fed up
Thu, Mar 28, 2002 at 10:18:42 am PST
Palestinians should be afraid of the reaction of the American street. Very afraid. People are fed up. Americans will give you lots of chances to prove your intentions; Arafat and his people have had more than their share, and they have proved their intentions. And the well of sympathy has run dry.
Wearing their best dresses and shirts, hats and polished shoes, about 250 people, many of them elderly, headed slowly into the seaside Park Hotel for the Passover Seder, the ritual meal at the start of the weeklong Jewish holiday.
With deadly timing, a Palestinian man carrying 40 pounds of explosives studded with metal scraps followed five minutes later.
"What are you doing here?" a desk clerk shouted at the intruder. Seconds later, a shock wave of nails ripped through the banquet hall, killing 20 diners and wounding more than 130 — the second deadliest suicide attack in a year and a half of fighting.
It was simply horrific. "Come, let me help you get up," one guest, who gave only his first name, Yitzhak, said to a wounded woman in the darkness. "How can you help me?" Yitzhak recalled the woman telling him. "I don't have legs."
The monster who did this was a known suicide wannabe, recently released from prison by Nobel Peace Prize winner Yasser Arafat.
History teacher Nechama Donenhirsch, 52, sat with her family among the excited crowd. Outside it was raining. Lightning turned the sky over the sea purple. There was thunder.
"Suddenly, it was hell," Donenhirsch said from a hospital bed. The blast, which witnesses say came in several huge bursts, tore bodies, tossed chairs and knocked out electricity, plunging the hall into an eerie darkness. A wall crumbled and parts of the ceiling fell. For a brief moment it was silent. Then a ringing in the ears. Shouts for help.
Donenhirsch and her family ducked under a table.
"My daughter, 16 years old, held me and said to me to calm me, 'You are alive, I'm alive, don't worry, we are alive,'" she said.
At the Arab summit, United Nations Security Council member Syria urged the other Arab states to continue their support for Hamas “to the end.” To Hamas, “the end” is when every Jew in Israel is dead. And then they’ll start coming for us.
After a few moments, they moved bit by bit, staggering over body parts to get out.
"We saw a little girl about 10, 12 years old. She was dead," said Donenhirsch, hunching over in grief in her hospital bed. "The face of the little girl, so nice, was like surprise — big open eyes, but surely dead. She was so nice, so young."
Iraq will presumably now pay the family of the Palestinian murderer the customary $25,000 in blood money. And our “ally” Crown Prince Abdullah, who is scheduled to visit Dubya’s ranch next month, is hugging and kissing the deputy chairman of Iraq’s Revolutionary Command Council.
Not one word at the Arab summit about the events of 9/11. Not one word of self-examination, not one voice asking why Saudi Arabia produced 15 of the 19 hijackers.
I’ll never forget the images of Palestinians celebrating in the streets of Ramallah on 9/11.
The Arabs won’t like us when we’re mad.
