It had been a peaceful
Sabbath day. My husband,
Danny, and I had picnicked
with our little girls, Einat,
4, and Yael, 2, on the beach
not far from our home in
Nahariya, a city on the
northern coast of Israel,
about six miles south of the
Lebanese border. Around
midnight, we were asleep in
our apartment when four
terrorists, sent by Abu
Abbas from Lebanon, landed
in a rubber boat on the
beach two blocks away.
Gunfire and exploding
grenades awakened us as the
terrorists burst into our
building. They had already
killed a police officer. As
they charged up to the floor
above ours, I opened the
door to our apartment. In
the moment before the hall
light went off, they turned
and saw me. As they moved
on, our neighbor from the
upper floor came running
down the stairs. I grabbed
her and pushed her inside
our apartment and slammed
the door.
Outside, we could
hear the men storming about.
Desperately, we sought to
hide. Danny helped our
neighbor climb into a crawl
space above our bedroom; I
went in behind her with Yael
in my arms. Then Danny
grabbed Einat and was
dashing out the front door
to take refuge in an
underground shelter when the
terrorists came crashing
into our flat. They held
Danny and Einat while they
searched for me and Yael,
knowing there were more
people in the apartment. I
will never forget the joy
and the hatred in their
voices as they swaggered
about hunting for us, firing
their guns and throwing
grenades. I knew that if
Yael cried out, the
terrorists would toss a
grenade into the crawl space
and we would be killed. So I
kept my hand over her mouth,
hoping she could breathe. As
I lay there, I remembered my
mother telling me how she
had hidden from the Nazis
during the Holocaust. "This
is just like what happened
to my mother," I thought.
As police began to
arrive, the terrorists took
Danny and Einat down to the
beach. There, according to
eyewitnesses, one of them
shot Danny in front of Einat
so that his death would be
the last sight she would
ever see. Then he smashed my
little girl's skull in
against a rock with his
rifle butt. That terrorist
was Samir Kuntar.
By the time we were
rescued from the crawl
space, hours later, Yael,
too, was dead. In trying to
save all our lives, I had
smothered her.
The next day, Abu
Abbas announced from Beirut
that the terrorist attack in
Nahariya had been carried
out "to protest the signing
of the Egyptian-Israeli
peace treaty" at Camp David
the previous year. Abbas
seems to have a gift for
charming journalists, but
imagine the character of a
man who protests an act of
peace by committing an act
of slaughter.
Two of Abbas's
terrorists had been killed
by police on the beach. The
other two were captured,
convicted and sentenced to
life in prison. Despite my
protests, one was released
in a prisoner exchange for
Israeli POWs several months
before the Achille Lauro
hijacking. Abu Abbas was
determined to find a way to
free Kuntar as well. So he
engineered the hijacking of
the Achille Lauro off the
coast of Egypt and demanded
the release of 50 Arab
terrorists from Israeli
jails. The only one of those
prisoners actually named was
Samir Kuntar. The plight of
hundreds held hostage on a
cruise ship for two days at
sea lent itself to massive
international media
coverage. The attack on
Nahariya, by contrast, had
taken less than an hour in
the middle of the night. So
what happened then was
hardly noticed outside of
Israel.
One hears the
terrorists and their
excusers say that they are
driven to kill out of
desperation. But there is
always a choice. Even when
you have suffered, you can
choose whether to kill and
ruin another's life, or
whether to go on and
rebuild. Even after my
family was murdered, I never
dreamed of taking revenge on
any Arab. But I am
determined that Samir Kuntar
should never be released
from prison. In 1984, I had
to fight my own government
not to release him as part
of an exchange for several
Israeli soldiers who were
POWs in Lebanon. I
understood, of course, that
the families of those POWs
would gladly have agreed to
the release of an Arab
terrorist to get their sons
back. But I told Yitzhak
Rabin, then defense
minister, that the blood of
my family was as red as that
of the POWs. Israel had
always taken a position of
refusing to negotiate with
terrorists. If they were
going to make an exception,
let it be for a terrorist
who was not as cruel as
Kuntar. "Your job is not to
be emotional," I told Rabin,
"but to act rationally." And
he did.
So Kuntar remains
in prison. I have been
shocked to learn that he has
married an Israeli Arab
woman who is an activist on
behalf of terrorist
prisoners. As the wife of a
prisoner, she gets a monthly
stipend from the government.
I'm not too happy about
that.
In recent years,
Abu Abbas started telling
journalists that he had
renounced terrorism and that
killing Leon Klinghoffer had
been a mistake. But he has
never said that killing my
family was a mistake. He was
a terrorist once, and a
terrorist, I believe, he
remains. Why else did he
spend these last years, as
the Israeli press has
reported, free as a bird in
Baghdad, passing rewards of
$25,000 from Saddam Hussein
to families of Palestinian
suicide bombers? More than
words, that kind of cash
prize, which is a fortune to
poor families, was a way of
urging more suicide bombers.
The fortunate thing about
Abbas's attaching himself to
Hussein is that it set him
up for capture.
Some say that Italy
should have first crack at
Abbas. It had already
convicted him of the Achille
Lauro hijacking in absentia
in 1986. Prime Minister
Silvio Berlusconi now wants
Abbas handed over so that he
can begin serving his life
sentence. But it's also true
that in 1985, the Italians
had Abbas in their hands
after U.S. fighter jets
forced his plane to land in
Sicily. And yet they let him
go. So while I trust
Berlusconi, who knows if a
future Italian government
might not again wash its
hands of Abbas?
In 1995, Rabin,
then our prime minister,
asked me to join him on his
trip to the White House,
where he was to sign a peace
agreement with Yasser
Arafat, which I supported. I
believe that he wanted me to
represent all Israeli
victims of terrorism. Rabin
dreaded shaking hands with
Arafat, knowing that those
hands were bloody. At first,
I agreed to make the trip,
but at the last minute, I
declined. As prime minister,
Rabin had to shake hands
with Arafat for political
reasons. As a private
person, I did not. So I
stayed here.
Now I am ready and
willing to come to the
United States to testify
against Abu Abbas if he is
tried for terrorism. The
daughters of Leon
Klinghoffer have said they
are ready to do the same.
Unlike Klinghoffer, Danny,
Einat and Yael were not
American citizens. But
Klinghoffer was killed on an
Italian ship in Abbas's
attempt to free the killer
of my family in Israel. We
are all connected by the
international web of
terrorism woven by Abbas.
Let the truth come out in a
new and public trial. And
let it be in the United
States, the leader in the
struggle against terrorism.
Smadar Haran
Kaiser is a social worker.
She is remarried and has two
daughters.