In Israel, hopes fall with shuttle

For Israelis, the Columbia's fiery disintegration in the Texas skies didn't just herald the death of their first astronaut; it also extinguished a beacon of hope.

With the Israeli-Palestinian conflict roaring into its third year, a looming regional war, a hobbled economy, and fear of becoming an international pariah, Israelis are starved for reasons to feel good about themselves. For 16 days, Col. Ilan Ramon gave them one.

For many, the death of Ramon along with six American colleagues deepens the bond their country shares with the US.

But even as Prime Minister Ariel Sharon vows to send more astronauts skyward, there is a feeling among Israelis that, Icarus-like, they may have aimed too high and hoped for too much.

"It's a feeling of despair from the situation in which we find ourselves," says Yehuda Bauer, a professor with the Institute of Contemporary Jewry at Jerusalem's Hebrew University. "Everything bad is happening to us: Terrorism ... the economic crisis ... and then the feeling that we've lost so many good people in all the wars we've had over 100 years."

This sense of a history heavy with lives lost is compounded by an awareness that some will take pleasure in Israel's pain. "We will not be surprised to see others dancing on the roofs with joy that this has happened," says Mr. Bauer. "Islamic radicals will see in this the will of God, especially because the village over which the Columbia exploded is called Palestine, Texas."

It wasn't long before media reports proved Bauer right. "We are happy that it broke up," an Iraqi government employee said of the Columbia to foreign news agencies. "God wants to show his might is greater than the Americans."

Israeli officials had lobbied for an Israeli astronaut to go into space on a US shuttle since 1996. When Ramon began training for this mission in 2000, Israel sat up and took notice.

"Being an Israeli is a part of him, it makes us feel like we can do it too," says Daphna More, a Hebrew University student pausing between customers at the cafe where she works. She explains the collective feeling that allows Israelis to identify with each other. "You're never just one person, you're always part of something."

As flags flew at half-staff on a balmy winter day in Jerusalem, the Israeli government extended that sense of shared experience by stressing the ties between their country and the US. "Times such as these strengthen the Israeli and American peoples' common fate, identity and values, and shared vision," a government statement said, in words that echoed those used after Sept. 11.

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