Targeting tolerance

[11 Jul 2004] TEL AVIV - Sammi Masrawa is a 29-year-old Arab Israeli from Tel Aviv who has been the head of a local committee calling for coexistence between Israelis and the Palestinians.
Now he wants them kept apart.

What changed his mind was a suicide bombing in Tel Aviv on July 11. Masrawa thinks there is no choice but to build the controversial separation fence that Israel is building close to the Green Line.

"These terrorists don't differentiate between Jews and Arabs, they just want to kill," Masrawa said, lying in hospital with glass shards embedded in his leg.
Masrawa had just descended from a bus on his way to work as a chef in nearby restaurant when a bomb hidden in the shrubs behind the bus stop went off.

"A month ago I went to protest the fence," he said, referring to the barrier Israel is building in the West Bank. "Now I believe it can only strengthen us."

The bombing came just two days after the International Court of Justice ruled that the fence is illegal. Israel says the structure keeps bombers out, while Palestinians says it encroaches on their land and disrupts the lives of thousands of people.

Masrawa had just descended from a bus on his way to work as a chef in nearby restaurant when a bomb hidden in the shrubs behind the bus stop went off.
"Suddenly a large boom, a cloud of black and all the bus was covered ... the windows blew out. There were screams...the passengers were jumping over each other trying to escape from the bus."

Masrawa has not given up entirely on Arab Israeli coexistence. "I want to say that I am an Israeli Arab and I'm proud to be an Arab who tried to save a soldier," he said. The woman soldier he tried to save at the scene died of her injuries.