Informant38

John Lennon, Tom Waits and especially Sinead O�Connor
Smadar Elchanan was only a baby when she became a poster child for the peace movement.
Her photograph appeared in a 1984 flier that called for peace with the Arabs so that the children of Israel might enjoy a better future. The brief message on the flier mused about what life in Israel would be like when Smadar reached the age of 15.
Who would have guessed that she wouldn�t make it?
Smadar Elchanan was killed by an Islamic suicide bomber 10 days ago as she went shopping for a birthday present on Jerusalem�s Ben Yehuda Street. She was just two weeks shy of her 14th birthday. And in death, as in life, she has become something of a symbol for Israel.
The girl�s truncated biography is weighted with irony. Her grandfather was the late Brig. Gen. Matti Peled, a hero of the Six-Day War of 1967, who was one of the first Israeli officials to talk with the Palestine Liberation Organization.
In deference to Peled, Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat sent a personal envoy to Smadar�s funeral last Sunday at a kibbutz in central Israel. That was shocking in itself, but then Smadar�s mother, Nurit Peled-Elchanan, issued the coup de grace when she made a startling accusation in a radio interview: "I hold the government of Israel responsible for the death of my daughter."
�Barbara Demick/Philadelphia Inquirer 09.14.97