AN OPEN LETTER FROM THE PARENTS OF ONE OF BARGHOUTI'S VICTIMS

An open letter from Frimet and Arnold Roth in Jerusalem, 21st April 2006
This coming weekend, the high-profile television program "60 Minutes" is going to give public exposure to a convicted murderer and terrorist called Barghouti. Speaking from an Israeli prison, the interview will show him taking credit for a massacre at a restaurant in the center of Jerusalem in August 2001 and another at the Hebrew University's cafeteria a year later. In front of a huge audience throughout North America, he will say of the number of people killed in the attacks he masterminded: "I feel bad because the number is only 66."

Our daughter Malki, fifteen years old, was one of Barghouti's 66.

We, together with our neighbors living here in Jerusalem and throughout Israel, belong to the much larger number of living people about whom Barghouti feels so bad.

We have nothing to say to Barghouti, and he has nothing to say that deserves to be heard. His opinions are worthless to us and to anyone with a sense of morality. His life is a disgrace to the society which nurtured him.

But while we have no interest in him, we are very interested in the leadership of the society which has turned Barghouti into a hero - in their opinions and even more in their actions.

The political leadership of the Palestinians was decided by a process that seemed democratic when their elections took place two months ago. Whether or not a democracy can truly function when gangs of heavily armed Arab thugs rule the streets of their towns and villages is a fair question. But the legitimacy of the Palestinian government is not for us Israelis to determine. The Palestinians and most of the media called it a democratic process, and no one seriously suggests today that the Hamas leadership lacks political legitimacy. Their stated viewpoints therefore have to be heard and analyzed.

For those like us with a special sensitivity to terror, the Palestinian leadership today is the world's outstanding embodiment of unadulterated terrorism: a government which actively supports terror, promotes terror, honors terror and justifies terror. We hear them speak, and we hear the voice of terror. The current minister of the interior in the Hamas government says he will not arrest those who carry out terror attacks against us. His actions make clear that he should be believed.

As ugly and repugnant as the words of Barghouti will likely be to the viewers of "60 Minutes", we urge them and CBS not to focus on the man. He is irrelevant, except that he creates a context. Barghouti's evil deeds are the concrete expression of the desires of a government which wants to be accepted as an equal by the community of nations. The anger and revulsion which his interview creates should be redirected at them - at the terrorists in business suits who plot and scheme every day to increase Barghouti's 66 to the largest number they can think of.

Frimet and Arnold Roth established the Malki Foundation (www.kerenmalki.org) in honor of the life of their daughter, Malka Chana Roth, who was murdered in the Sbarro restaurant massacre in Jerusalem on 9th August 2001. The foundation provides support - without discrimination as to religion or anything else - to families in Israel wanting to provide home-care for their disabled child. The foundation currently provides this support to more than a thousand families, and is growing quickly, funded entirely by donations.