Why indeed? After all, Israel is meant to be the one place in the world where Jews can hold their heads high, proud to be Jewish and cowering before no one. Israel is meant to be the one place in the world whose first priority is to provide a home for the Jews and to defend Jewish interests around the world. In short, Israel is meant to provide hope for Jews.
Broadcasting the funerals of Jews day in and day out is not a recipe for increased hope. It is not a recipe for Jewish pride and it is no antidote for Jewish cowering. People get downright depressed at funerals, especially when they are becoming a daily occurrence. And in Shimon Peres’s version of the New Middle East, one where peace and prosperity rule the day, funerals have about as much place as heroes do in Beilin’s version of Israel.
I, too, believe that there are too many funerals broadcast on Israeli media outlets. There is too much searching for the details of every car bomb and shooting attack. There is too much concentration on the horrors of life in Israel and not enough on the pride Jews should feel at having a strong and healthy state of our own that we can and should call home.
But I do not blame the media for this. The media, after all, is meant to relate the news to the public, and if funerals and car bombs and shootings are the news, it is the responsibility of the media to report it in all its horrific detail.
What I do blame the media for is that they quite simply miss the point. It took no less than the IDF spokesman, Maj. Gen. Ron Kitri, yelling at a radio anchorwoman, to drive this point home to many listeners (though not the anchorwoman in question).
On the day of the missile attack on the school bus near Kfar Darom, the anchorwoman, whose name I did not catch, asked Kitri on the air if anyone was claiming responsibility for the attack. Kitri exploded at her live on the air. “Who cares?” he shouted. “People are dead! Children are injured! Children could have been killed! And all you can ask about is if this terrorist group or that is claiming responsibility? We are all responsible!”
I like Ron Kitri. He has remained stoic in the face of relentless interviews and nonsensical media airheads like that anchorwoman. He, along with others in his staff such as Giora Eiland, have remained a steadying voice through all the violence and all the political clap-trap that has passed for government policy the past two months. These spokesmen are not afraid to call a spade a spade once in a while.
And Kitri’s words should be remembered. “We are all responsible.” Shimon Peres, are you listening?
It is not only the media that has missed the whole point. It is Peres as well. The media at least do their jobs most of the time. They broadcast the funerals. They interview the grieving widows, parents, and children. They photograph the orphaned babies and the maimed schoolchildren. They even ask who’s responsible, but they never ask the right people or seek the correct answer.
Shimon Peres would just as soon ignore all the funerals. He would just as soon ignore the presence of a quarter of a million Jewish pioneers in the heartland of Jewish Israel. He would just as soon ignore the entire mess if only to give our enemies their goal of cleansing Israel of its Jews.
So, Shimon Peres took issue with the broadcast of all the funerals. But I have a bigger problem. Who’s responsible? Who’s responsible for all the funerals? Why are there funerals that must be broadcast? Why are school teachers being slaughtered, children being maimed, teenagers being murdered, and soldiers being dismembered by semi-human hordes?
The answer is very simple, and it lies with Shimon Peres. It was Peres, after all, with a little help from Beilin, who forced the Oslo Accords on a skeptical Yitzchak Rabin. It was Peres who illegally met with the PLO in Cairo to hammer out the deal without Rabin’s knowledge. It was Peres who ignored the bus bombings when he was prime minister in 1996.
It was Peres who reached the accord that resulted in the arming of the Palestinian terrorists who are today causing all these funerals. It was Peres who insisted on meeting with Arafat over Barak’s objections in the midst of this new war that Israel refuses to fight.
Peres has the astuteness to ask the question. Why the funerals? Peres must also know the answer. Because of you, sir.
Copyright 2000. Yehuda Poch is a writer living in Israel. Reproduction in electronic or print format by permission only.
