Last Week’s Goldstone Report Must Be Evaluated in Light of the Past Depressing Decade in Israeli History
Today marks the ninth anniversary – by the Hebrew calendar – of the day that Hizbollah terrorists murdered Benny Avraham, Adi Avitan and Omar Sawayid in a kidnapping attempt. As the families, and all of Israel, mourn their deaths, those who yearn for peace should mourn the double deception perpetuated on Israel by the Arabs and the world. This multiple murder is one of many incidents this decade that betray the fundamental assumption behind Middle East peacemaking since the 1967 Six Day War. Israelis were told that territorial withdrawal would bring peace with the Arabs and support from the world. Yet Israeli retreats have repeatedly encouraged more Arab aggression and greater world condemnation – of Israel.
The events of October 7, 2000, are depressingly typical. That day, Avraham, Avitan and Sawayid, two Jews and one Bedouin, were patrolling the border with Lebanon. The border was assumed to be safe following the withdrawal from Southern Lebanon on May 25 of that year, which the UN Security Council affirmed and approved that June 16.
Suddenly, Hizbollah terrorists wearing UN uniforms attacked across the internationally recognized border, in view of a UN outpost. The three soldiers died immediately or shortly thereafter. Hizbollah took their bodies, claiming the three had been kidnapped.
THIS BEGAN a 1,210 day nightmare. Hizbollah reduced human beings to trading cards, toying with the emotions of three families – and the nation. Haim Avraham, Benny’s father, crisscrossed the world with the two other families to try to save their sons. UN officials lied and obstructed for months before even providing the videotapes of the ambush UN soldiers filmed. Avraham reported that when he visited Amnesty International and other human rights organizations, his hosts usually asked: “What about the Palestinians?” “I’m just a father looking for my son” Avraham replied, to no avail.
Finally, on the “Day of Tears,” as one Israeli headline called it, January 30, 2004, the three boys whose bodies Hizbollah sadists kept refrigerated for three years and four months, came home in coffins. Israel exchanged more than 400 prisoners for the three corpses and for Elhanan Tenenbaum, a shady Israeli businessman Hizbollah kidnapped. That day, a Palestinian policeman “celebrating” his 25th birthday murdered 11 Israelis in yet another suicide bombing, of Egged bus in Jerusalem. Hamas and Yasser Arafat’s Fatah-related Al-Aksa Martyr’s Brigades both sought “credit” for this crime.
This one sequence alone would be enough to traumatize a nation. Tragically, this story has been repeated. Israel’s withdrawal from southern Lebanon in May, 2000 emboldened the Palestinians, who, under Yasir Arafat’s destructive and self-destructive leadership turned away from negotiations and toward terror starting in September 2000. Nevertheless, Israel endured more condemnation from the UN and the human rights community for defending itself than the Palestinians did for abandoning the peace process and slaughtering innocents. That Israel had withdrawn from Palestinian cities, brought Arafat and his henchmen back from Tunisia, and helped arm the Palestinian police counted for little in the court of world opinion.
Five years later, in August, 2005, Israel withdrew unilaterally from Gaza, in a deal sweetened by certain American promises (that are now being ignored). This facilitated Hamas’s takeover of Gaza, thousands of rockets bombing Israel for years thereafter, and, predictably, international condemnation of Israel when the country finally defended itself.
LAST WEEK’S Goldstone Commission report must be evaluated in light of this depressing decade. The report’s moral equivalence between Israel, a legitimate country, and Hamas terrorists is one more dimension of the double deception – as withdrawal breeds more Arab violence and more international condemnation.
Today, as the three “hostage” families from 2000 gather to mourn, they – and millions of other Israelis – will continue worrying about Gilad Schalit, now 23, kidnapped on June 25, 2006, by Hamas terrorists from Gaza. Considering the last decade’s experiences, many Israelis yearn intensely for Schalit’s return yet fear that giving into Hamas demands will endanger more Israelis by encouraging more kidnappings. In the Middle East’s crazy calculus, Israeli concessions are perceived as signs of weakness by the Arabs – and signs of guilt inviting more denunciations by the “human rights” community.
Israel must start making demands not just concessions. It should emphasize the 850,000 Jews from Arab lands displaced by Arab anti-Semitism – and demand compensation. Israel should pursue the Hizbollah, Hamas, Fatah murderers in courtrooms as well as on the battlefield, demanding damages for all the casualties from the criminals, their suppliers, their enablers. And Israel should demand that the international community at minimum secure a Red Cross visit to Schalit, before other negotiations continue.
At Benny Avraham’s funeral in 2004, his two grieving sisters remembered his easy smile, modest ways and love of life. Thousands cried for a life cut short so viciously, so pointlessly. The funeral defied the usual laws of chronological and emotional physics. Teachers are not supposed to bury their students. Parents are not supposed to bury their sons. A grandmother, who already lost one son named Benny in the 1973 Yom Kippur War, should not have had to bury her grandson, the uncle’s namesake, murdered in these latest systematic attempts to destroy Israel.
But, in Israel, life goes on. Hadassah University Medical Center continues healing Jews and Arabs equally – and employing Muslims, Christians, and Jews working together, despite bus lines which have been targeted, and even hospitals which have been targeted. And the Avraham family – among other victimized families – continues to love life as Benny did. One of Benny’s sisters gave birth this summer, starting a new generation in the Jewish homeland.
As the family gathers today, the tears will flow. But the hope and pride will swell, in Benny, in his fallen comrades, Adi and Omar, and in their surviving friends and relatives who have endured so much, but nevertheless continue to love life and live fully – with fond memories of Benny, along with so many others, and in their memories.
Gil Troy is Professor of History at McGill University on leave in Jerusalem. He is the author of Why I Am a Zionist: Israel, Jewish Identity and the Challenges of Today. His latest book The Reagan Revolution: A Very Short Introduction, was recently published by Oxford University Press.
