I was ashamed of my knee-jerk reaction, but it was soon to be validated. And when I finally sat down with my kids to talk to them about what had happened, in a country where their grandparents live and in a city where we have many relatives and friends, it was their first reaction, too. "Was it bad Arabs?" my oldest, age 7, asked.

I e-mailed friends to extend my sympathies and make sure they were handling things emotionally. At the same time, I felt somewhat vindicated. Terrorism can happen anywhere, even in America.

When President Bush announced his intention to launch a war on terrorism, I cheered. But then, not only was Israel specifically asked to stay out of the war on terrorism, but -- as the United States bombed the stuffing out of Afghanistan, causing many civilian casualties in the process -- Bush also continued to urge Israel to negotiate with a known terrorist leader and to decry a limited number of Palestinian civilian deaths at the hands of Israel Defense Forces.

Most of the organizations and people who less than a month ago were calling Jenin a massacre now agree that it was not. Palestinian estimates of 500 dead have been revised to under 50. In desperation, the Palestinians dug up bodies from area cemeteries and staged mock funerals to bolster their claims (in one funeral caught on IDF surveillance cameras and broadcast on Israel television, the "corpse" fell off the bier and began running through the crowd, starting a panic). This is not a people that is ready to make peace.

Each time I get into my car to drive to another city for something as simple as a visit to the bank or for a new pair of shoes, I feel a flutter of panic and fear. As I put on my bulletproof vest and set my cell phone to be ready to auto-dial the emergency number, I often cannot believe that this is what everyday life is like. This fear and incredulity stay with me throughout my whole drive down Route 55, where I often see soldiers at the side of the road -- sometimes watching through binoculars, sometimes running and, last week, shooting over the heads of a group of Palestinian men gathering in a field. I felt the rifle discharge, I smelled the smoke of the gun! When I pass through the checkpoint at the Green Line I am sometimes disconcerted to find a soldier's rifle aimed right at my forehead, as it is at each driver's as he enters Israel proper, ready to halt his entrance if it is determined he can pose a threat to others.

As my fear continues to fester, it is rapidly turning into anger, resentment and hatred. I feel this even as I try to teach my children that not all Arabs are "bad Arabs," as their friends tell them. That many of the people living in the Palestinian villages that surround us are good, and have families that they love just like ours. But the way things are, I am having a hard time believing it. And I am not the only one here.

I would like to see the Palestinians live with dignity and autonomy. I would love to live in peace. Ariel Sharon has seen his share of wars against, and adversity in, the Jewish state. When he and the other old warhorses here have faith in a peace plan -- one that is not disfigured by partisan politics and wrangling -- I will put my faith in it. When I am asked to leave, I will leave. And I, like my fellow citizens both here and in the United States, will pray that a true peace has really come. But right now, I believe that if we do leave the settlements, the violence will only follow us.

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