Friday, July 14, 2006
7/14/2006 01:31:00 AM | 
Posted by
JoeSettler
As I write this, a young man in Golani, the brother of a good friend of mine, is on his way up North. I’ll call him Eidan.
I remember when Eidan’s family made Aliya. He couldn’t have been more than 6 years old turning cartwheels in his new living room. I’d see him every now and then over the years, in town, at protests, just growing up.
Eidan is the kind of young man that would make any parent proud. A platoon leader. A good Jew. An example to follow.
And Eidan’s parents don’t yet know he is on his way up North.
During my various stints In Lebanon it was dangerous and we met our Arab terrorists head on and (thank G/d) won.
But things are different now. After abandoning our safety net, our control, our intelligence, our allies, and our security, Hizbollah has been given 6 years to build up their forces, weapons, and traps. (And after hitting Haifa today, we see they made good use of our gift.)
Eidan is going into a new situation. When I served, we mostly controlled the ground and everything around us, and when we didn’t, we made sure we did fast enough.
But Eidan is going in with no safety net, with no allies, with no intelligence, against an enemy that has studied this capitulating regime and can manipulate it like nobody’s business.
Ehud Barak should be charging the line up North. Not Eidan. Eidan should be at home, while those responsible for putting us in this situation should be up front putting their lives on the line with everyone else safely far behind them.
Please G/d let Eidan come home safe.
I remember when Eidan’s family made Aliya. He couldn’t have been more than 6 years old turning cartwheels in his new living room. I’d see him every now and then over the years, in town, at protests, just growing up.
Eidan is the kind of young man that would make any parent proud. A platoon leader. A good Jew. An example to follow.
And Eidan’s parents don’t yet know he is on his way up North.
During my various stints In Lebanon it was dangerous and we met our Arab terrorists head on and (thank G/d) won.
But things are different now. After abandoning our safety net, our control, our intelligence, our allies, and our security, Hizbollah has been given 6 years to build up their forces, weapons, and traps. (And after hitting Haifa today, we see they made good use of our gift.)
Eidan is going into a new situation. When I served, we mostly controlled the ground and everything around us, and when we didn’t, we made sure we did fast enough.
But Eidan is going in with no safety net, with no allies, with no intelligence, against an enemy that has studied this capitulating regime and can manipulate it like nobody’s business.
Ehud Barak should be charging the line up North. Not Eidan. Eidan should be at home, while those responsible for putting us in this situation should be up front putting their lives on the line with everyone else safely far behind them.
Please G/d let Eidan come home safe.
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13 comments:
I'm no Oslo-nik, but do you have any idea how many "Eidan's" would have been lost over the past 6 years if Barak hadn't pulled out?
Chaim,
In response to your comment, unfortunately, this is just the beginning.....We don't yet know, G-d forbid, how many "Eidens" we are about to lose and about to be maimed. We do know that by today's accounting, the future doesn't portend good. Certainly, if this is a WAR then many, many more are about to lose their lives - many more than had we remained in Lebanon....
May this also be a reminder that Jews should never again be forcefully expunged from their land, be it from the enemy afar or from our government within...
anonymously praying for the safety of Israel's soldiers -
Maybe I'm misreading something into chaim's comment, but it seems to me that he's tacitly suggesting that, in order to avoid risking our soldiers' lives, it's preferable to endanger our civilians' lives. Isn't that bass-ackwards?
Of course, a better approach would be that indicated by the military commander [sorry, don't remember who off-hand] who told his soldiers something to the effect: "Your job is not to die for your country. It's to get the other guy to die for his!"
-- MAOZ
To Janice: The Nazi wannabe.
You are not welcome here.
Chaim,
Fewer than unfortunately we may lose now. I believe most of the deaths in Lebanon the last few years there were out of carelessness, not enemy attacks.
I would have had no problem w/Barak pulling out, if he would have cleaned up first.
Instead he left us a northern border with a strong enemy, unafraid, emboldened, and 100% capable and willing of attacking us.
Now it will be far more dangerous for us to go in than when we controlled the territory.
Besides, how many Jews would have been killed yesterday if there were no Jews in Nahariya or Sefad.
Joe, I hope I haven't misread your post, and that you'll be praying for all of them, however they voted.
Shabbat Shalom
I am praying for all our soldiers, but I am also wishing that Olmert, Peres, Beilin, Sarid, Barak, and the rest were the ones on the front line instead.
pp: Oh, I see what you mean. No, it's just that Eidan I know personally, and I wrote this post to personalize a soldier for people.
It was George S Patton who said "no poor dumb b--t-rd ever won a war by dying for his country, he won it by getting the poor, dumb, b--t-rd on the other side to die for his country".
My understanding is that before Barak officially announced the pull out from Lebanon, they put the soldiers in a purely defensive deployment, ending the offensive operations that kept the enemy off balance. This increased the casualties, which, of course is what the Gov't wanted, in order to justify the withdrawal (I can hear the gasps..."no Jewish leader would ever deliberately cause casualties in order to further a political goal"....well, what about the thousands of men killed or wounded by Sharon in his Lebanese war folly, what about Peres arming the Palestinians leading to the deaths or wounding of thousands of Israelis, what about Golda Meir and Moshe Dayan sacrificing the men on the Bar-Lev line in order to placate Nixon and Kissinger?..etc, etc.
Also, have you heard of the Yevsektsia in the USSR which were Jews who spied on other Jews who carried out Zionist or religious activities and had them sent to Siberia? YES, MY FRIENDS, THERE IS SUCH A THING AS EVIL JEWS!
I give the gov't no credit now for what they are doing. They are carrying out a "push-button" war by remote control carrying out ineffective bombing raids. This is done to placate Israeli public opinion, nothing more (recall Henry Kissinger's famous quote--"Israel has no foreign policy, only domestic policy".) I see in the news that Olmert is saying Hizbullah must be removed from the border area. HOW IS HE GOING TO DO THAT WITHOUT OCCUPYING THE AREA BY GROUND TROOPS?
I am sorry to be so pessimistic, but that is how I see things. These people in power are bad, and their ultimate goal is the dismantling of the state. After all it was our Prime Minister who said he is tired of fighting. The only option for the Left is to call for foreign troops to come in and separate us from the Palestinians, basically a return to the British Mandate. I predict that within 5 years, that will become the policy of the mainline Left.
Chaim, you are a foolish "concessionist-nick" if you actually believe that Israel has been made safer by retreats and other capitulations to the vermin.
Joe, I'm with you on putting Olmert, Peretz, et al. on the front lines. They deserve nothing less.
For all those who talk about "at least we had six years of quiet".
Is their no end to your pigheaded ego!!! is it impossible for you to say you were mistaken?!
What the #$%^ do U think Hizbollah was doing for six years? Twiddling their thumbs!?!?!?!
How the hell do u think they have imported with no threat over 13,000 Katyushas? The Navy didn't even know the Hizbollah had a missile that was capable of hitting out most advanced war ship!!
There was no threaton Hizbollah for six years! no one was watching what weapons they were bringing in! Tiberias has been hit by missiles!! We are in the worst security situation since the wars of Israel
YET - there are still people who are proud and glad that Barak left Lebanon a free country to arm itself for the destruction of Israel?!?!
I just cant handle the leftists stupidity! You call the past six years quiet??
The past six years were years of Hitchamshut (arming) for Hizbollah!
What an interesting coincidence that the exact same thing is happening on the two fronts that Israel followed the leftists ideology!
Maybe giving land to the Palestinians and the Hizbollah is NOT the answer!! DUH!!
OH AND BY THE WAY MY BROTHER IS EIDIN
May Hashem bring Eidan home safely.One name left out is Sharon the 'strong general'.How do you allow your enemy one centimeter from you to rearm and you let that to continue.
Look what was done in Gaza to allow arms in-and allow egyptians to protect us?We are 'am levadod yishkon.'
Ehud Barak should be charging the line up North.
He can't. Barak and Peres are too busy being interviewed on Fox News in America.
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