In today's Ha'aretz there is a great article about Asaf Ramon (the Israeli Pilot) whose father Ilan (the Israeli Astronaut who died in the explosion of the Columbia) who just passed last week.
The family was well respected in Israel and this is a major blow for the country.
What causes me to write this diary is the article by Bradley Burston - a journalist who has really reached me through his writing and what he had to say in his article.
Follow me over to see someone who writes about peace - eulagizing for one of the best of us all.
Burston asks the question:
Can there be such a thing as an Israeli hero? Much of the world appears to have come to believe that there cannot. Many molders of opinion, whether journalists, human rights activists, or present or former world leaders, indicate with unequivocal conviction that Israelis - and, in particular, all Israelis in uniform - have lost their right to be considered extraordinary human beings.
His lament is in the cynicsm of both Israel and it's detractors.... Indeed, when Ben-Gurion and other founding members of the state were alive he was looked at as hero (at least he was widely mourned in his passing). But lately it seems that all the heroes from both Israel and Palestine are missing. When we lost Yitzhak Rabin, did Israel lose it's last hero?
Now there is an element of racism towards this by people who:
There is an element of racism in this, especially in the implication that Israelis as a whole are so belligerent, brutal and insensitive to Palestinians, they have lost their very humanity - if, in fact, it ever was humanity to begin with.
Following Asaf Ramon's fatal crash, a Haaretz reader from Switzerland wrote in response, "Every Israeli should learn from him how to crush your head on some Hebron rock. Your war and death cult ist [sic] simply disgusting."
and I think this is an accurate description - an element of racism.... to see a whole country of people as two dimensional characters is racist. It is similar to how the GOP sees Barak Obama and the Democratic party... Symptomatic of making your enemies into cartoon characters and not seeing how any of them could be right - just that they all want to be part of crushing their opponents.
As Burston says:
And there is no small element of irony in the fact that the most truly heroic of Israelis fit precisely the mantle of "freier." People who give of themselves for the sake of others, people willing to do the work when no one else is, people of genuine honor, profound and silent self-esteem, people who see moral complexity without allowing themselves to be paralyzed by cynicism or seduced by simplicity.
The conflict that we write about is filled with complexity. There is little in the way of definite right and wrong and a lot in the shades of Gray that surround it. Both sides - Israel and Palestine have legitimate heroes and legitimate villans. Many times the two become interchangable with each other i.e. one mans hero is anothers villan. For example I view the Yishuv and Palmach as heroic figures who were mere human beings but who accomplished a miracle. Others however, view them as terrible people.
Relative to that Burston talks about his own experience:
For many years I wore the uniform of the IDF with pride, specifically because of the heroic freiers with whom I served. I learned that for every story making world headlines, and justifiably so, in which IDF men are accused of undue violence against Palestinians, there are easily scores of unreported incidents in which IDF commanders, enlisted men and reservists, marshaling their creativity and their individuality and their humanity, have aided and refrained from injuring Palestinian civilians, often endangering their own lives in the process.
But the secret heroism of Israelis is by no means confined to the military. Large numbers of Israelis work tirelessly, heroically, to help pave the way to a common future with the Palestinians. Many Israelis have opened their hearts to helping refugees from foreign genocides. Their stories go largely unnoticed abroad, in no small part because it takes work to make a people long marketed as villains, into flesh and blood fellow humans.
This is the truth. It is politically incorrect in the extreme. It muddies the colors of cardboard ideology and blanket support for one angelic side over the diabolical. (my emphasis)
I will let Burston's own words finish up this diary. Read his columns in Ha'aretz. They are insightful, intelligent, full of grace and true humanistic patriotism. I think we can all learn something from his words. Please if you are inclined say a prayer or offer a thought of condolence to the Ramon family:
In a post-modern world, we have come to believe that self-defense, self-esteem, compassion, love of country and love of peace are issues of the left and the right. It is the true hero, though, who realizes that all of these together are parts of the same whole, the conquest of our lowest impulses for the sake of our best version of a reflection of the heavens.
It may be all too true, that the best of us go young. I have spoken with Palestinians who say the same thing. For those of us left to grieve, there is a constant impulse to give in to revenge, to fury, to callousness. Heroism may be nothing more than defying all of these, and seeking, in our feeble way, to follow the example of our best and our lost.
http://www.haaretz.com/...