Too Late For Too Many
It is 11 P.M. in New York. Yasser Arafat has just been pronounced dead.
Baruch dayan emes, blessed be the true judge. That phrase is easy to say tonight.
Yet Arafat's demise was most untimely. It came much too late.
It is 36 years too late for those who were murdered and maimed in Machaneh Yehuda in 1968.
For the children on the schoolbus in Avivim in 1970, it is 34 years too late.
Arafat passed away 32 years too late for the dozens murdered inside Lod airport in 1972, and for the Israeli athletes who were murdered three months later.
Arafat lived 30 more years after murdering 18 people in Kiryat Shemona, and 27 more - mostly school children - in Maalot the next month.
Those killed in the Zion Square suicide bombing on July 4, 1975 are not here for the news that Arafat is gone.
I have exchanged e-mails with a victim of Arafat's murder of 36 people on the Haifa-Tel Aviv road on March 11, 1978. This now elderly man was severely wounded, his son was murdered.
It is 19 years too late for Leon Klinghoffer, a passenger on the Achille Lauro ship en route to Israel.
It is too late for all the victims of Arafat's deception following Oslo.
For Yosef Tabeja, a border policeman who was on joint patrol with a Palestinian Authority cop who shot him to death in September 2000, and for Yosef Avrahami and Vadim Novesche who were mutilated to death by a crazed mob in Ramallah after making a wrong turn in October 2000, it's four years too late. So it is for Hillel Lieberman, who was murdered trying to save Joseph's Tomb from destruction.
For the victims of the 2000 Gush Katif bombing, including the Cohen family, in which three children lost limbs, it is far too late.
Arye Hershkowitz of Ofra was 55 when he was murdered a few miles away from Arafat's Ramallah compound on January 29, 2001. His son Assaf was 30 when he was murdered nearby on May 1, 2001.
Dr. Shmuel Gillis devoted his life to saving the lives of those stricken with cancer, including many Arabs. He was murdered by Fatah terrorists on his way home from a night shift.
Arafat lived more than 75 years, but Shalhevet Pass only lived 10 months. She was shot to death in Hebron in March 2001.
Yossi Ish-Ran and Kobi Mandell were victims of Arafat's "peace of the brave" in May 2001. They took off a day of school and were brutally stoned to death.
Yehuda Shoham was killed by a rock while riding with his parents in their car in June 2001. Yehuda was five months old.
Shimon Bloomberg and his 14 year old daughter, Tzippi, were severely wounded by a shooting at their car in August 2001. Their wife and mother, Techiya, was killed along with her unborn child.
Shoshana Yehudit Greenbaum, Malka Roth, Michal Raziel, Frieda Mendelsohn were murdered at Sbarro four days later. Mordechai and Tzira Schijveschuurder were also killed that awful day, along with three of their children, including their 4 year old son and 2 year old daughter. Chana Nachenberg and her 3 year old daughter survived, but Chana has not yet woken up.
The 11 people, mostly children, who were murdered in a Fatah bombing at the conclusion of shabbos in March 2002 outside a shul in Meah Shearim might still be here if Arafat had left this world a couple of years earlier.
Arik Krogliak, Tal Kurtzweil, Asher Marcus, and Ariel Zana were murdered in a yeshiva in Gush Katif five nights later.
After shabbos, two night later, Moment Cafe was bombed and 11 were killed.
Just two weeks later, 30 more were murdered on the first night of Pesach at the Park Hotel in Netanya.
Marla Bennett, 24, of California and Benjamin Blutstein, 25, of Pennsylvania, were among the nine victims of the Hebrew University bombing on July 31, 2002.
A few years after his family made aliyah, Ari Weiss was murdered on September 30, 2002. Six months later, Daniel Mandel, whose family also had made aliyah, was killed by terrorists.
On shabbos night in December 2002, Noam Apter and three others yeshiva students in Otniel were murdered during the shabbos meal. Noam locked himself with the terrorists in the kitchen, heroically giving up his own life to save the 100 other students in the dining room.
Rabbi Eli Horowitz and his wife Dina were also eating the shabbos meal, with their family, on March 7, 2003, when they were shot and killed.
Zvi Goldstein danced at his son's wedding on June 19, 2003. The next morning he was shot dead. His parents, who live in Long Island, were seriously wounded.
Goldie Taubenfeld and her 3 months old son, Shmuel, were visiting from New Square, New York when they and 24 others were murdered in a suicide bombing as they rode a bus back from the Kotel on August 19, 2003.
If Arafat had died earlier, perhaps Naava Applebaum would have married Chanan Sand on September 10, 2003. Perhaps her father, Dr. David Applebaum, would still be heading ER at Shaarei Zedek Hospital, and maybe the Shaarei Zedek ER could have treated typical ER patients. But Naava, David and nine others were murdered at Cafe Hillel one night earlier.
On Aza and Arlozorov streets in Jerusalem, Bus 19 was blown up on the morning of January 29, 2004. 11 were murdered, among them Chezi Goldberg, who had written so poignantly about the importance of feeling pain caused by Palestinian murder.
Tali Hatuel was 8 months pregnant when she and her four children were murdered in Gush Katif six months ago.
Nine days ago, a 16 year old suicide bomber was sent by Fatah to explode in a Tel Aviv market. 3 people were killed and dozens were wounded.
May Arafat burn in hell, may the memories of his many victims be a blessing, and may there be no more victims, with G-d's help.
posted on 11/10/2004
