Tilting to Terrorism

By FRIMET ROTH

For eight months, I've read and reread a slew of bereavement books. They have assisted me in grappling with some aspects of my daughter's violent death Aug. 9. But none has addressed a unique facet of my misery: the portrayal of her murderers as victims. My pain today is as raw as it was the day she stood on line at Sbarro's in central Jerusalem beside her best friend — two happy, compassionate 15-year-olds waiting for a slice of pizza. But they also happened to be standing next to a Palestinian with an explosive-laden guitar case. 

My Malki played several instruments and often went around with her guitar over her shoulder, too. She probably thought he was a music lover like herself. Instead, he shattered her beautiful dreams — and ours. After she and her friend were buried, their murder was repackaged and sold by Western media as a reprehensible but understandable act. "A suicide bomber's desperate final act," was Time magazine's headline that week. 

A recent issue of Time showed the photograph of a pretty, smiling student in graduation cap and gown. She was the terrorist who killed herself and two others outside a Jerusalem supermarket. But that photo humanizes her to the point of affection. In other coverage, profiles of victims have been juxtaposed against those of the terrorist. Interviews with mourning Israeli families have been broadcast alongside visits to the families of dead terrorists, often with a closeup of a crying toddler wandering among the adults for added effect. Particularly offensive was ABC's Peter Jennings' description of a chat he had with a Jewish bystander outside the Park Hotel in Netanya. 

The victims of the Passover-eve suicide bombing had not yet been removed from the site when, according to Jennings, the man, an El-Al pilot, confessed to him: "If I were a Palestinian, I'd be a suicide bomber, too." The underlying message I heard was, "Well, if this man-on-the-street Israeli can say that, surely so can we." This dogged quest for "balanced" stories is a trivialization of my loss. It exacerbates the pain I am learning to live with every moment of every day. 

As I said, the self-help books offer no tips on this score. Perhaps the writers could not conceive of a civilized world where the motives behind the murder of children would be examined and "understood" — a world where attempts to prevent them would be censured. Yet that's the world we live in. Past measures taken by the Israeli Army to root out terrorist cells have been consistently condemned by that world. 

The restraint exercised by Israel toward an enemy firing from behind human shields has earned it worldwide censure. Its latest operation, Defensive Shield, which finally did stem the tide of terror, has had baseless criticisms leveled at it. None of the 465 Israeli families bereaved during this war has ever contemplated terror as an option. Not one "desperate" Jewish suicide bomber has materialized. Jennings' pilot is not representative of Israelis. 

The reason is that the moral turf cannot be equalized. We Israelis do not want to see innocent Palestinians murdered, while they've demonstrated time and again their yearning to see Israelis killed. Seventy-five percent of us, according to a poll in the Hebrew daily Maariv, support our army's efforts to halt terrorism in a humane manner, while in past polls the same percentage of Palestinians have supported suicide bombings. 

So here is my plea: When barraged by arguments that Palestinian terrorist attacks are a means to a deserved end, remember my Malki: a smiling teenager who doted on her siblings, who produced heavenly sounds from her flute, who volunteered with handicapped children, who brought her mother such joy. 

Remember her, and make her murderer a criminal, not a hero. 

Frimet Roth, a New Yorker, moved with her husband and children to Jerusalem in 1988

Original Publication Date: 4/28/02
www.nydailynews.com/2002-04-28/News_and_Views/Opinion/a-149062.asp

This article was published in the Sunday April 28, 2002 edition of the New York Daily News.