[AGL] this cant/shouldnt/wont go on much longer

[Michael Eisenstadt]

I have become a total junkie about reading the Jerusalem Post and the other
Israeli newpaper on line. This piece seems to be from the Associated Press.
It is SO interesting that I could not
forebear not to share it with you. How amazing the world is! And what a
pleasure to turn on the computer and read the NYTimes where I did not find
this article.

As this is my hobby-horse not yours, i will not inflict it on you anymore
but just this one last time.

Mike

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>From suicide bomber to peacenik, Shifa al-Qudsi 'thought only of revenge'

By The Associated Press

Six years ago, Shifa al-Qudsi was plotting to strap on explosives under a
maternity dress and blow herself up among Israelis. Now she says she wants
to meet them.

Just released from prison at age 30, the former hairdresser insists she has
no regrets, but says times have changed.

"I hope to join a peace group," she says.

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"I am ready to talk to Israelis, to get closer."

Her transformation mirrors broader changes in Palestinian society in the
West Bank, where enthusiasm for an armed uprising against Israel has given
way to conflict fatigue and even some soul-searching over the use of
violence.

Al-Qudsi's story also provides a glimpse of the motives of a suicide bomber
and how easy it was at one time for militants to recruit young
Palestinians - mostly men but also a few women - for 131 bombings that have
killed hundreds of Israelis.

For al-Qudsi, the personal appeared to intersect with the political. While
she said she wanted to avenge the suffering inflicted on Palestinians by
Israeli troops, her ex-employer said al-Qudsi also felt depressed and
stigmatized by her divorce.

Interviewed in her parents' home in the West Bank city of Tul Karem,
al-Qudsi wore a tailored leather coat, pants, stiletto-heeled boots and a
headscarf that seemed more a nod to social norms than a sign of religious
piety. She appeared confident and optimistic.

One of 10 children, she married a cousin at 16, gave birth to a daughter,
Diana, and divorced after two years when her husband took up with another
woman. Returning to her parents' home with her baby daughter, al-Qudsi
started working at a beauty parlor.

Her former boss, Zahwa Zakallah, described her employees as a fun-loving
group that would occasionally take day trips, including several to the beach
at Netanya, an Israeli city 16 kilometers west of Tul Karem that would
become al-Qudsi's target.

Life changed after the intifada broke out in 2000. As a wave of bombings and
shootings by Palestinian militant groups crested, Israeli forces reoccupied
West Bank towns in a major military offensive. Troops also ringed the
headquarters of late Palestinian Authority chairman Yasser Arafat,
effectively putting him under house arrest.

Al-Qudsi said she was increasingly driven by a desire for revenge, and was
particularly upset by Israel's humiliation of Arafat, a Palestinian icon.

In early 2002, her 16-year-old brother, Mahmoud, was caught with a suicide
belt and sentenced to 18 years in prison. And a 27-year-old West Bank
paramedic became the first female suicide bomber, killing an elderly Israeli
man in Jerusalem.

Al-Qudsi said she sought contact with the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, a
violent wing of Arafat's Fatah faction. She said she was told to reconsider
and come back in a month. She persisted and was eventually accepted.

"I was waiting for the moment I could push the button and see the bodies
flying," she said.

Her handlers wanted to send her to the town of Hadera, but al-Qudsi said she
insisted on Netanya because she knew her way around the town. She was fitted
for a vest meant to hold 33 pounds of explosives under the maternity dress.

The plan was for her to be accompanied by a male bomber disguised as an
Israeli medic who would detonate his explosives minutes after she did, in
order to kill Israeli rescuers.

But informers tipped off the Israelis and al-Qudsi was arrested.

Troops barged into her parents' home one night in April 2002 and drove her
away. She said they beat her with fists and rifle butts until she reached
the local army lockup. She quickly confessed, but spent 42 days being
questioned about who else was involved in the plot.

In a plea bargain, an Israeli military court sentenced her to six years'
imprisonment.

Her lawyer, Khaled Dazuki, said the sentence was relatively light because no
suicide belt was found. Dazuki believes the plan was in its early stages and
his client would not have gone through with the attack.

Al-Qudsi described the Israeli prison as a warren of dirty, vermin-infested
cells where guards sometimes tear gassed troublesome inmates, including
herself.

Now she has a job with a prisoners' aid group, plans to study social work,
and talks about her eagerness to tell ordinary Israelis her story and hear
theirs.

She also struggles to explain her decision to become a bomber.

Asked how she could leave her young daughter motherless, she said, "God
would have taken care of her." Yet she also said the worst part of being in
prison was being away from her child. She and Diana, now 13, are
inseparable. The teenager says she's thankful her mother is alive, wants
nothing to do with politics, and dreams of going abroad to study law.

"I'm not sorry about what happened," al-Qudsi said defiantly. She wanted the
world to know about the suffering of the Palestinians, but at the time, "I
didn't think as a human being," she said. "I thought only of revenge."

"If I had thought it through better, I might not have made this decision.
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