Reflecting on Terrorism

On the 27^th of July,  I had to take my car to be serviced at the Chevrolet garage in Talpiot on West Jerusalem.  On my way back, my cousin drove me  through areas that were so familiar to me in West Jerusalem when we were living there before 1948.  It was a very strange feeling, as the same buildings were  still there, but not the same people.  Driving in front of  the  King David Hotel and  the YMCA across the street, evoked the memory of  July 22, 1946, almost  seventy years ago to date, when the wing of King David Hotel that housed  the Secretariat of  the British Mandate Government was bombed, killing  91 people and injuring more than 50, including British, Arabs, and Jews.    It was officially announced that the bombing was a terrorist attack carried out by the Irgun, a militant Zionist underground organization which was headed by Menachem  Begin. The bombing of the Semiramis Hotel in January 1948 killing all the members of the Palestinian owners of the Hotel was another heinous act of terrorism by another Jewish underground organization, the Haganah.  The intention of the Jewish underground at the time, was to instill fear in the British Mandate and the Arab Palestinians so that they would leave Palestine.  The Deir Yaseen massacre on April 9, 1948 led exactly to that, when the Jewish underground drove  around Jerusalem in their tanks with some of the survivors of that massacre and urging all Palestinians to leave lest they face the same fate like those who were massacred in Deir Yasseen. 

These incidents were part of our first experiences with terrorism and terrorist acts, which have become a daily event in this crazy world of  ours.  However it is often forgotten who the first  perpetrators of terrorism in our region were.  During that period  Menachem Begin, was wanted by the British mandate government,  yet he was officially received by the British Royal Court during his term as  Prime Minister of Israel between 1977-1983. 

However,  it is ironic that the source of our worry   these days might not  be ISIS or Al-Qaida that  should be controlled by the powers who created them, if they wish to do so.  It is those   phenomena beyond human control, like natural disasters and viruses such as  the Zika virus that might become the nightmare.  No weapons, bombs,  drones or even knives can prevent  a bite of an infected Aedes species mosquito.