Posted on 07/12/2002 5:33:12 PM PDT by Pokey78
ON A torn, painted canvas 20ft above Amal al-Dura’s head, her son Muhammad crouches in foetal position behind his father, waiting to die. Inside her a new Muhammad al-Dura crouches in foetal position, waiting to be born. Amal, mother of the most famous victim of the intifada, is pregnant again, with a boy whose name and legacy were decided 18 months before he was conceived.
It was at a blood-spattered wall at Gaza’s Netzarim crossroads on September 30, 2000, that the 12-year-old brother he will never know was killed, apparently by Israeli soldiers, in full view of television cameras; the images were flashed round the world even before his mother knew. For a foetus weighing only a few ounces, the “new Muhammad”, as his mother refers to him, has a heavy burden to bear. He was conceived almost exactly on Muhammad’s birthday — February 18 — because that was when 35-year-old Amal took out the diaphragm she had worn for four years. He is a replacement. He is a message. And he is a weapon. “I have to bring another Muhammed al-Dura into the world,” she explains volubly. “I want to revive the name and to tell Sharon and the Israeli soldier who killed him that even if Muhammad died, we can bring more Muhammads into the world. They can’t kill us all. “A lot of Palestinian women who have had sons killed have got pregnant again. We need many children to come into a land we have to fight for. “A lot of people said, ‘Give him another name’. They are afraid the same thing will happen to the new Muhammad. But it has to be Muhammad. He was special, my favourite son, so lively and energetic.” To enter the al-Dura household in Gaza’s Bureij refugee camp is to enter a building that is on the outside a shrine, but on the inside a normal family home. Outside on the narrow street of the depressed, economically stagnant refugee camp, almost every inch of the family’s whitewashed breezeblock home is adorned with murals or stencilled images of the dead youngster, including the painting of him crouching, terrified, behind his father. Inside his photograph sits alongside portraits of Yassir Arafat, Jerusalem’s glittering Dome of the Rock and Saddam Hussein, after whom a younger brother is named. Amal, always more articulate than her husband, Jamal, is now even more the linchpin of the family, with Jamal away for months on end for surgery to his arm and pelvis, which were severely damaged in the shooting in which his son died. The pair were returning home after a trip to look at used cars when they were caught in a crossfire between Israeli soldiers and Palestinian gunmen. As they tried to slip past the fighting, which had erupted two days earlier, they were pinned down beside a low wall, Jamal shouting “Stop, stop” as a television cameraman filmed Muhammad’s last minutes. The Israeli Army issued an apology, confirming that “the shots were apparently fired by Israeli soldiers from the outpost at Netzarim”, while accusing the Palestinians of making “cynical use” of children. Later the former Israeli Defence Force (IDF) commander for the southern region, Yom-Tov Samya, who headed the investigation, said the officers who had made the apology “made a very grave mistake. One day it will be proven that the whole story . . . was one big Palestinian production. And Palestinian propaganda has been riding on this for a long time now.” After the initial statement, the IDF appeared to change its line, claiming that the fatal shots were fired by Palestinians. A German television documentary by ARD drew a similar conclusion. But no concrete new evidence has been produced, and the area has since been demolished by Israeli bulldozers, making any reconstruction impossible. Whatever she does for the rest of her life, it is clear that Amal al-Dura will for ever be touched by the public death of her son. To this day she hears passers-by discussing it outside the thin walls of her home, and hears his name daily on Arabic satellite television channels. The family is now financially comfortable, with money, awards and invitations pouring in from Iraq, Iran and other Arab countries eager to fête the first family of the intifada. But there are clearly strains. While Muhammad’s remaining six brothers and sisters are volubly proud of their “heroic” sibling, they are often left with their grandparents for weeks on end while Amal accompanies her ailing husband on his many trips abroad. Their grumbling that he is barely back before leaving again leaves her feeling guilty over bringing up “a family without a father, and sometimes without a mother”. But while Amal al-Dura is clearly a compassionate and affectionate mother, it is clear that she also believes she is fighting a war. Far too intelligent to be unaware of the burden she is placing on her unborn son, she nevertheless views it as a sacrifice he will simply have to make. But about one thing she is adamant, that whatever fate awaits her new son, she has not been swept up in the rhetoric of martyrdom and the phenomenon of the suicide bomber. She could never, she says, deliberately send a son out to die as other mothers have done. “I can understand their frustration. I can understand why they want to hurt the Israelis, but I can’t be like them,” she says. “They are stronger women than me. “Those who have lost sons like me will hate the Israelis to the Day of Judgment. But I could never send my son out to do such a thing. “Those 16 and 17-year-olds who go out to do attacks, there are no pieces left to bury. With Muhammad, at least I saw his body intact.” Israel may trade Fatah leader for Hezbollah hostage Israel wants to exchange the jailed Palestinian leader Marwan Barghouti for an Israeli held by Hezbollah militia in Lebanon, Israel Army Radio reported yesterday (Stephen Farrell in Jerusalem and Nicholas Blanford in Beirut write). Under the proposed deal, Israel would expel the 42-year-old Fatah firebrand, release 100 prisoners and send back the bodies of Hezbollah guerrillas killed in fighting. In exchange, Hezbollah would free the Israeli businessman Elhanan Tennenbaum, captured in Beirut in October 2000, and return the bodies of three Israeli soldiers snatched on the Israel-Lebanon border. Rachel Niedak-Ashkenazi, Israel’s Defence Ministry spokeswoman, refused to comment. However, Israeli security officials confirmed progress in the negotiations to free Mr Tennenbaum, although they insisted that Mr Barghouti’s release was not on the table. Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah’s secretary-general, said that there had been positive developments, but played down expectations of an imminent breakthrough. In Ramallah yesterday, Yassir Arafat promised not to bow to pressure to resign, but said he had made no decision on whether to seek re-election in January.
Not a single Palestinian has been killed by the IDF.
Bullsh*t.
A lot of Palestinian terrorists were killed by the IDF. Thank God fo that!
The key statement within the article.
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