Israel Hayom..
06 January '14..
Doron Zahavi, from the Israel Defense Force's elite 504 intelligence unit, is a hero, but he was abandoned on the front lines. Bypassing the deleterious campaign against him, this is my attempt to clear his name.
Because of his special abilities, the state sent Zahavi to mix with our bitterest enemies, acting as an agent in their midst. He and others like him spent years of their lives in interrogation rooms trying to extract critical, life-saving information from terrorists. He joined missions penetrating deep into enemy territory to capture conniving terrorists.
Whoever is recruited to 504 has agreed to put his or her life in danger. And while they have been exposed to stabbing and betrayal, not a single one of them serving in this distinguished unit have been trained what to do when they're being stabbed in the back by their own countrymen.
The enemy doesn't rule out using any missile or means. Senior Hezbollah official Mustafa Dirani chose to kill one of our finest sons with a baseball bat. The situation is absurd: One of the most senior officers in a terrorist organization, who dreamed to kill Israeli citizens and was involved in air force navigator Ron Arad's imprisonment, is demanding compensation from Israel because, according to him, he was humiliated, threatened with rape and other indecent acts (which included, among other things, baseball-bat abuse).
When I saw footage of Dirani's interrogation in the media, I was unpleasantly surprised by its shallowness. Dirani -- a veteran of the Hezbollah system that rapes women and children in Lebanon and Syria, ties the tormented bodies of its enemies to the backs of cars and drags them through the streets, denails and electrocutes its prisoners -- must have giggled to himself at the offensive "sexual" acts being done to him while he was dressed in his underwear.
I am proud to admit that in the past I was also a fighter like Zahavi. I can also recite the lofty ethical code guiding his actions; I know the officers involved in his line of work. Because of this, I can empathize with Zahavi's public battle to clear his name. As a professional experienced in motivational theory, I have asked myself more than once: Why do certain individuals here have the perverse desire to inflict damage on our country, both inside Israel and internationally? Without thinking, as someone who recruited and ran agents, I can occasionally pick out the journalists denigrating our country, the type attacking Zahavi and his actions today, with the perfect mix of personality traits and motivation that had they been among our enemies back in the day would have made great agents. Such personalities are multifaceted, comprising a mixture of perceived deprivation, an inferiority complex and self-hatred, a sort of "know it all," undeserved air of superiority and the belief that their betrayal is justified and that their countrymen, in their stupidity, simply cannot understand it.
It's possible that such an emotional tapestry is the motivating factor behind all the mudslinging toward Zahavi, a symbol of sacrifice who has continued to give back what he can as an officer in the Israel Police. The outrageous onslaught against this man, in addition to the smear campaign against Israel (where Dirani was interrogated), calling the country a "mucky, rotten place," reminds me of the biblical story of Balaam son of Beor.
Such journalists defile Doron and slander Israel and its warriors from the warmth of their newspaper offices, or in the comfortable company of petitioning groups adored by Israel's enemies. Haaretz columnist Gideon Levy wrote that Israelis are "pretty" and "feeble-minded," from children's author Yaron Zahavi to Doron Zahavi of the 504 intelligence unit -- harebrained people who choose reckless careers. Instead of lounging around in foreign hotels, damning Israel from afar, such individuals are holed up in dank interrogation rooms trying to cut terrorists down to size, endangering their own lives carrying out so-called operational follies (which even failed to bring back Ron Arad, Levy writes). While Balaam son of Beor came to curse the Israelites but ended up blessing them, these Israel-bashers have only come to curse.
Link: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=6931
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We need more people to defend the defenders.
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