On The Northern Border of Israel: Day 3

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The News on the Israeli Street

Palestinian terror in the last 24 hours . . .

Our soldiers are bracing for another rough day on the Gaza border, and the residents of Judea and Samaria are facing another rough day as they try to avoid getting killed by Palestinian terrorists throwing “rocks” and Molotovs.

Yesterday, terrorists attacked on Road 465 near El Muayyir (multiple times), at Deir Nizam (multiple times), Al-Aruv (multiple times), at the Yakir Junction, at the cemetery in Hevron, and at numerous places on the Gush Etzion-Hevron Road to name a few locations.

A staunch supporter of Israel steps down . . .

It was with considerable sadness that we heard yesterday that Trump emissary to the Middle East, Jason Greenblatt, is stepping down to return to private life. Apparently the rigors of trying to arrange a peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians has made it difficult for him to maintain a family life with his wife and six children.

All we know is that at every turn, Greenblatt has been there for Israel. Whenever a Palestinian terror attack occurred, Greenblatt was always one of the first to condemn the terrorists; whenever Israel was reviled anywhere, Greenblatt stood up for us.

Apparently he will step down almost immediately after the Trump Peace Plan is published shortly after the election on September 17.  For all the good that we have just written about Greenblatt, that peace plan–essentially constructed by Greenblatt and Jared Kushner–may contain some distinctly unpalatable elements that Israel will have difficulty swallowing, if they can be swallowed at all.

But for now, we will thank Jason Greenblatt for his years of service, and hope that his replacement, Avi Berkowitz, will continue in Greenblatt’s footsteps.

Speaking of the Trump Administration . . .

The United States blocked a UN Security Council resolution yesterday that would have equated Israel and Hezbollah.

The U.S. insisted that the resolution include no criticism of Israel whatsoever and explicitly condemn Hezbollah for its recent attack.

This was too much for the rest of the Security Council to stomach and so after two draft proposals were rejected by the U.S., the resolution was dropped.

Iran goes overt . . .

We have always suspected here at OneIsrael that Iran never ceased its nuclear weapons program.

Today, Tehran made it official that it has removed “all sanctions and restrictions on its nuclear research and development activities.”

In other words, Iran has “gone overt” with its program to destroy Israel.

TODAY’S BLOG:

On The Northern Border of Israel: Day 3

Your humble servant left you at Avivim yesterday which was the site of the Hezbollah attack last Sunday. From there, we continued traveling east toward Kiryat Shmona (alternately spelled as you see it on the map below):

Our route for day 3.

Leaving Avivim on Road 899, the road goes up to the top of mountains overlooking some beautiful valleys:

Lovely scenery along 899. Those are greenhouses atop the hill to the right.

As noted above, our route took us through Kiryat Shmona. As I suspect all of my dear readers know, shmona means 8 in Hebrew–and the city is named for the 8 defenders led by Joseph Trumpeldor who died defending nearby Tel Hai on March 1, 1920 against Shi’ite Muslims who had come across the border from the Lebanese village of Jabal Amil.*

Tel Hai and Joseph Trumpeldor became symbols of Zionist courage, and though the Jews were defeated and Tel Hai was burned, the actions of Trumpeldor and his men ultimately led to the British including the region in the mandate for Palestine.

From Kiryat Shmona, our next stop was at one of the extremely sad places in Israel, the Helicopter Disaster Memorial. As some readers may remember, two IDF helicopters ferrying Israeli soldiers and munitions into southern Lebanon crashed into each other on the foggy night of February 4, 1997.

All 73 soldiers on board the helicopters died, most in the crash but some in the fiery inferno on the ground. The horrible events of that night have been permanently seared into the Israeli consciousness.

The memorial itself is one of the most beautiful memorials in Israel and is built on the site where one of the helicopters crashed. It consists of a “cemetery” of 73 large stones, a water canal flowing down to the spot of the crash at which another large stone is inscribed with the names of the dead. To the side in a small shaded area is a shrine that fellow service members have maintained for their comrades.

The “cemetery”:

A few of the 73 stones representing the 73 who died that night.

The water flows down the long canal (you see the beginning of the canal above) to:

The stone containing the names of the soldiers.

Perhaps most touching is the shrine kept by the friends of those who died. The name of each soldier is surrounded by hats, candles, IDF dog tags and other personal memorabilia to remember the fallen:

Here you can see a small section of the shrine with individual names of 12 of the soldiers

The Helicopter Disaster Memorial is a place that should not be missed if you travel to northern Israel. In an emotional way, it reaches deeply into the Israeli soul.

From the Memorial we crossed traveled a little further north and went to the Tel Dan Nature Reserve. That is where we will rejoin our travels in the north tomorrow.

Addendum:

*In one of the stranger quirks of history, Kemal Hussein–the Shi’ite Muslim who led the attack on Tel Hai–became a representative of the Jewish National Fund in 1939 and was instrumental in the Zionist purchase of Kibbutz Dafna a little further north.