bomb goes off in central Jerusalem, reminding the world that Israel still leads a very perilous existence.
Yesterday’s bombing near the central bus terminal killed one woman, and wounded two dozen others, some critically. It was the first bombing within Jerusalem since 2004, the first in Israel since 2008. And it was the second terrorist incident in Israel this month. Earlier five members of a Jewish family living in the West Bank were slaughtered in their beds. Three of them were children.
It was also a bloody day yesterday in southern Israel. Two rockets landed in the city of Beersheba, wounding one man, and mortar shells struck elsewhere in the south, which provides an easy target for militants who have found safe haven in Hamas-controlled Gaza.
Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak warned, “We will not tolerate the harming of Israeli citizens, not in the south and not in Jerusalem. Hamas is responsible for the firing of rockets toward Beersheba today and this responsibility has a price.”
Residents in the south have been warned to stay close to bomb shelters and school has been cancelled for the rest of the week.
And so it goes. The peace process — another of those causes pursued for a time by Barack Obama but now apparently abandoned — has been at a standstill since September. With Egypt coping with its first experiment in democracy, Syria killing its own people in the streets and Yemen in chaos, Israel remains a steadfast friend in a rather problematic neighborhood
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