Editorial: IDF Must “…Mend the Rifts” With the Refugees …

Abandoned Comrades

Excerpts;

“Ariel Sharon, Shimon Peres, Amir Peretz and Benjamin Netanyahu [add to that Ehud Olmert — in Spades – MB] are so caught up in themselves and the new social agenda they have suddenly discovered that they have lost sight of 10,000 individuals who were uprooted from their homes some three months ago.”

“Many of them are unemployed. And most don’t have homes yet. Their children wet their beds at night, and some cringe in fear at the sight of police or soldiers. Dozens have ended up in hospital cardiac wards. Hundreds are still living in hotels, which have become gilded cages for them. Many families are falling apart; couples are divorcing; parental authority has been undermined; and normal family life has become impossible.”

“Families are being forced to spend large sums of money on moving their household possessions, on purchasing various appliances and pieces of equipment that were lost/stolen and damaged during the evacuation, on assembling closets, on getting hooked up to a gas supply and other infrastructure, on access roads, and more and more – and all this at a time when most are without a livelihood and have run up heavy debts.”

“Over and above the practicality and the natural moral obligation of those who the uprooted and significant segments of Israeli society view as active parties to the carrying out of an immoral order, assistance from the IDF could, to a certain extent, soften the grudge and sense of anger that the uprooted feel with regard to the army’s involvement in the evacuation. It could also be viewed as an expression of a willingness to mend the rifts.”

“‘One doesn’t abandon comrades’ is not merely a slogan. If the prime minister, who appears totally insensitive to the fate of the uprooted, is unable to live up to this, the chief of staff, as the head of the military arm that carried out the ‘disengagement,’ must initiate it.

Commentary;

The Military, the IDF, the Religious-Hating COS Halutz — Help the 10,000 Refugees? Are you in this world? Abandoning comrades has become commonplace in today’s Israel. What about the South Lebanese? What about the MIAs? What about Jonathan Pollard? In Israel, it seems as if Israelis feel no sense of obligation, moral or otherwise for anyone but themselves individually.

It seems to this author that for Israelis to show compassion for, or obligation to their Comrades would take a “nace min HaShemayim.” What can you expect when an Acting Prime Minister sets a national example by imposing a 28.5% Airport tax on Chesed donations for the Gush Katif Refugees?

In the natural order of things with today’s pityless Israelis (and some Datim who either sided with the expellers or who didn’t feel it important enough to become physically involved), not a chance! MB

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