Living in Fear: Suicide Bombings in Israel

RAY SUAREZ:

Now how Israelis are living with the fear of suicide bombings. Special Correspondent Martin Himel reports from Jerusalem.

MARTIN HIMEL:

Like many Israeli teenagers, Marva Marom's life has been transformed by the suicide bombing. She's just 14 years old. Marva is not allowed to go to the movies. She's forbidden to go downtown. Concerts are out of the question. Her parents are afraid a suicide bomber could kill her.

MARVA MAROM:

There was a bomb right here, right across the street, a minute's walk from here, and in a coffee place. And it's like this neighborhood coffee place, and this is ours.

MARTIN HIMEL:

A suicide bomber destroyed the popular Moment Cafe in March. He killed ten customers.

MARVA MAROM:

I used to walk inside there. It's the same people that they go every morning before work to drink some coffee, and after work to relax. The people who got killed, who got injured, everybody knew. I try not to think about it, because when I live in such a place, you learn to develop this universe of your own. I always think about what will happen in the future, who I'm going to be, what I'm going to become. And then I see I didn't consider the fact that there might be no future.

MARTIN HIMEL:

Eyal Meged, Marva's stepfather, is more comfortable with Marva in the house. He is a well-known Israeli author. Meged is a third-generation Israeli. His grandparents were pioneers, farmers. His grandmother became a widow in 1951 when an Arab stabbed her husband in his orchard. Meged says little has changed since then. He believes the Palestinian goal is still the destruction of the Jewish state.

EYAL MEGED, Israeli Author:

The Arabs didn't want us here at all, and it's the same story all over again all the time, and we have to realize it. Nothing to do with… nothing to do with the occupied territories we are talking about now, nothing to do with Judea and Samaria or Gaza. It's about living here and leading normal lives in the land of Israel. That's how I see it.

MARTIN HIMEL:

Downtown Jerusalem is virtually deserted compared to normal times. In the center is the Sbarro Pizza Restaurant. It has been rebuilt. A husband, wife, and many of their children were killed here in a suicide bombing last December. Across the road, Ruth's Clothing Store has reopened for business. A suicide bomber also claimed lives here in another attack in January. 50 yards away, near the Aroma Cafe, a suicide bomber claimed a young Israeli couple. Throughout March, more than 120 Israeli were killed in suicide attacks. The Ben Yehuda Promenade is usually overcrowded with shoppers. Now it look more like a war zone, a terror battlefield. There are almost more soldiers and police than civilians on the promenade. This cosmetics shop is usually packed with buyers. Now the shop is lucky if it gets two or three customers a day. Yuval Shavit is the owner. He has four failing shops throughout Jerusalem.

YUVAL SHAVIT, Cosmetics Store Owner:

There are no people– people afraid. They have been a few bomb attacks around us, and people are afraid to come, and I don't blame them.

MARTIN HIMEL:

Yuval believes the only way to attack customers again is to separate Arabs and Jews, even if it means redividing Jerusalem into Jewish and Arabs cities.

YUVAL SHAVIT:

What I believe should be the final solution here, we should build a wall, and I don't care where. They should live there, and we should live here, and it doesn't matter even if it will be here in the middle of the street. I mean, I think that we should be separate countries.

MARTIN HIMEL:

Even though restaurants are a major target, some coffee shops remain open. They are heavily guarded. When Marva visits her father, Daniel Marom, Kafit is one of the few restaurants when they will risk a family outing. A short while ago, a suicide bomber was stopped at the entrance. Daniel's wife Tami says routine decisions are very difficult these days.

TAMI MAROM:

I find myself constantly worrying, constantly making decisions– decisions that, you know, you always, when you were kids, you have decisions to make, but this I feel like life- and-death decisions.

DANIEL MAROM:

Here, at night, fears tend to come out before the children go to sleep, and they'll say, you know, "Could you promise me, could you give me a guarantee that tomorrow will be safe, or that in a year from now, it will be safe?" Or, "when is this going to change?" "I'm afraid; is the door locked?" "How do you know that someone couldn't get in from the roof and do violence to us?" "Could you take me in the car tomorrow instead of in the bus, because who knows what could be in the bus?"

MARVA MAROM:

I just hope I'm going to make it. That's it. I just hope so, because I can't afford to die. I mean, I have… I think I have too much to lose. I have such big plans I can't afford myself. And that's it.

MARTIN HIMEL:

The answer to all this, says Eyal Meged, is in determination, and in a belief that a Jewish state has a right to be here. While Israel developed into a modern society and economy, his grandparents and parents withstood years of terror and suffering. Many Israelis now believe future generations will have to take on that same challenge.