"God willing you will succeed," Naima al-Obeid said to her son Mahmoud on the day he went to die. "May every bullet hit its target, and may God give you martyrdom. This is the best day of my life." Mahmoud ambushed and killed two Israeli Israelisk so 
"I am proud of my son's deed, we must fight,” said Um Shadi (Mother of the Martyr), mother of Mahmoud Hamdan Kwasma. Sixteen Israelis, including Arabs and Druze young people, were murdered. Scores more were wounded, many of them schoolchildren and students when Kwasma blew up #37 bus in Haifa. Many of the injured remain in critical condition. The suicide bomber was 20 years old. 
"I have two children and love them very much. But my love to see God was stronger than my love for my children." Reem Saleh Riyashi, was the first Hamas female suicide bomber. It later turned out that Reem was driven to the checkpoint where she murdered 4 Israelis by her Hamas lover, with whom she was having an adulterous affair. | |
By Paula R. Stern
It didn't start with a boom. That was the end. It probably started years ago, or at very least months ago. There is a hatred there and youth. The young do not fear death and believe the promises of glory. It is in the education system - be a martyr. It is in the sermons he hears during prayers - die for your people. Your parents will be proud. Your people. Your friends. The glory. A moment of pain, an eternity of martyrdom.
The hatred is as much a gift as the youth. It lets him see them only as the enemy and not people. He will not have thought of the children on the bus who were the same age as his brother or sister. The old man that could have been his grandfather, the young man that in another world could have been his friend. A world of families, of people, of lives built and shattered in the instant it took him to trigger the bomb.
There would have been no understanding of people, only enemies. If he sees his victim as a child, a mother, a grandfather, a friend, he cannot explode himself and kill them. They must remain his enemy. The hatred must consume. He cannot even think of his own mother, his father, his brothers and sisters.
Some time that morning, a young man left his home. He said goodbye to his parents for the last time, and so did at least seventeen other people. He knew he would not return, they did not. Soon, we would know his name and how old he was, where he lived, and why he did this terrible thing. But in the first hours, his mother wondered where he was, and thought about that strange look he gave her as he walked out the door. In the bomb's aftermath, thousands of parents frantically tracked their children. For most, there was relief. For the family of the seventeen, there will be deep, endless sorrow.
The young man went somewhere and they gave him a belt, or perhaps a backpack. They dressed him in the clothes of his enemy. He was told where to go, what to look for, how to act. Don't look suspicious. Find people. A bus, a crowd. Wait and plan the moment. It will be your glory.
Within minutes, the world knew there had been an explosion. The rest was a question of numbers, and names. It started with the announcement that there were many wounded, and some fatalities. Then they announced nine dead, a bad sign, guaranteed to rise. Nine lives ended, and him. A nation frantically calculated where their loved ones would be at 5:30 on a sunny Wednesday afternoon in the golden city of Jerusalem. But one mother probably knew. He won't come home. For her, it is over.
Sixteen dead, the news announced, and him. He isn't counted by the television, but for her, he is the only one that really counts. Families rush to the hospital but she will not go. There is no reason. Almost one hundred wounded. It staggers the mind. Slowly, the names are announced, their ages, their stories. At first she would have been alone, but soon neighbors will have learned and come to her. But even before they announced his name, his age, and where he was from, she knew. A mother knows these things, I believe. Deep down, she knew it was him this time.
There might have been signs. He might have left that morning, or perhaps the day before. She would have prepared herself. Ready for when the neighbors come and congratulate her. She has to make him proud. Has to say she is happy and proud that he chose this path. She cannot think of the ones who died as people. She too will not think of the children, the fathers, the grandfathers. She will think, as her son did, of the enemy. She cannot say her son is a murderer, a terrorist, a suicide bomber bent on inflicting pain and terror on innocent people who just chose the wrong bus at the wrong time.
She probably has other children. She will watch them more closely. Her husband will say he is proud that his son did this thing. He will wish his other children become martyrs too, but she is a mother. She carried him for nine months. It is not possible, really possible, deep down for her to be happy that he has done this thing. I tell myself this over and over again. It is not possible. It is not human.
Another day and the toll rises to seventeen and the stories become personalized. A twin killed, a Senator's daughter wounded. A Holocaust survivor that couldn't survive this hatred. A wife, a mother, a grandmother. A terrified little boy who can't forget the bodies.
He was eighteen years old. Old enough to have chosen his path, old enough to be sent on a mission of murder. He should have been old enough to know that what he was about to do was wrong. According to all laws known to man, according to his own religion. There is no glory in his death, no martyrdom, no virgins waiting for him in Heaven.
He was eighteen years old. Too young to be so poisoned. Too young to have so much hatred and too young to have murdered so many.
June, 2003 |
Techshoret | WritePoint
