Do you get it now?
It is a question that many Israelis wanted to ask of America and
the rest of the finger-pointing world. Not in a smart-alecky manner. Not
to say, "We told you so." It was simply a question for those who, at a
safe remove from the terrorism that Israelis face every day, have damned
Israel for taking admittedly harsh measures to keep its citizens alive.
"Suppose I had intelligence reports telling me that someone was going to
hijack a Boeing 757 and crash it into the World Trade Center," an Israeli
official said yesterday, "and suppose I used an M-16 to kill him.
According to the arguments being used against us, I'd be an assassin,
illegally using American weapons."
This official was referring to the international condemnation Israel has
endured for killing certain Palestinians, people accused of not only
masterminding anti-Israel terrorist acts in the past, but planning more in
the near future. The American criticism of Israel has been sotto voce, but
it is there. In this Black September, after the worst act of terrorism
in history, the question arises from Israelis like this official:
Do you get it now?
"We are now going to see a very resolute, and possibly global, approach to
dealing with terrorism," Joseph Alpher, an Israeli strategic analyst, said
by phone from Tel Aviv. As for his own country, he said, "People will
understand with how much reserve we have responded - and after this,
criticism of the response will lower."
That question - do you get it? - came almost instantly to mind yesterday
to me, too, after having just spent two months reporting from Israel. It
was asked on more levels than merely how to deal with those who kill
Americans for having committed the unforgivable sin of being Americans.
You can't avoid the question when, again, as on many occasions while
working in Israel in the first half of the 1990's, you have seen the human
wreckage caused by the suicide bombs that go off with sickening frequency.
You ask it because Jerusalem offers a glimpse of what New York may become.
Some likened the assault on the trade center and the Pentagon to the
attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. If the point was that we Americans may
never be the same, the analogy is apt. Jerusalem points the way.
Just a few days ago, I wrote about the fear that now grips Israelis, how
they listen for the sirens, how, as the ambulances keep coming, they reach
for cell phones. Frantically, they call to make sure that loved ones are
all right. Often, they cannot get through because so many people are
phoning at the same time. They try to hold the panic at bay.
All of that happened in New York yesterday.
Even without knowing who was behind this monstrous act, you could not
shake off the televised images of crowds of Palestinians - not a handful
of bloodthirsty extremists - chanting "God is great" and joyously handing
out candy in celebration on the streets of Nablus in the West Bank. Same
as when a bomb went off in Jerusalem and killed children and their mothers
in a restaurant.
The funerals for yesterday's victims will, you may be certain, become
national events and, for many, occasions for political statements. Same as
in Jerusalem.
In Israel, there is no such thing as six degrees of separation. In a
country that small, two degrees is more like it. If you don't know a
bombing victim personally, you almost surely know someone who does. You
may safely bet that an extraordinary number of New Yorkers will have the
same relationship to someone whose life was cruelly extinguished yesterday
in Lower Manhattan.
"It's all very personal there, and now it's all very personal here," said
David Harris, executive director of the American Jewish Committee.
More clearly than ever, Americans now understand that they may not assume
any public place is safe. Same as in Jerusalem.
Remember the suicide bomber who killed 15 innocent people at a Sbarro's
pizza outlet in downtown Jerusalem last month? As timing would have it,
that restaurant was supposed to reopen last week. No doubt an armed guard will
be posted at the entrance, as one is these days at almost every restaurant
and outdoor cafe in central Jerusalem.
We certainly have no shortage of Sbarro outlets in New York.
Do you get it now?
------------
Clyde Haberman is a columnist for the New York Times, where this article initially appeared on September 12, 2001.
It is a question that many Israelis wanted to ask of America and
the rest of the finger-pointing world. Not in a smart-alecky manner. Not
to say, "We told you so." It was simply a question for those who, at a
safe remove from the terrorism that Israelis face every day, have damned
Israel for taking admittedly harsh measures to keep its citizens alive.
"Suppose I had intelligence reports telling me that someone was going to
hijack a Boeing 757 and crash it into the World Trade Center," an Israeli
official said yesterday, "and suppose I used an M-16 to kill him.
According to the arguments being used against us, I'd be an assassin,
illegally using American weapons."
This official was referring to the international condemnation Israel has
endured for killing certain Palestinians, people accused of not only
masterminding anti-Israel terrorist acts in the past, but planning more in
the near future. The American criticism of Israel has been sotto voce, but
it is there. In this Black September, after the worst act of terrorism
in history, the question arises from Israelis like this official:
Do you get it now?
"We are now going to see a very resolute, and possibly global, approach to
dealing with terrorism," Joseph Alpher, an Israeli strategic analyst, said
by phone from Tel Aviv. As for his own country, he said, "People will
understand with how much reserve we have responded - and after this,
criticism of the response will lower."
That question - do you get it? - came almost instantly to mind yesterday
to me, too, after having just spent two months reporting from Israel. It
was asked on more levels than merely how to deal with those who kill
Americans for having committed the unforgivable sin of being Americans.
You can't avoid the question when, again, as on many occasions while
working in Israel in the first half of the 1990's, you have seen the human
wreckage caused by the suicide bombs that go off with sickening frequency.
You ask it because Jerusalem offers a glimpse of what New York may become.
Some likened the assault on the trade center and the Pentagon to the
attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. If the point was that we Americans may
never be the same, the analogy is apt. Jerusalem points the way.
Just a few days ago, I wrote about the fear that now grips Israelis, how
they listen for the sirens, how, as the ambulances keep coming, they reach
for cell phones. Frantically, they call to make sure that loved ones are
all right. Often, they cannot get through because so many people are
phoning at the same time. They try to hold the panic at bay.
All of that happened in New York yesterday.
Even without knowing who was behind this monstrous act, you could not
shake off the televised images of crowds of Palestinians - not a handful
of bloodthirsty extremists - chanting "God is great" and joyously handing
out candy in celebration on the streets of Nablus in the West Bank. Same
as when a bomb went off in Jerusalem and killed children and their mothers
in a restaurant.
The funerals for yesterday's victims will, you may be certain, become
national events and, for many, occasions for political statements. Same as
in Jerusalem.
In Israel, there is no such thing as six degrees of separation. In a
country that small, two degrees is more like it. If you don't know a
bombing victim personally, you almost surely know someone who does. You
may safely bet that an extraordinary number of New Yorkers will have the
same relationship to someone whose life was cruelly extinguished yesterday
in Lower Manhattan.
"It's all very personal there, and now it's all very personal here," said
David Harris, executive director of the American Jewish Committee.
More clearly than ever, Americans now understand that they may not assume
any public place is safe. Same as in Jerusalem.
Remember the suicide bomber who killed 15 innocent people at a Sbarro's
pizza outlet in downtown Jerusalem last month? As timing would have it,
that restaurant was supposed to reopen last week. No doubt an armed guard will
be posted at the entrance, as one is these days at almost every restaurant
and outdoor cafe in central Jerusalem.
We certainly have no shortage of Sbarro outlets in New York.
Do you get it now?
------------
Clyde Haberman is a columnist for the New York Times, where this article initially appeared on September 12, 2001.