’in).  The Palestinian-Arab terrorists then attempted to enter a busy supermarket to attack patrons with the knives and pipe bombs they were carrying, but were stopped by a supermarket cashier who used a shopping cart to block the store entrance.

• On January 18, 2016, a 15-year-old Palestinian-Arab terrorist stabbed and wounded a 30-year-old Jewish pregnant woman outside a clothing warehouse in Tekoa (south of Jerusalem).

• On January 17, 2016, a 15-year-old Palestinian-Arab terrorist stabbed to death Dafna Meir, a 38-year-old Jewish mother of six children, in front of her children, in her home in Otniel (south Hebron hills).  (See “Dafna Meir Fought Back Fiercely, Her Teen Killer Says: ‘I stabbed her until I could no longer pull the knife out of her body,’ recalls Palestinian who killed Israeli mother of six,” by Tamar Pileggi, Times of Israel, June 19, 2016; and “Teen Otniel Knife Terrorist ‘Influenced By Palestinian Authority TV‘,” by Yaakov Lappin, Jerusalem Post, Jan. 24, 2016; and “Israeli Mother Of Six Murdered By Terrorist In Her Home With Kids Nearby,” by Yaakov Lappin and Tovah Lazaroff, Jerusalem Post, Jan. 17, 2016).

• And back in 2011, Palestinian-Arab teenagers broke into the Fogel room (on Shabbat evening) and stabbed to death five members of the Jewish Fogel family – both parents, and their children Yoav, age 11, Elad, age 4, and three-month-old Hadas – in a cold-blooded massacre that rocked the nation.

We could go on with horror after horror perpetrated by Palestinian-Arab teens.  But hopefully, we’ve said enough to dissuade anyone else from even considering Betty McCollum’s Orwellian anti-Semitic bill to blame the Jewish victims of Palestinian-Arab teenaged terrorists.