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Israeli bus attack victim holds talk
Both of Goldwasser's legs were broken and her pelvis was crushed. She endured three operations and was given 30 units of blood. Despite her doctors' grim prognosis, she is able to walk again, but the life that is left to her is not the one she envisioned.
"It was my dream to carry on dancing, and then I joined the army, and it was taken away," Goldwasser said Friday at the United Jewish Federation in Oakland.
Goldwasser, now 21, was in Pittsburgh Thursday and yesterday to talk about her experiences as a terrorist survivor and the impact terrorist attacks have had on Israel. Goldwasser spoke to reporters scarcely an hour after a suicide bomber killed at least six people near a crowded market in Jerusalem.
Goldwasser, who lives in southern Israel near Gaza, said Israelis have grown accustomed to going about their lives under the constant threat of terrorist attacks.
"You can't stay in your house and stop living. If it happens, it happens. God's got a plan for each of us," Goldwasser said.
Yesterday's attack came after U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, who is trying to broker a peace agreement, met with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. A deadly cycle of violence has wracked the disputed territories of Gaza and the West Bank since peace talks between the Palestinians and Israelis collapsed in the fall of 2000.
Six weeks ago, the United Jewish Federation launched the Israel Emergency Appeal to raise money for the victims of terrorism in Israel. The campaign has raised $1.4 million so far. The co-chairwoman of the campaign, Karen Shapira, along with Howard Rieger, president of the Jewish Federation in Pittsburgh, recently traveled to Israel and met with Sharon.
Shapira and Rieger's first stop in Israel was the Park Hotel in the town of Netanya, where a suicide bomber killed 27 people at a Seder, a meal that marks the Passover holiday. Rieger lit a candle for two victims, Anna Weiss, 75, and her husband, Ernest, 79.
"That's who somebody thinks are the enemy of freedom and the Palestinian people. They aren't the enemy," Rieger said.
Israel has occupied the disputed territories since 1967's Six-Day War. The Palestinians say the occupation is illegal and that the Israeli government is trampling their rights.
Suicide bombings are immoral but are a sign of how desperate the Palestinian people view their situation, said Salma Zahr, a member of the Arab Student Organization at Carnegie Mellon University.
"These are illegitimate forms of resistance, but you need to know what it is like to live 35 years under occupation," said Zahr, 19, a sophomore electrical engineering student.
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