We got back our soldiers today who were kept captive in Lebanon for 2 years. Or rather, we got two bodies back which are supposedly theirs. I presume they will be, since identification is not all that difficult.
For two years no one in Israel knew if they were alive or dead. The Hezbollah, which considers itself to be an organization comprised of human beings, refused every attempt by the International Red Cross or other humanitarian organization to visit the soldiers. Hezbollah did not provide information of any kind about whether the soldiers were alive or dead, well or injured, treated well or badly. They refused to accept any mail from the parents for their sons.
Unlike the Hezbollah, we Israelis ARE human beings, and civilized ones at that. We know what it means to grieve as a mother must, not knowing the fate of her child. Dogs are treated better by the Hezbollah than our soldiers, and that just shows just how sub-human the Hezbollah is.
We care so much for our own that we have now freed a real animal, an Arab who abducted a father and his 4 year old daughter, killed the father before the child, then killed the child, in cold blood, just to get the soldiers back, on the tiny chance they weren't dead. Samir Kuntar should be returned to Lebanon in a box, or better still, as a living suicide bomber, with a microchip embedded in his body so Israel can annihilate his entire family, to teach others a lesson. Because that is the only lesson you can teach animals like the Arabs: we will exterminate hundreds for each one of ours.
Being civilized has gotten us exactly nowhere. It's time we spoke a language sub-humans can understand. 60 years of trying to deal with our enemies as if they were humans has only convinced them of our weakness.
I won't apologize, either, for being "politically incorrect". Millions in Europe would not have died if the British hadn't been so eager to show how civilized they were with Herr Hitler in the 1930s.
In case it doesn't show, I'm really angry.
ANTIGONOS' BRAIN
| Your Brain is Green |
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15 comments:
Yes, Antigonos. I agree with your anger. I was shocked to read that in the New York Times. I just glanced at the article because I was waiting at Starbucks. I thought the Israelis knew there soldiers were dead and wanted the bodies back. I was confused by the article.
That is the entire problem. While we conform to the Geneva Conventions [part of my daughter's job, while in the army, was to escort the Red Cross on their visits, every 10 days, to the Palestinian detainees at the Ketziot camp], NO ONE has seen Gilad Shalit alive,[the letter recently transferred to his parents has been questioned as authentic by them, or at the very least, they claim, was written under duress], nor were there ANY independent reports, because no visits were allowed by the captors of Regev and Goldwasser that they were alive or dead. Indeed, the captors deliberately insinuated that they were alive throughout the two years, without providing a shred of evidence, to force the Israelis to release prisoners to get them back. The negotiations only began to move forward when the Israeli government, to the intense distress of the families, prepared to declare the soldiers dead. You can imagine how the parents felt when there was even the smallest chance that this decision would mean abandoning their sons to torture and death by the Hezbollah. And now Hamas is doing exactly the same with Shalit, making ever more extortionate demands, and I really fear the boy is already dead. Samir Kuntar has already said, in the day since his release that he looks forward to the opportunity of killing more Israelis.
ANtigonos: I am not a religious woman but I will pray for his safety. Can you recommend a good book that explains this conflict.
I am of Irish Desent and my people were very active in hating the Northern Irish. My grandmother did not consider them Irish. She considered them English. I hear they are getting along these days. So maybe some day.
However, that seems like a huge dirty trick to send back soldiers in body bags and recieve alive prisioners in return. For that my heart goes out to the family of the soldiers.
ITA, Antigonos.
The only logical reason to have made this deal would have been to not keep Karnit Goldwasser an aguna (grass widow), but as the Military Rabbinate was about to pronounce them dead anyway, I'm not sure that was entirely necessary, either.
I was waiting for someone to make a comment like Miryam's. It is apparently all right for Jews to be slaughtered, we should never do anything but cower defensively. We learned, from the Holocaust what happens to the passively accepting. They die. Had either the German people, or the Jews and other groups targeted by the Nazis, actually RESISTED the Nazis, there never would have been a Holocaust.
I believe absolutely in the existence of absolute evil. [That's actually rather easier than believing in absolute good, btw]
Since writing the post, there has been another bulldozer attack in Jerusalem, with about 30 wounded, most lightly.
Samir Kuntar has announced that he can barely wait to kill more Israelis, and NO OTHER ARABS ARE DENOUNCING HIM.
"I believe that the Israelis hold the moral highground in most if not all of their confrontations with Hezbollah."
A great comfort to the parents, siblings, children of the more 20,000 Israelis killed since Independence. I am sure that being "morally superior" is also a great comfort to the six million killed in the Holocaust.
I believe that every Moslem Arab who thinks killing an infidel, be he/she a Jew, a Christian, a Hindu, or a pagan will gain that Moslem Paradise is evil and subhuman. I am NOT a politically correct person: I choose survival over being "morally superior" in such a way. Too many people in the world love and respect Jews as long as they are dead. Live Jews are always a problem.
The old chestnuts are really coming out now. You've twisted my comment (which you didn't post). My comment about the moral high ground meant that I agree that Hezbollah is the agressor and I agree with the general thrust of your argument about it not being desirable or indeed possible to negotiate with people such as Hezbollah.I couldn't agree more that being "nice" never got Jews anywhere. That's nothing to do with what I'm saying. I'm just a bit dismayed about this "sub-human" language and yes, Jewish history does have a bearing on why I find this particularly shocking coming from a Jewish woman. I came from your blog via Amy Tuteur's homebirth blog and I always enjoy your comments on that, so I expected a bit more than what comes across as visceral, lazy racism. And why do you keep congratulating yourself on being political uncorrect. What's that got to do with anything?
I'm sorry, I didn't realize your previous post didn't get published, it should be up now.
I actually wrote a long reply, then deleted it. You didn't have to go to five funerals in one week after a suicide bomber blew up a bus of men and women going to work, children going to school, nor did the daughter of a close friend die because she wanted a piece of pizza, nor did your son, who was commanding a sniper group in Gaza for three years, have to call home frequently to make sure his parents were still alive.
And I'm not apologizing for being politically incorrect--I'm damn proud of it.
Guess I should write more about midwifery.
I am very sorry for your loss.
And before anyone (inevitably and tediously) accuses me of drawing parallels between the Shoah and what is happening in the Occupied Territories today. I am not. That would be crass and grossly anti-Semitic. You are the one applying language with repugnant historical antecedents to the contemporary situation, not me. “Sub-human” is used by those who wish to assuage their conscience because they know what they are doing is indefensible. Especially when applied to an entire people, which you carelessly did.
But I am sick of being set up as a straw man now. If this is the level of discussion conducted by people with “an intense curiosity about the world in general” then I am suffering from more than a little ennui if not depression.
Thanks for the chakchouka recipe by the way. Have you tried it with caraway?
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