Love of the Land: A Remembrance Day reminder of where terrorists should be

A Remembrance Day reminder of where terrorists should be

Frimet/Arnold Roth
This Ongoing War
09 May '11

On Remembrance Day, we Israeli families who have experienced terror at first hand are traditionally accorded national commiseration. Though our pain is constant, we are dutifully restrained throughout the year. But today, society, friends, community and nation encourage us to release our grief.

That concession is appreciated this year more than usual. It comes at an especially trying period for terror victims. The Israeli news media are waging a high-intensity campaign to agitate for the release of terrorist murderers in order to secure the release of kidnapped soldier Gilad Shalit.

To help win our hearts and minds, journalists and politicians have focused their efforts on minimizing the pain of terror victims and questioning the motives that bring them to oppose the release of murderers.

Just a day ago, the eve of this year’s Remembrance Day, we learned that negotiations with Hamas over the release of terrorist-prisoners in return for Shalit may have progressed after months of stalemate.

Should we credit the six former high-level officials of the Shin Bet, the Mossad and the defence establishment who held a press conference two weeks ago? Their public demand that our government release every last prisoner on the Hamas list has been accorded much media attention, as has their blanket assurance:

(Read full "Remembering where terrorists belong")

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Love of the Land: A Remembrance Day reminder of where terrorists should be

Love of the Land: Remembering with a smile

Remembering with a smile

Marc Prowisor
Yesha Views
19 April '10

I entered the Central Bus station in Jerusalem to get on the bus to take me home to Shilo. It was the evening before Yom HaZikaron (Memorial Day), a few hours before the sirens went off to signify the start of this most difficult of days.

I admit that I find this day very difficult, as the feelings start to set in before the sirens, before the torches, and before the start of the ceremonies. I suppose it is very hard for Jews outside to feel as we do here. This pain, this hurt, this contemplation takes everybody back in time. We go back to the stories we heard as children, then we reflect on our days of youth in the face of terrorism and wars, we remember our days in the Army, then reserves, we remember the not to distant past, the last decade, years, months and finally days. We reflect our own experiences, our own battles, and wonder.

We swell inside, sometimes smiling at the memories of our friends and families, and then fight to hold back tears because we miss them, and we know that this is not the end of the fighting.

It is a day of intense emotions, to say the least.

I looked around me in the crowded station, and as the thoughts started to cloud my feelings, I realized that I was living the dreams and prayers of so many before me.

I was looking at Israel, at who we are, and how we get there. No ceremony, no Ultra Zionist speech, no Flag waving. I was surrounded mostly in a sea of olive drab uniforms, with a rainbow of berets on their shoulders. The pins and unit ID’s on their uniforms shined proudly. They smiled, they laughed, they grabbed each other like they haven’t seen one another in years, but in reality it was only a few weeks. They are all so young.

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Love of the Land: Remembering with a smile

Love of the Land: Remembering with a smile

Remembering with a smile

Marc Prowisor
Yesha Views
19 April '10

I entered the Central Bus station in Jerusalem to get on the bus to take me home to Shilo. It was the evening before Yom HaZikaron (Memorial Day), a few hours before the sirens went off to signify the start of this most difficult of days.

I admit that I find this day very difficult, as the feelings start to set in before the sirens, before the torches, and before the start of the ceremonies. I suppose it is very hard for Jews outside to feel as we do here. This pain, this hurt, this contemplation takes everybody back in time. We go back to the stories we heard as children, then we reflect on our days of youth in the face of terrorism and wars, we remember our days in the Army, then reserves, we remember the not to distant past, the last decade, years, months and finally days. We reflect our own experiences, our own battles, and wonder.

We swell inside, sometimes smiling at the memories of our friends and families, and then fight to hold back tears because we miss them, and we know that this is not the end of the fighting.

It is a day of intense emotions, to say the least.

I looked around me in the crowded station, and as the thoughts started to cloud my feelings, I realized that I was living the dreams and prayers of so many before me.

I was looking at Israel, at who we are, and how we get there. No ceremony, no Ultra Zionist speech, no Flag waving. I was surrounded mostly in a sea of olive drab uniforms, with a rainbow of berets on their shoulders. The pins and unit ID’s on their uniforms shined proudly. They smiled, they laughed, they grabbed each other like they haven’t seen one another in years, but in reality it was only a few weeks. They are all so young.

(Read full story)

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Love of the Land: Remembering with a smile

Love of the Land: Bad Pun on a Sad Day

Bad Pun on a Sad Day

Paula R. Stern
A Soldier's Mother
19 April '10

There is no understanding the army - it's as simple as that. You just accept what they tell you is their schedule, knowing it might change, and deal.

So, normally...

Well, forget normally. Shmulik went to a ceremony last night marking Israel's Memorial Day - a day to remember our fallen soldiers. Different units have different ways of marking the day. Many divisions send a soldier to stand by the grave of a fallen soldier from the same division. All soldiers from artillery who have fallen in our country's history, will have a soldier stand by his grave today. There when the family comes to visit their son or daughter; there to show a continued commitment to their loved one's memory.

Elie did that one year...it was an emotional day for him, for the family, and for me. Other years, the moments were marked on bases - even once on an army bus that stopped as the siren wailed and there, on the side of the road, they marked their ceremony. Another time, they were in the desert. Elie's commander assembled his men at the time of the siren - stood them at attention - turned the jeep radio on loud so that they could hear the siren, there where there are no sounds...they paid their respects.

The army is too new to Shmulik's unit. They aren't even wearing the berets marking them as part of the Kfir division and so they had a ceremony last night and early this morning, they released the boys home for today and for tonight and tomorrow - marking Israel's Independence Day. As deeply and completely as we mourn today...we will, amazingly enough, celebrate tonight and tomorrow.

We stop and say thank you to the soldiers who have fallen. We stop and remind them that they were loved, are loved, and always, always remembered...and then we say - watch us as we celebrate what you fought for.

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Love of the Land: Bad Pun on a Sad Day

Love of the Land: The Mask Slips on Israel’s Left

The Mask Slips on Israel’s Left

Dishonoring the dead:

Haaretz editor Uri Tuval.

P. David Hornik
Frontpagemag.com
19 April '10

“I don’t want to live in the country of Captain Eliraz Peretz or his mother. My consolations to the family…a family of Jihadist Fascists, and don’t dare let anyone say he was killed for my sake.”

The above quote is from Uri Tuval, editor of the magazine section of Israel’s left-wing daily Haaretz. He said it in a Facebook chat with other left-wing journalists, and even some members of his milieu were said to be dismayed at his words. This mini-scandal comes at a time when Haaretz is under attack for its central role in the much larger scandal of the Anat Kam espionage affair.

Eliraz Peretz was a 32-year-old Israeli soldier who was killed last month in a gunfight with terrorists in Gaza. His older brother Uriel died in combat in Lebanon in 1998. Miriam Peretz, the mother, was interviewed on Israeli TV after Eliraz’s death (it being customary in Israel to interview close relatives after the loss of soldiers). The Peretz family are observant Jews; Eliraz lived in the West Bank settlement of Eli.

To his credit, Tuval wrote a gracious apology to the Peretz family. He noted that he too is a soldier and that his father was killed in the 1973 Yom Kippur War. He said he had “stated my personal opinion on the reality we face in a provocative manner, on a forum that I viewed as private,” and that “We seem to disagree over the best way in which to build our national home.”

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Love of the Land: The Mask Slips on Israel’s Left