After Stabbing On Tel Aviv Bus, EU To Stop Selling Buses To Israel

“We cannot in good conscience allow for products under our aegis to be associated with political or religious violence,” said Commission spokeswoman Hedda Pmaias.

Brussels, January 21 – In a quick reaction to this morning’s stabbing attack on a Tel Aviv bus, the European Union’s governing body ordered a German bus manufacturer to cease supplying Israel at once with buses, lest more of the vehicles be involved in violence.

A man from the Palestinian city of Tulkarm went on a stabbing spree at about 7:30 this morning on the number 40 bus as it traveled along Begin Boulevard. 13 people suffered wounds of varying severity, four of them serious. Prison Services personnel who happened to be on the scene chased the attacker, shot him in the legs, and placed him under arrest. Concerned at the turn of events, the European Commission issued an immediate directive to manufacturer MAN SE to place on hold all contracts for the sale of buses to the Dan Transportation Company, which operates the Tel Aviv area’s local routes, amid worries that MAN might be encouraging violence by having its vehicles serve as venues for attacks.

“We cannot in good conscience allow for products under our aegis to be associated with political or religious violence,” said Commission spokeswoman Hedda Pmaias. “This is especially important at a time when tempers flare so easily, and murderous violence is a constant risk,” she said, referring to the fatal attacks on the Charlie Hebdo magazine and a Kosher supermarket in Paris.

In this case, said Pmaias, it would be unethical both to contribute to the violence by selling buses and to profit from that violence by supplying the very vehicles in which the attacks take place. “Our constituency across the Continent would support this move,” she asserted.

The Commission stopped short of calling on manufacturers outside its jurisdiction to do the same, allowing that not all suppliers can be held accountable for the way in which their products are employed or handled by the end-user. “The link between MAN buses and the violence this morning is clear, and we therefore have few compunctions about halting the supply of more such vehicles,” explained Pmaias.

“The same cannot be said unequivocally for other products that might be involved in such incidents, and we therefore are refraining from calling on other governing bodies to restrict the flow of their goods into this conflict zone,” she continued. “We have reservations, for example, about calling on knife manufacturers to halt supply of their wares to Palestinian areas, because it’s not up to us to tell those manufacturers who their customers should be.”