The Meaning Of Hadera
22 January 2002
On January 17, a Palestinian terrorist entered a banquet hall in Hadera and opened fire with an assault rifle,
killing six people and injuring thirty during a bat mitzvah celebration. The Al Aqsa Brigades, an element of
Yasser Arafat's Fatah, claimed responsibility for this heroic "military" action. In Tulkarem, more than a dozen
Al Aqsa Brigade "fighters" marched proudly through the streets after the attack, shooting into the air in manly
celebration of their latest "victory" against old women and young children.
Six killed and thirty injured. But what does this really mean? Statistics don't bleed. People do.
Here is a less anesthetized version of what happened in Hadera. It comes from a dear friend of mine in that
city, Dr. Moshe Rosenblatt, a skilled general surgeon who has had far too much experience in treating Jewish
victims of Arab terrorists. Not long after the attack, and only a few hours after he had returned from
ministering to the wounded, these were his words to me:
"Dear Lou. The terrorist attack took place at the other end of my street, some 800 meters from my building. I've
been many times in this wedding hall, so I could easily have been one of the people there. I would be dead
now, and/or my wife and children. Fortunately, this time at least, it didn't happen.
"Despie the fact that I'm the director of a surgical outpatient clinic, on these events I always go to Hadera's
hospital to help my colleagues. That's what I did today. I ran to the operating room where I entered into an
almost heroic operation to save the life of a middle-aged woman. One of the terrorist bullets had ruptured her
liver, stomach, bowels and major vessels. We couldn't stop the bleeding. So we opened her chest to
cross-clamp the aorta, while undertaking direct heart massage. All in vain. She died of massive hemorrhage,
blood and feces strewn everywhere.
"I then changed my surgical clothes and entered another operating room to begin, with my colleagues, another
operation. This time the patient was a young guy with an abdomen full of shrapnel. We had to resect the lower
part of his ruptured large bowel, but - at the end of the operation -he was still bleeding profusely through his
wounded hip. I left the room while the orthopedic surgeons began to operate on his right hip. I believe he will
also die. He is bleedng too much, likely because of a disastrous medical problem called DIC (Disseminated
Intravascular Coagulation) which depletes all of the coagulation factors - leaving the patient bleeding
everywhere. The anesthetists and intensive care teams will try to oversome the problem; I'm praying for this
young man.
Many other patients were treated by other surgeons. My surgical dress was full of blood. I took a shower and
here I am, at 4:00 in the morning, writing to you, my friend. I just can't sleep now. Although very tired, I'm too
excited because after all these years of seeing blood and death on my hands, I never quite get used to it." So
this is what lies behind the sanitized numbers and statistics. Individual lives. Individual Jewish lives.
Tortured, maimed and murdered by Arab killers of the most perversely barbaric insurgency in contemporary
history. No other insurgency in memory has been as intentionally monstrous, cruel and cowardly as the
Palestinian war against Israel. No other insurgency has been so entirely captivated by the sheer joy of
deliberate violence against the innocent.
Sadly, there is a clear connection between the incidence and destructiveness of Palestinian terrorism and
Israel's own misguided policies. My dear friend Dr. Rosenblatt understands this completely, mincing no
words:
"Six people, until this moment, were murdered this evening in my city. On my very own street. Many were
badly wounded. I feel outraged by my own government which does not act the way it should act.
"Amidst my own people, my very own people, I still find enough morons who demand from our government to
continue negotiations with Arafat and his gang. Israel is commiting suicide. Its seems that we'll never, ever,
learn the lesson."
Please, my dear readers, consider closely the informed views of a brave Israeli doctor who understands that
the still-growing lines of broken Jewish bodies created by Arab terror can be traced directly to a large
wooden horse laughingly called a "Middle East Peace Process." |
