Israelis numbed by pointless death of national hero

ISRAELIS yesterday mourned the death of their country’s first astronaut on the space shuttle Columbia with a weary sense of familiarity with dashed dreams.

"Newspapers are writing this morning about how we can't even manage to get a break in space," said the host of an Israel Radio talk show.

Flags flew at half-mast and radio stations played sombre music as a nation remembered Air Force Colonel Ilan Ramon, 48, killed along with six American astronauts when NASA's oldest shuttle disintegrated on reentry on Saturday.

"The day will come when we will launch more Israeli astronauts into space," Prime Minister Ariel Sharon told his cabinet, which observed a moment of silence.

More than two years of daily violence with the Palestinians and fears that Israel could come under Iraqi missile attack if a war erupts have dimmed the hopes of even the most starry-eyed Israeli that peace will come any time soon.

But cynicism gave way to a rare lifting of spirits when Ramon became the first Israeli to soar into space. As debris came crashing down on a Texas town called Palestine an irony not lost on Israelis national morale plunged anew.

"I felt sad. Finally, there was an Israeli astronaut in space, and he didn't come back," said Noa, a sixth-grader in a Jerusalem school, where classmates shouted a resounding no when asked by their teacher if space exploration should stop.

The children, no strangers to violence in a city rocked by Palestinian suicide bombings, were dry-eyed against the backdrop of a picture of Ramon that had been tacked to a bulletin board.

Commentator Ari Shavi, writing in the Ha'aretz newspaper, said the Columbia disaster symbolised for a glum Israel a "hope that keeps shattering ... of floating in some weightless normalcy in utter disregard of the gravity of our existence."

Daniel Kurtzer, the US ambassador to Israel, spoke at a memorial ceremony at Sharon's office of the close relationship between the Jewish state and its main ally.

"As we share triumphs, we also share misfortune," he said. "Americans and Israelis are brothers indeed, on Earth and in space."