Michael Widlanski: THE POLICE, THE TERRORISTS AND MY MAZDA

Monday, February 18, 2002

Israel's traffic police have never been high on my seasonal gift list, but
something happened yesterday that may change my attitude.

Until recently I held a grudge against the Israeli police for a number of
reasons, but I'll concentrate on one:

I'm always getting pulled over for license and registration checks which
make me late and angry.

These examinations, as any Palestinian "human right activist" will tell you
are an unreasonable infringement on my movement.
Usually it happens just when I'm taking my kids to their karate class or a
play-study date with their friends. We sit patiently in the car while the
police-usually members of "civilian patrol"--fumble around with my documents
making computer checks etc.
This is especially irksome for me when I go to the Knesset for an
appointment and the authorities tell me to park on the side for a few
minutes while they check me out.

It turns out that my low-slung 323-Mazda is one of the favorite cars of
Palestinian car thieves. (Maybe it's the hide-away wannabe-Porsche
headlights.)

After being pulled over several times, I asked the guards at the Knesset why
they were making me late and miserable on a regular basis.

It turns out that my license plate is registered as stolen.

"Funny," I said, "my car's never been stolen." (Knock on wood etc)

"No," they said, "but the plates are registered as having been stolen. Did
you ever have your plates stolen?" they asked.
"No," I said, though I once had a slightly bent plate replaced during my
annual vehicle examination.

It turns out that the Arab car thieves frequently produce phony plates of
legitimate cars or steal plates from legitimate cars, and someone at the
garage may have taken my crumpled plate and given it to a car thief.

Legitimate-looking Israeli license plates help Palestinian terrorists get
through Israeli road blocks, like the one that stopped a Palestinian terror
squad yesterday.

A short detour:

These roadblocks are often manned not by young and virile combat veterans
but by sometimes rather elderly volunteers of what is called "Mishmar
Ezrahi"-The Civilian Patrol.

The "civilian patrol" is manned by non-police volunteers-lawyers, mechanics,
stockbrokers, many of them retirees-who work as volunteer policemen several
nights a months and during emergencies.

They often man police checkpoints, and I'm usually nice to them, even though
they frequently inconvenience me.
Police are sometimes called COPs for short: constable on patrol, but I have
my own Yiddish-English variation for the old geezers who occasionally try my
patience: AKOPs - alter kaakers on patrol. (Alter Kaaker is Yiddish for Old
Fart.)
Last week I was running with my dog, and the AKOPs stopped us from entering
the park down the block from my house, not far from Jerusalem's French Hill
junction, because of what is known here as "hefetz hashood"-a suspicious
object.
It really ruined my run. The sun was shining, but not too hot, and it would
have been a good run.

But the suspicious object turned out to be medium size bomb that made quite
a big pop when detonated safely by the police sappers.

This kind of thing happens all the time around here, especially during the
last 17 months during which close to 300 Israelis have been killed in Arab
terror attacks.

But I never really appreciated the traffic police and the civilian patrols
until the thwarted terror attack yesterday.

Three traffic police men stopped car-which turned out to have a large bomb
in it-because its Mazda license plate was suspicious.

When the police stopped the car, one of the Arab terrorists started shooting
his Kalashnikov assault rifle at them, and they fired back with their hand
guns, killing him. They were wounded slightly.

The remaining terrorist sped off with the bomb-laden car until he was
stopped by other police, blowing up the car, wounding another policeman.

The Associated Press said the attack was aimed at an Israeli military base,
but the Voice of Palestine radio called it "Operation Hadera," carried out
by the Fatah organization of Yasser Arafat

Hadera is mid-size Israeli city south of Haifa, and it has been the target
of more than half a dozen terror attacks in recent months in which several
Israelis were killed. One of the most recent attacks was a murderous assault
on a celebration hall where a twelve-year-old girl was celebrating her
bat-mitzva.

It turns out that the Israeli authorities stopped at least three other
suicide attacks in the last week, sometimes with just good,
old-fashioned police work.

Now, every time they make me late for an appointment at the Knesset or my
kids' karate class, or interrupt my run with my dog, I'll refrain from
cursing them under my breath.

In fact, I'm now willing to overlook those two highly unwarranted traffic
tickets that required me to take an eight-hour "refresher course" during
which I nearly died from smoke inhalation from the other delinquent drivers.

I won't go into the details.

© 2002 Michael Widlanski
Michael Widlanski is senior analyst at The Media Line and lecturer at The
Rothberg School of the Hebrew University. His articles are available at
www.themedialine.org