This week, citizens of the United States were abruptly awakened to face the tragic results of faceless extremist terrorism. Israelis have been facing a painful wave of Palestinian terrorism for many months now. On Sunday alone three terrorist attacks, two of them suicide bombings, rocked Israeli cities and highways.

Palestinian terrorist groups, which reject negotiations with Israel and openly call for Israel's destruction, quickly claimed responsibility for the attacks in Israel, which took the lives of five citizens. The perpetrators of Tuesday's attacks in America are as yet unknown.

The Palestinian Authority was quick to condemn the attacks on innocent civilians in the United States, and the Hamas and Islamic Jihad denied involvement in the terrorism. The Hizbullah refrained from commenting or glorifying the attacks.

U.S. President George W. Bush declared the terrorism as "an attack on freedom" and as "acts of war." As Bush organizes a global coalition to fight terrorism, Israel has offered the help of its military forces and intelligence services. Israel, which has been fighting terrorists and their abettors for years, now finds that "its war is no longer its alone," according to Jerusalem Post publisher Tom Rose.

Some Israelis raised the concern that the terror attacks in the United States could boomerang against Israel. They feared the U.S. public could say that if it were not for American support of Israel, the terror would not have been unleashed.

In a viewpoint posted on israelinsider, senior editorial columnist for Jewsweek.com Avi Davis touched many nerves when he wrote that Israel had absorbed scores of suicide bombings over the past ten years, a harsh reality that was just dawning on a "sheltered America."

Flood of e-mail writers find comparison to bombings in Israel offensive
The presentation of Davis's viewpoint resulted in a flood of e-mail messages to israelinsider, many of them calling him to task for equating the loss of Israeli lives in local bombings to the immense magnitude of the terror in the U.S. Here are some of the messages received:

	"I find it horribly offensive that you somehow equate 20 Israeli lives with 3,500 American lives."
	"Despite the fact that Israel may not feel the way Arabs feel about Palestine, the WTC bombing as well as the attempt on the Pentagon was an act of sheer tragedy & an evident act upon the sovereignty of a great nation. These perpetrators were NOT Muslims but terrorists."
	"I disapprove of your militant stance in view of the World Trade Center catastrophe. You are too simplistic. You suggest Moslem extremists are the problem, and the enemy, of the 'civilized' world, and by ridding the world of them (or, punishing them, and their abettors), the root cause of this disaster will be eliminated."
	"The statement in Avi Davis's column today stating that the lives of 20 Israelis is the equivalent of 3500 American… seems to minimize the overwhelming loss of life that occurred yesterday, and I find it extremely offensive."
	"What an insightful commentary on America! We have been in the dark, and now we are coming to the full light of what the rest of the world faces everyday. I commend and thank the author for his thoughts. Now is the time for America to act, swiftly and thoroughly!"
	"Israel, and our blind subservience to it, along with the greed of oil companies and others who profit off Mid East business are as much to blame as the twisted fanatics who planned and carried out this unspeakable act. We have MANY things to re-evaluate in the coming days."
	"To compare the situation in Israel to that in the US and then suggest that we share a common enemy is morally indefensible. For Israel to claim a moral high ground, the government needs to stop settlement activity and dismantle those settlements and roads which would be part of any peace plan."
	"Zionist barbarism against the Palestinians set the stage for the atrocity that occurred."
	"Today, our support of your country is being held by Arab states as the exact reason why our country was attacked."
	"As an American, I resent the fact that some Israelis, citizens and supporters of a known occupying power, are seeking media attention, hitching themselves to the sympathy that the World is extending to our country in a selfish effort to repair their country's global image."

Israeli officials don't want to look opportunistic
On Tuesday Prime Minister Ariel Sharon called US Ambassador Don Kurtzer, expressing his condolences over the terrible attacks and offered the Americans any and all necessary assistance. Foreign Affairs Minister Shimon Peres said, "This is not just an American tragedy, but a worldwide tragedy."

The United States knows that Israel is willing to help in whatever way it can in the global alliance being formed in the war against terrorism. In the meantime, Israel's representatives are being careful not to exploit America's tragedy to further Israeli causes. The Foreign Affairs Ministry instructed Israeli consulates and embassies around the world to maintain a "media silence" regarding Palestinian celebrations after the bombings so as not to appear opportunistic but rather to portray sincere identification with the American pain.

Former Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu went farther than many other Israeli politicians when he gave his own, definite answer to the question whether Israel and the United States share a common enemy. "No one understands terror better than Israelis. We have been on the front lines against terror. Today the terrorists have hit the heart of the free world. We and the Americans represent the idea of freedom. The terrorists want to erase that idea," he said.

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