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Mideast violence inspires prayers, not apologies
By FLORE de PRINEUF © St. Petersburg Times, published October 9, 2000 JERUSALEM -- Before the onset of Yom Kippur, the most solemn day in the Jewish calendar when people fast, stop driving and city life comes to a full stop, Dan Ravital hurried to the Western Wall to say his prayers. Like many other Israelis, Ravital, a 42-year-old computer analyst, has been preoccupied by the violence consuming Israel for the past 11 days. Facing the ancient yellow-stone wall at the heart of Jerusalem's Old City, Ravital inserted personal wishes into the day's ritual prayers: He prayed for the three Israeli soldiers kidnapped Saturday by the Lebanese Islamic guerrillas of Hezbollah to come home alive and for the image of Israel to improve around the world. "The shame will be on our enemies," he said, repeating one of his prayers. Significantly, Ravital did not ask forgiveness for Israel's sins in a conflict that has already claimed more than 80 lives, most of them Palestinian. Although the U.N. Security Council nearly unanimously condemned Israel on Saturday for "the excessive use of force against Palestinians" in dealing with the riots, the mood of the Israeli public was anything but apologetic on the eve of the Day of Atonement. Yom Kippur carries ominous connotations for Israelis who remember the day in 1973 when Egyptian and Syrian armies launched surprise attacks on Israeli positions. Ravital, who was a teenager at the time, said today's atmosphere is "something like the feeling of war." He felt confident that Israel, the only high-tech power in the Middle East, could swiftly defeat its enemies but was worried about the diplomatic consequences. "I'm afraid for our image," he said. The latest U.N. resolution adds to what Israelis perceive as a worldwide pro-Palestinian bias that's throwing back the Jewish state to the days of international isolation. One media mishap in particular has reinforced this belief. A caption on a widely distributed photograph by the Associated Press news agency last week wrongly identified a bloodied teenager as the victim of Israeli police brutality, when in fact, Tuvia Grossman, a Jewish student from Chicago, had just been dragged out of his taxi and badly beaten by a Palestinian mob. The mistake was unintentional but read as proof of the media's one-sided view of the clashes. "They don't let Jewish people be strong. They prefer the image of the Holocaust, of the Jews standing like this against a rifle," said Ravital, raising his arms in a posture of surrender. "I want the world to understand us. We were attacked. We protect ourselves." Although Israel has already used combat helicopters, anti-tank rockets and live ammunition to quell the current Palestinian uprising, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak said he would toughen the Israeli response to Palestinian attacks if the violence did not cease by sundown today. He also threatened to make Lebanon pay "a heavy price" if the three Israeli soldiers abducted Saturday were not handed back to Israel soon. The images of armed youths and Palestinian security forces shooting at Israeli army outposts and settlements and of mobs armed with crowbars sacking Joseph's Tomb, a Jewish shrine, in the West Bank town of Nablus have radicalized even the most peace-loving Israelis. "The peace process divided us, between leftists and rightists, secular and religious," Ravital said. "But Arafat's mistake is making us much more close." Barak's discussions toward forming a unity government with the right-wing opposition leader Ariel Sharon are a sign of this emerging front. The same Israeli public that was deeply upset during the intifada when Israeli soldiers used rubber-coated bullets to disperse stone-wielding Palestinian teenagers has been applauding the use of heavy combat gear this time round. There have been no significant peace demonstrations since the violence erupted 10 days ago. "It's not helicopters against rock throwers. The situation has radically changed. You have Palestinian policemen shooting with guns we gave them," said Yossi Klein-Halevi, an Israeli journalist and active supporter of Jewish-Muslim co-existence. "Palestinians are not the victims anymore." "We gave them a great deal that they refused," he said, referring to the far-reaching concessions Barak was allegedly willing to make at Camp David this summer. "My answer is bring out the big guns."
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