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This open letter went out to the Friends of Keren Malki email list on
17th April 2006, a few hours after the
bombing of a restaurant in
Tel-Aviv.
17-Apr-06
From Arnold Roth, chairman of the Malki Foundation
Dear friends,
The day our fifteen year-old daughter was murdered by Palestinian
Arab terrorists, everything changed for my wife and me.
Malki died
in an explosive massacre, targeted not at some military installation
but at a fast-food restaurant full of holidaying children, teens and
mothers. Immediately following the bombing, her cell phone did not
answer and our insides started to churn. We searched the hospitals.
We prayed, we cried, we hoped. When we finally found her in the
early morning of the next day, Malki's body had already been
lifeless for twelve hours. Our daughter was the last of the 15
victims to be identified and the last to be buried.
The massacre at Sbarro in August 2001 had effects on us which, in
most respects, are as intense today as then. Most of them are
personal matters that neither of us speaks publicly or writes about.
Others are less personal, but painful and difficult nevertheless.
One of them is the way the news media analyzed Malki's death and the
people who caused it.
In every country, those who package and report the news are
enormously influential in shaping how the public understands events
and reacts to them. To me, it's obvious that reporters, presenters,
journalists and editors affect opinions far more than politicians
do. Seeing a media professional do a superficial job or an
inaccurate one, and understanding the consequences, is therefore a
deeply disturbing experience. As people who involuntarily became a
part of the news, this happens to my wife and me often. And because
of what we have learned and seen, we now find it hard to remain
silent.
Sitting at my desk in Jerusalem tonight, I am thinking about the
media and trying to make sense of two events.
 The
larger by far is that, again, a Palestinian Arab walked into an
Israeli restaurant this afternoon and detonated a bomb. The reports
say nine dead, sixty injured. Only a few names have so far been
released. From experience, I know there are people tonight praying,
crying and hoping while they search for a missing husband, wife,
child, sibling or friend. Their nightmare has started; they may not
yet realize how long it will last.
The second, far smaller, is
reported by Tim Blair, a respected Australian journalist. He
says Australia's government-owned ABC radio network referred two
days ago to "the involvement of Hamas in activities which are not
compatible with western standards ..." So politically correct.
So consistent with the responsible, thinking media's need to avoid
pejorative labels. What every civilized person needs to know about
Hamas: involved in activities not compatible with western
standards. Not that they engineered the murder of my
child and of hundreds of other innocent victims, and call these
glorious victories. Not that they honor the memory of the man
who bombed the Sbarro restaurant, calling him hero and martyr.
Not that they work daily towards the violent and physical
destruction of Israel and its population. Not that they train
teenage boys and girls to carry explosives into Israeli buses,
restaurants and schools as a religious obligation.
Under other circumstances, I could imagine smiling at this example
of journalistic silliness and many others like it. But right now, I
am thinking about nine dead and sixty maimed in Tel-Aviv today
because of activities not compatible with western standards.
Six weeks ago in Spain, I had the honor of addressing an
international conference of terror victims. I
spoke about the United Nations and its repeated failure for the
past nine years to agree on a convention against terrorism. It is a
disgraceful story of which few people seem to be aware. Perhaps this
is because of the nature of the underlying reason: the blocking
strategy of the Organization of Islamic Countries. Its 57 member
countries, making up nearly 30% of the UN's membership, have
repeatedly acted to prevent a proposed convention against terror
from being adopted.
Hamas and other global practitioners of terror are an existential
threat to lives and societies everywhere. The threat they pose today
is greater, not smaller, than it was in 2001. I have personally
spoken with hundreds of terror victims from many countries during
the past four years and I know they understand this. They understand
that toughness, determination and conviction are critical to
stopping terror.
Is it just journalistic silliness when a news channel characterizes
Hamas as having behaviour problems? The spin placed on events
by the news media affects the decisions made by politicians.
Ultimately it also impacts the lives and deaths of ordinary people.
The deaths of innocent people living ordinary lives are connected to
what we know, or think we know, about terrorists and the
organizations that send them. What we know about terrorists affects
what we do about terrorists. There is no room for silliness about
something as important as this. This is why Frimet and I now speak
and write as we do, and why it is so important for all of us to hold
the news media to a higher standard.
Good wishes,
Arnold Roth
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