Student takes out gunman in seminary - Israel

[KeithPA]

How much worse could it have been. Barely even mentioned him on the TV news, let alone he was a student.

TV reports mention he was an off duty soldier, although i think practically eveyone is there. That was on CNN, so they aren't exactly quick to mention the good guys aren't super heros (church shooting out west).

At least seven people were killed after a gunman infiltrated and attacked a rabbinical seminary in Jerusalem on Thursday evening.

Israeli police spokesperson Micky Rosenfeld told CTV Newsnet a gunman entered the dining hall and opened fire during dinner. The gunman is believed to be dead.

There were initially conflicting reports about the number of attackers, although police have confirmed it was a solitary shooter.

One student, Yitzhak Dadon, claims to have shot and killed the armed attacker.

"He came out of the library spraying automatic fire," Dadon told the Associated Press. "The terrorist came to the entrance and I shot him twice in the head."

About 10 students were injured and about three are very seriously wounded, Yoni Yagodovsky, the Director of the Department of Israeli Emergencies, told Newsnet. He said 50 ambulance teams were dispatched to the chaotic scene and that all of the injured had been safely transported to hospitals.

There were initial reports the murdered gunman was carrying explosives, but according to Jerusalem police spokesman Shmuel Ben Ruby, it was actually an ammunition belt.

There have been reports the culprit was a resident of East Jerusalem.

The well-known Mercaz Harav yeshiva, a centre for Jewish studies in the Kiryat Moshe quarter near the city's edge, is now surrounded by armed police officers and ambulances.

The school is being evacuated, according to the Jerusalem Post's Calev Ben-David.

"The situation is bad," Ben-David told CTV Newsnet on Thursday. "This is the leading yeshiva... in all of Israel. It's a famous landmark building, founded in the 1920s. The impact of this will be very deeply felt."

Ben-David said Mercaz Harav was considered by many to be the home of the Zionist movement, saying the concept of expanding Israeli control to the Palestinian territories first took hold there.

"The people that study here... have been among the most skeptical of coming to an agreement with the Palestinians," he said, noting many students believe in Israeli expansion, live in the disputed territories and carry weapons to protect themselves.

Lebanese television, which is controlled by Hezbollah, is reporting a group called the Galilee Freedom Battalion claimed responsibility for the attack although their claims have not been validated.

The massacre came the same day Israel resumed tenuous U.S.-led peace talks with the Palestinians over their contentious territories. Earlier this week Israel led a two-day incursion into Gaza meant to track down militant members of the Palestinians' Hamas leadership. More than 100 Palestinians were killed.

In Israel this week to help broken the peace deal, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice stopped short of calling for a ceasefire, something Middle East affairs expert Philip Wilcox believes to be imperative in order to move towards real peace.

"I think that should be the goal of the international community," said Wilcox, who said Iran seems to be fanning the flames of the Palestinian/Israeli conflict behind the scenes. "Hamas has few friends but it has developed a relationship with Iran. The Egyptians are trying to work with Hamas (for peace) but really need help from the United States and the international community to encourage this."

Wilcox told Newsnet that his organization's studies show the majority of Israelis and Palestinians would prefer two sovereign states with a shared Jerusalem over the continued violence that has plagued the region.

Thursday's massacre was particularly unsettling due to the notable time span since Jerusalem's last Palestinian attack. There were none in 2007, something many attribute to the security erected between Jeruslam and the West Bank.

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNew...hub=TopStories

[sluggie24]

Here is another article on it. Interesting read on how the US media ignores the fact that it was an armed student that stopped it and not the police.



Press 'ignore' terrorist stopped by armed student
'Mr. Dadon is not going to become a victim of this conspiracy of silence'
Posted: March 07, 2008
9:33 pm Eastern

© 2008 WorldNetDaily

A gun rights organization in the United States is accusing the media of trying to conceal the fact that a gunman who attacked students at Jerusalem's Mercaz Harav seminary was stopped by an armed student at the school.

Authorities report that Ytizhak Dadon, 40, was a "private citizen who had a gun license and was able to shoot the gunman with his pistol," according to a statement released today by the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms.

In its earlier reporting on the tragedy, WND confirmed, "One terrorist reportedly was shot to death by a student who was armed…"

However, the gun rights organization said "the American press is downplaying his heroism because it proves that armed students can stop campus gunmen."

"Yitzhak Dadon is a hero," said Alan Gottlieb, the chairman of CCRKBA, "and he is living proof that armed students have a place on college campuses. Thankfully, his quick action was reported by the international press … so unlike incidents here in the United States where the press was able to completely ignore the actions of armed students or teachers, the truth about this incident will not be suppressed."

He continued, "Mr. Dadon is not going to become a victim of this conspiracy of silence. Elitist American college administrators, the national press, nor anti-gun politicians can sweep this incident under their rug."

The gun rights group said international reports credit Dadon, who studies at the school, had his pistol available when the shooting erupted. "When the gunman emerged from a library, Dadon reportedly shot him twice in the head. The gunman was subsequently shot by the off-duty soldier," the group said.

"Yitzhak Dadon's apparently well-placed bullets interrupted a rampage," Gottlieb said. "What a pity that someone like Mr. Dadon was not in class last April at Virginia Tech. What a tragedy that anti-gun extremism would keep him from attending class at Northern Illinois University. He would never be allowed to teach at Columbine High School, hold a job at Trolley Square in Salt Lake City, or go shopping at Omaha's Westroads Mall.

"America's acquiescence to anti-gun hysteria has led to one tragedy after another," Gottlieb stated. "This disastrous policy has given us nothing but broken hearts and body counts, and it's got to end. The heroism of an armed Israeli seminary student halfway across the world sends a message that we needn't submit to murder in victim disarmament zones. That's why his actions are getting such short shrift from America's press. It's a story they are loathe to report because it affirms a philosophy of self-reliance that they despise."

The organization boasts more than 650,000 members and supporters nationwide, and is dedicated to preserving firearms freedoms through active lobbying of elected officials and facilitating grass-roots organization of gun rights activists in local communities throughout the United States.

WND had reported just days earlier on plans in Arizona, where lawmakers are considering a way to stem the wave of unarmed students killed in campus slayings by allowing adults to carry firearms onto the grounds of state universities.

"The police got to both the Virginia Tech murder scene and the New Life Church [in Colorado] in about six minutes," noted Larry Pratt, the chief of Gun Owners of America. "At Virginia Tech, 30 people died. At New Life, two died in the parking lot and once the bad guy got inside the building he was engaged by (armed) security team volunteers and nobody else died. In fact, he was finished in about 30 seconds."

Pratt noted the circumstances of the two attacks. After killing two people at a Christian training center in Arvada, Colo., last December, 24-year-old Matthew Murray went to Colorado Springs intending more murder and mayhem.

Murray shot and killed two girls in the New Life Church's parking lot, then headed inside the building where thousands of worshippers were concluding a service.

A volunteer security guard, Jeanne Assam, confronted him almost immediately and fired at him. He fell, and an autopsy later said he had shot himself.

But at Virginia Tech, Cho Seung-Hui, 23, armed himself and went to a classroom building on a campus where guns were banned. He fatally shot a total of 32.

The latest attack on unarmed teachers and students happened on Valentine's Day, when Stephen Kazmierczak, 27, walked into a Northern Illinois University auditorium and shot and killed five people, and wounded 16 others.

The gunman then shot himself.

In Jerusalem, reports said one or possibly two gunmen infiltrated the Mercaz Harav Yeshiva, located near the entrance to Jerusalem, and fired hundreds of rounds of bullets at students. One terrorist, who may have been armed with an explosive device, made his way to the yeshiva's main study room, where about 80 students were reportedly gathered.

Israeli police said eight were killed and nearly a dozen were wounded, some seriously.