By Yakov Guterman
Friday, June 2, 2000
from Haaretz Newspaper
About two weeks after my son Raz and his five comrades from the Sayeret Golani special unit fell in battle on the first night of the Lebanon War, in the battle for the Beaufort outpost, I wrote an open letter to "Menachem Begin, Ariel Sharon, Rafael Eitan and the ministers who raised their hands in favor of the Lebanon War.".In my letter, I pointed out the criminal stupidity of waging a cynical and superfluous war, a war whose only motives were political-nationalistic, and I protested against the killing of our innocent young men in a deceitful war; I considered their unnecessary death as murder.
My letter, which prompted strong reactions, was severely criticized. I received hate mail which caused me sleepless nights. Begin, "the noble man," took my name off the list of recipients of the letters of consolation which he sent to the families.
Right-wingers published a huge advertisement in one of the popular newspapers, with the heading: "Danger ahead - from internal causes," in which they wrote the following: "Question: Would the British have allowed Nazi sympathizers to incite bereaved parents to profiteer from their children's blood while the fighting was still going on? The answer is a definite no!"..
The bulldozer of false propaganda, reminiscent of the darkest regimes in the history of mankind, was rolling at full speed. The government made an effort to present the sinful war, which came after a very peaceful year on our borders, as a "peace operation" whose purpose was to remove from Israel nothing less than an "existential danger" (!); the arrogant Begin promised everyone that "the land will be peaceful for 40 years," Sharon boasted, with Machiavellian cynicism, in front of the cameras, of the "wonderful agreement" with the Maronite Christians (remember?), the ignorant masses hoarsely shouted "Arik (Sharon), King of Israel," and the mothers and fathers, who had just become bereaved, mourned their sons who would never see the sun again.
It took 18 long, bloody years, thousands of young men, both Israelis and Arabs, killed, thousands of injured and crippled, thousands of families whose worlds fell apart, for the Israeli people to understand finally what the nationalistic "stalwarts" had done to them.
Any enlightened nation would have meted out political punishment to any statesman who caused such a tragedy. Therefore it is hair-raising to see how Ariel Sharon, for example, one of the first perpetrators of the Lebanese tragedy, was chosen to lead his party [the Likud]. And as if that were not enough, with appalling lack of sensitivity he shamelessly pounces on any opportunity to give advice... on the subject of his "expertise," Lebanon.
I concluded the letter which I wrote on June 22, 1982 with these words: "And if you have any conscience and humanity, my deep sorrow, the sorrow of an Israeli father whose world has fallen apart, and whose reason for living has been taken from him, should haunt you day and night, and be like a mark of Cain on your foreheads forever!"
After 18 years of pointless killing and of the weeping of mothers and fathers, I have no more illusions: Their crying will not affect anyone's peace of mind; it was enough to see how all the those dwarfs of populism, those who enthusiastically began that terrible, stupid war in June 1982, rushed to jump on the train of the sacred "consensus" when the people changed their minds - in order be considered partners in ending the war.
To all those wretched people, after the 18 worst years in my life, bitter years of bereavement, sorrow and unending longing, I now say: On your knees! On your knees, all you liars who promised "40 kilometers," you deceivers who promised "40 years of peace in the land," you deceitful jugglers with "existential danger," you nationalistic fools, who instead of making every effort to find a lasting political compromise, criminally sent troops to face fire and death.
With the withdrawal of the last soldiers from Lebanese soil, you should have taken yourselves to the military cemeteries in Israel, you should have fallen on your knees, worn sackcloth, according to the ancient Jewish custom, scattered ashes on your heads and begged forgiveness from all the young Israelis who were killed, those whose innocence and love of the land you took exploited so criminally. These young men wanted to live like young people all over the world, to start families, to build their lives on this land, under these bright skies, and you, in your blind stupidity, sent them to a pointless and superfluous war, in which they fell - shot, torn by hand grenades, crushed by missiles and mines, trapped and burned in tanks. And now they lie silent beneath the flowers.
Not one of you has knelt, not one of you has put on sackcloth, not one of you has beaten his chest in a plea for forgiveness. Not one of you has taken the slightest responsibility for what happened, and not one has answered for his deeds.
But the nation has learned a lesson, and in the hardest and most painful way possible. Perhaps its sons will in the future have the sense to be on guard as against fire - against militant nationalism, which everywhere and at every time in history knows how to assume a mantle of patriotism which is concerned with "the good of the nation," but always leaves behind a long train of destruction, ruin, blood and tears.
