One of the victims, 79-year-old Sara Hamburger, was a seventh-generation Israeli-born great-grandmother. At the age of six, she survived the Hevron massacre in 1929, which basically ended the Jewish presence in that city until 1967. She moved to Jerusalem after the massacre, and lived there for the rest of her life, two block from Ben Yehuda Street, where she witnessed four other terrorist bombings. Tuesday, her turn came as she waited at a bus stop.
The other victim, 56-year-old Svetlana Sandler, was a non-Jewish Russian immigrant who was married to a Jew. Together, they came to live in Israel, and ended up getting divorced. But despite the fact that her elderly parents remained in Russia, despite the fact that she had a son confined to a mental institution there, she decided to remain in Israel, throwing her lot with a nation to which she did not belong because she identified with our history, our present circumstances, and our cause.
The day after the attack, Knesset Speaker Avraham Burg announced that he would accept an invitation to speak at the Palestinian Legislative Council in Ramallah, despite the opposition of both Prime Minister Sharon, and Burg's own party leader, Binyamin Ben-Eliezer. In explaining his decision, Burg said that, "the Palestinian people must hear, in Hebrew, what an Israeli patriot thinks of the need for peace."
This is easily the most insulting thing any Israeli politician has had the temerity to say during the past 16 months of Palestinian violence aimed specifically at destroying what there was of the peace process.
Yasser Arafat's own organized crime syndicate had just murdered two Israelis, while with the other hand cyncically inviting Burg to utter his sycophantic ravings before their hallowed leaders. Burg's speech will not serve the interests of peace. It most certainly will serve the interests of Palestinian terrorists by granting them legitimacy as they continue to murder Israelis under his watchful eyes. Burg's decision, and particularly the words he chose in explaining it, is a direct insult to the memory of Sarah Hamburger and the other victims of this Intifadah. Burg owes no explanation of Israeli opinion or feelings to the Palestinians. But he most certainly does owe a certain amount of loyalty, a large amount of contrition, and a healthy dose of identification with his own people - particularly with those of his people who are being murdered almost daily at the hands of our supposed "peace partners".
If Burg is really interested in having the Palestinians hear the words and feelings of a real Israeli patriot regarding the peace process, he should stay home. The real Israeli patriot here is Sarah Hamburger, a woman who lived through the best and the worst that Israeli history has to offer, who continued a long family tradition of living and dying in Israel, and who raised an entire family, including a great-grandchild, to continue living in our homeland. The real Israeli patriot is Svetlana Sandler who chose to remain here despite the lack of any religious, cultural, or family connections with the Land of Israel, because she herself identified with the Jewish nation and its cause.
These patriots are dead now, and their words and feelings can best be expressed with silence. The silence of the grave. Avraham Burg, on the other hand, is most certainly not an Israeli patriot. His words will be more those of identification with the enemy of Israel than with the true patriots who now lie in cemeteries throughout this country because of the peace process he so loyally supports. And his words deserve not to be heard as representative of Israeli patriots. More properly, they should be considered for the support they give to terrorist entities such as the Palestinian Authority.
Copyright 2002. All rights reserved. Yehuda Poch is a journalist living in Israel. Reproduction in electronic or print format by permission only.
