This time Israeli television watchers needed no explanation of what the bearded men were doing with paint scrapers and plastic bags at Beit Lid junction in central Israel. They were representatives of the rabbinate, scouring the decimated bus stop for bits of human flesh blasted apart last week by Palestinian suicide bombers. Under Jewish law, the entire body must be given a proper burial. Viewers had seen the same ghastly task performed when another kamikaze bomber eviscerated a Tel Aviv bus, killing 22, only three months earlier.
Such scenes have been filling the airwaves like instant replay: four times in the...