A TIME TO SPEAK
Vol. IV: 7 (No. 43)
July 2004 - Tammuz-Av 5764
THE MIGHTY MEN OF VALOR
They were swifter than eagles,
They were braver than lions.
-- II Samuel 1:23
In biblical usage, gibor hayil is "a mighty man of valor" in battle. But
the concept is not exclusively military. It is also used for a person who
has earned the respect of his community for being reliable, responsible,
and capable -- a concept found also in the ishat hayil [Woman of Valor] in Proverbs 31:10-31. This
complex connotation is still apt today, when hayil (masculine) or hayalet (feminine) means one who serves in Tzahal, an acronym for Tzeva HaGanah L'Yisrael [IDF -- Israel Defense Forces].
These soldiers are conscripted at the age of
18, serve a fixed term of active duty, and may thereafter be called up for
annual reserve duty or emergency service. The young Israelis in service,
and the not-so-young Israelis in the reserves, form a true citizen-military,
with only a small cadre of professional officers. They leave homes and family,
education and work, to guard against, confront and repel the massive assaults
of vastly larger enemy forces and the sneak tactics of terrorists. They
know that weakness or failure or defeat would mean the annihilation of their
country and the slaughter of their people. They do their job superbly, and
with remarkably little bravado or swagger.
The foreign news media's bland notice of "Israeli
soldier killed . . . " means that one of them -- usually 18-22 years old
-- has fallen at his or her post. To date, Tzahal's casualties come close to 22,000 slain and
80,000 wounded or disabled. In the War of Independence in 1947-48 the toll
was close to 6,400 killed out of a total population of 600,000.
* * * * * * *
Let us be strong and strengthen ourselves for the sake
of our people . . .
-- I Chronicles 19:13
It used to be a standard ingredient of Judeophobia
to call Jews feeble and cowardly, unable or unwilling to fight. Now that
this charge is obsolete, it is replaced with a defamatory depiction of a
hyper-militaristic Israel and the brutal Israeli soldier who kills Arab babies
for fun.
From biblical days onward, the Children of
Israel have held a cherished vision of a day when "nations shall not learn war any more". But in the meantime, they can and do fight
when necessary. This begins with their Father Abraham, a peaceable man who
raised a small force that pursued five marauding kings and rescued the captives
they were leading away to slavery or death. Even in countries where Jews
were excluded from citizenship and banned from the military, they fought
when their only hope was to die with honor, from medieval times to the Warsaw
Ghetto.
In nations where Jews are endowed with citizenship,
they willingly bear their share of the national defense. In the United States,
that began in 1776, with the death in battle of Francis Salvador, an officer
in the South Carolina Militia.
A typical Tzahal soldier recalls his experience in "Thank You and Goodbye, IDF,"
by Rani Levy, Israel Unity Coalition.com, 9 July 2004:
Dedicated
to my 21,790 Brothers and Sisters who fell in Israel's Wars and Operations.
Early
morning of Monday November 1, 1982, we said good-ye to my mother. An hour
later, my father and I stopped in front of the Tel-Hashomer IDF recruit center
near Tel-Aviv. I was 18, and I was joining the Israel Defense Forces (IDF)
that morning.
In
the Israeli common language, this is the nightmare of every parent. Pride,
mixed with pain and worry, for a child leaving the house for the first time.
With wet eyes, the tough Paratrooper Colonel whose been in all of Israel's
wars - kissed me, wished me luck, and tucked into my pocket a little book
of Psalms which I carry to this day.
Next
month, I will be returning the IDF card I received on that morning. Getting
to be 40 in Israel, means not being wanted by the army anymore. It is not
easy not to be a soldier anymore. It makes you feel old. It makes you feel
less attached to Israel's best-kept secret, most unifying, most internationally
adored creation - The IDF.
Since
that morning of November 1982, I had three and a half years of mandatory
military service, and several reserve tours. The one I would like to share
was the one before last, Operation Defensive Shield in April 2002.
It
was Saturday night, March 30, 2002. Just a little over 2 years ago. My wife
and I returned home from a visit over at our friends' house, just before
midnight. The phone rang. It was Lior, my deputy Company commander, from
my reserve unit in the IDF.
"A
Code 8 has been issued for our unit, you need to report to the Dry Storage
Base tomorrow morning. Prepare for several weeks, we are going to war."
I put the phone down, and told my wife Alma, the news. It did not come as
a surprise. Israel was still under the shock of the Passover Massacre in
the Netanya Park Hotel, which murdered 30 people in the middle of the Passover
Meal, only 3 days earlier.
Code
8 is the nightmare of any IDF reservist. It means you go to war. Not a tour,
not a campaign, not a training of a week or two with good ol' Army buddies.
It means combat. It means you may get killed. It means someone you know,
will get killed. [. . . .]
I
made several phone calls to my Army team members, those I had to call who
would later be in my APC or Infantry Platoon. There was a heavy feeling
in the air. I pulled down my Army duffle bag from the attic, and made sure
all my army gear was in there. It was hard to sleep that night. My mind
was running fast. What will it be like? . . . Will my little son do this
too when he will be 38 years old?
Saying
goodbye to my kids and to Alma the next morning was different than ever before.
I have been doing this since the age of 18, but there was a feeling that
this is different. This is so different. I have 3 children now. I have a
pregnant wife. I am 38.
[.
. . .] I arrived at the base in Southern Israel, shortly after noon. Within
several hours, I was witnessing and engaged in one of the most powerful
Military experiences I have ever gone through. I saw scenes that reminded
me of American movies of War. Helicopters in the air. Military Police keeping
the traffic flowing, thousands of cars of civilians, Israelis 22-40, like
me, who had to leave everything they do, with a 12 hour notice by phone,
and become soldiers in a matter of hours.
I
saw how a dead city of neatly covered armored vehicles, became a monster
of thousands of living roaring machines, fully armed, fueled and manned,
by experienced and fully motivated men. 37,000 men were recruited that day.
At
around 10 PM that Sunday, less than 24 hours after CODE 8 was issued, the
execution order took place. A group of business men, teachers, scientists,
plumbers, truck drivers, shop owners and university students, mostly married
guys with kids at home, became a fully armed ready to go armored mechanized
division.
The
Brig.-Gen., the Commander of my Division, spoke clearly in front of the thousands
of men. "We are to engage the enemy inside their cities, where the terror
is coming from. We will have casualties, we will pay a price.. But it's either
they get us in our homes buses or cafes or we get them in their hideaways.
When you ride in your APC or in your tank or in your Jeep tomorrow, and in
the next few weeks, remember the Passover Meal in Netanya. Remember the Dolfinarium
in Tel-Aviv. Remember Sbarro in Jerusalem, and all the buses.' Then he
went on about the details of our mission, and briefed each Battalion separately.
It ended at 4AM, Monday morning.
People
started writing letters to their loved ones. Others just sat and meditated.
Others prayed. Some laughed and made jokes about the whole thing, to release
the tension. We started moving at about 6 AM.
Later
on Monday, we entered into combat, and literally released the force we were
replacing under fire. My Battalion was positioned in the Central Gaza front,
near the city of Al Burej, about 5 miles South of the city of Gaza, only
40 minutes away from my home, if you drove leisurely.
I
spent 4 weeks in the Army during Operation Defensive Shield. Basically,
all of April 2002. It was the toughest and most dangerous military activity
I had engaged in since my mandatory three-year service, which I did when
I was 18-21.
My
Battalion performed very well. The motivation and morale were very high,
and all of us really teamed up to make this work. It was a powerful feeling
of camaraderie, military discipline and professional militarism that I have
ever seen. No one complained, no one asked to be dismissed, no one, all
of a sudden, had any problems at home to whine about. There was that historic
feeling; we are here for all the victims of terror.
[.
. . ] Thank G-d, my unit did not suffer any direct casualties from Palestinian
gunfire. We were shot at about 20-25 different times during this 4 week operation,
we took hits on our armored APCs twice from roadside bombs, and we prevented
at least 10 different efforts we know of, attempted penetration into Israel
to commit mass shootings and killing in the villages and kibbutzim which
were a mile or two away from us, directly behind us.
In
the middle of Operation Defensive Shield, Israel's Independence Day celebration
took place. No one was allowed to leave to celebrate with his or her families.
We were spreading ourselves very thin in terms of manpower, and the tasks
which my unit was ordered to perform made it impossible to have even three
of us leave for home at the same time. Everybody was 'grounded'
On
that night when celebrations took place all over Israel, we got intelligence
about a potential group of Hamas infiltrators who were planning to raid
our own post, the actual barracks where our Company was stationed. An attack
like that had taken place 3 months earlier, leaving 7 of the Company soldiers
we replaced - dead. [ . . . .]
The
mission of that night was accomplished thank God. . . . . On April 25, 2002
Operation Defensive Shield ended. We had lost 40 men during this operation,
mostly reservists. We had over 100 casualties.
Since
that experience, I often think of my fellow reserve unit team members. I
often think of that detached from reality experience, of throwing your frantic
schedule away, and going to the army for an unknown period of time, to fight
for your home. Not a war across the globe, not a war of principals, but a
war, a race, against the next bus bombing down the street.
I
wonder how many times can a Government issue Code 8? What is the energy
that exists there, to give the order, and know without a doubt that everyone
will not only show up, but come eager, motivated, determined, and not say
a word - until it's all over..
I
almost feel like I want to thank the IDF, for allowing me to serve all those
years. . . . . During my 1,450-1,500 or so days of being in IDF uniforms
during the past 22 years, I have obeyed many orders, and had a chance to
give a few here and there. I participated in various types of activities
all over the Golan, Samaria, Judea and Gaza. I was in Lebanon and participated
in too many funerals of fellow soldiers from my Battalion. I was never given
a reason to doubt anything that I did, or any order I was given.
As
I leave the IDF, I feel very fortunate. I feel fortunate to have completed
a front-line duty in one piece despite all the dangers. I feel satisfaction
with my training, and have benefited from it as a valuable life experience.
But,
I also feel very thankful for the one order I was never given. When you
are a soldier in Israel, there is one order you pray you will never be given. As I leave the IDF, I want to wish my colleagues who are
still serving and those who will serve in years to come: May you be as fortunate
as I was, and may you never ever be given that horrible order -- the order
to break into the house of a fellow Israeli family, some of whom may be
reserve soldiers just like you, look them in the eye, and then take from
them everything they have got. Their home and their Integrity.
But,
if this terrible day will come for you, and if, G-d forbid, you will be
given this terrible order, do what your heart tells you. Do what a good
IDF soldier would do. Do it with no hesitation.
Fall
on your face, and cry for your country.
* * * * * * *
Be strong and courageous, fear not nor be terrified
because of them . . .
--
Deuteronomy 31:6
The struggle for security Israel has now been
going on for more than a century, with alternating intervals of warfare
and quasi-truce. It has always been a struggle against very high odds and
it still is. It is merely a trick of current propaganda to present it as
an Israeli Goliath dominant over pitiable West-of-the-Jordan Arabs ("Palestinians").
The assault on Israel is waged in one way or another by the entire Arab
world of 22 states with 500,000,000 people, supported by most of the Muslim
world of almost two billion people. Today, the odds are if anything greater
than they were at the beginning of the war, as the United Nations and the
European Union have become non-combatant support personnel for the Arabs.
Through almost all the years of the Exile,
there were Jews living in the Land of Israel, subjected to the regime of
usually hostile foreign empires and their local corrupt overseers. From the
1870s onwards a flow of pioneers came to redeem and rebuild an abandoned
ancestral homeland. From the start, they were targets for attacks of bandits
and brigands, and later on of organized terrorist gangs.
They could expect no protection from the Ottoman
Turks who were the occupying power until 1918, and very little from the
British Mandatory Government that was the occupying power until 1948. So
the Jewish pioneers organized their own defense, that began with a watchman
patrolling the settlement and its fields. In 1909, the scattered settlements
formed an association for their common security called HaShomer [The Watchman]. In 1920, HaShomer was expanded into HaGanah [The Defense). Both HaShomer and HaGanah, though quasi-military in function, were always
under the direction of the elected civil bodies that managed the affairs
of the Jewish community.
Many men of the Jewish settlements enlisted
and served in the British military in both World War I and World War II,
but that did not temper the British determination not to protect the Jews
or allow the Jews to protect themselves. The exceptions, Colonel Richard
Meinhertzhagen, and General Orde Wingate -- known as HaYedid [The Friend] -- were banished from Palestine
because of their unseemly affinity for the Jews and their cause.
When Israel declared its independence in May
1948, the hitherto "illegal" HaGanah became its de facto defense force, and was
officially transformed into Tzahal [IDF}, subsuming land, air and sea forces.
* * * * * * *
When Saul became the first King of Israel (circa
1032 BCE), the Philistines held a monopoly on forges that could produce
weapons, and they made sure that the Israelites should have neither spears
nor swords. It was a policy that has not yet gone out of fashion.
1] Great Britain in the last stages of the
Mandate strove to whittle down the Jewish capacity for defense, while providing
weapons to the Arabs. It also provided British officers and a British commander
for Trans-Jordan's Arab Legion. Thus it went into its war of extermination
against Israel led by General Sir John Bagot Glubb; the Glubb Pasha who in
his memoirs recalled fondly how he gazed at the bodies of dead Jews brought
down by his "angels".
Even after Israel gave citizenship to the Jewish
refugees the British held incarcerated in camps in Cyprus they were not
allowed to leave for their own country -- lest these survivors of the Holocaust
tilt the balance of manpower against the six Arab states. Nevertheless,
some of them, weakened by years of starvation, slavery and torment, without
any military experience or training, managed to reach their Promised Land
in time to defend it and to die for it.
2] The United States, though it gave instant
recognition to the State of Israel, also imposed an embargo on weapons.
3] When Egypt, Jordan and Syria launched the
Six-Day War in 1967, Israel had already purchased and paid for French Mirage
jets for its air force. They were Israel's property, but France refused
to deliver them.
4] When Egypt and Syria launched the Yom Kippur
War in 1973, some of Israel's tanks were in Great Britain for servicing
and repair. They were Israel's property, but Britain refused to return
them -- while it continued to send military helicopters to Egypt.
* * * * * * *
Tzahal is noted for the speed and effectiveness of
its rescue and humanitarian missions. So much so, that nations struck by
a sudden disaster, whether inflicted by nature or by man, call to Israel
for help and Israel always sends the help at once. That does not inhibit
the beneficiary states from adding their own voices to the international
hate-Israel howl, perhaps confident that after the next disaster Israel will
rush to their succor anyway.
* * * * * * *
The men and women of Tzahal and all those who love them cannot depend
on organs of their own government and society to stand firmly with those
who are risking their own lives to protect them.
Sometimes this is a matter or bad judgment:
1] The smug Supreme Court of Israel gives rulings
that hinder the demolition of structures used by snipers and other terrorists.
These rulings sometimes cost the lives of soldiers.
2] In October 2000 a PLO-mob attacked the site
known as Joseph's Tomb, officially recognized as a Holy Place. Among the
defenders of the Tomb was 22-year-old Corporal Madhat Yusuf (whose own name
is the Arabic form of Joseph), an Israeli Druze serving in the quasi-military
Border Police. Corporal Yusuf was wounded by a gunshot.
Prime Minister Ehud Barak made the disgraceful
decision to appeal to the PLO to allow the wounded man to be evacuated,
instead of forcing the way for an ambulance to reach him. Corporal Yussuf
bled to death at his post. Joseph's Tomb was then abandoned to the mob,
that promptly demolished it and tried to set a mosque in its place..
3] In 2002, Tzahal was sent to clean out the UN-sponsored terrorist
base in Jenin. In an order meant not for maximum effectiveness but for minimum
enemy casualties, the men were required to deal with the terrorists one
room at a time. This order caused the unnecessary death of 23 young soldiers.
The sacrifice was rewarded by UN officials and foreign journalists concocting
and disseminating the entirely fictional Brutal Israeli Massacre of Innocent
Arabs in Jenin.
4] The International Solidarity Movement (ISM)
is a PLO-sponsored organization that recruits young people in Western democracies
to aid and abet terrorism. As reported by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs:
"ISM members take an active part in illegal and violent actions against
IDF soldiers. At times, their activity in Judea, Samaria and the Gaza Strip
is under the auspices of Palestinian terrorist organizations."
In April 2003, Tom Hurndall, an ISM member
from England, joined a mob in Gaza that was attacking an IDF position. In
the ensuing clash, Hurndall deliberately placed himself in the line of fire,
and was struck by a bullet. He was removed to a hospital in London, where
ten months later he died of pneumonia.
An investigation by Tzahal determined that the bullet was fired by a
20-year-old officer from Israel's Bedouin Arab community. It was also determined
that he had not done anything improper or unlawful while acting in the line
of duty, and was in no way to blame for Hurndall thrusting himself into the
crossfire.
Nevertheless, under extreme pressure and intimidation
from Great Britain, this young officer is now on trial for homicide, facing
a sentence of life in prison because of another man's recklessness.
Sometimes this is a matter of calculated intent:
1] Yesh Gavul [There Is A Limit] is an organization whose purpose and program
is to induce Israeli soldiers to desert or at least refuse to carry out
their duties, and to persuade high school graduating classes to evade military
or national service. They accost soldiers in bus stations and other public
places, harassing them with their harangues, and at the same time trying
to bribe them into dereliction of duty.
This organization is supported by two tax-exempt
American charities, The New Israel Fund and the Shefia Fund.
2] Machshom [Checkpoint] Watch is a coven of
far-leftist Israeli women who hold their rites at the checkpoints where
Tzahal soldiers look out for would-be jihad-bombers
The humanitarian agenda is to "facilitate" passage through the checkpoints
by abusing the watchmen, distracting them from their duties, and threatening
them with trials for violations of human rights.
3] News media, at home and abroad, like to
inflate the numbers and significance of soldiers and ex-soldiers who put
their names to a defeatist manifesto. (Many of those who vow they will not
serve passed maximum military age decades ago.) The authors of the reports
would like to believe and make others believe that these are the true heroes,
in contrast to the brutes.
The insignificance of these performances is
explained in this excerpt from the report "Pride and Dissent in the Israeli Military,"
by Brigadier-General Gershon
HaCohen, Jerusalem Issue Brief,
Institute for Contemporary
Affairs in Jerusalem, 29 April 29, 2004.
In my own experience
as commander of the IDF’s 'Gaash' Formation, which includes combat units
such as the Golani Brigade, I have never met with even one incidence of refusal
to obey orders or lack of motivation. The main problem is sometimes exactly
the opposite – my troops suffer from over-motivation. [.
. . . ]
In my experience, the
only problematic soldiers are those with socioeconomic problems, not ideological
ones. We help those soldiers who cannot afford to serve in a combat unit
because of economic difficulties to do so.
Out of hundreds of thousands
of reserve soldiers, less than 500 were declared to have refused service.
Only twelve pilots declared they would disobey orders and only one of those
has taken part in combat operations in the last ten years. The percentage
of those who ideologically refuse to obey orders is so low that many commanders
have no such soldiers in their units. [. . . .]
*
* * * * * *
Four young soldiers, the kind that European
cartoonists draw as slavering monsters, were manning a security checkpoint
at the edge of the Gaza Strip when an Arab woman sought passage through.
In respect for her modesty, they sent for a woman soldier to perform the
mandatory search for weapons or explosives.
When the woman complained of a physical disability,
they allowed her to enter the post where she could wait sitting down. There,
she detonated her bomb belt, and killed all four of them along with herself.
She was sent on this mission to expiate adultery, as agreed by her husband
and her paramour.
On another day in Gaza, a young soldiers was
shot dead by a sniper while he was helping an old Arab woman to carry her
groceries. A second soldier who ran to his aid was also killed.
END