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Jerusalem Bomb Blast Leaves 15 Dead

August 9, 2001

A Palestinian suicide bomber detonated a bomb inside a crowded Jerusalem restaurant Thursday, killing 15 people and wounding almost 90. Medical officials say at least five of the dead are children. The dead also include an American woman from New Jersey and a Brazilian man.

Israeli police said a Palestinian suicide bomber struck a popular pizza restaurant on the corner of one of Jerusalem's busiest intersections. The inside of the restaurant, which was crowded with people eating lunch, was gutted by the blast.

Victims covered with blood were loaded into ambulances, while stunned witnesses sat crying on the sidewalk along a street littered with glass and debris.

Jerusalem Mayor Ehud Olmert blamed the bombing on Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. "We have war with the Palestinian leadership, and those who are in charge of the terrorist actions, and they should be held accountable. We should reach out for them and kill them," he said.

After hours of refusing to condemn the attack and following intense U.S. pressure, Arafat's office issued a statement in the evening condemning "all attacks against civilians, Israelis and Palestinians."

Responding to the attack, President George W. Bush labeled the attack cowardly and called on Arafat to take "immediate and sustained" action to prevent further bombings.

"Nothing is gained through cowardly acts such as this. The deliberate murder of innocent civilians is abhorrent to all, a threat to peace, and inconsistent with the parties' signed agreements to put aside violence. Palestinian Authority Chairman Arafat must condemn this horrific terrorist attack, act now to arrest and bring to justice those responsible, and take immediate, sustained action to prevent future terrorist attacks," Bush said in a statement.

The Islamic Jihad terrorist group claimed responsibility for the blast, saying it was in response to targeted attacks against Palestinian terrorists by the Israeli military. But later in the evening, the Hamas terrorist group took credit, prompting some speculation both groups might have been involved.

Hitler's Willing Executioners
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Goldhagen reaches conclusions that are both uncompromising and savage, rejecting as inadequate the conventional historical explanations for how an entire country could allow the Holocaust to happen, and gives the first detailed, broad-ranging account of the actual killers of the Jews.