Although the terrorist attack in Tel Aviv was unordinary in almost every aspect, it should arouse quite a few questions and deliberations -- even before the terrorist is captured and his motives and plan of action can be fully understood. Naturally, the brunt of the focus is on capturing him. The concern is that he will continue his killing spree, or will try taking hostages as bargaining chips. As such, the Shin Bet security agency and police are on high alert, and have allocated special units and resources to the task, including SWAT teams. Past experience teaches us that the terrorist will eventually make a mistake leading to his capture. The desire is to catch him alive, to understand his course of action and whether he received help. The signs to this point indicate that he acted alone, and he does not appear to have any connections with terrorist groups (including Islamic State). It also seems he had no accomplices, although several of his associates and relatives were questioned over the weekend to glean whether they had knowledge of his intentions. During their interrogations the terrorist's relatives said he is psychologically unstable. An analysis of the attack raises doubts over such a claim. The planning, which included access and escape routes, the calmness with which the attack was carried out and the possible link to the murder of the cab driver, which is currently being investigated -- all point to an organized, calculated operation in which the terrorist also displayed a high level of expertise with his weapon. Additionally, unlike other terrorists, the Tel Aviv shooter ended his attack before he was neutralized. This fact alone generated a great deal of media speculation in the ensuing hours, including the possibility that the target was the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community. That option was negated once the terrorist's father contacted the police, but quickly shifted the spotlight to new questions: Why was the father given a license to keep a firearm in his home (for his job as a security guard) despite his son's history of security-related offenses, and to what degree was his son being monitored by the authorities since his release from prison- This gap in the system, which we have just learned exists, requires attention in the future. In Israel there are hundreds of terrorists who have been released from prison, with Israeli identification cards, who are only minimally monitored (if at all). Some of them, it stands to reason, have access to weapons, legal or otherwise. Meanwhile, individuals with no history of terrorist involvement may also be tempted to mimic the Tel Aviv attack. This needs to worry law enforcement agencies, and not just because such attacks can be far deadlier than a terrorist with a knife; the main problem is that they reverberate far beyond the attack itself -- affecting the economy, everyday life and overall morale. The Arab-Israeli leadership did well over the weekend to condemn the attack and emphasize its rejection of terrorism, and the government did well to expedite the transfer of funds to the Arab sector to make it clear that it wasn't seen as an enemy. However, although the numbers are small, since the onset of the current terror wave four terrorists have been Arab-Israelis (not including residents of east Jerusalem). The main challenge appears to still be ahead: Considering the sense of systematic discrimination, Israeli society becoming more extreme, and the external influences of elements like ISIS, action must be taken to ensure that the attack in Tel Aviv remains anomalous, and not a dangerous benchmark for Jewish-Arab relations in Israel.
