Murderers of Peace

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It ought to have been a wonderful day for Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat. On Friday the Israeli and Palestinian leaders, along with Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, were named the recipients of this year's Nobel Peace Prize, the highest trophy politicians can hope for. Yet there was no jubilation in Tel Aviv or Gaza City. The honor had been spoiled by tortured and ultimately fruitless attempts by both Palestinians and Israelis to avoid a tragedy. The poignance and pitilessness of lives well below the heights of power had overshadowed political priorities, and the 13-month effort to implement peace was thrown into its worst crisis.

The drama began on an unseasonably balmy Sunday afternoon as Nahshon Waxman, 19, a corporal in the Israeli army, was heading for his girlfriend's house. Hitchhiking in central Israel, he was picked up by activists from the militant Islamic movement Hamas. Two days later they named their ransom: the release from Israeli jails of their spiritual leader Sheik Ahmed Yassin and 200 other Palestinian and Lebanese prisoners. Waxman was hardly the first Israeli to be taken hostage. Fundamentalists from the West Bank and Gaza Strip have seized nine others during the past five years, killing all of them. But there was a difference this time. The kidnappers had distributed a wrenching videotape of a terrified Waxman asking the government to meet his captors' demands. On tape the youth looked dazed and frightened. "I ask you to do all you can so I get out of here alive," Waxman said. Behind him stood a hooded Hamas gunman who put his hand on the Israeli's shoulder. "If my parents are watching me, I am all right now." But, he added, "if their prisoners are not released, they will kill me."

The image provoked an unusually fiery and emotional response in Israel. On Thursday 50,000 worshippers gathered at Jerusalem's Western Wall to pray for the young man's safety. Waxman's mother Esther, an English teacher who emigrated to Israel in 1969 from New York City, reminded Washington that Nahshon held dual citizenship and pleaded for the U.S. to "get my son released." Even Sheik Yassin, the incarcerated and quadriplegic spiritual leader of Hamas, declared on Israeli television, "Killing him is not useful, and our religion orders us to take care of him and his life."

Another event had contributed to the outpouring of Israeli sentiment. The kidnapping occurred on the same day that two Hamas gunmen, armed with assault rifles, rampaged through a popular restaurant district in Jerusalem, mortally wounding two patrons and injuring another 13 before being shot down by Israeli police. The attack struck at the core of Israelis' sense of personal security because it took place in one of Jerusalem's principal fun spots.