Mother-in-law of pregnant stabbing victim urges coexistence
Hadassah Froman says Israel ‘mishandling’ ties with Palestinians, must distinguish between terrorists and those who want to live in peace
http://www.timesofisrael.com/mother-in-law-of-pregnant-stabbing-victim-urges-coexistence/
Hours after her pregnant daughter-in-law was stabbed and moderately injured by a teenage Palestinian terrorist on Monday, an Israeli coexistence activist called for greater efforts to foster Israeli-Palestinian coexistence.
Hadassah Froman said her daughter-in-law Michal was “in pain” and “traumatized,” having been stabbed in the shoulder with the blade also puncturing her lung, but was not in life-threatening danger. She saidMichal, who was attacked in her home settlement of Tekoa on Monday morning, was “about half-way through her pregnancy,” and that the fetus “is absolutely fine, thank God; it’s a big miracle.”
Froman, the widow of the late peace activist Rabbi Menachem Froman, said her daughter-in-law told her that “she couldn’t believe” the Palestinian was really going to attack her, and that “he had the look of someone who wanted to die.”
In an interview with Army Radio, Hadassah Froman said Israel was “mishandling” the delicate fabric of its relations with the Palestinians, and needed to make a greater effort to distinguish between those Palestinians who support terrorism and those who want to live in peace.
Medics wheel a wounded Michal Forman into the emergency room of the Shaare Zedek Medical Center on January 18, 2016. Froman, who is pregnant, was wounded in a stabbing attack in the settlement of Tekoa (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)
“My life’s work is near-daily contact with the Palestinian public,” she said, adding that it was Israel’s responsibility and interest to “embrace” that part of the Palestinian populace that seeks coexistence.
Specifically, she said, Israel should not delay returning the bodies of Palestinian terrorists for burial, since that only bred increased hostility. She also thought demolishing the homes of terrorists’ families was not effective. However, the families of terrorists who themselves supported terrorism, she said, should be deported to Gaza.
Drawing a clearer distinction between those who support terror and those who want coexistence, she said, “is difficult, but not impossible.”
If Israel were to reach out to those Palestinians who want to live in peace, she said, it would help them and would also “help our security.”
