At the start of the Jewish year last Rosh Hashana, American Jews seemed on the cusp of fulfilling all their dreams. This year the major terrorist attack on American soil will no doubt have overshadowed every other event of the year.
The rituals are familiar by now. The sudden bulletins; the footage of chaos and shock and devastation; the anxious wait for the casualty list; the statements of condemnation; the statements of justification; the insane competition over who gets the \”credit;\” the haunting search for the tiniest bits of remains; the funerals; and the reprisal. And here, the community rallies, new missions are announced, once again we\’re told that \”now more than ever\” our solidarity is needed, we hunker down. And then the wait begins again, for though the other shoe has dropped, there is another, and another. This conflict is no two-legged monster, it is a damned centipede and we are nowhere near its end. Not for nothing is this called \”terrorism.\”
The analysts believe Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat\’s immediate aim is to use the \”religion card\” to convene yet another Arab summit meeting.
In the midst of the speeches at Sunday\’s solidarity rally for Israel, I felt a growing swell of ambivalence and even discomfort over the event.
Far from giving any substance to the truce that was declared in mid-June, Israel and the Palestinian Authority have become mired in a pattern of attack and counterattack — or, more bluntly, revenge and more revenge.
Considering that air, water and fire are essential elements not just of life but of war, Israelis this week could hardly feel more besieged.
An Israeli wounded in a Palestinian terrorist massacre in 1974 plans to sue Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat in the International War Crimes Tribunal at The Hague. Haim Asulin plans to seek $1 billion in compensation for the families of the victims of the Ma\’alot massacre.
The House International Relations Committee voted overwhelmingly in favor of a bill this week that would continue to restrict foreign access to Iranian and Libyan oil resources as punishment for those countries\’ support of terrorism.
Lurching wildly from disaster to miraculous salvation to more death and mayhem, emotionally drained Israelis watched with little optimism this week as a new American peace envoy tried to offer hope in the eight-months-old violence with the Palestinians.
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