In April, an article in Ha’aretz quoted a source from Mossad saying that Israelis had been able to intercept 88 suicide missions since the beginning of the year. In New York last week, a leading Israeli general confirmed that figure when he said that Israeli security had been successful in stopping an average of one bomber a day.
A suicide bomber every day. What we and the world see though is a relatively peaceful Israel. A calm that doesn’t speak to the bravery, intelligence and vigilance of those determined to stop those who intend harm. We, for the most part, forget about the much maligned barrier-wall-fence, but there are some in the world who want to take it down. If they know about the “one bomber a day,” then they don’t care.
Academics in England again threaten divestment saying the barrier-wall-fence is a provocation. Europeans note the lack of suicide bombings and attribute it to a truce of some sort dating back to 2005, while Time Magazine says in its May 15 issue that Hamas is “…currently observing a unilateral ceasefire.”
The reminder of the persistent threat to Israel emanates from the ongoing toll taken by the suicide bombings that weren’t prevented. Israelis were reminded of that last month when the last bombing during Pesach at a falafel restaurant near the old bus station in Tel Aviv claimed its 10th and 11th victims.
Number 10 was an auto mechanic in Holon, a southern suburb of Tel Aviv, Lior Enidzer, 26, who struggled to live for close to a month so that he could be with his wife of only two weeks. Instead, his sister, six months pregnant, will name her new baby Lior in his memory.
Victim number 11 was 16-year-old Daniel Wultz of Florida, who also kept death at bay for more than a month, losing pieces of himself during his struggle. Doctors removed his kidney, spleen and a leg, but still were not able to help the athletic visitor to Israel overcome his fatal injuries. He died after a month of agony and pain.
Among the other 11 murdered were David Shalouv, 29, whose wife was about to deliver their third child; Marcelle Cohen, 75, visiting from France; and 47 year old Binyamin Hafuta, who joins a long list of brave, selfless security guards who regularly place their bodies between bombers and their intended victims. He blocked the way into the restaurant saving many more from death and maiming while knowingly giving up his own life to do so.
Wultz’s and Endizer’s agonizing deaths remind us of the 63 others who were maimed, crippled and injured in that same blast. Collapsed lungs, punctured intestines, mutilated inner ears, injured brains, eyes that will no longer see, mangled organs, torn bodies. Sixty-three people forever changed. Sixty-three families forever burdened. Hundreds of dreams and hopes irreparably shattered.
And when Danny Wultz died, Arabs celebrated just as they do when there are other killings and mutilations. Abu Nasser, head of the terrorist group that claimed “credit” for this heinous act said, “This is a gift from Allah. We wish this young dog will go directly with no transit to hell.” Elsewhere, he called Wultz’s killing a “gift from Allah” because he was “both an American and a Jew.”
This is the terrorism justified by two academics who just authored a critique of the “Israel lobby” and in it apologized for terrorists and what they do. Walt and Mearsheimer, in a lengthy paper published by the Kennedy School at Harvard, say, “The Palestinian resort to terrorism is wrong but it isn’t surprising. The Palestinians believe they have no other way to force Israeli concessions.”
Israel’s President Moshe Katsav, after a meeting with a group of Muslim religious and political leaders shortly after the bombing, talked to the Jerusalem Post. He said he was “certain that there cannot be a religion that supports bloodshed. It cannot be that the Koran and Islam support this. But I don’t hear Muslim religious leaders speaking out against this.”
And then there is the anguish of Rabbi Israel Lau, who officiated at the burial of, Endizer – the 10th victim — as quoted by Steven Erlanger of the New York Times. “Who are these savages who do these things, and no one takes the hand outstretched for peace? … Heaven is not for such people. For what do they give their lives? To kill innocents? This is religion? No, this is a distortion of all mercy and all religious feeling, and I want the Muslim clerics to tell the truth, that murder doesn’t bring paradise.”
Every day they try. And almost every day they fail. But on the days they succeed, real people pay a terrible price. And while the world says Hamas refrains from violence, that Israel should remove the barrier and that the Arabs’ actions can be understood, the 10th and 11th victims are placed into the ground.
–nrg

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