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Some of the Good Guys
The picture below shows members of Yamam, the anti-terrorist unit that tracked down the murderers of Dvir Sorek, who was 18 years old.
One of Dvir’s teachers told this story about him:
“He was an amazing man, very sensitive, smart, modest, who fused wisdom and quiet. This is a man who at the beginning of the year saw an Arab walking around the area with a donkey that looked unwell, sick, so he offered to buy the donkey. He bought it, treated it, and sent it away,” Rabbi Sarel Rosenblatt, who taught Sorek, told Channel 12 news.
“I wanted him to be a man of standing in Israel, who would contribute a lot of his light to Israeli society, and his light was taken from us,” he added, describing him as a “sensitive man with a heart of gold.”
Dvir’s father, Yoav, reacted to the terrorists’ capture as follows:
“We are grateful to the security forces for their swift action in catching the terrorists, though we are disappointed they were captured alive. We are glad that Dvir, may G-d avenge his blood, didn’t see the faces of his killers, and we will try not to see them either, not now and not in court.”
Whether captured or killed, the terrorists’ families are richly rewarded by Abbas and company and, in reaction to the murder of any Jew, there is a celebratory mood as candy is handed out.
Published in General
Thanks be to God. And in praise of excellence. Thank you for celebrating the life of this young man.
Saddam used to use his oil money for that. Right before Shock and Awe, he raised his payments from $10,000 to $25,000.
That alone was sufficient reason to go after him.
Agreed.
What a terrible loss. For him, his family, and Israel.
Pound for pound, is there a better army than Israel’s?
With enemies all around you, and when your country’s survival rests on your shoulders, I’m sure you want to be the best soldier that you can be: skilled, ruthless, and deadly.
I read an account of how the Mossad hunted down and killed almost every damned one of Palestinians who murdered the eleven Israeli Olympians at Munich. Inspiring.
I admire these guys a lot.
No terrorist murderer succeeds in evading the IDF or the long arm of its intelligence services. For centuries, Jewish blood was cheap. Not any more.
What a dear face that young man had!
I know it’s difficult that his killers get to live—especially knowing the reaction of their “side” to their capture—but it’s an impressive piece of work, both technically and morally. Good guys indeed.
Maybe I’ll pray that the bad guys actually use the remainder of their spared lives to ponder the contrasts between their ideology and that of the Israelis who could easily have killed them outright or tortured them to death and handed out candy to children in celebration. And yet chose life, even for them.
Here’s the point, though. I served in the IDF and I can assure you the soldiers are not ruthless. It’s not in our blood to hate. You have no idea how many sad stories there are of soldiers giving water to a prisoner who turned on them. Air strikes are pinpoint. Great pains are taken to avoid hitting civilians.
The IDF has succeeded in bringing the values of justice and compassion under one roof.
I remember seeing Yamam units in downtown Jerusalem during an academic year I spent studying/living first in Arad and subsequently in Jerusalem and which R”L coincided with the 1996 wave of Hamas homicide bombings. These particular Yamam units were on extremely high-powered motorcycles and looked unbelievably badass — even for Israeli special forces.