"Do you realize there isn't a piece of land worth these lives?"
In Grief, Israeli Family Questions Army Aid to Settlers
She refused to cry. But there was no masking the rage that Yaffa Yaacoby aimed at the four young men, one bearing a submachine gun, who came to her house today to pay their respects to her dead daughter.
"Tell me," she asked the men, all members of a small settlement near the Tomb of the Patriarchs in the West Bank city of Hebron, "is it worth it — the cave, the holy places — for my daughter and the other people who died? I speak from my heart. Look at me. I am only 40 years old. Today and every day after this, I have to wake up and face the fact that I buried my daughter.
"Do you realize there isn't a piece of land worth these lives?"
Settlers vehemently dispute this view, saying that the West Bank is both their biblical birthright and a buffer of security against Arab states. They argue that settlements are an investment in holding on to that land, and therefore that an army presence is necessary and justified.
Today, in grief, this central argument in Israeli society played itself out in a living room here as the Yaacoby family sat shiva in mourning for their oldest daughter, Keren, 19, killed last Thursday with a fellow soldier while guarding the contentious Jewish settlement.
Keren, shot by Palestinian gunmen, was the first woman in Israel's Army to die in combat since fighting broke out anew in September 2000.
But her death has received intense news media coverage here, primarily because her family has been outspoken in asking why, exactly, Israeli soldiers like their daughter are guarding the settlement of only 450 religious and well-armed Jews, perched dangerously amid some 150,000 Palestinians in Hebron.…
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/18/international/middleeast/18MIDE.html?pagewanted=all&position=top
In Grief, Israeli Family Questions Army Aid to Settlers
She refused to cry. But there was no masking the rage that Yaffa Yaacoby aimed at the four young men, one bearing a submachine gun, who came to her house today to pay their respects to her dead daughter.
"Tell me," she asked the men, all members of a small settlement near the Tomb of the Patriarchs in the West Bank city of Hebron, "is it worth it — the cave, the holy places — for my daughter and the other people who died? I speak from my heart. Look at me. I am only 40 years old. Today and every day after this, I have to wake up and face the fact that I buried my daughter.
"Do you realize there isn't a piece of land worth these lives?"
Settlers vehemently dispute this view, saying that the West Bank is both their biblical birthright and a buffer of security against Arab states. They argue that settlements are an investment in holding on to that land, and therefore that an army presence is necessary and justified.
Today, in grief, this central argument in Israeli society played itself out in a living room here as the Yaacoby family sat shiva in mourning for their oldest daughter, Keren, 19, killed last Thursday with a fellow soldier while guarding the contentious Jewish settlement.
Keren, shot by Palestinian gunmen, was the first woman in Israel's Army to die in combat since fighting broke out anew in September 2000.
But her death has received intense news media coverage here, primarily because her family has been outspoken in asking why, exactly, Israeli soldiers like their daughter are guarding the settlement of only 450 religious and well-armed Jews, perched dangerously amid some 150,000 Palestinians in Hebron.…
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/18/international/middleeast/18MIDE.html?pagewanted=all&position=top
No comments:
Post a Comment