Terrorism

It was no coincidence that the terror attack Tuesday in which four Israelis were ambushed in the West Bank and shot dead at point-blank range in their car occurred just two days before direct Israeli-Palestinian peace talks were to begin in Washington after a 20-month hiatus.

That was the view of Jonathan Peled, a spokesman for the Israeli Embassy in Washington, moments after news of the slayings flashed across Israeli newspaper Web sites.

JERUSALEM (JTA) -- Four Jewish Israelis were killed when gunmen opened fire on the car they were riding in at the entrance to Kiryat Arba, near Hebron.

Tuesday night's attack in the West Bank comes on the eve of the opening of peace talks in Washington between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. No group has claimed responsibility for the attack.

WASHINGTON (JTA) -- Leaders of both parties in the U.S. Senate are urging President Obama to consider placing the Turkish charity involved in the Gaza flotilla incident on the terrorism list.

Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.), the Senate majority leader, and Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), its minority leader, circulated a letter last Friday among their colleagues that would press Obama to investigate the Turkish Humanitarian Relief Foundation.

JERUSALEM (JTA) -- Israeli police were searching the Tel Aviv area for a man and woman who reportedly tried to carry out a terror attack on a bus on Dizengoff Street.

A man sitting in the back of the bus wearing a heavy coat on a hot day yelled "slaughter the Jews" in Arabic, while a woman in the front of the bus tried to prevent the frightened passengers from getting off the bus, according to reports.

A former Israeli paratrooper now working for the NYPD in Tel Aviv told Jewish leaders here on Monday that Hamas splinter groups are a growing security threat, struggling to upset a delicate ceasefire with Israel.

A federal appeals court ruling in the civil case of an American teen murdered in Israel is being viewed as a major step forward in the growing courtroom battle against terrorists and their sponsors.
A tribunal of the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago last week unanimously upheld the $200 million suit brought by Stanley and Joyce Boim against two U.S.-based Islamic organizations they allege funded the terrorists who killed their son, David, in 1996.

Officials have not properly analyzed potential links among various terror incidents in New York, including two foiled bomb plots and the first deadly attack on the World Trade Center, Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly told The Jewish Week.
"I don't think we've done the kind of sufficient examination which these types of events warranted to see how closely tied together they are," said Kelly, who was top cop here from 1992-94, when some of the incidents took place.

A fugitive terrorist's boast that Brooklyn Jewish neighborhoods were targeted for attack as far back as 1993 has caused shockwaves here, with a major group issuing a security alert and politicians calling for public funds to beef up security at schools.
"People are confident but concerned," said Malcolm Hoenlein, executive vice chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations. "There is no panic, but people know they have to be more careful, there have to be security measures."