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CNN Sunday Morning
Young Israelis Defiant
Aired April 14, 2002 - 11:56 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Despite U.S. pressure, Israel has refused to end its military action in the West Bank, and as Jason Bellini reports, the international pressure does not seem to matter to many of the young people on the streets of Jerusalem.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JASON BELLINI, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): It was a small act of defiance. Twenty minutes before a suicide bomber killed six Israelis, a crowd gathered on a street corner for a party. They were only blocks away from the blast, a street party emblematic of a defiant undercurrent in Israeli society, that despite what most of the world might think and what world leaders, including the President of the United States, now demand withdrawal of the military in the West Bank, Israelis say they'll be neither swayed nor forced.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I don't give a damn about what my mother thinks. I won't give a damn about what America thinks.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, things don't seem to be getting any better, you know. The rest of the world will say, oh yes, (inaudible) over here.
BELLINI: Even some Israeli leftists, who disagree with their country's action, say that the world should mind its own business.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Any changes that need to be made, we have to initiate them regardless of what other countries think.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We need our boots black all the time.
BELLINI: Eleanor Shiffrin and her son Gabby, an Israeli soldier, expressed that same message, but in much stronger terms.
ELEANOR SHIFFRIN: We do feel that the whole world is against us no.
BELLINI: And that doesn't bother you?
E. SHIFFRIN: Look, what bothers me is whether we have enough courage and enough unity as a nation here to defend what is just, to defend what we see as our God given right for this land.
G. SHIFFRIN: We do what we have to do. BELLINI: Israeli public opinion polls consistently show support for Sharon's military actions, even though most Israelis know those actions have not been good diplomatically for their country. Does it matter what the rest of the world thinks? Do Israelis care what the rest of the world thinks?
G. SHIFFRIN: Yes, it matters. It matters. We need the support of the rest of the world, but they don't know what is the situation here.
BELLINI: (Inaudible) Israelis, that the world doesn't appreciate their hardships. Palestinian victims, they say, win more sympathy.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Look, it looks like that we are the bad guys and they are the good, and you know the weak guys.
E. SHIFFRIN: It is always interesting and something hard, something especially brutal, something bloody, and who can survive then with this information is the Arabs.
BELLINI: Others believe that Israel's problems with President Bush and the United States are political.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Like I said, it's not really because (inaudible) that were not OK, because he's worried about what he's going to do in Iraq and he needs the whole consensus of the Arab world and it's not really about us.
BELLINI: Israelis say theirs is a defiance born of a necessity. They live in a region where they may never be liked, where doing what you have to do, they say, isn't always pretty. Jason Bellini, CNN, Jerusalem.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
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