John Cassidy, New Yorker - One of those affected was Yaakov Katz, a Jerusalem Post reporter who has covered many terrorist attacks and who is now on sabbatical at Harvard. In an article posted on his newspaper's Web site on Friday titled "What message is the U.S. sending with a Boston lockdown?," Katz contrasted his experience at home with what he was witnessing in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
There was no lockdown in Israel and there was no order by the mayor to seek shelter. Instead, people were out in the streets, filling up coffee shops right next to the one that had been bombed or standing at bus stops waiting for the next bus from the same line that had just exploded. This has always impressed me as a sign of true resilience, of a refusal to allow terrorism to change our way of life."Surrender" is a strong word that suggests a failure of will on the part of the American people at large. The real culprit was a near-hysterical overreaction by the authorities (and by large parts of the media, which virtually stopped covering anything else).
I am not judging the people of Boston and their leaders and yes, there is something to be said about being safe than sorry. But, I wonder about the long-term strategic ramifications and if this won't be viewed as a near-surrender to terrorism.
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