Murder in the Holy Land
I'm not the first one to tell the story of Rachel Levy and Ayat al-Akhras. As much as I hate to admit it, I didn't even do the best job with it. I'd give credit to Joshua Hammer of Newsweek or Joel Greenberg of the The New York Times for writing better pieces. But I hope I got a sense of what Rachel's life was all about. Here's the beginning:
In another world, Rachel Levy and Ayat Al-Akhras could have been friends.
They were both young, dark-haired and pretty. Ayat wanted to be a journalist, Rachel liked photography. They lived close to one another and both enjoyed pop music.
But Rachel, who grew up in Northridge, was Israeli. Ayat, who grew up in the Deheisheh Refugee Camp, was Palestinian.
The first time they met, March 29, 2002, Ayat reached into her purse, punched a hidden button and murdered Rachel with a bomb. The pair died, along with a man, in a fiery, gruesome blast.
The two girls' stories, which grabbed the world's attention at the time, are back in the public conscience again. Tonight, HBO will air "To Die in Jerusalem," a documentary that explores their lives, deaths and the families they left behind.
"One wanted to kill, one wanted to live," said Edna Levy, Rachel's aunt. "They could have been good friends, they could have gone to school and studied together. But it wasn't like that. It's just so sad."
The rest of the story's here, or if you're more of an audio person, check out Public Radio International's "The World" report on the film.
I didn't get a chance to watch the whole documentary, so I can't get into the specifics of what all the director covered. But I will say this is one of the rare times I find myself in agreement with President Bush, who makes a rare appearance as a quote in my story (oddly enough, he doesn't weigh in on a whole lot of San Fernando Valley crime issues).
I don't claim to be an expert on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, nor will I try to take sides in the argument. With thousands of years of fighting, my coffee cup insights aren't gonna make any difference.
But, hopefully, Rachel and Ayat will. These aren't soldiers dying in a war-- they were kids. Real, actual kids. One teenager who blew up another, solely because she was an Israeli girl walking to the market. A security guard, 55-year-old Haim Smadar, prevented the carnage from being greater.
Any way you look at this, it's a tragedy. Perhaps if the folks pointing fingers back and forth on both sides will keep this example in mind and remember these weren't abstract numbers in a newspaper column. They were real, vibrant people who could have had much ahead of them.
As Edna Levy told me, in a quote that didn't make it into the story:
"It's been five-and-a-half years and it's not behind us. It's a big scar for the whole family-- everybody loved Rachel. She was a star-- we didn't want to see her in a grave. When I go back to visit, I don't want to kiss a stone."
Unfortunately, that and 17 years worth of memories are all that's left of Rachel Levy. The same for Ayat al-Akhras. Let's hope those memories can inspire people to change, but with thousands of dead before them, I'm not all that optimistic.
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