Blasting Coexistence
Arabs and Jews lived together and died together.
DAN BARON
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
Tel Aviv
13
ad the restaurant not been turned into a
charred husk of twisted metal and bro-
ken glass, Maxim's staff would have
spent Sunday, Oct. 5, quietly packing
up for Yom Kippur — Jews and Arabs together
readying for a day of rest for some, and reflection
for others.
But on Saturday, a Palestinian suicide bomber
from a group sworn to destroy Israel ended almost
four decades of political tranquility at the Haifa
beachfront restaurant, which was as famous for its
• Arab and Jewish owners and clientele as it was for
its mixed grill, a tasty meat dish.
"We always assumed Maxim's would be immune
from this sort of tragedy," said architect Naomi
Herzog, a restaurant regular. "The only question
remaining is whether the bombing was deliberate or
opportunistic, though neither option is a comfort."
The bombing, on an otherwise quiet Shabbat
afternoon in this largely secular city, killed 19 peo-
ple and wounded more than 50. Islamic Jihad
claimed responsibility for the attack.
The bomber, a Palestinian woman named Hanadi
Tayseer Jaradat, reportedly was a law student from
the West Bank city of Jenin. She reached Haifa by
circumventing the yet-to-be-completed security
fence that separates Israel from the densely populat-
ed Palestinian areas of the West Bank.
Restaurant Packed
The blast came as Maxim's, at the southern entrance
to the city, was packed with a Saturday-afternoon
crowd. Both Jews and Arabs were among the dead
in the - attack, 'including three children.
Among the four Israeli Arabs killed was the door-
man who failed to spot the lawyer-turned-terrorist
in time. The security guard likely thought Jaradat
was just another customer seeking to enjoy the sea
breeze and Maxim's ambience of ethnic coexistence.
Authorities suggested Jaradat and Islamic Jihad
probably chose the target based on the relative ease
with which an Arab-looking woman could enter the
restaurant. The location also could have afforded
Jaradat's handlers a quick getaway via the nearby
coast i highway.
In:imediately after the attack, as Zaka volunteers
went about, their grim task of collecting victims'
body parts for burial, condemnations of the bomb-
ing came from all corners of the globe. They came,
too, from fthe West Bank, where Palestinian
Authority President Yasser Arafat issued his routine
statement of criticism, which he typically expresses
following terrorist bombings in Israel.
Spokespersons for Arafat — mindful of Israel's
10/10
2003
16
threat to remove him as an "obstacle" to peace —
denounced the attack as playing into the hands of
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's government. The offi-
cial Palestinian news agency said Arafat considers
the attack "a serious attempt to compromise the
national consensus in a critical situation."
With a death toll that included Christian Arabs,
other Palestinian officials went further, telephoning
village elders at Fassouta, the Christian Arab town
outside Haifa where two of the dead lived, to offer
condolences.
Until Saturday's bombing, 10 Israeli Arabs had
been killed in attacks during the intifada (uprising).
The bombing also wiped out large parts of two
Jewish families. Five members of the Almog family
were killed, including members of three generations:
two grandparents, a son and two grandsons, ages 9
and 11. Five members of the Zer-Aviv family, of
Kibbutz Yagur, also were killed in the blast, includ-
ing a grandmother, her son and daughter-in-law,
and their two children, ages 4 and 1.
A young couple in their 20s, Mark and Naomi
Biano, also were murdered in the blast.
40-Year Partnership
A family restaurant, Maxim's was founded 40 years
ago by Shabtai Tayar, a Jew, and his Christian Arab
partners, Salim Matar and Abu Sharval. The fears
and tensions stoked by four Middle East wars and
two Palestinian intifadas failed to shake the amity at
the restaurant.
"The Christian families who run the restaurant
are the salt of the earth," said Tayar's daughter, Orly.
"We are more than partners, we are family. My
brother, Muli, was killed in the War of Attrition and
it never affection our relations," she said, referring
to the attacks by Egypt on Israel following the 1967
Six-Day War.
"When my sons were drafted into the military, the
Christian women lit candles for their safety and
good health in church," she said.
The-Oct. 4 attack was the fourth in Haifa since
Palestinians launched the intifada three years ago.
The city is 30 percent Arab and one of the few
Israeli cities considered a haven of ethnic coexis-
tence.
"It is irrelevant that this restaurant was under
Arab ownership," said Issam Mahoul, an Israeli Arab
Knesset member from Haifa. "Terrorist attacks are
wretched and criminal in all cases, but all the more
so in Haifa. .I have faith in this city, that it can go
through all this and not lose its sanity."
❑
A wounded woman is carried away from
a scene of a suicide bombing attack at the Maxim
restaurant in Haifa Oct. 4.