Netanya

A few days ago my parents and I went to Netanya. Nothing special or outrageous about that. The only unique thing about it was that the bombing outside the shopping mall had been the night before. In a way, my family is still a bunch of tourists staying here. On
one hand, we were eager to go see something that is still very peculiar to us - a bombing of something so common as a mall. It's weird to think that one of Israel's most famous characteristics is its terrorist attacks by Pals. Obviously that's what drew us to the site. And at the same time it's what drives everyone else away from this country. By no means do we want the bombings to happen. It's more like something that is just so specific to Israel, in an awful way, and we wanted to see it up close.

In this specific bombing there were three members from three generations of the same family mutilated by the bombing. A child, a parent, and a grandparent. It's funny how in the eyes of a Palestinian, this is how they exert their desperation - devastating a family that was on its way to a mall.

Netanya is no stranger to these types of bombings, and while we were sitting down to eat at a restaurant on top of a cliff overlooking the Mediterranean Sea, the waittress confided in us that she just can't concentrate on work or pull herself together emotionally when this stuff happens - especially when she thought all this violence was coming to an end after the last 5 years of fear.

Although the bombing is awful because of the deaths it caused that day, it is even more painful because of its breaking of a faux truce. Even if it was a *faux truce, it was still better than what existed before, and the last thing we need here are more terrorist bombings when Israel is devoting all its human resources towards evacuating the stubborn and selfish Gaza settlers.

*Five months ago, Israel reached a ceasefire agreement with PA President Abbas, Hamas, and Islamic Jihad. Despite the agreement, the terrorist groups have attempted a constant stream of attacks (most thwarted by Israeli security, and under-reported by the media).

Here are some pictures from the Netanya bombing site.
Note how quickly the authorities cleaned up the site. In just a matter of hours.

(click on pictures to enlarge)