Nineteen people were killed, and nearly 70 were injured in the blast, five of them seriously, when a suicide bomber blew himself up on a Jerusalem bus in June 2002.
Posted on 09/30/2003 10:02:28 AM PDT by bedolido
Zaka, the Orthodox rescue and cleanup organization that collects victims' body parts after terrorist attacks, plans to display the shattered remains of a Jerusalem bus destroyed in a suicide bombing at an exhibition in New York in December. Israel's Foreign and Tourism Ministries object to the move, fearing that it would be a death blow to tourism.
According to a report today by Yediot Aharonot, Zaka wants to display at the Jewish Expo fair the remains of the no. 32 Egged bus that was decimated in a terror bombing at Jerusalem's Pat Intersection on June 18, 2002, a blast which killed 19 people and wounded more than seventy.
The plan is to turn the shattered bus into a type of museum, Zaka representatives told Yediot Aharonot.
"The bus was chosen due to the fact that despite the tragic results [of the terror bombing], it retained its shape and was not totally destroyed," a Zaka official said.
Zaka's plan is supported by Ephraim Schreiber, chairman of the public committee supervising the Jewish Expo on behalf of the information bureau of the Education Ministry. "The intention is to expose New York residents to Israel, to the good and the bad," he said.
The bus would be displayed alongside booths featuring "Blue and White" products manufactured in Israel, and near the booths of charities and organizations that deal with terror victims and Israelis suffering from the country's economic problems.
"Shattered busses are also part of the State of Israel during the last three years, and terror is not foreign to U.S. citizens," Schreiber said.
Israel's Foreign Ministry is opposed to the bus's display at the exhibition. "We support displaying terror's affect in the world, but the display of a shattered bus would ruin any chance of bringing tourists to Israel," a ministry spokesman told Yediot Aharonot.
Israel's Tourism Ministry plans to stage an exhibition at Jewish Expo, with the goal of encouraging tourism to Israel. "We were not involved in the decision to bring the bus," a ministry spokesman said.
Jewish Expo is an exhibition organized by Jewish organizations in the United States and is held every two years. The theme of this year's exhibition is "Solidarity with the State of Israel."
Nineteen people were killed, and nearly 70 were injured in the blast, five of them seriously, when a suicide bomber blew himself up on a Jerusalem bus in June 2002.
Sounds rather ghoulish to me.
Zaka, the Orthodox rescue and cleanup organization that collects victims' body parts after terrorist attacks...
Correction: leaving Arafat and any publicly avowed members of Hamas, Hezbollah and/or the PLO alive anywhere within the boundries of Israel serves as "a death blow to tourism."
Among other things.
The left hates to see what it wrought.
From http://www.aish.com/jewishissues/israeldiary/ZAKA_Always_There_When_Terror_Strikes.asp
ZAKA, which was founded in 1995, is an acronym for Zihui Korbanot Ason, Hebrew for Identification of Disaster Victims. Its volunteers, who are easily identifiable by their bright yellow vests, are often the first rescue workers to appear at the scene of a terrorist bombing or shooting -- and the last to leave.
ZAKA volunteers are the ones who search the area for severed body parts of survivors so that the limbs can be rushed to the hospitals for reattachment. They are also the ones who stay at the scene after the police and the ambulances have left, patiently scraping all the remaining bits of flesh and blood off the sidewalks and buildings so that the dead can be buried in full accordance with Jewish tradition.
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