We went to present Prime Minster Netanyahu a commemorative
volume of documents dedicated to Menachem Begin. With us was professor Arye Naor,
who had been Begin’s Cabinet Secretary, and the prime minister was interested
in hearing from him how Begin and managed the war in Lebanon, and to compare
notes with his own methods in Protective Edge. From there it was but a short
and natural step to a discussion about Begin’s agony at the deaths of IDF
soldiers, and Netanyhau’s own difficulties in sending men to die.
It proved harder than he had expected. “I thought a lot
about Begin this summer, and I understood him better”
.
“I spoke to each of the parents [of fallen soldiers]. If
there were divorced, I spoke to each of them separately. It was very hard”.
There is a profound difference between hearing about bereaved
families, and actually being in one: he knows about that difference, and
understands it from personal experience. But to his surprise – this was my impression – sending
soldiers to their death turned out also to be hard to a degree that one cannot
appreciate in advance.
We had expected to spend ten minutes in his office. The ten minutes
became fifteen, then twenty; the twenty minutes became thirty, and the prime
minster spoke of the horrible price of war, and of the difficulty in deciding
to pay it.
“The soldiers fear death. They try to strengthen each other,
and try together to be strong as a group, but they are afraid.” He knows they
are afraid, and that some of them will be killed, and he sends them. A ground
operation, he knows what awaits them, what preparations the enemy has made: “Some
of them will die. It is inevitable.”
“They must be sent only when there is no other choice left.
They must be brought back at the very first possible moment, as soon as the immediate
goal has been achieved. Later, once they’re out, we’ll see what happens, but
first, get them out, out, out.”
“And every night I’d get home in the wee hours, and my wife
would be awake, waiting for me. She spent the days visiting the bereaved
families. I only spoke to them on the phone, with each and every one of them,
but she sat at their side, and at night she would tell me about them. We must
send them, and we must bring them back, and I didn’t appreciate how hard it
would be. A leader who loses the understanding of how difficult it is, ought to
lose his job.”
“I thought a lot about Begin this Summer.”
2 comments:
This post makes me so sad. Seeing the quality of leadership that Israel has compared to the U.S. is really stunning.
Obama never lets the death of someone he has sent on a task stop him from his golf game.
http://senatormark4.org/Alinsky5.htm
You need a "Reactions" checkbox for "Moving" or "Powerful". This was that and much more. Many thanks.
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