Alisa Flatow was murdered in 1995 by an Iranian sponsored suicide bomber who plowed his car into a public bus near the Israeli settlement of Kfar Darom in the Gaza Strip. Seven Israeli soldiers were killed along with Alisa. They were all under age 21. Fifty-two passengers were wounded in the attack.
Alisa was remembered by her friend Alan Mitrani in a moving letter posted here at Brandeis University’s memorial page for Alisa. Stephen Flatow was Alisa’s father. He seeks to keep her memory alive and to wage his own battle against the indulgence of what the AP and Fox News are now pleased to call “militants.” This past March Mr. Flatow drew attention to the teaching of a terrorist’s proud mother. The Gatestone Institute headed Mr. Flatow’s column with these bullet points drawn from the JNS column when Gatestone republished it:
• When [16-year-old Muntasir Al-Shawa] recently informed his mother that he intended to carry out a terrorist attack against Israeli Jews…she gave him tips on how to properly prepare himself to carry out the attack.
• “…I’ll come back to you as a martyr.” The term “martyr” in the Palestinian Arab lexicon means somebody who dies in the course of murdering or attempting to murder Jews.
• “Go bathe, pray, bow down to Allah and then there might be a chance that Allah will agree to accept you [as a martyr]. The following night he came back to me as a martyr. Praise Allah.” — Muntasir Al-Shawa’s mother, to her son.
• And so, Muntasir proceeded to the Tomb of Joseph, where he and other terrorists opened fire on Jewish worshippers and their Israeli guards. The Israelis shot back and killed him. Mrs. Al-Shawa got her wish.
• Advocates of the Palestinian Arab cause often tell us that ordinary Palestinians are just like ordinary folks everywhere. They say Palestinian mothers and fathers have the same concerns as those in America, Israel and everywhere else.
• For the past 28 years, the P.A. has refused to fulfill its Oslo Accords obligation to encourage Palestinian Arabs to reject terrorism and embrace peaceful coexistence with Israel… It has raised an entire generation of parents and children who continue to see anti-Jewish terrorism as a worthy life goal.
• And that, in a nutshell, is why the possibility of achieving real peace with the Palestinian Arabs is so remote. It has nothing to do with settlements or borders. It has everything to do with the widespread and deeply held attitudes that permeate the Palestinian Arab community.
I have been holding this column in an open window on my computer for an appropriate moment. I want to share it with readers today in connection with my comments nearby on the torturing of language in the service of demoralization and confusion. Please read the whole thing here.
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