By Stan Goodenough
Dec 17, 2006
He may hold Israeli residence and be entitled to all the privileges afforded his fellow citizens, but a 17-year-old Arab was preparing to blow himself up and kill Jews in a hotel in Nazareth-Illit.
Police Sunday lifted a ban from the news they had picked up the would-be martyr for Allah two weeks ago.
Like many Israeli Arabs, including some who are Members of Knesset (the Israeli parliament), the arrested boy identified more closely with his “Palestinian” comrades than with his fellow Israelis, who are Jews.
He told his interrogators he had been planning to perpetrate the massacre in order to “prove himself” to Hamas and Palestine Islamic Jihad members who mocked him and accused him of collaborating with Israel.
He was nabbed just two days before taking delivery of the explosives belt he would have used to carry out his mission.