I knew something like this would happen. I knew it was only a matter of time since the “road map” talks began until the terrorists would murder more innocent people to prove their point.
Now, 16 people are dead and 112 more wounded in the latest horrific bus bombing in Jerusalem:
Sixteen people were killed and another 112 were wounded when a Hamas suicide bomber, dressed as an ultra-Orthodox Jew, detonated his explosives belt on a bus in downtown Jerusalem Wednesday.
Minutes after the attack, Israeli helicopters fired rockets at a car in Gaza City, killing eight Palestinians, including two Hamas terrorists, one of whom orchestrated a series of recent rocket attacks on southern Israeli towns.
[ . . . ]
Hamas claimed responsibility for the attack as revenge for Israel’s strike Wednesday on the organization’s co-founder Abdel Aziz Rantisi, which left him wounded. The claim came in the form of statement aired on television networks, Hamas spiritual head Ahmed Yassin.
Now, the two sides are further away from peace than they probably ever were. And I’d like to be able to say that this shattered some great white hope of mine, some optimism that maybe this time things would be different. But instead, I just feel a sort of resignation and numbness to the whole affair. It’s hard to feel let down, never having gotten my hopes up in the first place.
I want to be able to make some noble speech about how these innocent Israelis were heroes, how they didn’t die in vain but in the pursuit of peace. But it would be nothing but an insulting, ridiculous lie. These people were no more heroes than you or I, and they no more deserved to die than any of us. They were ordinary citizens, going about their ordinary lives. They got on a bus, or went shopping at a market, and their lives were stolen.
And so, the familiar song and dance begins again. Israel retaliates. The world condemns violence “on both sides” without making the distinction between the instigator and the defender. Arafat pays lip service to “condemning” terrorism, while continuing to fund and encourage it. Abbas expresses sadness but says he’s unwilling to confront Hamas. Israelis mourn. And then it all begins again, until the next time.
So to all the people out there who want to sacrifice the lives of these sixteen people, and those of hundreds of others, I say fuck that. It’s enough already. How many more terrorist bombings of busses, cafes, restaurants, or nightclubs will it take until we get the message? We don’t have a partner for peace. We never had a partner for peace. All we have is an enemy who wants nothing more nor less than to see every last one of us dead.
And to those of you who say that their intent was to kill this latest round of peace talks, and that cutting off the talks would just be giving them what they want, well, that may be. But I don’t care anymore. How many times do you extend your hand in friendship, only to have it slapped, before you stop offering it?
16 people are dead today for no other reason than the fact that they wanted to live. There’s no logic anymore. There’s only sadness and senselessness.