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Annual Meeting

Defamation League®

LARRY DERFNER
Israel Correspondent

B

usiness is down these days in
this city's popular Carmel
Market. "People are afraid to
come," said vendor Rafi

Siria.
"The mood is bad, bad, bad,"
echoed said a shopper who didn't give
her name. "Those two days — the
worst."
Those two days — the triple sui-
cide bombing on Sept. 4, at Tel Aviv's
Ben Yehuda Mall, which killed five
Israelis, and the following day's news
of the failed night raid on Hezbollah
in Lebanon, in which 12 navy com-
mandos were killed.
"These have been some of the most
devastating days in our history," said
Knesset Member Yossi Sarid, head of
the left-wing Meretz party.
Such was the state of mind in Israel
on the eve of Secretary of State
Madeleine Albright's visit, and on the
eve of the fourth anniversary of the
signing of the Oslo Accord.
Unlike in other countries, the
funeral for Princess Diana was
watched here almost with relief. It
offered an unadmittedly welcome con-
trast to the atmosphere of bleakness
that surrounded the funerals here. For

Israelis, Diana's funeral was a breather.
The feeling was different than after I
the bombing of Mahane Yehuda a
month earlier, which left 15 Israelis
dead. After that attack, there was a
spirit of rage and resistance. Now
there was fatigue.
The problem was not only the
deaths, but the sense that there was nc_\/
end to them in sight.
"When the Oslo Accord was
signed, there was a feeling of euphoria,
a clear improvement in the national
mood," said Professor Benjamin Beit-
Hallahami, a social psycholgoist at
Haifa University. "People were begin-
ning to think that our 100 years of
war with the Arabs might be about to
end. Now, four years later, the idea is -)
entering Israelis' minds that we may
have another 100 years of war ahead
of us," he said.
This translates politically as a loss
of confidence in prime minister
Netanyahu. He promised "peace with
security," and Israelis don't see it in the
offing.
Israelis spoke of violence as "a spiral
winding further and further down,"
and "a stream that can't be stopped."
"Netanyahu can't stop it, the
Americans can't stop it, only the Arabs
can stop it, and it looks like they don't
want to," said Siria. "The only thing
that will stop it is a war. After a war,
there's quiet. I'm not saying I want a
war, of course."
For all this, Siria doesn't have faith
in opposition leader Ehud Barak,
either. "He's a soldier, that's all."

"Update and Insight"

Photo by AP/Moha

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Israelis have gone from
defiance over suicide
bombs to fatigue.

You are invited to the installation of new
ADL President Michael Horowitz and to hear

Middle East Peace:
Vision or Illusion?

Douglas M. Bloomfield

Washington-based Middle East consultant and journalist

Thursday, Sept. 18, 1997

Adat Shalom Synagogue, Farmington Hills
7:00 PM Reception, 7:30 PM Program

No charge, but please RSVP to 248-355-3730.

9/12

1997

122

Lebanese soldiers inspect the scene following an Israeli commando raid.