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Arnold Roth, whose
15-year-old daughter Malka Chana was killed by a Palestinian suicide bomber in
Jerusalem on August 9, 2001, wrote the following letter which was read to a
solidarity rally for Israel in Sydney, Australia, on April 21, 2002 attended by
some ten thousand people [See
Australian Jewish News report
here].
----
In
January 2001, my daughter Malki and I took part in a solidarity rally - perhaps
the largest ever gathering to take place in Israel. Jews from all around the
world and from right across the political spectrum formed a sea of optimistic
and exuberant humanity - a huge crowd in a non-partisan show of solidarity with
the holiest and most meaningful place that Jews have ever known. Standing and
singing in the brilliant winter night outside Jaffa Gate, we honoured a love
relationship that has endured for 3,000 years.
The Sydney rally (Australian Jewish News)
My
mother, may she continue to be well, lives in Melbourne. On one of her Pesach
visits to us, I recall how she and I walked together and looked down on
Jerusalem from the heights of Ramot. She told me how, when she was in Auschwitz,
she had dreamed of some day walking under Yerushalayim's blue skies. She could
barely believe the dream had materialized, and that her grandchildren were now
being raised as proud and knowledgeable Israelis. Her dream was the dream of
countless generations of Jews before her.
I remembered my mother's words this week when we participated as a bereaved
family in the official state ceremony on Mt Herzl for Yom Hazikaron - a solemn
ceremony remembering the civilian dead in the ongoing terrorist war waged
against Israel by the Arabs. Hundreds of families, ours among them, received an
invitation to attend for the first time and to hear the measured words of Prime
Minister Sharon and of President Katzav as well as the awful sounds of the Kel
Maleh Rahamim prayer intoned by the chief chaplain of Zahal. Yom Hazikaron,
coming immediately before Independence Day, and a week after Yom Hashoah, the
day of Holocaust Remembrance is the link between the fears and pain of our
shared past and the hopes and prayers for our collective future.
With its origins in the thirties and the twenties of this century, the Arab war
of terror against Jewish civilians in the Holy Land is older than the State of
Israel - older even than Auschwitz. In those years, there was no pretence by the
Arab camp or by journalists seeking an "objective" view of the conflict in the
Middle East that it had anything to do with "occupied territories". There were
no occupied territories. It was all about hatred and jealousy, about radically
opposed views of democracy, culture and religion.
Malki's love of Israel owed nothing to her views about the Palestinians, the
Middle East conflict or Islam, because for the most part she had none. We do
know from the diary in which she daily recorded her most private thoughts and
fears, and which Frimet and I began reading only during the Shiva, that she was
deeply agitated by Arab terror. It was on her mind a great deal. Her notes told
us what she always kept private: that each loss of life in a piguah
(terrorist outrage) brought her literally to tears, made it near impossible to
focus on her studies. She was simply incapable of comprehending the fanatical
hatred behind the horrifying acts which have become so much a part of our lives
in these last nineteen months.
Malki was a powerfully, unstoppably optimistic fifteen year-old. We know from
her friends that her wonderful smile almost never left her face, that her love
and affection for friends and strangers were inspirational and infectious. This
week, I received an anonymous letter, like several others which have been sent
to us since 9th August , this time in Israeli teen-age English. I would like to
share a couple of lines from this letter with you:
"Dear Mr Roth, Malki was the kind of person who didn't always look for fun and
enjoyment, she was a person who always gave up on that in order to make things
better for the rest of the people around her. She always volientiered (sic) to
do things. She did this to try and make things better for everybody... She was
always running around asking people if they need help with anything."
Malki loved Israel, and especially Jerusalem, with a pure and passionate love.
Born in Melbourne, this was the home to which she was brought before she was
three years old. This was the land which the Almighty had promised to the Jewish
people and to which she felt a powerful connection. This was the place, as I
mentioned, of her grandmother's dreams.
When she heard about the plans for a rally and march around the walls of the Old
City, it was the most natural thing for Malki to commit. She went there with her
friends, while I made my own way by foot from my office, and we stayed in touch
along the way by cell phone. I saw her from the distance, surrounded by friends,
singing at the top of her voice, reveling in the sheer joy of loving her
country, her city, her companions.
The January 2001 rally was an unforgettable experience in other ways. At the
Sabbath table, we discussed the ways in which the press had reported it. The
Jerusalem Post said 300,000 participated. The Washington Post said a quarter of
a million. The Los Angeles Times estimated the crowd at 200,000. Then there was
CNN. Their correspondent, untroubled by facts, said "Tens of thousands of Jews
from Israel and elsewhere came to show their opposition to the very idea of this
city being divided with the Palestinians. The whole issue has been casting a
shadow over efforts for a negotiated peace." At home, we spoke of how what
seemed one kind of reality to us was perceived in an entirely different way by
others.
For those of you unfamiliar with the details of
her death, I will tell you that Malki was on her way to a planning meeting
for the summer camp where she was to be a madricha when she and her friend
Michal stopped off for a drink and a slice of pizza in the center of Jerusalem.
According to one report, there was a young man with a guitar case who placed
himself almost right next to the two girls. We know that Malki was happily
tapping out a text message on her cell phone at the moment when the guitarist
destroyed our world.
As if to prove how truly different our values and perceptions are from theirs,
the Arabs created a week-long commemoration of the Sbarro massacre six weeks
later in Nablus. Published photographs and reports show that they created a
grotesque replica of the pizzeria, complete with a "kasher" sign above the
entrance, as well as body parts and adulatory photographs of the killer.
In passing, let me take this opportunity to mention that I was approached last
August for a radio interview by the Jerusalem correspondent for a certain
government radio network based in Australia. He said he intended to bracket my
interview with a parallel one he was planning to conduct with the family of the
bomber. I said this made it impossible for me to consent. He said he was sure I
would find that the particular family, called the Al-Masris, were in favour of
the peace process and quite different from run-of-the-mill Moslem fanatics. I
told him how firmly opposed I was to any attempt at creating a symmetrical view
of the victim and the perpetrator. While I respected his interest in doing this,
I could not take part. He said he would come back to me with a suggested
alternative format for an interview, but never did.
Shortly afterwards, I read the first of several published reports with Al Masri
the father in which he said that Prime Minister Sharon "is continuing the policy
of killing our people, and my son succeeded in carrying out a suitable response"
and "We have to get rid of the Jews from around us."
You have come here today to affirm that Israel's leaders and its people want
peace and are prepared to make painful compromises to achieve it. The true
obstacle to peace is not Israel. We saw this at Camp David in July 2000. When
the leaders of the Palestinians and the Arab states continue to deny Israel's
legitimacy as a Jewish state, they create a situation where peace is out of
reach. Their continuing support for terrorism - their refusal to acknowledge
that suicide bombings against Israelis are terror - constitute a reaffirmation
of ancient hatreds.
Israel's leadership has said again and again that peace can never come while
murderers are glorified, while the media, textbooks, and religious leaders
espouse violence and hate, while political leaders incite and justify terrorism.
We need peace, want peace, dream of peace and pray for it constantly -
but today we have a more immediate priority for the moment: the safety and
security of our land and of its people.
On behalf of Frimet and our children, I want to call on all of you to stand
unequivocally behind the principles shared by Australia and Israel - to fight
terrorism with determination; to respect democratic values; and to seek peace
through negotiations, not violence.
Oseh shalom bimromav, hu ya'aseh shalom aleinu, v'al kol Yisrael, v'imru
[May He who makes peace on high also make peace for us, for all of the people of
Israel] Amen.
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