Bombing hits close to home

By Michael S. Arnold · November 30, 1999

Photos

JERUSALEM, Feb. 23 (JTA) — Lt. Gen. Moshe Ya´alon was describing the Palestinian Authority´s strategy of terrorism when a small commotion erupted in the corner of the room. One of Ya´alon´s aides swiftly scribbled a note and passed it to the Israeli army chief of staff, who hardly skipped a beat in his Sunday-morning speech to a visiting delegation from the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations. It was only several minutes later, after Ya´alon had finished his presentation, that he told the group a Palestinian suicide bomber had detonated himself aboard a bus barely 100 yards from the group´s hotel in downtown Jerusalem. At least eight people were killed in the explosion and more than 60 were wounded. The attack took place near the German Colony, an upscale neighborhood filled with trendy shops and beautiful homes. The Al-Aksa Brigade, the terrorist wing of P.A. President Yasser Arafat´s Fatah movement, claimed responsibility for the attack, citing Israel´s construction of its West Bank security barrier as the primary grievance. Discouraged from visiting the scene in such a large group, most members of the Conference of Presidents delegation proceeded with a planned tour of the fence. But the group´s leaders were whisked past Israeli security barricades to within feet of the bus. There they saw firsthand the carnage that until now they had known only on television screens. "When you see it on the news, you see it for a minute and you say, ‘Oh, that´s horrible,´ " James Tisch, the conference´s chairman, told JTA. "When you see it up close, it hits home and registers much more powerfully. You understand that these were real people that were killed and injured." As members of Israel´s emergency response teams loaded the wounded onto stretchers and collected dismembered body parts and bits of raw flesh, six body bags were lined up on the ground next to the bus, out of sight of the cameras. A seventh victim died in the hospital, and an eighth was reported dead soon afterward. The executive vice chairman of the Conference of Presidents, Malcolm Hoenlein, who has seen the aftermath of other suicide bombings, appeared visibly shaken. He said he had never been to the site of a bombing so soon after the attack. "It´s overwhelming. It´s too hard to comprehend," Hoenlein said. "There were body parts right there by our feet. You can´t bring the war on terror any closer to home." The explosion came one day before the International Court of Justice at The Hague began a hearing on the legality of the security barrier Israel is building to keep Palestinian terrorists from crossing into Israel. Israeli officials said the bombing lent new weight to Israel´s argument that the fence is needed to block terrorists. Israel, like the United States and several European countries, is boycotting the hearings at The Hague on the grounds that the international court has no jurisdiction in the case. The U.N. General Assembly voted in early December to send the issue of the fence to the international court. As if to emphasize the alliance between Israel and the United States, the Palestinian bomber chose to attack a bus right outside Jerusalem´s Liberty Bell Park, which was established in 1976 to honor the U.S. bicentennial and includes a replica of the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia. "This is Arafat´s response to The Hague," Hoenlein said. "If anything underlines the obscenity of The Hague trial, this is it. It´s Israel´s obligation to bring an end to this kind of outrage by building the fence." A statement from Arafat´s office said, "We will not stand idly by while Palestinian interests are harmed" — apparently a reference to the damage the bombing could cause the Palestinian case at The Hague hearings. The Palestinian Authority also condemned the bombing and vowed the catch those responsible. Similar pledges have gone unfulfilled in the past. The bombing also took place on the heels of a visit to the region by three high-level U.S. diplomats, who came to Israel to discuss Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon´s plans for unilateral disengagement from the Palestinians. The eight people killed in the bombing were identified as Ilan Avisidris, 41, of Jerusalem; Lior Azulai, 18, of Jerusalem; Yaffa Ben-Shimol, 57, of Jerusalem; Rahamim Duga, 38, of Mevasseret Zion; Yehuda Haim, 48, of Givat Ze´ev; Staff Sgt. Netanel Havshush, 20, of Jerusalem; Yuval Ozana, 32, of Jerusalem; and Benayahu Yehonatan Zuckerman, 18, of Jerusalem. Funerals for them were held Sunday and Monday. Israeli sources said Sunday that Sharon had decided not to retaliate harshly against Palestinian targets after the bombing, Ha´aretz reported. But in a predawn operation Monday, Israeli forces demolished the two-story home of the bus bomber, Muhammad Za´ul, 23, in Hussan village outside of Bethlehem. Israeli officials said the Palestinian attacker would not have been able to infiltrate Israel from his home near Bethlehem had the 450-mile barrier been complete. "I hope that The Hague´s 15 justices get the message," Justice Minister Yosef "Tommy" Lapid told Israel Radio on Sunday. "If there had been a fence around Jerusalem, there would not have been a terrorist attack today." At The Hague on Monday, some 2,500 pro-Israel demonstrators gathered to protest the hearings on the fence. They waved Israeli flags, carried photos of bombing victims and stood against a backdrop of a bombed-out bus from Jerusalem that was destroyed in a Jan. 29 terrorist attack and brought to The Hague for public-relations purposes. A Palestinian counterdemonstration of about 2,000 people took place later Monday afternoon. The police closed the Palestinian demonstration prematurely due to rioting among some of the protesters, according to Ronny Naftaniel, director of the Center for Information and Documentation on Israel. Before Sunday´s attack, Israel began dismantling a 5-mile stretch of the barrier outside Baka al-Sharqiya, one of the areas where the security fence cuts into the West Bank. Israel´s Defense Ministry denied that the dismantling of the fence section was linked to The Hague hearing. Lapid called the move "good spin," but Israeli Finance Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom voiced concern that the move could be misconstrued as an admission of guilt by Israel. In Jerusalem, as emergency workers combed through the shell of the bus and peeled away its windshield, a pack of journalists pressed against a hastily erected security barrier some 30 yards away, straining for a better view and forming small circles around Israeli public officials. Nir Barakat, a member of the Jerusalem City Council, was on his way to visit a local school when the bus exploded across the street from him. He told an aide to call an ambulance and ran to aid the wounded. "Life is more important than the quality of life," Barakat said, referring to Palestinian arguments that the fence intended to thwart terrorists impedes Palestinian freedom of movement and makes it difficult for farmers to reach their fields. "I want to protest," he said. "The world has a double standard and needs to get its priorities straight. The first thing is to stop the killing." Israeli spokesmen said the attack only reinforced the need for the security fence — though they said they doubted the bombing would sway the international court, which most Israelis believe will rule against the Jewish state. "It´s a crazy world," Jerusalem Mayor Uri Lupolianski said in an interview. "The Hague is asking if the government of Israel has a right to build the security fence. This is a question?" Police found that the Palestinian bomber may have boarded the No. 14 bus after its guard — common on Israeli buses these days — disembarked. Also Sunday, police closed Maxim´s restaurant in Haifa. Police cited inadequate security after a plainclothes female police officer managed to get by Maxim´s doorman with a decoy bomb hidden under her clothes over the weekend. Last October, a suicide bomber from Islamic Jihad killed 21 people at Maxim´s. U.S. Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), a member of the Conference of Presidents delegation, said the Palestinians were "thumbing their noses at the world" by carrying out an attack the day before the hearing. "We knew about these attacks intellectually before, but now we have a little more emotional understanding," Nadler said. "One thing that is really mind blowing is seeing this piece of flesh like uncooked meat lying on the ground, and knowing that it comes from a person."JTA correspondent Dan Baron in Jerusalem contributed to this report.

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Bombing hits close to home

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