Heroes

Einat, Danny and Yael Haran

Today Israel is releasing Samir Kunter to Lebanon where he will be hailed a hero, given parades and receive an official state welcome by Prime Minister Faud Saniora and President Gen. Michel Suleiman of Lebanon. And what heroic act did Kunter do to deserve the adoration of his country?

Kuntar along with four other 'militants' (the word the Guardian used) sailed from Lebanon to the coast at Nahariya on a rubber dinghy and then attacked an apartment block.

They broke into a flat and dragged out a man, Danny Haran, and his four-year-old daughter Einat.  Kuntar shot Danny Haran in the back and then bludgeoned four old Einat to death with the butt of his rifle. Haran's wife, Smadar, hid in their bedroom with their second daughter, Yael, who was two, but as she tried to silence the child's cries, she accidentally smothered Yael.

 This is Lebanon's idea of a hero, a man who beats a four year old girl to death with the butt of his rifle. For anybody with any confusion about right and wrong and good and evil in the mideast  you should consider this story.

It is Smadar Haran who is the true hero, who rose above her own personal pain of having lost her family to not oppose this release.  I am unsure if I could have done this 'thing' and I am unsure if it was right but I am proud of having a relationship to a people who value each other so much that they would take this action on the slim chance that young men who were stolen just might be returned alive. 

The Lebanese government has declared Wednesday, July,16, 2008, a national holiday to celebrate the liberation of Sami Kuntar from the jails of the Israelis. 

From an article by Rabbi Shraga Simmons,  Heroes on the Borders

Rabbi Yekusiel Yehudah Halberstam, the revered Klausenberger Rebbe, was savagely beaten by a Nazi with crushing, deadly blows. As the rabbi was sprawled on the ground, bleeding from his head, the Nazi thrust his jackboot into the rabbi's chest and mockingly sneered: "So tell me, how does it now feel to be a Jew?"

Rabbi Halberstam looked up calmly and said, "I'd much rather be a Jew on the receiving end of this torture, than to be a German administering it."