Nine Reasons to Remember the Ninth of August

By FRIMET ROTH 

Sometimes wisdom can be gained from one's enemy.

Four years ago today, the terror organization Hamas taught the world some valuable lessons. On August 9, 2001, it dispatched a suicide bomber to the center of Jerusalem where my family and I live. The 10 kg bomb laden with nails, screws and bolts maimed, wounded and murdered about 150 people at the Sbarro restaurant. Fifteen innocents died, most of them women and children and a young mother remains comatose. My precious fifteen year old daughter, Malki, was one of the dead.

The Sbarro massacre shattered the following myths about terrorism and how to thwart it.

First, conventional wisdom holds that terrorists are deprived individuals, desperate and with nothing to lose. But my daughter's murderer was a privileged university student, the son of a prosperous land-owning restaurateur, and a newly-religious Moslem who lacked for nothing. So much for that myth.

Next: members of terror organizations are frequently depicted as fringe elements, unsupported by the establishment. But the father of my daughter's murderer, speaking in a May interview on NBC, freely admitted he has been receiving compensation payments since the massacre. He was instructed, he said, to go to his local Arab Bank branch where he found an account with a substantial cash gift. Similar monthly sums have been deposited there over the past four years. NBC noted that the bank branch is festooned with posters glorifying suicide bombers. Arab Bank steadfastly denies what it calls "awareness of the existence of an organized program to fund terrorism," insisting it considers suicide bombings "an abomination." But these empty pronouncements do not convince everyone: Arab Bank, dominant in Jordan, operates extensively in the United States and is finally under criminal investigation by the FBI.

Third, Israel's policy of security roadblocks draws bitter rebuke from critics who term the checks pointless violations of Palestinian human rights. They were especially vocal in 2004 when soldiers at an Israeli checkpoint ordered a Palestinian to play his violin before allowing him to pass through. My daughter's murderer carried a guitar case full of explosives over his shoulder yet managed to cross Israeli lines into Jerusalem and on to Sbarro. Had his instrument been subjected to a thorough check, my Malki would be alive today.

Fourth, Israel's responses to terror attacks are frequently criticized by the media as excessive and unwarranted. TIME magazine's report of the bloody attack at Sbarro, for instance, opened with a graphic account of Israel's raid on the PLO's offices in East Jerusalem, calling it a "retaliation": "Before seven Palestinian guards knew it, [the Israelis] had overrun Orient House, an elegant mansion that has served for a decade as the Palestine Liberation Organization's office in East Jerusalem. Border police raised the Israeli flag." The reporter, evidently a mind-reader, noted that Israeli officers had "felt intensely frustrated" but now "felt relief that at least some action had been taken in response, however symbolic."

While I am an involved party, I fail to see how shutting down an illegal and hostile office amounts to a "retaliation" for the massacre of children. Israel's response by any standards was token, restrained and measured.

Fifth: The channeling of government money to institutions that support terrorism is illegal under US law. But enforcement has been strikingly lax. Case in point: in September 2001, a replica of the bombed Sbarro premises was constructed on the grounds of Al-Najah University in Nablus. The display was visited by streams of Palestinians including children, paying homage to the perpetrators of the atrocity. Meticulously accurate down to the "kosher" sign in English and Hebrew on its wall, it included, according to Associated Press, fake "body parts and pizza slices strewn around the room".

Palestinian Media Watch, a respected critic of Arab media, reported to the US Congress in June 2005 that the US Agency for International Development has been funding Palestinian universities including Al-Najah to the tune of $41 million. Five of these, Al-Najah included, have on-campus Hamas and Islamic Jihad chapters. Despite being avowed terrorist organizations, they receive USAID funds as student organizations. A USAID spokeswoman stated that "procedures are in place to make sure that [those] in-kind donations? are not diverted to terrorism." Fortunately, Capital Hill didn't buy that line and has recently summoned USAID to respond to the findings.

Six: I used to think that in a democracy, we citizens are empowered to make decisions about our own safety. August 9, 2001 taught me otherwise. That morning, Israeli secret intelligence informed the government that a terrorist was loose on Jerusalem's streets. Police and soldiers combed the capital while government officials pleaded with Arafat for his assistance - all in vain. The capital's residents went about their usual business unaware that they were sitting ducks. The Israeli government's failure to share this intelligence with us is a gross violation of our right to be informed when our lives and our children's are endangered. We are entitled to decide when to worry and when to continue with our daily routine. The Sbarro attack was a turning point. Heightened security alerts are now regularly publicized. Ignorance is rarely bliss. Often, it brings grief.

Seven: Many Israelis think the best way to cope with terror and its aftermath is to put it behind us and move on. This approach underlies a decision taken in Israel about a documentary film called "Impact of Terror". Produced in 2004 by an Emmy Award-winning Canadian film-maker, it focuses on a single terror attack in the current intifada - the one at Sbarro. It was snapped up by CNN which aired it six times. The film was also offered to all of Israel's television networks at a low price but all of them rejected it. Most Israelis, consequently, have not seen it and probably never will. Burying the painful memories of terrorism makes it harder to summon the strength to fight it. That lesson has not yet been learned here.

Eight: It is sometimes asserted that terror can only be tackled with all-out war. The day after the Sbarro attack, restaurants, cafes and supermarkets throughout Israel began stationing private armed guards at their entrances. Within a week, unsecured entrances - like Sbarro's - were a thing of the past. Inspections of every customer are now routine. Suicide bombers keep trying to gain entrance but, by and large, have been forced to settle for outdoor attacks and casualty figures have dropped commensurately. So much for the "big guns" approach to fighting terrorism. Four years and numerous terror attacks later on their own soil, Europe and the U.S. have yet to implement this effective "small gun".

Nine: Choosing the right way to honor the memory of the victims is a serious challenge with no simple answers. But in the last four years we have seen some disturbing examples of what not to do. Here are two.

After rebuilding its incinerated Jerusalem store, the Sbarro chain announced a gala re-opening that coincided with the thirtieth day after the massacre. In Jewish mourning tradition that day - the Shloshim - is extremely significant. Sbarro placed a full-page advertisement for the celebration featuring a large heart-shaped pizza slice and in bold print: "For You, The Very Best!" In addition to a 50% discount, it promised the attendance of a list of dignitaries. But no mention that the VIPs were actually coming only to mark the Shloshim. No mention, indeed, of why the branch was rebuilt. And not one word about the fifteen who had perished there.

Two years later, we encountered another candidate for the 'Most Callous' award. Jerusalem's municipality has a policy of marking the sites of terror attacks with plaques engraved with the victims' names within a year of the deaths. But the Sbarro building owner, apparently unwilling to see his property "defaced" in this way, withheld permission. It took two year's of pressure exerted by the victim families on the authorities before a plaque engraved with the names of the dead was mounted on the Sbarro building's Jaffa Street frontage.

I want to believe that these two incidents are isolated; that Israeli society has come some way since then. Hopefully there is now acknowledgement of the need to remember the terror attacks, their lessons and their victims. 

When both Pope Benedict XVI and Tony Blair, the British Prime Minister, recently recalled the countries that had suffered from terror attacks, each of them omitted Israel. Many here were outraged. But, in all fairness, Israel can only demand she be included among the victims if she herself remembers and honors her own victims.

Return to "Malki's Parents Write"

An edited version of this article was published in the New York Jewish Week, 12th August 2005