A suicide bomber, a terrorist, detonated himself in front of a Falafel fast food restaurant in Tel Aviv on Monday. At least nine people died and more than fifty were wounded, some critically.

Hamas, the current government of the Palestinian territories, is not interested in peace. They praised the bombing and promised more to come. Not that the previous government under Fatah was particularly interested in peace either. The destruction of Israel and the murder of Jews has been and remains their aim. When they speak of "liberating Palestine" from "oppression" they are not speaking of just Gaza and the West Bank. They mean Israel as a whole, from Haifa to Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

And yet somehow Israel is the one that so many people want to demonize. Why are those who fight terrorists criticized so frequently, while those who kill indiscrimitately are so often portrayed as victims? Why is it so hard for so many to figure out that those who bomb busses, discos, and restaurants are the bad guys? Why is it so hard to recognize that the reason the terrorists and the jihadists do what they do is not because of legitimate gripes, some sin on the part of the West, but simply because they hate those who are not Moslem? Instead of reading the pundits and apologists for the terrorists, maybe people should actually listen to what the bad guys are saying themselves and believe them.

I found this description of the bombs used in suicide bombings of interest. An exerpt from Meryl Yourish:

Primary blast injury is caused by the rapid outward spread of the shock wave. Injury to gas-containing organs, such as perforation of the middle ear and blast lung injury (BLI) are most common (22.1% and 18.2% of victims, respectively). Of all patients with BLI, 82% of victims aboard buses and in semiconfined spaces will suffer from moderate and severe forms of BLI compared with 33% of victims in open spaces. S econdary blast injury is caused by penetrating missiles that are propelled by the blast wave. More than 85% of victims of suicide bombing attacks (SBA) suffer from penetrating shrapnel and debris, most commonly to the head. Tertiary blast injury results from a patient’s body being displaced by expanding gases. Burns are termed quaternary blast injury and are also notably more common after explosions inside confined spaces compared with open spaces (33.9% versus 5% of victims, respectively). The hallmark of injuries after an SBA is the combination of blunt injury, multiple penetrating injuries with extensive soft tissue damage, and burns. Half of all patients hospitalized will be seen in a trauma unit setting and the same proportion will be admitted to an intensive care unit. Victims of SBAs are more severely injured compared with other trauma victims. Typical injuries include penetrating injury to the head (55%), extremities (49%), and torso (40%), burns (27%), open fractures (22%), and BLI (18%).

Here is an article I have referenced before, which contains X-Rays of the victims of palestinian terrorist bombs.

Messing said one of the victims he saw while in Jerusalem had around 300 individual metallic fragments within his body. The metal fragments, measuring from millimeters to centimeters, were imbedded in the young man literally from head to toe, he said.

“Several of the fragments penetrated into his vital organs. He sustained a punctured colon, a collapsed lung, and a lacerated liver and kidney. I could actually feel the nails under his skin where they had burrowed and lodged,” Messing recalls.

Shrapnel is what killed Phillip Balhasan, who stayed alive long enough to realize his children had survived, and to hug them tightly before he collapsed.

But even this is not enough for the terrorists. They also soak the shrapnel in rat poison, because it causes hemorrhaging — victims may bleed to death before they can get to the hospital.

Remember all of this, when you hear the world tell Israel to “use restraint” in responding to this attack. Remember all of this, when you read about the innocent metal shop owners who insist their shops were only making nails and screws for construction purposes.

Remember all of this, when Israel is the nation that is demonized by the blind, hateful people who wear checked kaffiyehs at anti-war protests, and call Israel an “apartheid state” for building a separation barrier — to keep out the monsters who would use bombs like I have just described.

Remember this, when you look at the pictures of the results of the bombing, and notice the thousands of dents in the metal surrounding the bombing area — the mark of the ball-bearings and other metal shrapnel.

These are the people with whom the world sympathizes: Those who create and set off the bombs. Not the victims. The bombers.

And that’s the worst evil of all.

For the whole thing, read Meryl Yourish. I have not done extensive research yet to fact check everything, but it matches information I have read elsewhere.