No strength for silence

By Esther Wachsman

I don't know if we're living in George Orwell's "1984" - where good was bad, bad was good, peace was war and war was peace - in Chelm, the city fabled for its stupidity, or in evil Sodom. In any event, this is not the country I moved to 36 years ago out of Zionist enthusiasm, as the daughter of Holocaust survivors.

At that time I felt that I had the privilege of being part of the history of this new/old country, to get married here, to give birth to my seven sons in the Jerusalem to which we had prayed to return for 2,000 years. There was no mother prouder than me when my oldest son joined the Israel Defense Forces, wearing the uniform of the Golani Brigade, and his two younger brothers did the same. Nachshon was our third son to join the elite Orev Golani unit, and we were very proud that he had fulfilled all the expectations on which he was raised: love for the people, the land and the heritage.

And then, in October 1994, our Nachshon was kidnapped by Hamas. In a tape that was transferred from Gaza and played on television, he was seen appealing to then prime minister Yitzhak Rabin, with a rifle aimed at his temple, with his hands and feet bound and with a terrorist pushing him to speak. And he spoke: "The group from Hamas kidnapped me. They are demanding the release of Sheikh Yassin and another 200 murderous terrorists from Israeli prison. If their demands are not met, they will execute me on Friday at 8 P.M."

We lived the six days from the time he disappeared in total uncertainty with respect to his well-being, torn the entire time between terrible fear and great hope. We appealed incessantly to everyone who could help - prime ministers and presidents the world over, and especially to then U.S. president Bill Clinton, since Nachshon was also an American citizen. We appealed to the leaders of Arab countries with which Israel did not have diplomatic ties and to Islamic leaders, and all of them (including Sheikh Ahmed Yassin) made announcements in all the media outlets that the soldier should be released.

We did not know at any stage that our intelligence officials had located the house in which Nachshon was being held, and we did not know that Rabin had decided on a military operation to free him - a decision that sealed his fate, and for which Rabin took full responsibility. We did not know that Nachshon was in Bir Nabala - 10 minutes from our home in the Ramot neighborhood of Jerusalem.

On Friday night - we were not listening to the radio or watching TV because of Shabbat - we sat and waited, our eyes glued to the door, waiting for Nachshon to enter. And then the head of the IDF Personnel Directorate walked in, and we knew that the worst had happened. Only then were we informed of the discovery of the house, and of the military activity in the course of which Nachshon was shot to death and Captain Nir Poraz was also killed.

We sat with our deceased all of Shabbat. We buried our son on Saturday night, 11 Heshvan (exactly a year before the Rabin assassination, which also took place on Saturday night, at the same time we buried our son).

Now we are once again going back there. We think and feel and fear and hope as we did then. We hear the same things, like "Abu Mazen is guilty, Haniyeh is guilty, the soldier's blood is on their heads," although in our time it was Yasser Arafat. We hear "We will not negotiate" and "We won't give in to terror." This is the Israeli destiny, they say.

I am not calling for the release of murderers, but they should not insult our intelligence because they have negotiated and they have given in to terror - in the Jibril deal, and in the agreement in which the bodies of our soldiers who had been abducted by Hezbollah were returned, and in the deal with Elhanan Tennenbaum, and in the release of Sheikh Yassin when two Mossad agents failed in their attempt to assassinate Khaled Meshal. Everyone knows the bloody price we paid for the release of these murderers.

It's very difficult for me to understand the mentality of our leaders, on both the right and the left. It's difficult for me to understand the response given by then vice premier Shimon Peres - who announced that he had won the Nobel Peace Prize, along with Rabin and Arafat, on the same Friday on which the ultimatum was issued on my son's life. Peres was asked his opinion on the "peace" that he had achieved in Oslo in light of my son's abduction, and he responded that peace processes involve "calculated risks." When Peres came to comfort us after the funeral, I told him I felt he had come to comfort a family on the death of a son with no name - that he was simply a "calculated risk" in his dream of a new Middle East.

Until now, I have not spoken to the media - which have come to me once again, from all over the world and of course, from Israel - primarily because our story ended so badly, so tragically, and I thought it was best that I not be heard, that I not damage the morale of the Shalit family or of the Asheri family. I have not stopped crying since the body of the Asheris' son was found.

I am speaking up and writing to you now solely due to the inspiration of Rabbi Avraham Yitzhak Hacohen Kook, the first chief rabbi of Israel, who said: "I am not speaking because I have the strength to speak; I am speaking because I do not have the strength to be silent."