ALAN KAUFMAN
Baby Food Bullets and
Nose
Drop Bombs
J
UST MONTHS AGO AN EXPLOSIVES-PACKED
Palestinian suicide
bomber visited Cafe Cafit, an upscale German Colony hangout in
Jerusalem, where I'm presently savoring a cheese Danish and cafe
afuk . With wires poking everywhere, the bomber took his seat, broke
out in a cold sweat, behaved weirdly in general, and, my guess is, lost
his nerve to hit the trigger. Overwhelmed by suspicious waiters and
patrons, he was dragged into the street, his wires were ripped out, and
the whole sorry mess of him was turned over, defused, to the police.
Regrettably, his successor in martyrdom had no problem with perfor–
mance anxiety and detonated himself along with eleven young Israeli
patrons in the Moment Cafe in nearby Rehavia.
Today, neither would succeed at penetrating these locations. Moment
remains a gutted ruin-nothing to blow up there-while right across the
street, in front of the Prime Minister's house, an armored jeep convoy of
border police in full combat gear maintain high alert,
24/7.
The once
rollicking cafe intersection is now a code-red danger zone.
As for Cafe Cafit, in order to gain entrance I had to undergo a full–
body frisk by a moonlighting unemployed web designer and para–
trooper in the reserves, armed with a Glock .357 full-size automatic
with a magazine capacity of fifteen rounds, everyone of which he'll
happily put into your skull if you just sneeze wrong. It's gotten very
tense around Jerusalem these days, where even craving coffee and Dan–
ish carries lethal consequences.
Breda Fitzpatrick, who now enters Cafit, had suggested we meet here
because it's on the way to Har Gilo-part of the West Bank's Gush
Etzion Block-and the adjoining Arab village of Beit Jalla. Until
recently, the village was a stronghold of Yasir Arafat's personal Tanzim
Fatah militia, some of whom are still out there, making adjustments on
their sniper scopes.
Fitzpatrick, who was born in Northern Ireland and is a registered
nurse and paramedic with Hadassah Hospital on Mount Scopus, has
invited me along on her secret route through the deadly corridor
between Gilo and Beit Jalla, smuggling illegal medical supplies to Arab
