Like Israel, India finds itself in the cross-hairs of terrorists, the depths of whose hatred and barbarity defy comprehension.Last month in Mumbai, India's most important commercial centre, 207 people were murdered in a series of co-ordinated terror bombings on commuter trains during a period of eleven minutes in the morning rush hour. (For those with a strong constitution, there's a powerful collection of images here.) Thousands more were injured. And hundreds of millions of Indians were left wondering - along with the citizens of Bali, Madrid, London and Tel-Aviv - what could possibly motivate such boundless, unfathomable contempt for human life.
A few days later, a journalist for the Times of India, visited Israel and interviewed Arnold Roth. The interview was published in the 25th July 2006 paper edition of the Times of India, and is now available on-line (click here). We have extracted the text.
LIVING WITH TERROR IN ISRAEL
‘Terrorism is connected to hatred and intolerance’
Nina Martyris | TNN
On August 9, 2001, when 15-year-old Malki Roth was at a Jerusalem pizzeria for lunch, a young Palestinian walked in with a guitar strapped to his back. Minutes later, the bomb concealed within the instrument exploded, killing 15 people, including Malki, her friend and the Palestinian man. It was a suicide bombing that made headlines the world over. Malki’s distraught parents Arnold and Firmet subsequently started the Malki Foundation, an organisation that funds Israeli parents who have severely handicapped children, whether they are Christian, Muslim, Druze or Jewish. In this interview with TOI, Arnold Roth talks about terror and politics in Israel. Excerpts:
Q: How are you dealing with the loss of your child?
A: Our child’s life was stolen from us and from her by people of hatred. From where I stand, I can testify that coping is a daily process that goes on for years. It’s not like an illness where you get curedit’s a permanent pain and a deep change in almost all your relationships. Mindless hatred made the act of terror possible, and awareness of this hatred stays in your mind and causes you think differently about almost everything.
Q: After the tragedy, were you terrified of the outside world? Did you consider counselling?
A: Malki was the middle child of our seven children - she called herself the meat in the sandwich. After her murder, we made permanent changes in our daughters’ routine - they are not allowed to travel by public transport or go to public places without our permission. They hate the restrictions but they understand. My wife and I spend a lot of time taxi-ing our children around.
However, we also know that there are no guarantees. No one can say where or how the terrorists will strike next. Everyone knows that terrorists are not limited by any sense of fairness or self-restraint. If there is any way for them to hurt us, they will try.
Counselling was offered to all of us by the social security authority. For some of us it proved to be tremendously helpful (for instance, for my wife and me); others did not even take up the offer. Sometimes people (like our chuldren) in their 20's are too proud or perhaps lack self-awareness to know that they can be helped. In those cases, the support of others like themselves [in peer support groups] can be remarkably constructive.
Q: What has the government done to protect its citizens?
A: Since the earliest days, it has been obligatory for almost every building in Israel to have a bomb shelter or a public shelter in a nearby public space. After the 1991 Iraq missile attacks, every new building must have an internal room with thicker walls to serve as a shelter. There are also ‘security holes’ in buildings and public spaces - a vacuum embedded in concrete where explosive material can be safely dropped without hurting people.
We have security guards everywhere: outside supermarkets, schools, buses. My daughter’s murder was one of the last to happen before that big change. If the murderer had attempted his strike just a few weeks later, he would been unsuccessful, since his guitar case would surely have been searched.
Q: Although full of anger, you say you do not feel hatred towards those who killed Malki.
A: I’m not at all unusual. Our culture, our education, the very institutions of Israeli life are all based on our respect for diversity and the idea that that democracy can absorb a wide range of diverging viewpoints. Thus, we know there are people who have fundamentally different viewpoints from us and who don’t tolerate our presence. Does this mean we have to hate them? We have nothing against them except their actions. There is a firm belief in this country that Arab society suffers from exploitation at the hands of its own civil and religious leadership. Most Israelis, including me, are therefore both optimistic and pessimistic at the same time. We’re optimistic that with the introduction of democratic and enlightened education, Arab society will eventually develop a respect for the rights of the other and that this will include respect for Israelis and Jews. We’re pessimistic because there is simply no sign that this is even beginning to happen. This is not something to hate. It’s something to pity and to protect oneself against.
Q: Don’t you think the Palestinians have a genuine grievance? Isn’t their right to a country a basic human right?
A: There’s a lot of support in Israel for a Palestinian state and has been for years. I used to march in the streets, as a university student in Australia, demonstrating for the right of self-determination of the Palestinians. Back then, we hoped they would develop a strong leadership that would bring them towards their own state, their own national achievements. I’m personally disappointed at the repeated failures of the Palestinian leadership in creating something of value for their people. But even more than my personal disappointment with their leadership -- and especially with Arafat -- I am disappointed at the lack of disappointment on the part of the Palestinians. They are so busy being angry and resentful at what is, in their view, being done to them by us and by others that they have failed to see what they have done to themselves.
Terror from the Arab world has been happening to us long before Israeli policies could be blamed -- even before there was an Israel. I frequently see analysts and critics of Israel referring to what they like to call ‘underlying causes’. The favourite such cause is ‘the occupation’. I like to point out that when the PLO was created, and even when Arafat took over its leadership, the total number of ‘occupied’ Arab towns, cities and houses was zero. (This was in 1964-’65.)
As terrorism acquires more victims, it will become clearer that it is tightly connected to hatred and intolerance. For these phenomena, there will never be a political solution. Indeed, there might not be any solution at all other than to do everything in our power to keep the practitioners of terror far away from us. And if that fails, then good societies must destroy them without mercy before they destroy everything good in our lives.
For more information on the foundation, visit www.kerenmalki.org
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