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The Troop Stormers - January 16, 2002 | ||||||||||
Last week, a Palestinian terror cell approached an IDF position near Rafiach and opened fire. When the shooting stopped four IDF soldiers were dead. The four were all Bedouin trackers, among the best front-line troops Israel has. And all four are heroes to their country and credits to their community. At about the same time, Israel was still gaping at the sheer enormity of the haul from the Karin-A weapons ship commandeered on its way to a delivery in Gaza. The revelation of such large-scale weapons smuggling should have been no surprise to Israel. After all, Israelis have been suffering attacks by such weapons for the past 16 months, and not a few stories have surfaced during that time of secret tunnels discovered by IDF trackers such as the four killed last week. A few days ago, the IDF demolished a number of houses in the Rafiach area that concealed the exits to still more tunnels and provided firing positions for terrorists such as those who killed the four trackers last week. It is truly heart-warming that the IDF feels the need to react to the murder of its Bedouin troops the same way it does when Jewish soldiers are killed. A pity that the Israeli media does not feel the same way. Ever since the houses were demolished, the media has swallowed, hook, line and sinker, the position held by the Palestinians, Arab fifth column Knesset Members, and the Israeli extreme left, that dozens more houses were destroyed than the IDF claims, and that the houses were occupied, while the IDF insists they were empty. Various IDF officials, including the officer in command of the operation, have been publicly raked over the coals by both government radio stations, television media, and most newspapers. Interviewers attempt every imaginable trick to get the officials to contradict themselves and admit that the Arabs are right and the IDF is terrible. The IDF operation in Rafiach, as virtually all other IDF activities, was aimed at saving Jewish lives – one of the founding purposes of the State of Israel and the entire purpose of the Jewish army. There are thousands of national heroes who put their lives on the line every day so that these media fools and those who think like them can feel safe enough to go to work every day or sit at home and enjoy their families. Some of these heroes, like the four Bedouin trackers last week, never get the chance to take their lives back off the line at the end of the day. With all the heroism the IDF displays day after day on a regular basis, they are not perfect. In the past two days, 4 more Israelis have been killed by Palestinian terrorist gunfire. One was himself an Arab, engaged at the time in transporting medical supplies to health clinics in Jewish communities in Samaria. Even civilians can share in the heroism that is life in Israel. But these murders took only secondary importance on the talk shows and interviews today. The heroism of the murdered Arab, the mother of two killed on her way to the wedding of a nephew, the elderly American immigrant kidnapped and murdered barely a week after his wife died of cancer, and the soldier killed in a drive-by shooting as he patrolled near a Jewish community in Samaria, collectively merited barely as much attention as the IDF destruction of a few houses. Let us for one moment assume that the claims against the IDF are correct, and the houses were inhabited at the time they were destroyed. If this is indeed the case, then there is all the more reason for the destruction of those buildings. Their residents allowed the homes to be used as firing positions for the murders of Jews in Israel. They helped to conceal weapons smuggling that make mortar attacks and other bombings possible. They wantonly assist in the murder and maiming of countless Jews and the attempted destruction of the Jewish home in Israel (not to mention individual homes that would lose bread-winners, siblings, children and spouses to such murderous attacks). The destruction of these homes is certainly an appropriate and measured response to such wanton complicity and aggression. But rather than point out the justice of the IDF actions, rather than illustrate how the IDF did not, in fact, kill anyone in response to all this aggression, rather than trumpet the heroism and selflessness with which the IDF daily protects and defends Israeli citizens even when those troops are themselves not Jewish, the media sees fit only to engage in a witch hunt against their protectors. The open ridicule and contempt shown by the media for the IDF is totally inexcusable. If this is the way national heroes are treated when they protect the people of this nation, it is little wonder that the bigger problems in this State, such as journalistic accountability, go unnoticed. Copyright 2002. All rights reserved. Yehuda Poch is a journalist living in Israel. Reproduction in electronic or print format by permission only. |
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