Deenster’s sister Lisa on what happened in Jerusalem

In her blog entry for today, my friend Deenster reprints an email from her sister Lisa, who’s living in Israel:

Abu Mazen condemned the bombing in classical Arabic, and sent his sympathy to the bereaved families. The Islamic Jihad claimed reponsibility, and a Hamas spokesperson told an Israeli TV reporter that as far as he was concerned the ceasefire -to which the Islamic Jihad was not a partner – was still on.

Then it turned out that the bomber, a 29 year-old father of two, was a Hamas member.

And now his wife is a widow, his children orphans. And the Israeli army will once again seal off the West Bank, meaning that other fathers with children to feed will be unable to get to work, and lots of people will suffer.

Who plans these things? And why? What in the world do they want to accomplish?

It’s summer and the beaches are packed, I go to parties every weekend, the outdoor cafes are always full (am I the only person in TA who works full-time?), the streets are full of beautiful, tanned people wearing very little clothing, the city is buzzing with sexual energy and life seems pretty good. So you really, really want the ceasefire to be real, and the Road Map to be meaningful, because peace is good and war is bad.

Right?

Lisa also notes the difference between news outlets’ coverage: Israeli news didn’t even cover the bombing in Baghdad, CNN led with the Jerusalem bombing and BBC World led with the Iraq bombing:

The BBC’s coverage of the Jerusalem bombing was typically outrageous: they spent about 2 minutes reporting on the actual event, then moved on to extensive talking head analysis of how this would affect the ceasefire and Road Map – with much tongue-clucking over how much the Palestinians were sure to suffer from Israel’s predicted revenge for the bombing.