Apparently dressed as an Orthodox Jew, the terrorist shoved his way among the many passengers — mostly ultra-Orthodox families returning from the Western Wall — to the center of the elongated bus, where he detonated the bomb he was carrying.
Within a 48-hour span beginning March 17, 12 Israelis were murdered in three suicide attacks, and dozens were wounded. Terrorism was back on the scene, a sad reminder that its apparent absence in recent months was only an illusion born of the army\’s success in preventing attacks.
On the face of it, the U.S. military victory in Iraq has significantly enhanced Israel\’s national security, removing a threat from weapons of mass destruction and opening new chances for peace between Israel and the Palestinians.
With the United States stepping up military and diplomatic preparations for a possible strike against Iraq, much of Israel was focused this week on when a war might break out and whether it would affect Israel.
My daughter\’s friend, Hilla, said her 11th-grade social relations class at Herzliya\’s Yovel High School normally focused on familiar
adolescent topics: interpersonal problems, difficulties with exams, the dangers of drinking and driving.
Los Angeles Chief of Police William Bratton (pictured with Tsion Ben David of the Israel Ministry of Tourism) placed a prayer in the Western
Wall of the Old City during a recent visit to Israel.
Rabbi Binny Freedman, the educational director of the international Jewish organization Isralight, was nonchalantly eating his baked ziti in the back of Jerusalem\’s Sbarro\’s pizza store when a suicide bomber detonated his bomb there.
\”It was the loudest explosion I have ever heard, and I am an Israeli army officer who has been under artillery fire,\” Freedman said of the August 2001 incident. \”People started screaming, and then a huge ball of fire swept through the entire front and there were flames everywhere. It was one of the most horrible things I have ever seen. I was coming down the stairs, and I saw a woman lying on the ground, looking at me trying to say something. I kneeled down next to her and I saw the light go out in her eyes. I watched her die. There was a man who had been at the table to my right, and he had been blown back against the wall, and he was lying there without his legs.\”
Even though we\’ve just crossed the first anniversary mark of Sept. 11 without incident, security specialist Dennis Kennedy does not think America should relax just yet.
July 31 was the last day of Ulpan, the six-week Hebrew class at Jerusalem\’s Hebrew University\’s Rothberg School for Overseas Students.
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