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Mount of Olives Mom: Attackers Wanted Kids’ Bus to Flip

September 22, 2014

Miriam Schwab, a resident of the Maale Zeitim neighborhood that overlooks the Temple Mount from the Mount of Olives, is rethinking the neighborhood’s strategy with regard to the terror it faces on a daily basis.

Her daughters, aged 10 and 7, were on the school bus that was attacked with paint and rocks Sunday morning. The purpose of hurling the paint at the windshield, she explained, was to block the driver’s field of vision and cause the bus to crash or overturn. At least one rock smashed into the windshield next to the driver’s head, and if the bus had been travelling faster, it could have penetrated the windshield and caused a major tragedy, she added.

Her older daughter called her on the phone as the event unfolded, and she could hear the younger daughter crying hysterically, unable to talk. Such events have become routine, Schwab says. “Stoning attacks happen at least three times a week. The kids’ bus was also stoned coming back on Friday.”

The driver stopped the bus and police were alerted. The bus then made its way to the school, near the Western Wall, and her older daughter took the younger one to the teachers’ room until she calmed down. Schwab herself did not see her daughters until the afternoon.

Until now, she told Arutz Sheva Monday, the residents of the neighborhood preferred to ignore the attacks, rather than allow the attackers to feel they had succeeded in disrupting their lives. Now, she thinks this was a mistake: “I definitely prefer to not be the victim. But when attacks are taking place that specifically target kids, I can’t keep quiet.”

‘Pretending it’s not happening just means there will be more’

Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat’s approach, as reported by Arutz Sheva, of trying to limit media discussion of terrorism, “is actually our neighborhood strategy too and we stuck to it for many years,” she explained. “I could see the merits. However, I now think that we didn’t do anyone any favors. The violence has spread to all of Jerusalem and we should have demanded it be stopped in our area. It was kind of seen as acceptable as long as it was only in the eastern part of the city. But violence is not acceptable anywhere, and by accepting it the whole city is now paying a price.

“Unfortunately the powers that be only act properly when under pressure. Pretending it’s not happening just means there will be more.”

“A terrible incident that was barely reported happened on September 8. Rocks and firecrackers were pelted at the kids kindergarten. I happened to be there when it happened. We had to put all the kids in the safe room until the attack was over.

“We have security guards, but they are very limited in what they can do. If God forbid they actually try to defend us they end up in police questioning.”

Schwab, a web developer and marketer by trade, now wants the incessant terror attacks to be in the news, until they stop. And she is taking action to make that happen.

A new Facebook page

She told her Facebook friends Sunday: “Today it was stones, which no one should fool themselves by thinking they are benign, but tomorrow God forbid it could be molotov cocktails. Or worse.

“One of the problems is that the press isn’t reporting the terror attacks that are happening in Jerusalem on a daily basis. So me and a few others have set up a page where anyone from Jerusalem can post attacks they experience. If they aren’t published, it’s like they didn’t happen! So even if the press won’t publish these things, we will! And we plan on sharing them with politicians and police so that they can see that we care and demand security for ourselves and our children!

“If this is something you care about, please Like the page, share with your friends, and post anything relevant: Terror in Jerusalem Must Stop !”

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