One recent Friday night, we were awakened at 1 in the morning by the loudspeaker in our community. The announcement said: “There is a warning that there is a terrorist in Tekoa. Lock your windows and doors, sleep with gun, guard your children. Turn out all of the lights.”

We quickly turned off the lights even though we are Sabbath observers. We locked the doors and windows. We put a chair in front of the front door. Then the phone rang. Our neighbor was calling to make sure that we had heard the warning.

The kids were scared, shaking. I told them that we would protect them, take care of them. That they should try to go to sleep.

The kids fell to sleep, all of them in our bed. I prayed and then slept fitfully, hoping that morning would soon be on its way.

Around 3:00 the loudspeaker came on again. The warning was over.

For now. But as I told my children, it’s rare that terrorists warn you.

They certainly didn’t warn my son, Koby, 13, before they stoned him and his friend Yosef to death, crushing their skulls so they were unrecognizable. Koby and Yosef were hiking near our home in Tekoa. The two boys wanted to know the canyon beyond our house like the backs of their hands.

They were killed for their love of the land. They were killed for being Jews.

My friend was at a movie in Jerusalem on Saturday night, the night of the massacre at the Moment Cafe when a terrorist killed 11 people. The manager stopped the movie and told the patrons what had happened and asked if they wanted the movie to continue. They didn’t. They all went home.

Why do people continue to stay here even though we are being slaughtered by terrorists? Because many of us feel a deep sense of connection here, to our country, our heritage, and to each other.

The sense of connection manifests itself in surprising ways. Today I go to the makollet, the grocery store, and there is a man filling a cardboard box with goodies to send to his son in the army. The man picks out a bar of chocolate, plain milk chocolate. And the makollet lady, Rena, says: “Your son doesn’t like that kind of chocolate. Noam likes crunchy chocolate.”

Another story: My friend Ruth is at a kiosk buying a drink. A little girl says shyly to the proprietor: “What can I get for 2 shekls?” He says, “nothing.” Then he hands her a shekl. “But now you have three. You can buy gum or a candy.” Ruth fishes into her pocket. “Now you have four.”

Here there is a feeling of family. Here in the face of pain and suffering, we don’t feel alone. We feel that we are a net that is woven together and though it is full of holes, it is strong enough to lift us up.

If we make a hole in the net, the net is weakened. Of course it can be mended. But it will never be quite the same.

We don’t want to make a hole in the net. We don’t want to leave the place where our son is buried. We don’t want to leave the only place in the world where time is measured by a Jewish calendar, where the celebrations center on the Jewish holidays, where the language is the language of the Bible. We don’t want to leave the center of Jewish history. Now we are part of that long, hard history. We are part of the struggle of the Jewish people trying to live in their land.

My son died for being a Jew. I want to live as one.

Sherri can be reached at: smandell@actcom.co.il

We are to give the efforts, exerted by the USA, the EU, The UN and the latest Barcelona declaration of the European council, a complete chance to succeed in achieving the long yearned settlement according to the international legitimacy and the UN and the Security Council’s resolutions.

After the welcoming of the Palestinian National Authority to the latest Security Council’s resolution, and to Gen. Zinni’s efforts, all Palestinians should abide with the Leadership’s related decisions, in order to protect the Palestinian national high interest. Breaking these decisions do not only harm the Palestinian national interests, but also considered as a violation to the Palestinian security and safety, which will lead to unnecessary violence that endangers the broad Palestinian public.

Every action carried out at this time, when hope is slowly returning to the citizens, would raise certain questions, like who is benefiting from such actions?. This question is essential and raises more questions, is the conflict between us and the Israelis on this Holy Land only a suicidal one? Or is it a struggle for independence and freedom in our own state? Or does anyone think that a confrontation can decide a war? Confrontations and armed struggle are merely a mean to move the political level towards negotiations, where wars can really be ended.

We do not seek to jump to hasty conclusions, but in every long war, a group or groups of war princes, brokers and others that we do not wish to name them immerge on the scene, that their interest is to recharge the flames of war, and every time the war dims, they refuel it, this is what we should be aware of, because we already know the Israelis and their ways of creating such action even if they hurt their citizens in order to use it against us, therefore the Palestinians should prevent such phenomenon, and inform the fraction that playing with the all’s destiny is forbidden regardless the reasons or the motives.

We are for pluralism and we have encouraged it, moreover we had practiced it and still do, because we understand what pluralism is all about, it is for the benefit of the whole community and for the prosperity of the nation. Pluralism never meant that a fraction of the nation can control the fate of the whole nation.

For the Zionist false allegation of “land without people for people without land” we have paid a dear price that no nation on earth has came close to our sacrifice, we have struggled firmly against the occupier, and we have lost thousands of martyrs and millions of refugees and victims, this price we have paid in order to redeem our identity and to claim back our rights, our blood have moved the international communities and established our image as people fighting for their sacred freedom and independence, thus we will not allow any person or group to distort our clean image. The act near Um Alfahm yesterday against civilians, was useless and does not serve the Palestinian interest especially after developing recently, attacks against Israeli officers and soldiers and their military camps, such actions were never condemned by the international communities, but killing civilians is something else, something that shouldn’t have taken place.

Yet we do not mean that every thing is back to normal, because the road is still long to the declaration of independence, and the vicious political struggle is still ahead of us, but the situation will be easier for both sides, as long it is peaceful negotiations based on the international legitimacy.

We hope that yesterday’s action was the last of its kind. The Palestinians will not allow such acts to take place, because they do not serve the Palestinian national interest and such acts are aimless, useless and lack the right timing conducted by politically naïve persons, such acts lack every national responsibility.

Mohammed a-Dura was killed on the second day of the Intifada at Netzarim junction, after he was caught along with his father in the middle of exchanges of fire between IDF soldiers and Palestinians. Foreign television crews documented the father protecting his son, and then the boy’s death and the father’s injury. The pictures of the two, hiding behind a wall, terrified, were published worldwide They came to symbolize the Intifada and served as a dramatic indictment against the State of Israel.

Esther Shapira, the editor of the prestigious documentary series, The Fourth Square on the German television network ARD, decided to investigate whether the boy truly had been shot by IDF soldiers, and what the boy and his father were doing in so dangerous a place. The report, which was broadcast yesterday, is based on an analysis of the footage of the event and on testimonies. Many people were interviewed for the program, including the father, a Palestinian photographer who was on the scene, IDF soldiers and eye-witnesses.

The conclusion drawn by the investigation was that Mohammed a-Dura was probably not killed by IDF fire. “It cannot be concluded with absolute certainty that it was the Palestinians who shot the boy, but the numerous proofs point to a high probability that it was not the Israelis who did so”, the program editor, Esther Shapira, told Yedioth Ahronoth yesterday. She said that three pieces of data are lacking for a conclusion of absolute certainty: No autopsy was performed, the bullets that killed the boy were not sent to a lab for ballistic inspection — which would have allowed for a determination as to which gun they were fired from, and the wall behind which the father and boy hid was destroyed by the IDF a short time after the incident, so that the military positions and the gunmen’s positions could not be determined with certitude.

“However”, said Shapira, “What can be proven is that the Israeli soldiers were positioned lower down, while the pathologist in Gaza determined that the bullets that killed a-Dura had been fired from high up”. The report also concludes that a-Dura’s death was the result of an accident and was not deliberate. “Had this been deliberate gunfire, it would not have taken IDF snipers 45 minutes to hit a stationary target”, Shapira said.

Another conclusion reached by the investigation is that the presence of the father and son in so dangerous a place had been staged for media propaganda purposes. This conclusion was reached because “the father had no reasonable explanation as to why he was there with his son at the time”.

The findings of ARD’s investigation correspond to the conclusions drawn by the IDF, which were first published by Yedioth Ahronoth. These conclusions state that a-Dura was probably killed by Palestinian gunfire. Then OC Southern Command, Maj. Gen. (Res.) Yom Tov Samia, headed an investigative committee that examined the circumstances of the boy’s death. At the presentation of the investigation’s findings, Samia said that the holes in the wall behind the boy demonstrated that the bullets had been fired from a different direction than that of the IDF position. Samia also explained that the boy’s father said in interviews to the Arab media that his son had been hit in the back, while the boy was facing in the direction of the IDF position. This article ran in Yediot Aharonot on March 19, 2002

Jerusalem
Down the Winding streets of this storied capital city, they sit in cafes and restaurants, talking and sipping coffee and trying to escape the angel of death that is just around the corner. Seething with rage, and stalking the innocent, he has packed a Koran, and underneath an overstuffed jacket there are enough explosives to shatter the lives and spirit of a city of peace.

Such is the existence these days in Jerusalem, when a Saturday evening dinner means pondering what it’s like to be blown to pieces. My Israeli friends had arrived at 9 p.m., and had informed me that our plans for dinner had been canceled. We had thought about going to the trendy Shanty or Moment restaurants. “I have a bad feeling about tonight,” Tzvya said, before driving off into the night.

I ventured out anyway, walking up the Ben Yehudah pedestrian mall which looked like a ghost town at 9 p.m. After my dinner in an empty restaurant, the owner thanked me for being brave enough to come to Israel. I told him he was the brave one, and that it was an honor for me to visit his country.

Our conversation was cut short. His friend drove up to the sidewalk and told us that Israeli radio had announced that there was a suicide bomber on his way to Jerusalem. An odd report, I thought, but still, I started to walk back to my hotel, down Ben Yehudah, looking at the faces of young soldiers, and beggars and teens and con men playing three-card monte. They didn’t look worried, they’d heard this before.

I pushed on down Jaffa Street, across from the Mayor Ehud Olmert’s office, where a suicide bomber sent Bus 18 into the heavens in the ’90s. The stillness of the night lulled me into a state of meditation. I looked at the stars for a few moments, and inexplicably, turned, and entered the bar that I had been leaning against.

As I looked at the menu, I heard an ambulance. A waitress peeked through the window, and cell phones began to ring. And then, from the direction of the Old City came a dozen ambulances, and inside the bar there was that uncomfortable moment that Israelis have long shared publicly.

A man placed his hand on his wife’s shoulder as tears rolled down her cheeks. One by one people began to leave, and I followed them out the door. The ambulances were on their way to the Moment restaurant, which had been one of the restaurants on my agenda just 90 minutes earlier. Five minutes from where I stood, 10 souls lay scattered on the Jerusalem street. They had ended the Sabbath with a renewed hope that their neighbors would not place bombs on their bodies. They guessed wrong.

From our homes in America it seems so awful and horrible and distant, and after we see the pictures of the carnage we drink our coffee and go to work. Here, life stops, and people hold vigil as they watch the live coverage on TV, and anxiously write down the numbers of the hospitals where the injured are brought.

I came to Jerusalem to ask people about life during the latest intifada. It’s a subject they talk about all day long. Everyone seems to know someone here who was killed or injured in a terrorist attack. They talk about world opinion and an inevitable full-scale war against the Palestinians.

They also, quietly, inquire about American Jews. “Why have they deserted us?” they ask. I can’t give them any answers. I can’t tell them that most Americans Jews think I’m crazy to come to the Jewish homeland. I can’t tell them that most young Jews can’t even find Israel on the map.

I could never explain it to them. Steven Rosenberg is a journalist based in Boston.

This article ran in the Boston Globe on March 16, 2002