Excerpt from a news story on abcnews.com about living with the sniper:
In Beirut, Lebanon, it was random car bombings in the 1980s. In Belfast,
Northern Ireland, it was bombs until the late 1990s. In Israel, most recently,
it has been suicide bombers. Each case is a reminder of the leverage that
terror gives the terrorist. His victims may be relatively few, but because
anyone can be a victim at any time, he instills fear in everyone.
It's only natural for people to want to practice what is called "avoidance" —
taking precautions to avoid being a target, said Dr. Arieh Shalev, the chief
of psychiatry at Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem and a specialist in
post-traumatic stress disorder.
But he warned that avoidance can go to an extreme. "[We teach] our traumatized
people that avoidance is lifesaving, but excessive avoidance, if fear
penetrates each and every territory, one's home, all the buses, each and every
person on the street, then, it's much too much."
In other words, in Israel experts are giving the same advice as authorities in
Washington: Live life as usual.
The attitude of terrorized people is very adaptable, Shalev said. "It takes 10
days or 15 days for the streets of Jerusalem to fill up with people after a
terror attack. And then another comes. And for another five to 10 days the
street will be deserted. And then people will come back. So, it's an ongoing
phenomenon."
To read the entire story, go to:
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/nightline/DailyNews/nightline021017_sniper.html
Kat
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