Special Report

                                                                     
                                                                     
Special Report
June 16, 1995

This morning, several minutes after 10:00AM, 19 year-old Avraham
Ariel, a Jerusalem resident living in Hebron for the last half a
year, was stabbed while walking from Beit Hadassah  towards the
Avraham Avinu neighborhood in Hebron. He was stabbed in the chest
and wounded seriously. After managing to reach soldiers, Waldman
collapsed.  He received life-saving first-aid on the spot and was
rushed to Jerusalem's Hadassah hospital by an Intensive Care
ambulance.

Yesterday, I walked the same route that Avraham Ariel walked. 
Although I am usually armed with a 9mm Beretta pistol, yesterday
I didn't have with me while strolling down the street.  Today, I
ask myself what I would have done had Avraham's attackers been a
day earlier.  

A word about weapons - I know that after the last sentence, the
one about carrying a pistol, many of you are thinking, "those
armed bloodthirsty fanatics..." 
I first came to Israel in the summer of 1974, less than a year
after the Yom Kippur War.  As much as I enjoyed wondering around
the streets of Jerusalem, I had a very difficult time adjusting
to one facet of Israeli life: all around me I saw soldiers armed
with Uzi's.  For a 19 year-old American, arriving from a small
New Jersey suburb, the sight of automatic machine guns on city
street corners was shocking.  It took quite a while to get used
to the it, and that only happened with development of a deeper
understanding of what was actually happening in the State of
Israel.   "Newspaper account" understandings are too superficial
to allow any kind of true comprehension of what goes on in this
country.  It's difficult enough for those who live here to
understand what's going in Israel.  As a matter of fact, a great
percentage of the population in Israel doesn't understand what's
going on here.  So much for all the "newspaper account" experts
living abroad.
Even after moving to Kiryat Arba, 14 years ago, I refrained from
purchasing a gun - the thought revolted me.  Only when I had no
choice, when I found myself daily waiting for a bus at night, by
myself,on a dark stretch of  road across from the city of Efrat,
near Gush Etzion, did I buy a pistol.  
Today, with the military-political situation the way it is, a
weapon is an unmitigated MUST.  There is no way a person can
defend himself if he is unarmed.  And for all those who believe
that we need weapons not for reasons of self-defense, but in
order to attack "poor, defenseless Palestinians", excuse me, but
your ingnorance is second only to your blindness.  The
"Palestinians" are neither poor nor are they defenseless.  And
the initiative to attack is not Jewish, it is Arab. And it is
being orchestrated by Feisal-El-Hussaini and Yassir Arafat.  The
terrorists belong to Arafat's "moderate" Fatach until they act,
until they attack.  Then they are magically transformed into
"extremist Hamas".  Until they repent.  Then they are whisked
back into the fold, good little boys, Fatach.

Unfortunately the Israeli government is an active participant in
this continuing farce.  They use whatever tools they deem
necessary in order to achieve their aims.  However, a detailed
article concerning the real aims of Rabin's three ring circus is
not my present concern.  Maybe next week.  But for the time
being, it should be plainly noted that it is very easy to attack
and comdemn from afar.  Even those who support Hebron's continued
settlement speak too fast, before KNOWING the facts, before
receiving details of what is really going on, what is really
happening.  It is of the utmost importance to speak only after
examining the events - from all directions.  Events don't happen
in a vacuum - there is always a reason.  Think before you speak.