Letter to Palestinian Parents

By Barbara Sofer
Jan. 22, 2004

Dear Abir and Bilal A-Masri, I hesitate to write to bereaved parents engulfed in their pain, and even more to the parents of my enemies, lest my words be construed as gloating.

But your unusual act in protesting to the Palestinian Authority gives me hope that you might read this letter with interest.

I am an Israeli parent. You are facing the unbearable grief of mourning your two teenage sons Iyad, 17, and Amjad, 15. The horror of their deaths must be compounded by their recklessness and your inability to prevent their actions.

According to Jerusalem Post reporter Khaled Abu Toameh, you have demanded a probe by the Palestinian Authority against those who recruited Iyad. What a laudable action and one that requires courage. For those of us fortunate to be living in a democracy, the level of bravery to protest under dictatorship is hard to fully imagine. According to the report, you complained that Iyad, who was killed when he prematurely detonated his explosive belt, was recruited for a suicide mission "that had no chance of succeeding."

You said that "those who sent him did not care about the prospect of his succeeding or failing, and they knew that death would be his fate."

I'm hoping that something was lost in the translation from the original report in Al-Ayyam or that you were only speaking half your hearts, out of understandable fear. Am I wrong in guessing that your real anger is that Iyad was recruited at all � that you are appalled that your child should have gone off from his home to murder children like mine in Jerusalem? When you complain that your son "was sent on the mission under extremely dangerous conditions when the whole area was under curfew and strict military closure" I'm assuming you didn't mean that recruiting him when conditions were more relaxed would have been okay for you.

I remember that the mobilization of school children for street riots at the beginning of the intifada was halted by parents opposed to their children being caught in crossfire, no matter what political gains would be achieved by having them bleed on international television. Picture a similar movement to stop genocide bombing.

You are the ideal parents to begin such a protest movement. We've all heard about the albums full of studio photos of children posing with explosive belts and rifles � future human bombs. At the next demonstration, burn them.

I AM puzzled over why every Palestinian poll shows that most men and women want to continue the intifada. The violence has diminished your hope for independence. You have destroyed our cooperative health programs which improve the quality of your children's lives. All you have is unemployment and hunger and checkpoints and disease and hatred.

You have tasted little of the wealth poured into your territories by European sympathizers. In the world you have become a synonym for the plague of terrorism. For all their professed sympathy, and for your genuine suffering, is there a nation in the world that would invite you in?

True, our losses have been atrocious � but they have gained you nothing but the corruptive rejoicing at another's pain.

The leaders who promised you that we would crumble under international pressure have long been proven wrong, and they've become very rich along the way.

I cannot rejoice at the deaths of your sons, although I am glad Iyad could not carry out his nefarious act. Misguided children they were. You say that Iyad had never before left Nablus, that he needed help getting to the Kalandiya checkpoint. How little of God's world he had tasted.

The report of your protest ran on the same page as the story of Reem al-Ryashi's murder of four young men at the Erez checkpoint. She was 21, already a mother of two children, but hardly more than a child herself. In her video, she spoke of her lifelong dream to become a murderer. Was that your sons' dream as well?

If so, they were easy targets for those who took advantage of them, urged them into the street first for stone throwing and then onto the hard drug of becoming human bombs. Any parent of teenagers knows that controlling young people is difficult, but how � if the enemy were drugs or cancer � we would use every means to protect the children.

If you're looking for a first recruit, I suggest recruiting Reem Al-Dahdou, a mother of five who is a neighbor of Rayashi's. What Rayashi did, she reportedly said, was "wrong, wrong, wrong."

And speaking of her own children, she said "I can raise them and teach them to love their country instead of blowing myself up."

You have paid the worst price and yet have the courage to protest. You will find Israeli counterparts from the entire range of our political spectrum who will respond. We have proven our own resilience, and � just as before the intifada � we have always been sincere in our desire for peace. We, too, are parents who cherish our children's dreams.