Terrorism and a twist of fate

For many years I attended an annual women’s summit at Rhode Island’s Bryant University where I listened to dozens of speeches, many given by celebrities. However, the most memorable speaker I heard at these conferences was not a celebrity. She was a young woman named Heather Abbott, and in 2016, when she told her story, she captured the attention of the audience as few others have.

She and her friends had gone into Boston to see a Red Sox baseball game. At some point during the game, they decided to leave and go to the annual Boston Marathon. The date was April 15, 2013 – the day when two terrorists planted two bombs at the marathon. An 8-year-old boy was killed. His younger sister lost her leg. In total, three people were killed and more than 500 were wounded.

Heather was one of the wounded. Blown through the doorway of a restaurant, she said that her leg and foot felt as if they were on fire. Too afraid to look, she averted her eyes, but when others approached her, the look of horror on their faces spoke volumes.

After three surgeries, the doctors presented her with two options: continue having many surgeries that would go on for years and would bring much pain and little chance of ever walking, or have her leg amputated below the knee. She eventually chose the latter.

In the most compelling part of her speech, she spoke of her struggle to let go of thoughts, such as: If only she had stayed at that baseball game. If only she hadn’t gone to the marathon. If only she had been standing at a different location. If only… If only… If only…

Seeking a peaceful environment, Georgios Tsibouktzakis was a Greek Orthodox priest who moved to Israel to practice his faith in one of its many monasteries. The peace he found in the Holy Land, however, abruptly ended in 2001 when he, along with four other people, was murdered in a terrorist attack masterminded by a man named Marwan Barghouti. Serving multiple life sentences, Barghouti now sits in an Israeli prison.

In an area of the world where radical Islamic terrorists abound, Barghouti stands out. Polls have shown that he is the Palestinians’ first choice to lead a future Palestinian state. However, his popularity extends beyond the Palestinians. Recently, over 200 American celebrities signed a petition calling upon the U.N. and governments around the world to push Israel to release this terrorist.

Good and rational people can debate whether the death sentence should be used, but no good and rational person should seek the release of a terrorist that orchestrated the murder of several innocent people.

In Israel in 2023, Lucy Dee was driving with her two teenage daughters, Maia and Rina, when a terrorist rammed them off the road, shot them, circled around, and shot them again, murdering all three. CNN anchor Christiane Amanpour referred to the terrorist attack as a “shootout.” After six weeks of calls for her to apologize, she finally relented and issued an apology to Rabbi Dee, the husband and father of the victims.

On New Year’s Day in 2025 a man drove a pickup truck with an ISIS flag into a crowd in New Orleans, murdering 14 people. Hours later, in NYC, hundreds of protestors marched.

Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) said, “These protesters in NYC are marching not to condemn the ISIS terrorist attack against their own country but to falsely accuse their own country, as well as Israel, of terrorism. The hatred for America and Israel far exceeds the hatred for actual terror, apartheid, and genocide in the world.”

Disturbingly, this type of moral inversion will soon reach Gracie Mansion. Although the New York Times reported that the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement is led by a committee that includes terrorists like Hamas, Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani boasted that BDS is at the core of his politics.

Moreover, Mamdani has refused to condemn the phrase “Globalize the Intifada”, a sentiment that was realized with the deadly antisemitic attack in Australia. Acknowledging that it is a call for violence against Jews, Australia and the UK are now banning that phrase and threatening to arrest protestors who use it.

Since Oct. 7, 2023, 156 countries have formally recognized a Palestinian state, in effect rewarding terrorism. They fail to understand that the massacre didn’t happen because there was no Palestinian state; it happened because there was one. Indeed, it was Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza, along with billions of dollars the international community provided to build a Palestinian state, that led to the horrific Oct. 7 massacre.

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar said, “We are facing three terrorist states, a unique phenomenon in the Middle East. The terrorist states in Gaza, Lebanon, and Yemen have not yet been dismantled, but some people are quick to suggest that we will establish a Palestinian terror state in the heart of our tiny homeland. It means two kilometers from the place we are sitting right now. It would control the topography over all our population centers, and this is what they suggested after Oct. 7, even though it’s clear that such an experiment would only lead to another terror state.”

There is a Jewish saying, “Anyone who becomes merciful to the cruel will eventually become cruel to the merciful.”

Indeed, people who minimize and excuse terrorism are merciful to the cruel. Directing their anger, not at the terrorists, but at the people who must defend themselves from terrorists, they have become cruel to the merciful.

It would behoove them to remember that, as random as it is vicious, terrorism can reach anyone. One day they could find themselves at the wrong place at the wrong time. They might sustain a life-altering injury, or perhaps the life of someone precious to them could be gone in an instant. Then, with a sudden and cruel twist of fate, it is they who will be left to weep the words, “If only…”