Purim delirium

Wednesday, March 19, 2003
Shushan Purim

Sunday afternoon I saw a four-foot tall Scud missile running down the street chasing a large white two-legged rabbit.

No, I hadn't been drinking.

During the course of the same bus ride through town, I also passed: three angels, a three-foot tall Statue of Liberty, an 11 year old boy in a miniskirt and knee-high kitten-heeled boots, two really big butterflies, some very short policemen, an American Indian chief hand in hand with a cowboy helping him cross the road, and a strawberry munching on a bag of chips.

I had by chance timed my journey just as children were returning home from their school Purim parties.

A few hours later, I heard crowds cheering in the street below. Latin American percussion bands were starting up frenetic carnival beat. A peek from my balcony confirmed: The annual Purim parade was underway!

I scurried down to the main street just in time to see a giant "Srulik" glide down the road on the lead float.

Srulik, a classic Israeli cartoon character, is something of a national symbol, the quintessential boyish Israeli kibbutznik in his shorts, floppy sun hat and open sandals. He shared the float with the Western Wall and the Temple Mount - Judaism's holiest sites.

Behind him, in a sea of Israeli flags, frolicked a tall, beaming Israeli Declaration of Independence flanked by pint sized Israeli folk dancers, dancing orange trees and motley farmers.

Israel may be an urban, hi-tech society, but at heart we're still hora dancing pioneering horticulturalists making the desert bloom.

The theme for our local parade this year was the brotherhood of nations. Each school, youth group or club had chosen a country or culture, marching along with floats representing the different nations.

Hard on the heels of the Israeli float came a squadron of pre-adolescent belly dancers and a local Flamenco troupe, towered over by a 15 foot matador.

Behind them came entire schools - complete with security guards - each decked out in the costume of another nationality: Hula dancers, South Pacific warriors brandishing spears, Italian bakers carrying pizzas, Mexican mariachis in giant sombreros accompanying a float in the shape of a reclining Mexican farmer, Russian peasants and a life-sized Chinese dragon born aloft by pupils and teachers from a local primary school.

One religious school decked out all its pupils and teachers in the traditional white and rainbow striped robes of the Ethiopian Jewish community, in honour of several recent Ethiopian immigrants who've joined the school.

In the spirit of Middle Eastern co-existence, three actors on stilts were dressed up as an Arab in flowing Bedouin robes, a Christian priest replete with giant cross and a black-garbed Hassid. They ambled down the road waving sparklers, pausing now and then for photos with spectators, most of whom were most interested in having their picture taken with the "Bedouin".

The dreamy utopia of a rosy, lovey-dovey Middle East was quite popular. There were hordes of oriental dancers in every shape and form: Turkish, North African, Iraqi, Bedouin inspired and Hollywoodesque genies with diaphanous gauze veils. On the Egyptian float a bride and groom embraced between the Sphinx and the Pyramids.

With all the delirious escapism of Purim though, reality still intruded on the parade.

Police and soldiers, so much a part of everyday life, were also popular costumes. This year though it wasn't just Israeli security forces - I noticed a couple of kids dressed up as American marines.

Americana is always popular here. Two schools chose the United States as their theme, most of them dressed up as cowboys, one bearing an enormous Stars and Stripes, the other accompanied by the Statue of Liberty and Mickey Mouse. The choice said something about what many Israelis admire most about America: on the one hand commercial success and popular culture, on the other self-confident belief in liberty and democracy coupled with unabashed patriotism.

We couldn't escape from Iraq either. A pickup truck carried a makeshift float with a mock scud missile and Saddam himself riding astride it waving at the crowd. Better to laugh at the man than to fear him.

We've spent the last couple of days living with this strange juxtaposition of Purim festivities and news of the impending war. Local radio stations switch between Purim songs and comedy routines with reports about the latest from the Gulf and the latest directives to civilians on how to protect themselves in the event of an Iraqi strike.

The whole thing still feels unreal. The Iraq war scenario has been hanging over us for so long that it's hard to believe it might actually happen.

Today IDF Home Command called on Israelis to prepare a sealed room in case of chemical or biological attack. I just sat there stupidly looking at the TV newsreader and then it hit me. They mean me too. Some jerk in Iraq might decide to lob something at my home. That's crazy. We're so far away from Iraq. It must be a Purim prank.

Most people seem pretty calm though with experts doubtful that Iraq even has the capacity to attack Israel anymore. At the festive Purim meal with relatives, discussion of the looming war only cropped up a couple of times. The main concerns were a) whether Saddam would decide to launch Scuds at us and b) whether he would manage to before the Americans or their allies take western Iraq, the only part of Iraq from which Israel is within missile range. A cousin of mine noted that yesterday's dust storms felt oddly protective, as though no one would be able to find Israel through the high winds and swirling sand.

For Israelis the last Gulf War was the war of masks. It took place during the run-up to Purim, the festival on which Jews wear fancy dress to celebrate how the tables were turned on an enemy who sought to destroy them and was in the end destroyed himself.

In 1991 the war came to a timely end on, coincidentally, Purim eve. Israelis breathed a collective sigh of relief, put away their gas masks and took out their clown suits.

This time round it appears that we'll put our costumes away just in time to take out our gas masks. God willing we won't need them.

Happy Purim!

Colours of Eilat

Wednesday, February 19, 2003

The clouds and cool breezes added extra magic to the sunset in Eilat last Shabbat. We sat cross-legged on the mostly empty southern beach, not far from the Egyptian border, watching a flock of seagulls lazily swoop and soar over the water. The gentle waves lapped at the shore as the fading light produced a dazzling display of colours.

Through the clear water we could make out each pebble and shell, a mosaic of reds, pinks, greys, greens, browns and blues. Here and there were cauliflower-like fragments of dead coral, washed ashore among the smooth stones.

Across the gulf, the rugged mountains in neighbouring Jordan changed from orange to red to magenta to purple to blue. The clouds above them also metamorphosed, appearing pink above bluish mountains before the sun finally disappeared. Once darkness descended, the full moon turned the clouds to white puffs above ominous grey mountains. Lights twinkled from the cities of Eilat and Aqaba, with the moonlit Red Sea punctuated by the garish neon displays of passing pleasure boats.

A few dozen yards to our right an Israeli Arab family were enjoying a beachfront barbecue at the end of the Muslim Eid Al Adha holiday weekend. From time to time we could hear snippets of darbouka percussion or wailing Arabic song from their boombox.

Down the beach to our left a man was tending to a coffee pot on a little campfire and beyond him a group of youngsters were lounging around a kid with a guitar, humming Israeli rock ballads.

Driving through the Negev desert on the way south, we had been treated to an exceptional display of wildflowers nurtured by the runoff from winter rains. (For the first time in years we've actually had a rainy winter, the way it's supposed to be, hence DH's yearning for Eilat's eternal sun.) The road through the Ramon Crater was particularly lovely, with the rough, rocky browns and oranges of the desert scenery offset by the delicate, cheerful flowers and foliage, a profusion of purple, red, yellow, pink and green.

Just north of Eilat we had stopped at the Hai Bar Nature Reserve, a unique wildlife sanctuary home to species once native to the region in biblical times, but now extinct in the wild. Among the project's achievements is the successful restoration of the Arabian oryx antelope and the onager wild horse to Israel's southern desert. The site was once a major tourist destination offering up-close glimpses of elusive antelope, wild asses, ostriches and nocturnal predators. Sadly, with the economic crisis and the slump in tourism the Hai Bar is due to close at the end of the year unless they can make up the lost revenue. We wanted a chance to bid farewell.

We saw plenty of wildlife outside the reserve too, accompanying a local bird expert in pursuit of a rare eagle recently sighted in the vicinity. Alas, there were no eagles to be found on Eagle Mountain, but I spotted my first Barbary falcon and a charming family of desert gazelle.

The only thing missing from the scenery was that endangered species known as the foreign tourist. Looking for some postcards of Eilat to send foreign relatives, I found several shops with yellowed, old cards. One storekeeper explained that there were so few foreign visitors it was no longer worth his while to restock.

Not long ago, Eilat was a favoured destination for sun-starved northern Europeans. You could hardly move without bumping into Germans, Brits and assorted Scandinavians. This time the only non-Israeli holidaymakers we came across were some local UN and USAID personnel on vacation from their Jerusalem offices, and a family of French Jews.

Such a shame. Away from the terror alerts of central Israel, Eilat would be a perfect place for snowbound Americans and Europeans to come for some R&R, escaping the Orange Alert on the East Coast and the pro-Saddam rallies in the cities. Nothing but quiet beaches, sunny skies, desert mountains, coral reefs and the birds.

As my late grandmother would say, a mechaya.

Southbound for Eilat

Thursday, February 13, 2003

I did a double take this morning when I checked my e-mails. There, in black and white, was a serious request from a friend in New York asking how to seal a room against chemical and biological attacks. Maybe here in Israel we have some kind of special protective plastic sheeting for such purposes? Perhaps I could send her some?

Truth be told, I don't really know how to seal a room against non-conventional weapons. Like all Israeli citizens I have a standard gas mask issued to me by the army. I have a "mamad", a secure room in my apartment, a sort of personal bomb shelter with special rubber airtight seals on the door and window. Following the 1991 Gulf War, such rooms became obligatory in all new apartments. I'm almost done clearing the junk out of my mamad. It's the smallest room in the flat so we use it for storage.

When I told a neighbour that we're going down south for the weekend she jokingly asked whether we knew something she didn't about when the attack on Iraq will begin, that is. She wanted to know whether we'd be taking our gas masks along.

Far from Israel's main population centres, the holiday resort of Eilat at Israel's southern tip is widely held to be the safest place in the country in the event that Saddam Hussein does decide to send some missiles Israel's way, as he did in 1991. Rumour has it that the US embassy has booked a floor of the Dan Hotel there for use if Israel is attacked and the foreign diplomats clear out of Tel Aviv.

Actually, we're heading south not for safety, but for the flowers. And for the birds. And for some nice clear desert air to clear up the colds my husband and I have come down with this week.

Oh, and we're taking the opportunity to go now, before all the guesthouses are booked up by people from the Tel Aviv area fleeing Iraqi missiles.

Any minute now I'm going to get a call from a concerned relative chiding us for not panicking enough. Well yes, we do know what Iraqi Scuds can do. A cousin's apartment was nearly totalled by a missile during the last Gulf War. The residents miraculously escaped harm.

On the other hand I'm personally more concerned with what our devoted Palestinian neighbours are up to. The country is currently on high alert due to a large number of terror warnings. In recent days a number of bombers have been caught en route to Israeli towns. They are certainly a more imminent danger than the possibility of Iraqi missiles.

The Israeli media, though, have been playing up Iraq-related scare stories for months now. They portray us as fleeing overseas, booking up all the guesthouses in the remote southern deserts, buying up world supplies of protective clothing and plastic sheeting, installing special filter systems, hoarding food and inoculating ourselves against smallpox. Household supplies stores are hawking everything from bottled water and battery-operated radios to portable toilets and full-body chemical protection suits.

I have yet to meet anyone doing any of the above, but I guess calm or indifference doesn't sell newspapers.

Today's headlines screamed that we should start hoarding food and water from Saturday. The small print read that those would be the orders from the chief of staff if war broke out.

The papers also report that the US embassy has begun evacuating non-essential personnel and their families, and that Israel's anti-missile batteries have gone on high alert. For what it's worth, that does make war look that much closer, but then again, we've been told that war with Iraq is imminent for at least four months now.

In the meantime I'm going down south to enjoy the winter sunshine and dust storms.

Have a great weekend.

Shabbat shalom.

Highway of Peace

Friday, January 3, 2003

The air was crisp and cold, smelling of winter, as we arrived in downtown Jerusalem this morning.

In the square outside the Mashbir department store, political activists of various stripes were flaunting their wares: a young man from the left-wing religious Meimad party was trying to sell voters on the wonders of Labour leader Amram Mitzna, while next to him a secular man in a sandwich board with a huge letter "lamed" on it was singing the praises of right-wing candidate Avigdor Lieberman of the Yisrael Beitenu party. A young, gormless looking woman in a Tzomet party shirt was hawking her party's rather amorphous platform.

Friday morning is the beginning of the weekend and the eve of the Sabbath, making it the busiest shopping day in Jerusalem. It was a bit cold, but not that cold. There were plenty of pedestrians in the square. No one seemed to take much interest in the campaigners. DH remarked on how lifeless it all seemed compared with previous election years, when passersby would engage the party propagandists in heated debate over the issues of the day.

By the time our errands were finished the clouds were closing in and the rain was falling thick and fast, turning the city's polished stone staircases and squares into treacherous skating rinks. The activists were sheltering under the Mashbir's awning, along with the busker. The Meimad supporter was bopping along to the beat, trying to keep warm.

Turning for home we decided to try a new road, Route 45, opened with rather subdued fanfare this week by a selection of minor dignitaries. So muted was the opening that most of the signs to 45 were still covered over with black plastic sheeting, leading us to wonder whether the new route really was open to traffic.

It was, but the sloppiness about the signs seemed appropriate. Route 45 was a project born out of the heady Oslo years. It was to be the "Highway of Peace", a super modern motorway linking Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Ramallah, Amman and someday, inshallah, Baghdad. It would be the engine of Arab-Israeli friendship, facilitating tourism and trade, a spur for development heralding a new cultural and economic community with open borders along the lines of the European model.

Many in the Modi'in area opposed the route because it was slated to go through Nahal Modi'in, a scenic valley adjacent to an important archaeological site believed by some scholars to encompass the tombs of the Maccabees and ancient Modi'in.

One of the most vociferous opponents was the late Prof. Yair Parag, an esteemed botanist and local resident. I vividly remember a ride with him once from Jerusalem: he spent the entire journey lamenting that in the name of peace the Israeli government would ride roughshod over Israel's ancient Jewish heritage, part of its very raison d'etre. The Oslo architects had their eyes so firmly set on the future it didn't matter if they trampled on the past.

In the end, the Modi'in segment of the road was put on hold and the project was begun from the Jerusalem end, roughly west of Ramallah, linking to the existing Modi'in-Jerusalem highway. This is the section that opened this week, providing a shortcut from central Jerusalem to the Modi'in road, avoiding the bottlenecked north Jerusalem suburb of Ramot.

Route 45 tells the story of the soured Oslo utopia.

Once you leave the brand new Ramot junction for 45, you pass open grassy areas bordering Arab suburbs of Jerusalem. High fences protect the beautiful new road from potential stone throwers. A fenced off dirt shoulder looked to me like a military patrol road.

As the road nears the Palestinian town of Bir Naballah the fences turn to huge fortified concrete walls covered in pastoral murals of green hills and arches. Like the painted walls of the Jerusalem suburb of Gilo, these barricades are there to protect Israelis from Palestinian snipers, while the scenic murals are supposed to give at least the illusion of peace.

Beyond the wall, the edge of Bir Naballah is marked by a massive field piled high with hundreds of cars, rusting hulks and fairly new models, tossed about like toys in a messy child's bedroom. Here was another reminder of what the new "economic freedom" and "open borders" of Oslo had actually brought: a massive rise in Palestinian theft of cars from Israel and a consequent roaring Palestinian trade in bootleg auto parts. Palestinian dignitaries were routinely stopped driving stolen Israeli vehicles, which had been relicensed by a complicit Palestinian Authority.

It reminded me of a visit to the Palestinian controlled city of Nablus/Shekhem in 1999. As our group neared the town we passed field after field of cars, auto parts and related junk. The Palestinian guide pointed to the eyesore and joked, "If any of you have had your cars stolen, this is a great place to look..." We smiled as if it was funny.

So much has changed since them. Scepticism about the prospects for peace is no longer limited to an ideological minority. It has become the broad national consensus. Many wonder why the signs of Palestinian ill will, from the rampant car theft to the weapons smuggling to the inflammatory speeches endorsing violence towards Israel, were ignored for so long. Today, few Israelis believe in our politicians' promises of peace and security. No leaders inspire much enthusiasm.

None of the candidates seems likely to bring peace any more than Route 45 is to reach Amman, let alone Baghdad.

Maybe that's why the activists in Mashbir Square were so lonely.

Shabbat shalom.

The crazed wind in my garden

Friday, November 29, 2002

The wind wouldn't let me sleep last night. It hammered on the shutters as though trying to break into the apartment. From upstairs came the sound of a herd of animals clattering around on the upstairs balcony - the wind driving around the garden furniture. Bits of leaves were sucked between the shutter and the window, swirling around in the gap like balls in a lottery machine.

I'd spent the evening working on my balcony, tending to my plants. Already the strong winds had started, tousling the large tree in my neighbours' garden below, blowing my gardening stool across the porch. The dust tickled my throat, sending me indoors in a spasm of coughing.

Finally, autumn weather in November, just as we are supposed to be on the cusp of winter. The rains have been late this year. We've had a few thunderstorms so far, some brief downpours, but not the blessed bounty we desperately need. This was a teasing gale, though, dry, choking and slightly warm. It blew along bits of dry earth and dust, with not a drop of rain in sight.

By about 2:45am I realized that sleep was impossible, and, bundling up in my warmest dressing gown, I went out to see what the violent wind had wrought on my balcony.

My favourite Arabian jasmine had been pulled to one side, half uprooted, while many of the tender seedlings were doubled over, squashed by the tempest. Assorted plant debris churned around the floor, along with a child's ball and an empty flower pot.

A few mocking drops of drizzle spattered down for an instant, leaving a pattern of tears on the balcony floor, nothing more.

The terrible gusts were tormenting the neighbours' tree, tossing it this way and that, ripping off clumps of its elegant leaves and pretty pink seed pods, along with strips of the jasmine vine which sprawls over the tree. The windward side was stripped bare and skeletal, like a face scarred on one side, with the sheltered side still glorious in its foliage and seed pods, the jasmine daintily weaving in and out among them. I wondered what had happened to the flock of house sparrows which usually roost there for the night.

Good thing my neighbour harvested his lemons two weeks ago. This storm would have decimated his crop.

The wind raged on. A cluster of marigold heads from a distant garden flew past me, followed by some flimsy branches.

I went back to bed but sleep wouldn't come. A song kept repeating in my head, the wind beating at the building, the wind chimes clanging wildly in panic. In my mind the tumult outside merged with the violence of the war, the destruction striking daily at random.

I found myself humming a song from the October 1973 Yom Kippur War:

Each year in the fall, Giora,
The crazed wind in my garden
Decapitates the best of my lilies.

Each year
Each year in the fall, Giora,
I cast my eyes up to the mountains.
From where will my salvation come?

Each year
Each year in the fall
Each year in the fall

Giora fell fighting a very different war, a war in which mighty armies faced each other in the vastness of the Sinai Peninsula, a war of soldier against soldier. Troops went off to the front line, and however small the country's borders were, the battlefield and the home were separate places. Now the distinction between the front and home seems a quaint luxury.

It felt as if the turbulence had grown out of the day's events, the frantic pace of tragedies and near tragedies bombarding us one after the other, battering the tender shoots along with the mature trees. Suddenly I felt sick. So many people had been cut down that day, and here I was worrying about the plants and sparrows.

And then it came. A clap of thunder, real thunder, not just the thrashing of the wind. A new sound arose from the tumult, a reassuring steady pounding of water on concrete and soil.

Finally a blessing from within the storm.

Shabbat shalom and Hannukah sameah.

Jerusalem of blood

Friday, November 22, 2002

"I don't know why the song is 'Jerusalem of Gold'", remarked one of the women in the waiting room to her neighbour. "They should have called it Jerusalem of Blood."

I had just been getting ready to leave for Jerusalem when radio anchor Arieh Golan interrupted an election campaign interview to report on that morning's bus bombing in Jerusalem.

We drove down Highway 443 listening to the macabre mix of news on the radio, the sickening reports from the atrocity interspersed with traffic updates about which roads were closed as a result. One station was already back to election news.

In the opposite direction a long line of vehicles snaked back from the Makkabim checkpoint, the soldiers carefully checking each one as it weaved its way through the huge concrete blocks, strategically placed to slow down traffic. Recently they were repainted to look like dice cubes, presumably by someone with a wry sense of humour. The gambling theme seemed oddly appropriate. Driving the highways, riding the buses, going shopping every day we take a chance with our lives, and not just because of the local driving culture (or lack thereof).

By the time we reached central Jerusalem the death toll was up to nine. The nurses at my doctor's office had the news on in the background. Hamas spokesman Abdel Aziz Rantisi was praising the "self-martyrdom operation". Rantisi is a physician, a paediatrician no less. One nurse stood staring at the radio. "He praises this," she muttered in disbelief.

At the pharmacy a woman commented that two boys had failed to show up at her son's school that morning. No one knew what had happened to them. She feared the worst.

In the centre of Jerusalem all was as usual. That day's bombing had occurred in faraway Kiryat Menahem, a sleepy neighbourhood in southern Jerusalem. Once again it struck me how large a city Jerusalem really is. Or perhaps just how compartmentalised.

As we returned to the car only about 3 hours after that morning's bombing the radio was reporting on the reopening of Mexico Street, where the bus was blown up. Over fifty buses have been attacked these past two years, including over twenty suicide bombings, so Israel is now quite proficient at cleaning up after them. Before long, life on Mexico Street will take on a semblance of normality. But the residents, cleanup crews and rescue service personnel will carry the horrors with them forever.

I walked up King George Street, pausing in the remodelled hat store to look for a winter Shabbat hat. They didn't have what I was looking for. Next door I stopped in the renovated bakery to get some rolls for lunch. Then I remembered why they had been refurbished: the bomb that had shattered this street only about six months ago.

By the time I arrived back home the death toll was up to eleven. Mothers and grandmothers, children on their way to school. The afternoon headlines brought the first names to be released. By the evening, funerals were being held. The late night news had photos to go with the names: six women, two girls, a little boy, a teenager and a young man.

The terrorist's father was interviewed praising his "heroic" son and proclaiming his desire that his other children follow in his footsteps.

There was a panicked message on my answer machine from a relative who was positive that I had been on that bus. She remembered that last year Thursday was my study day in Jerusalem and she thought I took the number 20 bus to class. Unable to reach me at home or on my cellphone (the battery was drained) she had concluded that something had happened to me.

This morning, a neighbour held a pre-Hannukkah craft fair. A friend stopped by and a few of us chatted for a bit, while business was slow. She is close to the parents of Chana Nachemberg, the young mother from Modi'in who is still in a coma after being wounded in the Sbarro pizzeria bombing in June 2001. She gave us an update on Chana's condition, how she is now off the respirator, how she gives the tiniest of responses, a flicker of the eyes, a movement of the hand in response to someone's touch.

Most of all though she reminded us of the family, the parents who spend every day at their daughter's bedside, the husband left alone to look after his little four-year-old daughter, and hold down a job and schlep to the long term care facility in Tel Aviv to visit his wife.

Sometimes in the first reaction to a terror attack we focus so much on the dead and their families that we forget the others whose lives were shattered by the blast. With nearly 5,000 wounded in over 15,000 acts of terror, sometimes we don't remember the Chanas, and their parents, spouses and children, those struggling with a slow climb back to health, a lifetime of disability or a relative who will require care in an institution for years to come.

The raw figures for yesterday's bombing were eleven dead and 56 wounded. The real casualties are far, far greater.

Shabbat shalom.

Kibbutz Metzer infiltrated

Tuesday, November 12, 2002

"I'm only a kid of 34, and I have to say Kaddish for two children, my whole family," sobbed Avi Ohayon clutching his late little boy's pacifiers.

The camera moved from him to the brightly decorated children's bedroom in their little house in Kibbutz Metzer in northern Israel. It was here that Ohayon's two young sons, Matan aged 5 and No'am, aged 4, were gunned down at point blank range by a Palestinian terrorist late last night. Their mother, Revital, was shot as she leant over her children in a futile attempt to protect them from the gunman. The blue and yellow bedclothes were stained with blood and bullet holes pierced the wall.

I must have seen the clip at least four times yesterday on four different news broadcasts. Each time I watched reporters close to tears. No matter how much terror becomes a "routine" event in Israel, there is no getting used to little kids butchered in their beds, eyeball to eyeball with their murderer while he coldly and calmly shoots them, a bullet for each child.

The terrorist began his killing spree on the tranquil, leafy, paths of the kibbutz, murdering Tirtza Damari as she took a late night stroll with her boyfriend, then gunning down Yitzhak Dori, the kibbutz secretary as he tried to apprehend the gunman. The Ohayon home was next.

Outside the kibbutz gates, by now sealed off by security forces, Avi Ohayon waited for news of his family.

The night stretched on endlessly, the residents of Metzer cooped up in their homes, behind locked doors and closed shutters, the entire village blacked out to hamper the terrorist's movements. Meanwhile soldiers and police scoured the kibbutz for the shooter. It was only at about seven the next morning that the all clear was given and residents were finally allowed to leave their homes. To date the perpetrator has not been caught.

The scenario has become too familiar. Lately, terrorist infiltrations have become almost a weekly event, targeting rural Israeli communities close to Palestinian areas. The attack on Kibbutz Metzer this Sunday night was only the most recent. Last week a Palestinian farm worker in Gush Katif smuggled a gun to work and murdered 52-year-old Amos Sa'ada and 18-year-old Assaf Tzfirah, in the greenhouses. The week before, a terrorist broke through the perimeter fence of the Samarian village of Hermesh, where he killed two 14-year-old Israeli schoolgirls, Hadas Turjeman and Linoi Sarousi, and 53-year-old Orna Eshel.

As the attack in Metzer took place, EU-sponsored talks were underway in Cairo with the aim of persuading the Palestinian terror gangs to renounce the murder of Israelis in "pre-1967 Israel," with the understanding that Israelis in disputed areas are fair game. Today, Palestinian officials expressed criticism of the location of the Metzer attack, with Fatah, whose gunmen perpetrated it, claiming they thought Metzer was over the pre-1967 armistice line. Had little Matan and No'am lived in an Israeli community a few kilometres east, just across the pre-1967 armistice line, they would clearly be considered legitimate targets.

In the last 10 days Israeli security forces have thwarted over fifty attempted terror attacks, mostly suicide bombers and car bombs caught en route to their Israeli targets, including a fifteen-year-old would be bomber apprehended near Nablus/Shekhem wearing an explosive laden belt.

One prominent success was ironically near Kibbutz Metzer itself, the very morning before the infiltration, when police on patrol intercepted a car packed with explosives and carrying a terrorist with a bomb-belt. Relief that this attempted atrocity had been averted was unfortunately to be short lived. Several hours later another terrorist began his killing spree in the same kibbutz.