Arab Bomb Victim Backs West Bank Barrier jun Jul 11,12:35 PM ET...

Arab Bomb Victim Backs West Bank Barrier

jun Jul 11,12:35 PM ET
By GAVIN RABINOWITZ, Associated Press Writer

TEL AVIV, Israel - The images from the explosion kept running through Sammi Masrawa's mind as he lay in his hospital bed — a young female soldier with the back of her head missing, a heavily pregnant woman lying on the sidewalk, legs mangled legs, screaming "my baby, my baby.'
Sunday's blast at a Tel Aviv bus stop had changed his world view.
The 29-year-old Arab Israeli from Tel Aviv was the head of a local committee calling for coexistence between Israelis and the Palestinians.
Now he wants them kept apart.

"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 world court ruled that the barrier 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.
Nearly 1,000 Israelis have been killed, many of them in bombings, since fighting broke out four years ago. Just over 3,000 Palestinians were killed in the same period, most by Israeli army fire.

Masrawa thinks there is no choice but to build the barrier.

"These terrorists don't differentiate between Jews and Arabs, they just want to kill," he said, glass shards embedded in his leg, as his wife shook her head in disbelief at his political transformation.

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.
Bus driver Eyal Gazit said he initially thought the bomb was on his bus.
"Suddenly a large boom, a cloud of black and all the bus was covered ... the windows blew out," he told Israel's Army Radio. "There were screams...the passengers were jumping over each other trying to escape from the bus."

At the bus stop, cigarette butts floated in a pool of blood next to a black, high-heel shoe. A rescue worker carried off a bloodstained bag as others methodically searched the road for body parts.

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.