Bus on Jaffa Road

by Mike Kelly

  Months later, I met Avinoam Sharon at the seminary. It was March 2014, and Sharon was well into his doctoral studies.

  “I just came from a Greek class,” he said, as he walked up Broadway and shook my hand by the seminary entrance, not far from where the homeless woman, Annie, was befriended by Sara and Matt and encouraged to knit yarmulkes for the students. Sharon showed me to a doorway and we descended the stairs to the study hall dedicated to Sara and Matt.

  We walked past the plaque with Matt’s and Sara’s names and opened a door to a room lined with bookshelves filled with volumes of the Talmud and a wide variety of other scriptural texts. Students chatted amiably at several tables as they discussed various Talmud passages. A young man with a beard perused a stack of books. Across the room, a large binder of writings by Sara and Matt sat on a shelf.

  Sharon sat down at an empty table. His eyes darted from the tables with the students, then to the shelves of books, then back to the tables. He told me he had recently decided on a topic in the Talmud for his doctoral dissertation.

  He smiled. Suddenly, a thought came to him. Death prevented Matt Eisenfeld from becoming a Talmud scholar. And death prevented Sara Duker from pursing her faith as a Jewish woman. But, here, was Avinoam Sharon, studying the Talmud in the room dedicated to Sara and Matt—the former prosecutor-turned-rabbi who argued all those years before in a military courtroom for some measure of imperfect justice and punishment for their killer who felt no remorse.

  Sharon felt proud to be a rabbi—proud to be sitting in the same room where Sara and Matt had once studied and prayed. When he left his military career years ago to become a rabbi, he said he had no idea he would again connect with his most famous case in such a personal way.

  Sharon stood up. He led me into the hallway and stopped again by the plaque with Sara’s and Matt’s names.

  We studied the names for a second or two. Then Sharon turned to me.

  “It’s come full circle,” he said.

  Photo of Alisa Flatow, hanging on wall of Stephen Flatow’s office Courtesy of Stephen Flatow

  Matt and Sara relax on a beach shortly before leaving for Jerusalem. Courtesy of Arline Duker

  Matt and Sara on an apartment terrace in Jerusalem shortly before they were killed COurtesy of Duker/Eisenfeld families

  Bus stop in Jerusalem where Matt and Sara boarded the Number 18 bus Photo by Mike Kelly

  Jaffa Road in 2012 Photo by Mike Kelly

  Hassan Salameh, who orchestrated the plot to bomb the Number 18 bus, during prison interview with author © 2006 James W. Anness/northjersey.com

  “Martyr photo” of suicide bomber Majdi Abu Wardeh, created by Hamas after he detonated the bomb on the Number 18 bus on Jaffa Road Photo by Mike Kelly

  Shrapnel taken from bodies of bomb victims by trauma surgeon Dr. Avi Rivkind Photo by Mike Kelly

  Coffins with bodies of Sara Duker and Matthew Eisenfeld are carried to side-by-side graves in an Avon, Connecticut, cemetery. Photo by Steve Dunn, The Hartford Courant

  Muhammed Abu Wardeh, father of suicide bomber Majdi Abu Wardeh, at his home in al-Fawwar refugee camp Photo by Mike Kelly

  Rubble on lot at al-Fawwar refugee camp where home of suicide bomber Majdi Abu Wardeh once stood. The home was destroyed by Israeli soldiers as punishment for Wardeh’s bombing of the Number 18 bus on Jaffa Road. Photo by Mike Kelly

  A tombstone atop side-by-side graves of Matt and Sara in Avon, Connecticut Photos courtesy of Leonard Eisenfeld (left) and Amy Eisenfeld Genser (top)

  Dr. Aharon Oren, who supervised the Hebrew University biology lab where Sara worked before her death, points to her name on a memorial to terror victims at the campus in Jerusalem. Photo by Mike Kelly

  Former Shin Bet chief Ami Ayalon Photo by Mike Kelly

  Former Shin Bet official Avi Dichter Photo by Mike Kelly

  Dr. Avi Rivkind in his office at Hadassah Ein Kerem Medical Center, Jerusalem Photo by Mike Kelly

  Dr. Yehuda Hiss, chief forensic pathologist, standing outside Israel’s Institute of Forensic Medicine, pointing to area where relatives waited for news on fate of Jaffa Road bombing victims Photo by Mike Kelly

  Former Shin Bet official Yisrael Hasson at his office at the Israeli Knesset Photo by Mike Kelly

  Former Palestinian Security Chief Jibril Rajoub Photo by Mike Kelly

  Note on Sources

  A bomb explodes in another part of the world and families are changed forever. But the ripples do not stop there. Others are changed too.

  I began this journey as a newspaper columnist, when I knocked on the door of Sara Duker’s home in Teaneck, New Jersey, the town I call home. It was February 1996. The news was filled with the sorrowful story that Sara had been killed with her boyfriend, Matthew Eisenfeld, and twenty-four others in a suicide bombing aboard a bus in Jerusalem. Amid the omnipresent pressure of a newspaper deadline, I stumbled through a conversation with Sara’s broken-hearted family that day, then returned to the newsroom and my computer keyboard, hoping to offer some insight into what the loss of Sara meant. Ten years passed and I returned to the story. On assignment for my newspaper in Israel, I looked into the eyes of the man who built the bomb that took Sara’s life and also recruited the young man who killed himself while detonating it in the hope of finding spiritual paradise. Five more years passed, and I decided to return to these events again—this time to explore, with this book, how such a horrific act took place and how a group of brave families tried to find some measure of justice amid the complicated landscape of politics, international diplomacy, and the numbing reality of continuing terrorism in so many corners of the world. As my research deepened, however, I found myself returning to that moment when I first knocked on the door to Sara’s home. This story drew me back to Israel several more times, to the West Bank and to the Gaza Strip and, on numerous occasions, to Washington, DC. In the end, though, I found that terrorism is always personal. Bombs are detonated in the name of God or politics—or both. But innocent people inevitably suffer. And the hole left in the lives of their families, friends, and colleagues is deep, eternal, and unfathomable. As Arline Duker told Judge Lamberth when she took the witness stand, “There is this child of mine who isn’t here and never will be.” On every step of this journey, I tried to remember that.

  I could have selected any number of terrorist attacks to study, not just in Israel but elsewhere. I chose this story and the search by these families for accountability because I found it to be remarkably emblematic of what terrorism has done to the world and to the lives of ordinary people.

  To tell this story, I decided to chronicle the journeys of three American families—the Dukers, the Eisenfelds, and the Flatows. Their specific experiences do not mirror every victim’s—and not even every victim of Middle East terrorism. But the pain they endured and their desire for answers embraces a basic desire—indeed, a fundamental need—that is universal. Why did this happen? Who did it?

  Research included more than two hundred interviews in the United States, Israel, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip. Additional research included the transcripts of three trials—two in the United States and another in Israel—as well as more than two thousand pages of documents, memos, and staff reports from the US Congress, the White House and the US Departments of State, Justice, and the Treasury. In addition, the account of the White House’s role in efforts to provide compensation to victims of terrorism—and the internal debates within the Clinton administration on this issue—was gleaned from a variety of White House statements and documents, personal accounts of some of the participants, and interviews with a variety of officials and staffers, some of whom asked not to be named.

  The portraits of Sara Duker, Matthew Eisenfeld, and Alisa Flatow were drawn from multiple conversations with thei
r families, court transcripts, video depositions by their parents and siblings, letters, diaries, various academic papers that they produced, and interviews with a variety of friends and colleagues in the United States and in Israel. Descriptions of the thoughts of Arline Duker, Vicki and Len Eisenfeld, and Stephen Flatow and their reactions to various events at different times in this story were drawn from extensive interviews with each of them as well as letters they shared with me that expressed some of their sentiments at the time and copies of their speeches, press conferences and transcripts of their testimony in their trials and before several committees of the US Congress.

  The description of the bombings on Jaffa Road was based on firsthand accounts by members of Israel’s ambulance service, Magen David Adom, and investigators for Israeli’s National Police and the Shin Bet counterterrorism agency. My descriptions were enhanced by my review of news video from Israeli television, photographs by police and news agencies, and by a variety of news articles by Israeli, American, British, French, German, Austrailian, and Palestinian media. For documentation of injuries to victims, I relied on records and accounts by Dr. Avi Rivkind, the chief trauma surgeon at Hadassah Ein Kerem Medical Center in Jerusalem, and from autopsy reports complied by Israeli’s National Institute of Forensic Medicine and its chief pathologist at the time, Dr. Yehuda Hiss. The description of the bombing in Kfar Darom in which Alisa Flatow was killed was based on court transcripts and police reports. News video on Israeli and US TV, along with newspaper accounts, also provided extensive background on each bombing.

  Research on Hassan Salameh’s role in the Jaffa Road bombing—and his wider affiliation with other Palestinian militants, including his connection with some of those involved in the Kfar Darom bombing—is based on the transcripts of his declassified interrogations by Israeli authorities, as well as the transcript of his trial, his own interviews with me and with CBS, his writings (which were published by Hamas and obtained and translated by me), and my interviews with the chief judge and prosecutor of Salameh’s military trial in Israel, a variety of officials from Israel’s counterterror and police agencies, and with the Palestinian Authority’s Jibril Rajoub. I also obtained additional information on the suicide bomber of the Jaffa Road bus, Majdi Abu Wardeh, in conversations with his family at the al-Fawwar refugee camp as well as from the transcripts of Hassan Salameh’s interrogations and conversations with Israel’s National Police and the Shin Bet.

  Research on the wider acceptance of suicide bombing among Sunni Muslims was based on a variety of documents from the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) and, in particular, the writings of Sheik Ahmed Yassin, the now-deceased spiritual leader of Hamas. For background on the theology and politics of suicide bombers, I drew on a variety of books that were based on original research, in particular: The Path to Paradise: The Inner World of Suicide Bombers and their Dispatchers by Anat Berko; Manufacturing Human Bombs: The Making of Palestinian Suicide Bombers by Mohammed M. Hafez; and Hamas: Politics, Charity and Terrorism in the Service of Jihad by Matthew Levitt.

  Research about the efforts by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Department of Justice to seek a criminal indictment against Hassan Salameh and other Palestinians was based on interviews with federal prosecutors and with FBI agents, as well as from internal memos and reports obtained by me.

  “It is the scientist’s job to deal with the rational. The writer is privileged to go beyond, and prod the mystical elements that God has left beyond our understanding.”

  I found those lines by Sara Duker, scrawled on a piece of paper and tucked into the back of one of her diaries. I copied the passage and tacked it to the bulletin board above my desk as I researched and wrote this book, often looking to those words for inspiration and as a stark reminder of the difficulty in fully understanding the impact of terrorism on the lives of ordinary people. As I came to discover, murder in the name of God is not rational. Yet, as I also learned, it is not mystical either. It is born in one of life’s darkest places. My guiding wish throughout this project was that the hope-filled lives of Sara, Matthew, and Alisa will shine light into that dark place.

  Mike Kelly

  April 2014

  Acknowledgments

  My wife, Judy, has been the steady guide to me as I researched and wrote this book. She not only offered love, kindness, and a patient ear as I recounted almost every step of this story, but she also volunteered her sharp and graceful eye in reviewing each page. I could not have written this book without her by my side. Likewise, my daughters, Michelle and Anne, always were there with advice, encouragement, and good humor.

  Tim Hays was not merely a literary agent; he was a source of inspiration. Every writer should be as lucky as I am to have such an agent. I am deeply grateful for his friendship.

  At Globe Pequot Press, Steve Culpepper spotted the significance of this story early on and kept me on track as I told it. He is an editor of exceptional ability, not just in his care of the language and the craft of writing, but in nurturing a writer’s ideas. I am also grateful to Globe Pequot’s project editor, Meredith Dias, for shepherding this book through its final stages.

  Early in the process, Samuel S. Vaughan, the legendary publishing executive and editor of my first book, pushed me to explore more deeply the impact of terrorism on people. Sam died before this book was finished. But his voice still rings true to me as a writer who was briefly blessed by his guiding hand. To know him was one of the great gifts of my life.

  The newspaper that I have called home for most of my career, The (Bergen) Record, allowed me the freedom to cover terrorism, not only in northern New Jersey but across the world after the 9/11 attacks. I am especially grateful to the Borg family, which has owned The Record for almost a century. In a world where many newspapers are retreating, the Borgs are charging ahead with a commitment to first-rate journalism. They represent the best of American journalism.

  At The Record, I have been blessed to work side by side with a variety of immensely talented colleagues who were always there to inspire me and offer advice. These include: Martin Gottlieb, Diedre Sykes, Tim Nostrand, Dan Sforza, Will Lamb, Lindy Washburn, Peter Grad, Tom Franklin, Jim Wright, Carmine Galasso, Frank Scandale, and Vivian Waixel.

  The Record’s Jon Naso, James Anness, and Youssef Amre helped to track down photos, as did Nancy Glowinski of Reuters and Mike Piskorski, Stephen Dunn, and Mark Mirko of the Hartford Courant.

  Steven Perles and Thomas Fortune Fay offered hours of insight into the court cases they shepherded through the US federal courts on behalf of the Flatow, Duker, and Eisenfeld families. Other attorneys who offered observations on these landmark cases and background of the laws on which they were based, include: John Karr, Stuart Newberger, Allan Gerson, and Mark Zaid.

  US District Court Judge Royce Lamberth generously offered background on the decisions he wrote in the Flatow and Duker-Eisenfeld cases, as well as others terrorism cases he handled. Judge Lamberth’s chief of staff, Sheldon Snook, was a much-needed guidepost as I tracked down court records at the National Archives with the help of Bryant Johnson and Michael Darby.

  Stuart Eizenstat scrupulously explained his role in sculpting a compromise between the US Congress and the Clinton Administration. Former US Ambassador to Israel Martin Indyk, brought his sharp eye to history, as did former Middle East envoy Dennis Ross and former Norwegian ambassador and United Nations Middle East specialist, Terje Roed-Larsen, who was one of the chief architects of the Oslo Accords.

  At the Department of State, Lisa Grosh, Ron Kleinman, and Ron Bettauer were especially helpful in detailing the legal issues that the Flatow and Duker-Eisenfeld cases posed for US diplomacy. Also, at the State Department, retired foreign service officer Kathleen Riley guided me through her efforts to notify the Duker and Eisenfeld families about the bombing on Jaffa Road.

  At the Department of Justice, Jeff Breinholt and Jim Reynolds supplied background on the ill-f
ated efforts by federal prosecutors to build a criminal prosecution of Hassan Salameh and other Palestinian militants who had been linked to terrorist bombings. Retired FBI counterterrorism chief Harry Brandon and retired FBI special agent Thomas Graney also provided details on Palestinian terrorism and, in particular, the role of Hassan Salameh.

  Former National Security Council official Richard Nuccio was among a number of former White House staffers who guided me through the series of political, legal, and military dilemmas facing the Clinton administration after the Jaffa Road bombing and the downing of the Brothers to the Rescue planes by the Cuban Air Force in February 1996.

  Former staffers for US Senators Frank Lautenberg, Connie Mack, and Arlen Specter generously offered time and documents in explaining the passage of a variety of laws that led to the Flatow and Duker-­Eisenfeld cases. Senator Lautenberg’s chief of staff, Dan Katz, was especially helpful, as were Sharon Waxman and Frederic Baron. Senator Mack also contributed his personal insight, along with his former staffer, Gary Shiffman, who provided thousands of pages of documents. The former chief counsel to Senator Specter’s subcommittee on terrorism, ­Richard Hertling, steered me through the difficult clauses of various laws that allowed US families to file lawsuits against foreign terrorists.