Adele Bitton is a baby girl who was seriously injured when her mother lost control of the vehicle she was driving and smashed into a truck, outside the city of Ariel in Samaria. She did that after a stone hit her car. The stone that was thrown, along with many others, was more the size of a cinder block than what one imagines when one reads the relatively innocent word “stone.”

The IDF, along with police and the secret police have rounded up the five young Arabs who decided to forego activities most other teenagers around the world take up late at night, in favor of hurling stones at Jewish cars. It’s the “Stones Intifada,” we’re told, it’s taking place in Judea and Samaria, where Jews and Arabs still come in contact with each other. It’s perceived as less serious than the Missiles and Mortars Intifada of Gazan Arabs, because, supposedly, when you’re hit by a stone you’re less likely to die than when a Kassam lands on your house.

Not in the case of Adele Bitton, who, since the harrowing night of March 14, 2013, is still fighting for her tiny life.

But the bad guys have been picked up, and will now have to face an Israeli military court. Israel, you see, has been reluctant for some 46 years to impose its legal system on the “territories” and so the crimes of local Arabs are being deliberated by IDF courts.

That’s gotta’ be scary, you’d think. Who wouldn’t prefer a civilian judge to a military tribune? We’ve all watched “A Few Good Men,” we know the Army tends to go short on defendants’ rights and privileges.

Not really.

It turns out that the military judiciary system whose task it is to put an end to acts of terrorism, is surprisingly tolerant of them.

Three months ago, the senior judge at the Samaria Ofer Military Court, Maj. Amir Dahan, issued a verdict in the case of Ahmed Search, Adel Shehadeh, Ihab Alhfs and Na’al Search, four Arabs from the village of Marda, also near Ariel.

According to the indictment, those four boys participated in the rite of stone throwing at Jewish vehicles on Route 505, between Ariel and Apple junction – two years ago. The four reached the side of the road, spotted the Renault with Israeli plates driven by a Jewish family from Samaria, and threw rocks at them from a distance of about 30 feet.

Half the distance between the pitcher and the catcher in the major leagues. You can aim a stone pretty good from this distance if you know what you’re doing. If you can hit a catcher’s mitt, you can smash a moving car’s window.

That’s what they did, “smashed all the windows on the right side of the vehicle,” the indictment reads. One of the stones, the size of 4.7 by 7.4 inches, flew threw the windshield and hit the head of a 12-year-old girl that was sitting there.

He saw the girl, the Arab teenager with the brick. From 30 feet, if you can hit a catcher’s mitt, you can hit a 12-year-old girl’s skull. He fractured her skull, she was rushed to the hospital for surgery.

The prosecution asked to convict the four terrorists (I don’t know what other name you call a young man who hurls a brick at an innocent stranger from 30 feet) with attempted murder.

But the military court, in a long and thoroughly reasoned decision, chose to acquit the four of attempted murder. They were finally convicted of throwing stones and sent to four years in prison.

Shaheeds..

Judge Dahan (Ha’aretz called him ‘the most even-handed judge’) is a bearded, Orthodox Jew, who lives in the town of Gedera and, we hope, sleeps well at night. He was not satisfied with the court’s generally lenient attitude toward teenage Arabs who treat Jewish motorists and their passengers like so many ducks in a shooting gallery. Judge Dahan wrote that not every stone throwing is right away a case of attempted murder. In most cases it’s just, at best, a case of vandalism.

“The stone-throwing is a serious offense, whose severity changes based on variable circumstances,” wrote Judge Dahan. “It can bear the character of a hard and deadly felony, with near certainty of endangering human life—and it can also be a mischievous prank, without potential damage, carried out by a young man who has barely crossed the age threshold of criminal liability.”

As the “Stone Intifada” continues to spread, making Jewish life in Judea and Samaria once again unsafe in the extreme, Judge Dahan is proving to be a failure at delivering on the most essential role of a court in any civilized country: insuring people’s safety, in their homes and on the roads.

It is high time Israel followed the Levy Commission’s recommendations and imposed Israeli law on the Jewish parts of Judea and Samaria. But until that’s done, the IDF court must embrace the primary task of the IDF, which, last time we checked, did not include cuddling Arab baby killers.

Two-year-old Adele Bitton remains in life-threatening condition after she and her family were attacked by Palestinian stone throwers.

Thursday, 6:25 PM – Due to a massive Palestinian rock throwing terror attack against Jewish motorists, a truck and a car collided at Gitai Evyassar Junction on Highway 5, around 5 kilometers east of Ariel.

It now appears that the driver of the car lost control after being hit by rocks. A bus was also damaged in the attack.

Four people are injured, some seriously, including 2 children and a toddler.

The mother is in serious condition and trapped in the car (7:10 PM).

A 3 year old child is in critical condition and undergoing CPR (7:14 PM).

A 4 year old and 6 year old girl are in moderate to serious condition and evacuated to the hospital (7:30 PM).

The bus driver is lightly injured from the stone throwing.

Another baby was just injured in a second attack an hour later.

The highway connects Tel Aviv to Ariel.

After 35 years, Ariel’s visionary, founder and longstanding mayor, Ron Nachman was ready and willing to take anyone to task. After all, what other city of 20,000 residents enjoyed the extensive services that Ariel offers? Even cities with much larger populations couldn’t compare. As Ron was fond of noting, Ra’anana can’t boast anything like the Eshel Hashomron Hotel. Modi’in doesn’t have an institution that even remotely resembles Ariel University. And how many cities in Israel can take pride in two industrial parks with a combined 200 factories?

Ron Nachman was proudly and decidedly secular from the outset. He was determined to build a city in Samaria that would not resemble the Gush Emmunim communities of his religious counterparts. Theirs was a Biblical commitment. His was about security. They spoke of the Tanach. He spoke of Zionism. They rejoiced in their middle-of-the-night outpost maneuvers. He prided himself on government approval every step of the way. He simply would not allow another community of tens to hundreds of families to the east of the Green Line to suffice.

Ron’s family founded the city of Nes Tsiyona in 1883. Almost a century later, Ron had the singular notion of following suit by creating another Israeli city where the Jewish State needed it most.

Instead of gathering the traditional 10 to 20 founding families for his new initiative, Ron got 6,000 people to join him. This initial group was named the “Tel Aviv Nucleus,” with the resolute objective of attaining national legitimacy for their ambitious endeavor.

Two tents and a camel quickly became temporary homes and roads. Semi-detached, cottages, private villas and apartment complexes followed. Highway 5 now connects Tel Aviv to Ariel, servicing tens of thousands of vehicles on a daily basis.

Today, Ariel is the regional hub for Samaria and much of the Jordan Valley. When residents of the surrounding communities need to go to the bank, visit their doctor at any of Israel’s four national health clinics, or do their grocery shopping, they come to Ariel. When the women of Eli want to have a women’s recreation evening, they make use of Ariel’s Sports and Recreation Complex. And when communities and municipalities in Samaria want to host a memorable event, the Ariel Regional Center for the Performing Arts is the natural venue.

LEADERSHIP IS an individual quality, and the top of the mountain can be a lonely place. No one else really seemed to comprehend Ron’s vision, but today Ariel maintains a consensus status within Israel. No sovereign Israeli government has considered compromising Ariel. It has remained part and parcel of the State of Israel within the framework of every proposed negotiation, including those of prime ministers Barak and Olmert who offered up to 99% of Israeli controlled “disputed” lands to the Palestinian Authority.

But what about the other communities in Judea and Samaria? Who would safeguard their future? Ron served in the 13th Knesset from 1992-1996 and fought the Oslo Accords tooth and nail.

Successive U.S. presidents, ambassadors to Israel and U.N. representatives were all well aware of Ariel, but refused to draw near. They preferred to ignore the city and its dynamic mayor in the hope that they just might disappear.

An interviewer once asked him, “how can you [the Israelis] build in Occupied East Jerusalem?” After asking the interviewer to repeat the question as a stall tactic, Ron responded: “I just came from my hotel room, where I searched for proof that this land belongs to the British. I found a Bible there, but it made no mention of London. It didn’t speak of Washington D.C., Paris or Berlin. But do you know how many times the word Jerusalem appeared? And you’re asking me if we have rights to our capital city?”

Perhaps because of his convictions, in the Diaspora, Ron Nachman felt like he fell between the cracks. Reformed and, more often than not, Conservative Jewish communities tended to keep their distance, as in most cases their party lines did not allow them to associate with “settlers.” Orthodox Jewish communities, on the other hand, were too parochial to partner with Ron’s diversified worldview and their conventional sensibilities of what a reborn biblical city should look like.

Although lasting relationships with Jewish groups and individuals in the Diaspora were few and far between, Ron developed a unique, personal connection with the Land of Israel. The land had a way of speaking to him. It awakened within him a sense of history, heritage and promise.