What actually happens, medically, to victims of Palestinian suicide bombings? This question has been expertly addressed by an American physician who had come to lecture at two Jerusalem area hospitals last December and was invited by colleagues at Shaarei Zedek and Hadassah to examine images of the most severely wounded persons. A radiologist in Highland Park, Illinois, Dr. Michael L. Messing subsequently prepared a report on his direct observations that offers us an altogether new level of understanding about Arab terrorism. With such understanding we can all begin to feel the unimaginable pain and suffering not normally communicable by ritualistic media references to those "wounded" in suicide-bombings.
There are times on this bleeding planet when survivors must surely envy the dead. A pair of suicide bombings and a car bombing took place in Jerusalem only two days before Dr. Messing's scheduled lectures. Most of the 180 wounded and eleven killed were young people. Here is part of the doctor's report upon examining the radiographic images of one victim, a 24-year old male: ?...approximately 300 individual fragments of metal, ranging in size from a few millimeters to whole nails, had imbedded themselves in his body, literally from head to foot. Many of the fragments are still recognizable as nails... I could actually feel several nails and other fragments that had burrowed and lodged under his skin.? Dr. Messing reports that in many cases nails were augmented by other nefariously added projectiles. Nuts, bolts and screws were the most typical. A second victim examined by him was a teenage girl who had sustained severe head injury when several kinds of fragments penetrated her skull and lodged in her brain. Metal, air and bone were evident on the CT scans. She was, of course, in critical condition and comatose. According to the newspaper and network accounts, she was ?only? wounded.
What kinds of people can be capable of perpetrating such horror upon other human beings? Why does the "desperation" of Palestinian terrorists produce such exceptionally monstrous behaviors? Why is the Palestinian insurgency almost uniquely barbaric, even in the profoundly loathsome annals of twentieth-century terror? These questions are certainly too complex to be addressed here, but it is essential to make one immediately important point: To be wounded by Palestinian suicide bombers is a far more shattering human experience than what is suggested by dispassionate listings of facts and figures. Statistics don't reveal the horror, the measureless horror, endured by the victims. Dr. Messing's report speaks of traumatic amputations, extensive burns and vascular injuries, to name just a few of the more common injuries inflicted by those whose fondest hope is always to ?slaughter the Jews.?
Israelis are despised by the slaughterers because they are Jews. Period. A recent article in Egypt?s al-Ahram newspaper put it this way: ?The first thing we have to make clear is that no distinction must ever be made between the Jew and the Israeli... The Jew is a Jew, through the millennia... in spurning all moral values, devouring the living and drinking his blood for the sake of a few coins... Let us put aside distinctions between Jews and Israelis, and talk only about Jews.? A current Egyptian textbook of Arab Islamic history informs new teachers: ?The Jews are always the same... They will not live save in darkness. They contrive their evils clandestinely. They fight only when they are hidden, because they are cowards... The Prophet enlightened us about the right way to treat them. We must follow this way and purify Palestine from their filth.? With such a mandate in mind, it is not difficult to understand the murderous ferocity of Palestinian suicide bombers. What is more, for these terrorists, killing Jews is the optimal assurance of personal immortality, an incontrovertible guarantee against death. ?Verily,? says a well-known hadith (an authoritative Arab saying handed down to Muslim faithful), ?the word of God teaches us, and we implicitly believe it, that for a Muslim to kill a Jew, or for him to be killed by a Jew, ensures him an immediate entry into heaven and into the august presence of God Almighty.?
Dr. Michael L. Messing's remarkable report, Radiology of Suicide Bombing Terrorism, permits us to understand, palpably, the pain of Israel's wounded. With this report, we can now recognize more completely the full consequences of Palestinian terrorism. In the end, such enhanced recognition must point to the utter sacredness of each Jewish life and to an associated responsibility; that is, to fight grotesque Palestinian terror without hesitation or apology.
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Prof. Louis Rene Beres is a columnist and author of many books on terrorism and Israeli security issues.
There are times on this bleeding planet when survivors must surely envy the dead. A pair of suicide bombings and a car bombing took place in Jerusalem only two days before Dr. Messing's scheduled lectures. Most of the 180 wounded and eleven killed were young people. Here is part of the doctor's report upon examining the radiographic images of one victim, a 24-year old male: ?...approximately 300 individual fragments of metal, ranging in size from a few millimeters to whole nails, had imbedded themselves in his body, literally from head to foot. Many of the fragments are still recognizable as nails... I could actually feel several nails and other fragments that had burrowed and lodged under his skin.? Dr. Messing reports that in many cases nails were augmented by other nefariously added projectiles. Nuts, bolts and screws were the most typical. A second victim examined by him was a teenage girl who had sustained severe head injury when several kinds of fragments penetrated her skull and lodged in her brain. Metal, air and bone were evident on the CT scans. She was, of course, in critical condition and comatose. According to the newspaper and network accounts, she was ?only? wounded.
What kinds of people can be capable of perpetrating such horror upon other human beings? Why does the "desperation" of Palestinian terrorists produce such exceptionally monstrous behaviors? Why is the Palestinian insurgency almost uniquely barbaric, even in the profoundly loathsome annals of twentieth-century terror? These questions are certainly too complex to be addressed here, but it is essential to make one immediately important point: To be wounded by Palestinian suicide bombers is a far more shattering human experience than what is suggested by dispassionate listings of facts and figures. Statistics don't reveal the horror, the measureless horror, endured by the victims. Dr. Messing's report speaks of traumatic amputations, extensive burns and vascular injuries, to name just a few of the more common injuries inflicted by those whose fondest hope is always to ?slaughter the Jews.?
Israelis are despised by the slaughterers because they are Jews. Period. A recent article in Egypt?s al-Ahram newspaper put it this way: ?The first thing we have to make clear is that no distinction must ever be made between the Jew and the Israeli... The Jew is a Jew, through the millennia... in spurning all moral values, devouring the living and drinking his blood for the sake of a few coins... Let us put aside distinctions between Jews and Israelis, and talk only about Jews.? A current Egyptian textbook of Arab Islamic history informs new teachers: ?The Jews are always the same... They will not live save in darkness. They contrive their evils clandestinely. They fight only when they are hidden, because they are cowards... The Prophet enlightened us about the right way to treat them. We must follow this way and purify Palestine from their filth.? With such a mandate in mind, it is not difficult to understand the murderous ferocity of Palestinian suicide bombers. What is more, for these terrorists, killing Jews is the optimal assurance of personal immortality, an incontrovertible guarantee against death. ?Verily,? says a well-known hadith (an authoritative Arab saying handed down to Muslim faithful), ?the word of God teaches us, and we implicitly believe it, that for a Muslim to kill a Jew, or for him to be killed by a Jew, ensures him an immediate entry into heaven and into the august presence of God Almighty.?
Dr. Michael L. Messing's remarkable report, Radiology of Suicide Bombing Terrorism, permits us to understand, palpably, the pain of Israel's wounded. With this report, we can now recognize more completely the full consequences of Palestinian terrorism. In the end, such enhanced recognition must point to the utter sacredness of each Jewish life and to an associated responsibility; that is, to fight grotesque Palestinian terror without hesitation or apology.
--------------------
Prof. Louis Rene Beres is a columnist and author of many books on terrorism and Israeli security issues.