OUR ISRAELI DAUGHTER'S DEATH IS ISRAEL'S FAULT

sbahour [at] palnet.com

OUR DAUGHTER'S DEATH IS ISRAEL'S FAULT

EXCLUSIVE: Our daughter was killed by a suicide bomber... but it is the
terror of Israel's occupation that is to blame for her death
Jun 25 2002

The Mirror (London)
From Alexandra Williams In Jerusalem

A BIG red "Free Palestine" sticker has a prominent place on the Elhanan family's front door.

But this is not a Palestinian house in the occupied territories.

Remarkably, this home is in an affluent Jewish area in Jerusalem and belongs to a couple whose daughter Smadar, 14, was killed by a Palestinian suicide bomber.

Rather than being motivated by revenge and hatred, Nurit Elhanan and her husband Rami, both 52, are fighting for peace.

They are campaigning for an end to the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories, calling it a cancer that is feeding terror.

Nurit, a doctor of language at Israel's Hebrew University, said: "No real mother would ever think of consoling herself with the killing of another mother's child.
"Israel is becoming a graveyard of children. The Holy Land is being turned into a wasteland."

Graphic designer Rami agrees: "If an Israeli child is killed and the next day a Palestinian child is killed, it's no solution.

"Our daughter was killed because of the terror of Israeli occupation. Every innocent victim from both sides is a victim of the occupation. The occupation is the cancer feeding Palestinian terror."

Last week, following two suicide bombs and a shooting which killed 30 Israelis, Israel hardened its military tactics. This resulted in the deaths of innocent Palestinians - five children on Friday alone.

Rami said: "I was devastated when the Palestinian children were killed in Jenin, like I was the day before when a suicide bomber killed Israelis. Palestinians grieve and cry exactly the same way as Israelis do. We all have the same blood."

Some brand the couple apologists for suicide bombers. At a peace rally, an Israeli called them "Leftie traitors" and shouted, "Pity you weren't blown up with your daughter."

Smadar was killed in a double Palestinian suicide bombing in Jerusalem in September 1997.

It was 3pm and the first day back at school. She was buying books with two of her closest friends.

As terrified shoppers tried to escape the first bomb, they fled into the path of the second terrorist, who unleashed his lethal device

Smadar was killed instantly with one of her friends. The other was in a coma for six months.

Five years on, the pain is still too intense for the family to talk of it.

RAMI, whose father survived Auschwitz and whose grandparents, aunts and uncles died in the Holocaust, said: "The pain of losing our beautiful daughter is unbearable, but our house is not a house of hate.

"You can sink in your misery and just wait for death or you can try to do something meaningful.

"We started to look for contact with people like us from the other side. We now have many Palestinian friends, parents who have lost children too.

"We are in a position of power. We couldn't stay silent. We have to tell the world. This power was brought to us by our disaster. Some people say we use it cynically."

Some argue that ending the occupation would fail to halt the suicide bombers. Groups behind the killings, like Hamas and Islamic Jihad, have vowed to continue the campaign until the Jews are expelled from Israel.

But Rami and Nurit said terror organisations drew their strength from a persecuted people.

Nurit said: "Hamas take power from the anger of people. If you restored people's dignity, honour and prosperity by ending occupation, Hamas would lose power."

Rami added: "If a man who has cancer in his leg goes to the doctor and asks if it is amputated will he be well, no doctor in the world would say, yes, you'll be fine, but no doctor would say don't amputate.

"Getting out of Gaza and the West Bank will serve the good of both Israelis and Palestinians."

The couple have three sons - Elik, 25, Guy, 23, and Yigal, 10. Elik and Guy, who now study in Paris, were conscripts in the Israeli army. They fought in the troubles on the Lebanese border.

Nurit and Rami believe that if their sons were called up today, they would refuse to serve in the Palestinian territories. Rami, a veteran of the 1973 Yom Kippur War and the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon, said: "The refuseniks are the heroes."

The anger of Rami and his wife is vented on Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon,
Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and America, rather than the bomber who killed their daughter.Nurit, whose father General Matti Peled spoke out for a two-state solution, said:

"The war is not between the Israeli people and Palestinian people, but these life-destroying men who call themselves leaders.

"The US is reluctant and bored with the situation. And the rest of the world is going on as if blood has never been shed."

The couple founded the Bereaved Family Forum with Palestinian Izzat Ghazzawi, whose son Ramy, 16, was killed by Israeli troops.

Last December, Nurit and Izzat were given the European Parliament's freedom of speech award, The Sakharov Prize. Nurit said: "I have been asked many times if I feel any need to avenge the murder of my little girl, who was killed just because she was born Israeli, by a young man who felt hopeless to the point of murder and suicide, just because he was born Palestinian.

"I quote Hebrew poet Bialik who said, 'Satan has not yet created a vengeance for the blood of a small child'."

awilliams [at] mirror.co.uk

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/allnews/page.cfm?objectid=11979088&;; method=full

sbahour [at] palnet.com
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From: patricia [at] hdip.org
(Patricia Smith) Date: Sat, Jul 6, 2002, 6:28pm (EDT+6) To: patricia [at] hdip.org

Subject: Israeli army kills a 72 year old man with tear gas & Last week in Palestine

The Palestine Monitor, A PNGO Information Clearinghouse

Update

Israeli army kills a 72 year old man with tear gas July 6th 2002

The Israeli imposed curfew on the towns and cities of the West Bank continues.
Not only is the curfew destroying sectors of Palestinian society including the economic, education and health it is also endangering peoples lives, both preventing the ill from receiving medical treatment and the deliberate conflicting orders and misinformation about when the curfew is lifted or will be imposed.

At approximately 8 o'clock this morning the people who thought the curfew had been lifted, left their homes and went to the center of town. Israeli soldiers – without giving time for people to flee the market place, fired tear gas at the civilians; Jaras Samam Ad-Dulu 72 years old died of suffocation after he inhaled the tear gas.

Initially the curfew was due to be re-imposed at 4 pm, but at 12.30 Israeli military vehicles drove around Ramallah announcing the curfew was re-imposed without warning.

Furthermore, at around 1pm there was a peaceful demonstration in the center of Ramallah when Israeli troops opened fire at the demonstrators:

Abdel Rahman Abdel Rahman, 21 years old, was hit by a live bullet in the thigh.
Wasim Fawouz Hammad, 25 years old, was injured by shrapnel from live ammunition.

The Palestine Monitor, A PNGO Information Clearinghouse

Last week in Palestine
30 June - 6 July 2002

The Israeli army continues to hold a tight grip on the whole West Bank; all the major Palestinian cities are occupied by Israeli troops imposing strict curfews making life extremely hard and unpredictable for the Palestinian population.

This week the Israeli army expanded its re-occupation of the West Bank by entering a number of additional villages: · Zababde (Jenin area) Salfit, Beit Iba, Beit Jazan (Nablus) Beit Rima, Kufr 'Ain, Qaramit Bani Zeed, A'arura, Deir Ghassana, Muzariya Alnu Bani, An-Nabi Saleh (Rammalah area) Dahhriye, Dura (Hebron area)

The villages in the Bethlehem area were already under curfew.

In other words the Israeli army has currently direct military presence all over the West Bank affecting almost 2 million Palestinians who currently live under curfew.

This morning a 72 year old man, Jarias Samaan Ad-Dalwu, died in Ramallah after inhaling tear gas thrown by Israeli troops at people who thought the curfew had been lifted.

This week the Israeli government once again began implementing its illegal assassination policy. Four Palestinians were killed in two separate assassination attacks this week.

On June 30 Muhannad A-Taher (28) was assassinated while in his house in Nablus
Imad Darwazi (34) who was with him at the time was also killed in the attack.

Yesterday Jihad Al-Omareen (46) was assassinated when his car exploded in Gaza, and Wa'el Al-Namra
(28) also died in the attack.

Since September 2000, 133 Palestinians have been killed in assassination attacks. 48 of these were not the intended target; 28 were bystanders at the time of the attack and in other words 85 were intededed targets.

The assassination policy is illegal according to all relevant international legal instruments and has previously proven to provoke Palestinian acts of retaliations and as such leads to further violence.
Israeli attacks returned to Gaza this week in another repeated incident of military attack on the civilian population in: ·      
Randa Al-Hindi (41) and her daughter Noor (2) were killed early this morning when the taxi they were riding in was hit by live ammunition fired from an Israeli military observation post. They were both hit by live ammunition all over their bodies and Noor was decapitated.

Khamis Sami Sharrab (45) was killed when inside his house in Khan Younis when Israeli forces shelled the neighbourhood. He was hit by live ammunition in the head.

Number of Palestinians killed this week: 9 Total number of Palestinians killed: more than 1735

For more information contact The Palestine Monitor +972 2 2985372
or +972-(0) 52-396-196

sbahour [at] palnet.com

Please also see:
http://www.palestinecampaign.org/

"A Lesson in Democracy" by Guy Beniovitz

Note: Yediot Aharonot is an Israeli Daily in Hebrew.

Guy Beniovitz, 4 July 2002, Yediot Aharonot Internet edition

"A Lesson in Democracy"

Here, ya Ahmad, in the little schoolhouse of Uncle Bush and Teacher Israela, we will give you a new education. You must understand that you are guilty - though it's not your fault - and we only want to help.
Don't worry, ya Ahmad, we'll educate you yet, you and all the Palestinians. For sure we'll educate you. Lesson number one: replace that wild-eyed terrorist of yours right away. A sensitive intellectual with a Romanian accent would be nice.

Second lesson: implement democracy right away, and not pretend democracy, but the real thing, like in Belgium let's say, but with baqlawa instead of chocolate.

And the third lesson: get a haircut. It's not nice to sit there in detention with long scruffy hair.

Why are you rolling your eyes, ya Ahmad? Don't you understand, my dear, that you are stuck in the 12th century, with a revolting culture that encourages the suicide of children? What's so hard to understand about that?

But it's OK, it's not your fault, you're just a slightly backward people, what can you do. Here in the little schoolhouse of Uncle Bush and Teacher Israela, we will re-educate you.

Stop fingering those beads and concentrate. You surely know that everything happened because of your leaders, right? You know that. Oh yes, we already covered that in the last lesson. So pay attention: this time we'll teach you how the Jews only wanted what was good for you, but you refused every time.

What did we want, after all? To get out of the occupied territories, to divide this bleeding land into two states, and to dismantle all the settlements.

Why are you laughing, you impudent boy? What demolition of houses and uprooting of trees?

Well, OK, you forced us to do that because of your behaviour. Ahmad my dear, a good education requires the stick sometimes.

Besides, you are the ones who used that suicide weapon - whoever heard of such a thing? Suicides who kill innocent civilians!
Why are you now mentioning the airplanes and the helicopters and the tanks?

First of all, we tried hard to warn you, and secondly, it's your fault for living so close together. So here and there a kid goes, what can we do? We are always sorry, always!

The Security ["Defence" - trans.] Minister's secretary always prints up an announcement of our remorse, several copies. And you? You don't even send a little fax of apology.

No electricity? How's that relevant? Believe me, you're only proving that you need education.

Do you really think that the technicians and the pilots and the engineering corps and the paratroopers and the soldiers of the Sayeret and the Nahal and the Golani and the Giv'ati and the Navy really want to be in your midst?

That they really want to be in the [occupied] territories? Come on! But you force us. You and your suicidal friends.

And stop whining to me about your father who needs dialysis. You should have thought of that before you started doing terrorism.

In the end, Ahmad, the problem is that you understand only force. But it's OK.

We, the humanists of the Middle East, will give you the necessary education. A little democracy, Zionism, love of the country, military government. We like our Arabs educated, with a nice tray of baqlawa, homemade humus and an apologetic smile.

And it wouldn't hurt if you called me Effendi now and then.

By the way, on second thought it seems to me that there are too many of you. Remind me at the next lesson to talk about condoms.

Translated from Hebrew by Mark Marshall

Please also see:
http://www.palestinecampaign.org/

sbahour [at] palnet.com

Our daughter's death by suicide bomber is a result of the terror of Israel's occupation. A BIG red "Free Palestine" sticker has prominent place on the Elhanan family's front door. This is not a Palestinian house in the occupied territories.

OUR ISRAELI DAUGHTER'S DEATH IS ISRAEL'S FAULT