We, bereaved families, must remind Israelis what releasing prisoners entails

Arnold/Frimet Roth
This Ongoing War: A Blog
09 August '10

One of this blog's authors has an op-ed in today's Jerusalem Post. Its publication marks the ninth anniversary of the savage massacre on 9th August 2001 by Hamas agents in the center of Jerusalem at the Sbarro restaurant. Our daughter Malki was one of the people murdered there that day. We are determined that her memory will not be erased.

Nine years after the Sbarro massacre
By FRIMET ROTH
A version of this article was first published in the Jerusalem Post (online 9-Aug-10; print edition 10-Aug-10)

We, the bereaved families who feel the pain of terror every day must remind Israelis what 'releasing prisoners' for Gilad Schalit entails.

It's been nine years since my daughter Malki was murdered in the suicide bombing of Jerusalem's Sbarro restaurant and terrorism denial is still rampant.

Foreign diplomats may still preface their complaints against Israel with the formulaic "Israel has some genuine security concerns and they have to be met." But after that obligatory line, most feel free to attack Israel with no holds barred.

Some of Israel's home-grown critics don't even bother with such political correctness. Our security is no longer a justified concern in their view and they have no compunction about saying so. Suicide bombers? Intifada? Israeli terror victims? Not in their history books.

Writing recently in Haaretz, columnist Merav Michaeli described a variety of possible solutions to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Her conclusion? It is incumbent upon us to "want to live in peace. Not in security, but in peace." Her column was even entitled "Not in Security, but Peace" in case the message was not clear enough.

Terrorism denial is the foundation on which the Free Gilad Schalit campaign has been built. At some point, its legitimate effort to pressure all involved parties to free Schalit was hijacked. Today its goal is nothing short of maligning and undermining Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu for his unwillingness to release every last prisoner demanded by Hamas.

This campaign could not have galvanized so many - some estimate 200,000 joined its eleven-day march to Jerusalem last month - without the groundwork laid by terrorism denial. Were the faces of the 1,000 innocent Israelis murdered during the second intifada still fresh in Israelis' minds, warnings about the dangers of a mass prisoner release would not be dismissed as casually and as persistently as they are being now.

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