Thursday, January 15th 2004

Suicide Bombing Hurts Palestinians, Only Israeli Newspapers Care

You won't find this kind of story in any of the celebratory pamphlets that Hamas and Fatah hand out after each of their demented suicide bombings.

"Whoever ordered the bombing," said Salha, who is among about 150 Palestinian factory owners at Erez, "must have known that 30,000 mouths depend on our employment here."
When bombers aren't exploding themselves, some 20,000 Palestinians pass through the Erez crossing daily. About 5,000 of them click through the turnstiles at the industrial zone, a joint Israeli-Palestinian venture, and the rest go to construction or mostly other menial labor jobs in Israel.
Looking somewhat bewildered, Salha said he could hardly understand the motivation of the bomber. "After all, this hurts us [the Palestinians] much more than it does the Israelis."

This routine became old long, long ago. A suicide bomber attacks Israeli civilians, and so Israel clamps down on the town or region where that suicide bomber came from. Quiet ensues, and Israel withdraws. Within a couple of weeks, sometimes within a couple of hours, a suicide bomber slips out of the now blockade-less town or region. And the cycle repeats itself, with more blockades, more curfews, more Israeli soldiers in danger, and more Palestinians miserable.
However, an attack at the Erez crossing is uniquely stupid. The Erez crossing is the way that Palestinians from the West Bank get into Israel to sell their goods or to work. Shutting it down essentially deprives Palestinians in the Gaza strip of any economic option.

Before the first intifada, recalls Malik, there were no checkpoints, and Palestinians could travel anywhere in Israel. "Not anymore, and today pretty much shows why." Malik had refused to give his full name, because, he said, "I have stayed off the Israeli Shin Bet's lists, and those of the PA's Mukhabarat, and I don't want that to change."

We shouldn't forget that there are victims on both sides of the conflict. But we also shouldn't forget that polls show that the Israeli public overwhelmingly wants to stop the suffering, and that the Palestinian public overwhelmingly supports continuing the conflict even in the face of any peace deal short of the complete dismantlement of the Jewish state.
permalink posted by: omri -- 05:13:03 PST

authors

Pittsburgh: stan shivell
Emeritus: omri ceren

sections

main - the blog
Learn French - Fromage
Dems Behaving- Badly

about

Are we biased? Certainly. Do we care? No. Do we like to throw the royal "we" around a bit too much even though we are only one person? Absolutely.

bloggish friends

People we know.

Omri Ceren
David Evans
Mark & Katy Frey
Garrett LeSage
Ben Northrop
Spritopias

blogroll

We read 'em.

Allison Kaplan Sommer
Amish Tech Support
Andrew Sullivan
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler
Capitalist Lion
Daniel Drezner
GrassrootsPA
In Context
Instapundit
Israpundit
Israellycool
Kesher Talk
Little Green Footballs
Meryl Yourish
Moxie
Omri Ceren
OxBlog
Pejmanesque
Roger Simon
VodkaPundit
The Volokh Conspiracy
Winds of Change

big-media blogs

Three letters. Mostly.

ABC's The Note
Slate's Mickey Kaus
Salon's Scott Rosenberg
NRO's The Corner
Reason's Hit & Run
TAP's Tapped
TNR's &c
TNR's Gregg Easterbrook
WSJ's Best of the Web

pitt love

Penn State still sucks.

The Jurist
Pitt Chronicle
Pitt Magazine
Pitt News

RSS 2.0