I was in shock, thinking of all those of my friends who worked daily in that building. Later I was going to find out what happened to each of them – those who survived, those who were wounded and would die years later as a consequence, those who lost children, and those who managed to escape the collapsing building. Eighty seven people lost their lives that day. Years of investigation allowed the Argentinean Justice system (as it is) to identify links to Hezbollah and to some Iranian leaders. Yet today, eighteen years later neither those directly responsible nor those Argentinean who collaborated with the perpetrators have been brought to Justice.

Eighteen years later, I was sitting at my desk at the Jewish Federation of Dutchess County, where I serve as Executive Director, and learned of the bombing of a tourist bus in Burgas (Bulgaria) which left behind six people dead and scores of wounded. Yet to this day (Friday, July 20) I'm still waiting to see any reference to the bombing on the Poughkeepsie Journal. I find the silence of the Media despicable and coward.

Six people lost their lives at the hands of Hezbollah and Iranian operatives, and their blood is asking for Justice. I hope the Bulgarian authorities will be more expeditious and effective than Argentinean authorities have been over the last eighteen years, because each terrorist attack that goes unpunished sends the message that crime and senseless violence do not have to pay a price.

When the world was approaching the end of the XIX Century, a new optimism was in the air and expressed itself in almost every area of Human endeavor, from Science to Literature. In the XX Century we managed as a species to squash that optimism with two World Wars, multiple Genocides, scores of local wars, despotic autocratic regimes and the suppression of Freedom in many parts of the world.

The XXI Century offered a new opportunity to live up to the ideals, but so far it looks even worse than the prior century. We still have, however, time to fix it – it is up to us.

 

SAY NO TO TERRORISM, SAY NO TO THE DEATH OF INNOCENT PEOPLE

 

Do it, if nothing else, in memory of the most recent victims:

 

Maor Harush, 25, of Akko

Yitzhak Kolangi, 28, of Petach Tikvah

Amir Menashe, 28, of Petach Tikvah

Elior Preis, 26, of Akko

Kochava Shriki, 44, of Rishon LeTzion

Mustafa Kyosov, 36, Bulgarian citizen

 

May their memory be a warning