Posted on 03/31/2002 6:46:04 PM PST by l33t
ULKARM, West Bank, March 31 — An unbroken string of Israeli Merkava tanks this afternoon rolled up the hill toward this Palestinian city, home to the man who blew himself up Wednesday night at a Passover celebration, killing 22 people and leading to the storming of Yasir Arafat's compound by the Israeli Army.
At his family's home in a prosperous part of town, the suicide bomber's father, brother, uncle and other relatives sat at a wake, receiving congratulations from friends and neighbors — even now, four days after the death of the bomber, Abdel-Basset Odeh.
"Everyone's proud of him," said his older brother, Issam Odeh, 35. "This is a war. Yes, he's the one who changed everything."
Across town, Hasan Khreisheh, Tulkarm's representative in the Palestinian legislature, was waiting, like everyone in town, for the Israelis to attack. When he heard on the news that the bomber was a local resident, he said, he knew that Prime Minister Ariel Sharon would send in the army.
But as a politician, Mr. Khreisheh was also thinking about another subject. He was wondering, he said, who would be the next Palestinian president if Yasir Arafat, under siege in Ramallah, was forced out of the country or killed. Yes, he said with a smile, "everything is changing."
Everyone here sees an Israeli attack as inevitable, but no one seems especially concerned. It is just the way of life here now. Late tonight dozens of Israeli tanks rolled into Qalqilya, just south of Tulkarm. "We do to them what they do to us," said Muhammad Odeh, 64, the bomber's father. "If they kill us, we kill them the day after. It will never stop."
At Al Shifa pharmacy, just off the town square, the pharmacist, Bassam Yousef, 52, said he would take some particularly useful medicines home with him tonight, just as he did the last time Israel attacked.
Leaning on the pharmacy counter, the town's criminal court judge, Rasam al-Saad, said the two peoples were caught "in an endless cycle of violence." On the television behind them an Arab station was reporting another suicide bombing, in Haifa. Fifteen people including the bomber were reported dead.
"I think it's wonderful," said the judge, who tries killers, thieves and people who pass bad checks. "Every time there is an action there's a reaction."
The Odeh family expects the Israelis to demolish its house as soon as the soldiers reach town, as is the army's frequent practice with homes of people who carry out attacks. Forty relatives live in a complex of interwoven apartments, but no one is moving out.
Posters celebrating Abdel-Basset Odeh's deed hang proudly from the living room wall. They show the 23-year-old posing in his pre-death photo with a Kalashnikov rifle resting on his shoulder, a green bow for the militant group Hamas tied to the barrel. His face is calm, determined.
A photo in the bottom corner shows rescue workers pulling bodies out of the hotel in Netanya where he blew himself up.
"We will stay here in the house, and they can come if they want," said his father, a prosperous vegetable wholesaler. A large green Hamas flag flutters from the front stoop. "There is no god but Allah," it says in Arabic.
No one in the family knew that Abdel-Basset planned to blow himself up, they said, and now that he is dead, none of them know why he did it. "He had his reasons" was all his father would say. When asked what those reasons might be, every member of his family filled in this blank with what appeared to be his own most galling grievance.
"He didn't like dealing with the soldiers at the checkpoint," said his uncle.
Not long ago, Abdel-Basset Odeh wanted to move to the United States, his family said, to take any job he could get. But he could not get a visa. More recently he worked in his father's vegetable business.
A friend, Feras Kassam, an unemployed electrician, said: "If you don't choose your type of death yourself, Sharon will do it for you. All of Tulkarm is proud." Mr. Khreisheh, the legislator, said: "None of us wants to kill civilians, but we are obliged to defend ourselves. We have nothing else with which to fight this huge machine of Israel's. They have everything; they have all the power. We have nothing but our bodies."
Provoking war that will drawn in stronger nations to destroy Israel for them, is the whole point of suicide bombings.
Thank God that nut didn't end up here. I wonder why they denied him his visa, they seem to have let everyone else in...
Well I must say I am shocked that he was denied a visa, but grateful nonetheless. These people are uncivilized barbarians!
Now that is frightening. How many of these potential suicide bombers are there in the US?
I have a bad feeling about the Salute to Israel Parade in NYC next month.
I don't want that kind of trash in my country.
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