AKABA, West Bank — By the norms that exist in Palestinian society after 11 months of bloody conflict with Israel, Shuhail and Fatima Masri should be proud. Their son, Izzedine, became an instant Palestinian hero the day he walked into a pizza restaurant crowded with families in downtown Jerusalem and detonated explosives that killed him and 15 other people.
But the mood in the Masri household is one of profound sorrow at the terrible way their child chose to die.
"There is no mother who wants to see her son lost," Fatima Masri said. Any mother who says she rejoices in her son's death does so only because "she is obliged to say such things" by a society that celebrates such attacks as the ultimate patriotic sacrifice, Masri said.
"If he would have come to me and told me of his plans, I would have locked my arms around him and stopped him from doing this," she said. "I would have told him: 'I don't want Palestine. I don't want land. I just want you with me.' "
Shuhail Masri, a wealthy man who owns restaurants, shops and land around the West Bank city of Jenin, said he grieves not only for his son but for his son's victims.
"This wound is so deep in me," he said. "I didn't wish this on anybody--not on Jews, or French or English.
"As I feel the pain of the loss of my son, I can imagine how the parents who lost children that day feel for their children."
The Masris' expressions of grief and empathy are rare in a conflict that has so polarized Israelis and Palestinians that each side has difficulty seeing the other as anything but an enemy and itself as anything but a victim.
To Israelis and the outside world, Palestinian suicide bombers commit acts of inexplicable viciousness against innocent civilians. But to increasing numbers of Palestinians, the bombers are the ultimate patriots.
They are respected not only for being willing to die for the cause of liberating the Palestinians, but for inflicting pain and suffering on Israelis. The death tolls from their attacks--even if they include children, as in the pizzeria bombing--are seen as a grim evening of the score for the hundreds of Palestinians who have died and the thousands who have been injured since fighting broke out in September.
Hamas Carries Out Majority of Attacks
