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.

Allenby Street robbed

Thursday, September 19, 2002

It's a warm autumn day just before the Sukkot holiday and you've gone to Tel Aviv to run some errands. You're walking along a tree lined boulevard with a mix of stores from the ultra-hip to those that look like they haven't been renovated for decades. Here and there stationers and roadside vendors have tables piled with gaudy sukkah decorations and Rosh Hashanah cards (they're still selling them even though it's two weeks since New Year's.)

As always it's crowded with shoppers, including many old time Tel Avivians, immigrants from the former Soviet Union and a smattering of Asian and east European foreign workers. There is an atmosphere of routine pre-holiday bustle; people jostle past you with baskets full of festive gifts, sukkah decorations and groceries. Workers on lunch break linger at the neighbourhood eateries.

The air is laden with pollution from the heavy traffic. A continuous stream of buses, taxis and private cars clogs the road. A number 4 bus pulls into your stop, an Arab gets on and starts making his way to a seat. Suddenly there is a huge explosion and all hell breaks loose. The busy shopping street has turned into a scene from a horror movie.

Allenby Street is one of the few areas of Tel Aviv I know reasonably well. I've prayed at the Great Synagogue there on several occasions. On my first visit to Tel Aviv, when I was 10 years old, my mother and I spent a lot of time browsing its many shops, soaking up the authentic atmosphere of old Tel Aviv. She told me stories of her first visit to the area when she was in her teens, and we looked to see if there were any shops or buildings that had been there in the mid-1950s.

We stopped in one of those jewellery stores near Tel Aviv's Great Synagogue and Mum bought me a beautiful, simple little gold "Hai" (life) pendant, the letters filled in with blue enamel - my first ever item of gold jewellery. I still wear it. For herself she bought an unusual silver pendant. At first glance it looks like a swirling flame, and then you notice that it's actually stylised Hebrew letters spelling out the word "shalom" - peace.

Peace and life, two things that Allenby was robbed of today.

I was doing my holiday shopping in Jerusalem when the bus was blown up in Tel Aviv. I finished loading the Sukkot groceries into the car and turned on the radio, catching the tail end of a report: "wounded are just being evacuated, the street remains closed, people are asked to stay away from the Great Synagogue..." It seemed to take forever for them to mention exactly what had happened and where.

As the reports continued coming in I found myself busy with the mental arithmetic of Israeli casualties. How many Israeli dead since Rosh Hashanah 5761 two years ago? With another five murdered today I think that makes it 620. "Like the seeds of a pomegranate," DH responded wryly. I hadn't realised that I'd spoken aloud.

Like the seeds of a pomegranate. The pomegranate is a classical Jewish symbol of blessing, beauty and plenty. It is a fruit that is almost more seed than pulp, eaten on Rosh Hashanah to represent our hope that in the new year we will be blessed like the many seeds of the pomegranate. Tradition says that there are 613 seeds in a pomegranate, reminding us that God gave the Jewish people 613 commandments to live by. Whatever the number the seeds are too many to count; that's what we wish of our blessings, not our tragedies.

By this afternoon Allenby was back to normal. Only four hours after the bombing, undamaged shops had reopened and bus service had resumed. The fire department had hosed down the street and the only physical evidence of today's carnage were a few boarded up windows and myriad nuts and bolts from the bomb which were scattered throughout the street by the blast.

At a nearby booksellers they were already repairing the shop window blasted to smithereens. Amir, the owner, showed the pile of nuts and bolts which had rained down on the store, creating bullet like holes in the wooden doorframe and merchandise. On a children's book display rack, a Hebrew edition of "The Little Match Seller" had every page pierced by a small wingnut.

Local shopkeeper Tzvi Rabinovitz interviewed on Channel 2, described calmly and quietly how he had stood in his electrical goods store by the Great Synagogue and seen the bus explode, and the passengers jumping out of shattered windows. He had walked down to the nearby crossroads to stop the traffic from entering the scene of the blast. Three hours later he went back to his shop and resumed business as usual as though nothing had happened. "This is our country," he declared, "and we aren't going anywhere. This is our response, to get on with our lives."

Two days before Sukkot there are so many preparations to complete that we have no time to stop. Around us in Jerusalem festive preparations continued. Shoppers were browsing stalls selling tinsel chains, plastic fruit, festive posters and portraits of famous rabbis. Municipal workers were putting up flags. Others had piled up palm leaves from the city's trees for residents to use for the traditional sukkah roofs.

At a local DIY centre tonight people were busy with last minute holiday purchases. In the electronics section by the checkouts a bank of televisions was tuned into the evening news, shoppers looking on with horror at the painful scenes from Tel Aviv. Many strictly religious Jews don't have televisions in their homes and they stood glued to the sets, seeing the day's events for the first time.

Outside they were selling a selection of ready made sukkot. Nearby a makeshift market had stalls offering arba minim, the four species of plant used in the holiday services. People crowded under the spotlights, carefully inspecting each item, checking each etrog (citron fruit) for possible defects, making sure that the lulavim (palm branches) were straight, ensuring that the leaves on the hadasim (myrtle) looked right and that the aravot (willow) were not wilted.

All afternoon there has been banging and sawing from the apartment upstairs as our neighbours work on their sukkah. I've been cutting back the plants on our balcony so that we can put up ours this evening.

Wishing you all hag sameah.

Yom Kippur Eve

Erev Yom Kippur
(Day of Atonement Eve)
Sunday, September 15, 2002

For several weeks now our apartment has reverberated to the awe inspiring melodies of Yom Kippur morning prayers. DH will be the shaliah tzibbur for Shaharit (leading the congregation in services) this year and he has been practicing intently. It is an ideal way to prepare for the day itself, the solemn and daunting prayers focusing the mind on repentance and atonement.

I've noticed that foreign guidebooks advise visitors to Israel to avoid the High Holiday season like the plague. There will be nothing to do, they explain, and everything is closed on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. Quite simply, they think it's boring.

On the contrary, I recommend that visitors come this time of year. To understand what it means to be living in the world's only Jewish country, I suggest coming to see what it's like on the holiest days of the Jewish year.

The culture of these days permeates Israeli society. The supermarkets are filled with all manner of honey for Rosh Hashanah, and shoe shops do brisk sales in non-leather footwear just before Yom Kippur. Every Israeli from the simplest shop clerk to the most learned rabbi to the most secular journalist wishes one another "gmar hatima tova", may you have a good inscription, referring to the tradition that on Yom Kippur God seals our fates for the coming year.

I've lost count of how many times I've heard the haunting "Unetaneh Tokef" prayer played on the radio in recent weeks, not on religious programmes but during regular shows on popular stations. The prayer, about man's frailty passing before God in judgement, is one of the key points in the High Holiday prayer service.

They play it on the radio because it is part of our culture, something that so many Israelis relate to. "I can't tell you how many listeners tell me they look forward all year to hearing it," commented a broadcaster last night. It touches something deep in the Israeli soul, be it the spur to repentance or childhood memories of synagogue on Yom Kippur.

During the ten days of repentance between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, Israeli radio has had a late night forgiveness slot where people can phone in and ask forgiveness from those they've hurt during the year. In general, radio and television stations have been run programmes about the seasonal themes of introspection and repentance, about the meaning of the High Holidays and the direction of Israeli society.

The great majority of Jewish Israelis fast on Yom Kippur, even those who don't necessarily go to synagogue or engage in any religious activity. As every year, the media interview doctors on how to fast well. This year they are forecasting a heat wave for Yom Kippur, so there were additional questions on how to take precautions against heatstroke, what to do if someone feels ill and the like.

Yom Kippur, more than any other day in Israel, is a national holy day. The entire country shuts down: every business, every place of entertainment, everything. No one drives their cars. You could walk down the middle of a major highway and the only danger would come from a few kids on bicycles - for secular children the lack of traffic has turned Yom Kippur into national bicycle day.

And now there are only a few hours to go before the Day of Atonement is upon is in all its majesty and awe. Businesses and shops closed hours ago. The streets are already quiet as people busy themselves with last minute preparations or shelter from the oppressive heat outdoors. Our building is filled with the mouth watering smells of cooking as we and our neighbours prepare the final meal before the fast. Freshly laundered white holiday clothes hang ready to be worn tonight, the mahzorim (prayer books) are ready by the door.

Last night, the last chance for midnight slihot, forgiveness prayers, before Yom Kippur, the Kotel (Western Wall) was flooded with tens of thousands of worshippers. The rabbi of the Kotel reported that people came in record numbers. And it was not only the traditional religious who came. There were large numbers of secular Israelis among the throng, people who came because the Kotel belongs to all the Jewish people, and on the eve of the holiest day of the Jewish Year they also wanted to be part of the last mass prayer service before the great day itself.

There is a Jewish belief in the power of communal prayers, in the power of large numbers of the nation of Israel coming together in prayer and appealing for God's mercy. May the sincerity of the crowds of Jews from all sectors of society, coming together in the heart of Jerusalem have the strength to banish all evil decrees for the coming year.

May we all be inscribed for health, happiness and peace.

Gmar hatima tova.

America Commemorates

Wednesday, September 11, 2002

By coincidence this afternoon at 4pm Israel time, 9am New York time, I was on a bus, just as I was at the same time last year on September 11. Last year I sat dazed listening to the news on the bus radio, not fully comprehending what had happened. This year the bus passengers grew quiet as the radio relayed the memorial ceremony from Ground Zero.

In Jerusalem an official memorial ceremony was held in the presence of Israeli president Moshe Katzav and US ambassador to Israel Dan Kurtzer. The cabinet held a special memorial session at the Knesset.

All day the news programmes have been devoted to the subject, with regular programming interrupted for live link-ups with memorials in the US. Related songs have been played on the radio, including several of the recent American ballads written for the occasion.

In Tel Aviv an Israeli orchestra commemorated the attacks by performing Mozart's Requiem. An exhibition of photos from the New York site opened today at Jerusalem's Israel Museum.

More than any other free nation, we, who have been battered and bruised by decades of terrorism, understand how America feels. We know exactly what President Bush meant when he talked of men, women and children murdered simply because they were American. How many Jews and Israelis have been murdered simply because they were Jews or Israelis? We have been in that dark, terrifying place so often, especially in the last two years. We have so many bereaved parents, so many orphaned children.

Watching the solemn dignity of the American memorial ceremonies, we are reminded of our own. The recitation of names, the tolling of the bell like the sounding of the memorial sirens here. A people dignified and tearful, like our own. The same quiet determination is common to both, agonising sadness mixed with a stubborn resolve to rebuild our lives and defeat the evil forces working to destroy our freedom.

We extend our sympathy and solidarity to the American people on this memorial day.