The Circuit by Bob Shepherd

without skipping a beat that the Palestinians had their backs against the wall. The Israelis had attack helicopters, fighter aircraft, tanks and artillery while the Palestinians had nothing. The suicide bomber, he argued, was the only way to even things up.
    When he was asked why he condoned the killing of innocent civilians, Yassin answered that there were no civilians in Israel. In his view, every Israeli was a legitimate military target; the old had served in the military, the young people were in the military and the children would be one day. Yassin also justified his actions by arguing that the Palestinians had no superpower backing on the world stage; in his words, the west is quick to condemn a suicide bombing in Israel but nothing is said when the Israelis bomb a Palestinian neighbourhood.
    The irony wasn’t lost on me. Yassin was justifying suicide bombings by evoking a scenario straight out of the Hebrew Bible: David versus Goliath. But in Yassin’s version, Goliath was the Jew, David the ‘Philistine’ and the slingshot had been updated to an explosive vest.
    Almost two years after that interview, the Israelis finally assassinated Yassin, but his violent legacy lives on. His followers continue to sacrifice themselves in order to kill others. Perhaps that’s because like the biblical David, Yassin was convinced that religious superiority would allow him and his supporters to triumph over a stronger enemy.
    I’m not religious, so I’ll never understand that way of thinking, but seeing Yassin speak in person gave me a newfound respect for the power of religious conviction. Yassin’s brand of radical Islam had already inspired the 11 September hijackers. Soon, it would spread to nearly every frontier of the War on Terror, creating security challenges that would change The Circuit beyond recognition.

CHAPTER 7
    In September 2002 I ventured on a third trip to Jerusalem, again advising CNN. The day I landed, a Palestinian suicide bomber attacked a bus in Tel Aviv, killing half a dozen people and injuring more than fifty. Israel responded by immediately launching another incursion into the West Bank. That evening, I met with CNN’s Jerusalem bureau chief to see what he needed security-wise to cover the story.
    The timing of those events couldn’t have been worse for the bureau chief. He had no available shooters to send to Ramallah, his backup correspondent had just rotated out of Jerusalem and a replacement wouldn’t arrive for several days. CNN was in a bind. If the network didn’t establish an immediate presence in Ramallah, it risked falling behind its competitors in terms of coverage. Moreover, if the Israelis locked down the city, which they almost certainly would, it would be extremely difficult to get a crew in there without someone in situ to help them negotiate the checkpoints.
    I suggested to the bureau chief that as an interim measure I go to Ramallah with a live truck and engineer and work with a cameraman from TV Ramattan. That way CNN could have live pictures of what was happening and an adviser on site to help a crew get in safely, once one became available. The bureau chief told me to leave for Ramallah first thing in the morning.
    Fortunately, Nihal, the young female Palestinian producer I’d worked with during Operation Defensive Shield, had been visiting relatives in Ramallah when the IDF armour started rolling in. We linked up in Ramattan Studios where she’d already finalized arrangements for a cameraman to be loaned to CNN.
    We’d been in Ramattan less than thirty minutes when news filtered in that the Israelis were attacking Arafat’s compound. The story was confirmed by our own ears; we could hear the sound of heavy machine-gunfire coming from the location of the Mukhata. It was looking like Operation Defensive Shield all over again.
    Nihal had a great idea of where to set up operations. She knew a woman who owned a house approximately two hundred yards from the centre of the