Us and Them

As I watched in horror the drama unfolding before our very eyes in Israel, and the malignant festival of necrophilia and necrophagia vampire's ball organized in the Dahya, Pink Floyd's poignant words came to mind:

Us, and them.
And after all were only ordinary men.
Me, and you.
God only knows it's not what we would choose to do.

And then, in what must have been one of the saddest and painful moments in his life, Offer Regev, Eldad's eldest brother, stood by the freshly dug grave and eulogized his youngest brother, quoting from a Shalom Hanoch song:
A strange man, is your enemy – just like you
He suddenly wants to live – just like you
Suddenly, there he stands, in front of you,
Stubbornly alive.

You know that this man – just like you
Is in no hurry to kill himself – just like you
And it comes as no surprise that he too loves
And he too hates …

You and your enemy, us and our enemy, us and them. We who love and cherish life and they, Nassr-al-shaytan and Hezb-al-shaytan, who trade in bodies and body parts. We who need to bring our heroes home and bury them with honors, while they officiate a mass wedding between 200 odd mass murderers and a Mughrabian (Moroccan) creature. I guess in lieu of each and any one of those shaheeds getting their 72 houris, Dalal the cold-blooded murderess gets to enjoy an unknown number of bloodied and soiled terrorists. The high priests of this depraved voodoo ceremony were, no surprise, Samir Kuntar looking more and more like a force-fed Christmas pig and Nassr-al-shaytan scanning the skies for the Israeli jets zooming in on him. Kuntar and one of the other prisoners, whose names I could not be bothered to remember, look like they had been badly tortured by the Israelis – forced to shower every day, keep their hair nicely cut, and above all forced to eat chickpeas and steak, baklava and knafe.
Udi and Eldad, on the other hand, were treated fairly. Three of their fellow soldiers were killed on that fateful morning, with another two wounded in order to secure their kidnapping in a cross border attack. Five more soldiers from the rescuing force paid with their lives during the immediate attempt to retrieve them. What followed is what became known as the Second Lebanon War.
Udi and Eldad were killed during the attack or shortly thereafter. Kuntar was not only kept alive in the Nazi-like Israeli prison system, he was allowed to get married and divorced, meet his fellow terrorists from the Palestinian side of the "resistance" and obtain an academic degree. One has to admit this is torture. Udi and Eldad were unceremoniously buried. Twice. I don't think their bodies were mutilated in the sense that one perceives mutilation. But they were desecrated. Just as their coffins were dumped in front of the Red Cross ambulance meant to take them back to Israel, they were shoved into some hole in the ground, only to be dug up later and reburied. Then they were dug up again and turned over to Israel. Kuntar and the other Hezb-al-shaytans were forced to see the prison doctor before they were released. The doctor even made sure that Kuntar had received his medication. Now this is what I call torture.
I've been watching TV and reading the newspapers and I managed to put together a few things. I might be wrong, but then again I might be not.
Udi and Eldad were riding in the first Hummer. Udi was sitting next to the driver and Eldad was right behind him, on the right hand side of the vehicle. The driver, Razak Mu'adi, and Tomer Weinberg who was sitting behind him, on the left hand side of the vehicle, managed to jump out and hide behind some bushes, despite gunshot wounds sustained during the attack.
Initially, I mean about six months after the kidnapping, when he came to himself and began to talk, Razak who seems to have suffered from a severe case of shellshock, reported that when he jumped out of the vehicle, Udi and Eldad were alive. However, a friend of mine saw him sometime later him on TV (so this is hearsay, since yours truly cannot really vouch for the veracity of the report), and he in fact said that when the first RPG rounds hit the Hummer, someone's head landed in his lap. Which might explain why he went into shock for such a long time. His family reports very strange behavior which included loss of appetite, poor communication, and mostly inability to speak (no head injury, mind you). If indeed someone's head landed in his lap, whose was it? Did he not recognize it? Could this late-in-the-day testimony endorse what three independently writing forensic experts concluded three weeks after the kidnapping, namely that one of the abductees was mortally wounded and the other severely wounded? I mean one can't be much more mortally wounded than when one's head is blown off.
In any case, at one point during these two years, Nasr-al-shaytan gave some indication concerning the soldiers' fate and whereabouts: deep, deep inside Lebanon. The shaytanic look in his eyes and his vicious smile leave no room for interpretation, but at the time nobody wanted to listen and look. He may have been cynically gloating over his "exploit", but unfortunately he was telling the truth. Eldad and Udi were buried deep in Lebanese soil, in a secret location. This caused the abducted soldiers' families unimaginable anguish and only strengthened their will to push on for the swap. Unfortunately, the pain-stricken families began playing against each other.
Investigative journalist and author of several books, Ronen Bergman, disclosed in one of the shows he anchors, that based on his investigations and interviews held with relevant key figures in the affair (and I really have no idea who they are), he also came to the conclusion that one of the soldiers was dead. During a meeting with Karnit he told her about his conclusion, but she did not want to know who it was.
Eldad's father could not and would not believe the army (and not only) officials who were trying to insinuate that perhaps Eldad was no longer alive, because the families desperately wanted to believe that their loved ones were alive and would be returned to them if not safe and sound, at least in wheelchairs. But they would be reunited, and if heaven forbid, the loved one was incapacitated, then they would have the chance to shower all their love on him and take care of him and make good on all their broken promises, such as Karnit's pledge to fetch the moon from the sky for Udi, and Zwi Regev's plans to dedicate the rest of his life to Eldad, in order to compensate his youngest son, whose mother had been taken when he was barely 18. Nobody wants to believe their loved one is gone. Everybody wants a second chance to make amends. And Nasr-al-shaytan was toying with these people's hearts saying oh, perhaps they are both dead, or alive, or one of them is dead and the other is alive… To the point that these poor people were, how shall I put it, not hoping that the other one was dead, but at least hoping that their own one was alive. So they kept pushing on and on, even when it became certain that Samir Kuntar would be released in exchange. Even a few days prior to the swap, when the families were finally told the truth, Miki Goldwasser said that in a few days she would be hugging and kissing her son. In fact, the one who got to hug and kiss her son was Kuntar's mother. Poor Miki Goldwasser, all she got to hug was a coffin. Karnit could not contain her pain and bewilderment, and blurted a few words: "let me go home now and nurse my pain." Zwi Regev recounts a similar experience: when an officer from the Missing in Action unit of the IDF came to his house to ask for any particular marks Eldad might have, such as scars or birthmarks, he didn't understand the question. Even when he was asked to choose a burial place for his son (since the military cemetery in Motzkin where Eldad resided was closed), he refused to even consider the possibility that Eldad was gone. Even on that awful morning of Wednesday, July 16th 2008, two years and five days after the abduction, when he saw the first of the black coffins being slammed onto the ground he thought that was Udi, and Eldad was about to walk out of the black van. Or at least would be wheelchaired out. The Goldwassers must have felt the same: that's Eldad, now Udi is going to walk out of the van. Or at least will be wheelchaired out. Who can blame them? Who can give up on either of those beautiful men, young, smart, kind, educated, brave, healthy, gifted, one a young husband and a first born child, the other still a bachelor, a youngest son and brother. Who would give up their loved one to the blood-thirsty shaytan? Not me.
But then I don't think I would hold an entire country and people hostage either, and I would not have the guts Miki had to declare :"The State screwed up, the State must pay." Meaning what? That we should dismantle the state and give in and up? That we should perhaps cede Tel-Aviv to the Palestinians? Haifa to Hezb-al-shaytan?
I may sound bitter, and I really don't mean to be harsh with these people in what might be their darkest hour, but what did Miki mean when she said Hizb-al-shaytan had an interest to provide medical care for the abductees and keep them alive? Was she not in Israel when the bodies of Benny Avraham, Omar Sawayed and Avi Avitan were returned in their coffins? Nasr-al-shaytan knew he would get almost what he wanted for the mangled bodies of our soldiers, because we need to honor them in their death and give them a ritual burial. But does that really mean that we must open the door for Nasr-al-shaytan to provide more of us with graves? Maybe. I don’t really know. But I remember Haim Avraham campaigning for his son and the other abductees from the year 2000 claiming that we had to do everything to bring "our boys back". I agree, we must do everything short of suicide, because we choose life. Six million Holocaust victims do not lie in Jewish graves. Most of them were burned and blown in the wind. Did that not teach us anything? Apparently not. I saw Haim Avraham at the funerals. Did he for one second stop to think that had he perhaps campaigned less for the swap to secure his son's return, Udi and Eldad would still be alive? Not to mention the other 119 soldiers who died during that awful war. Not to mention the civilians. Not to mentions those who gave their legs and eyesight and sanity. Not to mention the destruction, the million people who took to the shelters. My 70-year-old friend in Haifa who had had to run for her life up and down two flights of stairs to the bomb shelter several times a day for 34 days.
So we let Kuntar and the other four bloodsuckers walk free. One of those four had taken part in the attack. He must have surely shot or even killed one of the fallen soldiers. Maybe even Udi or Eldad. He may have abused them, hit them, denied them medical care. More Palestinian vampires are to be released soon, to appease Banki Moonbat. Just like that. Invite more terrorism and bloodshed to our doorstep. Kuntar already misses us and wants to come back to "Palestine" and smash some more innocent heads, preferably young innocent children's heads. I hope this time he gets shot on site. Visa arrangements later.
So now we hear that Hamas is emboldened and has learned something from Hezb-al-shaytan: extortion works. But I would like Israeli officials to have the guts to speak out and tell Hamas that we too have learned something from this deal: that terrorist organizations cannot be trusted. So Hamas would have to really prove that Gilad Shalit is alive: not letters or audiotapes that could have been obtained before they killed him. How about a videotaped message of Gilad holding with today's paper in his hand? Or a message for the Regev and Goldwasser families? How about a visit from a Red Cross official (no Arabs please, make it a Swiss or German employee). Until then, we should really cut Gaza off: no food or water, no electricity, no fuel, no humanitarian cases. Nada. Zilch. No hudna, by the way. Declare open season in Gaza until a clear sign from Gilad is obtained. The international community you say? Who is the international community? Where were they when we were attacked?
This of course is idle day-dreaming coming from a despairing Israeli whose country is being pushed into non-existence by an increasing hostile world who cares naught about the real disasters and catastrophes plaguing this our world.