American victim of Second Intifada suicide bombing 'retraumatized' by Hamas support in US

(JNS) - More than two decades on from suffering horrific injuries in a Hamas terror attack, a New Jersey resident says she and other victims have been "retraumatized" by ongoing support for Hamas on American streets and university campuses.

Sarri Singer, a Lakewood native, was volunteering in Israel when she was seriously wounded in the Davidka Square suicide bombing on a Jerusalem 14A bus on June 11, 2003. The Palestinian terrorist, dressed as an Orthodox Jew, had boarded the bus at the Mahane Yehuda market stop on Jaffa Road.

The attack killed 17 people, including the woman sitting next to Singer, and wounded over 100 more.

Singer, bleeding and burned on her hair and face, was extracted from the bus, with pieces of shrapnel lodged in her neck, shoulders and mouth. She suffered a fractured clavicle and popped eardrums, spending 12 days in the hospital before returning to the Garden State post-surgery.

Singer told JNS she hopes the incoming administration of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump can clamp down on the disturbing sights of Hamas support in America before what has happened in Israel is replicated at home.

"My biggest thing in the political world, if you want to put it that way, is our safety and security, which has been a heightened fear for me over the last few years," said Singer, who said she doesn't delve much into politics. 

Singer, who went to high school and college in the United States, said there has always been an element of antisemitism around. But she said there has been as of late "this sort of carte blanche, that people can just say whatever they want, and there's no repercussion for it."

She said her work as the founder and director of Strength to Strength, a nonprofit organization established to bring survivors of terrorism and their families together globally to heal, has given her insights into what is taking place aboard.

"I'm more privy to things going on, and a lot of my work that I'm dealing with is in Europe. I feel like they're about 10 years ahead of us in the prevention space when it comes to terrorism and trying to combat it and stop radicalization and indoctrination," she said. "I think we're not focusing enough on that here."

Asked where she'd like the incoming administration to place that focus, Singer said it starts by waking up the American public to the risk. 

"We're living in a world right now where the average American doesn't realize the threats that are around us when it comes to terrorism, and unfortunately, those of us that are in this realm understand those threats even more today than we did five years ago," she said. 

Singer told JNS she's never felt so unsafe before in the United States. Claiming that there is a lack of preparation within America for the types of attacks Hamas and their supporters plan to carry out, Singer asserted that "we're more focused on alienating those that are there to protect us, like police, the F.B.I. We should really focus on giving them the tools they need to protect the citizens of this country." 

She and a group of American victims of terror attacks in Israel talk on a weekly basis and are "re-traumatized by what we're seeing here in the U.S. and across college campuses. When I see young Americans who are supposed to be future leaders of this country screaming, 'I am Hamas,' it terrifies me.

"It's very scary to see these students siding with a terrorist organization that tried to murder me, that injured over 100 people and murdered 17 innocent people that were just on the ride home to their families," said Singer of the victims of the Davidka Square bombing, blaming a failed educational system on students' inability to separate truth from propaganda. "I think that there's a humanistic side of terrorism that these young people don't understand, and they're not even open to hearing about it."

In addition to stamping out terror support on American campuses and helping to free the hostages held in Gaza, Singer told JNS she hopes the incoming Trump administration will hamstring Iran's finances and put a stop to the Biden administration's workaround regarding the Palestinian Authority's "pay-for-slay" program.

Ramallah pays terrorists who kill and maim Israelis, with increased salaries based on the severity of the crimes. American law prohibits funding the Palestinian Authority until it discontinues the program, but the Biden White House has delivered hundreds of millions of dollars to the Palestinians for other uses, absolving the P.A. of the need to redirect "play-for-slay" funds to its general budget for the everyday needs of its citizenry.

"There's a difference between innocent Palestinian people who want to live life and want a future for their families and Hamas, a terrorist organization with a mandate to destroy Israel," said Singer. 

"There needs to be more action taken to protect the community, and I'm not just talking about the Jewish community. Nobody is immune to terrorism," she said. "The most important thing, if there's no accountability, it's going to continue."