In the spring of 2002, Palestinian terrorists initiated an unprecedented terror bombing campaign against Israeli civilians, including the Passover eve bombing of Netanya's Park Hotel, in which 29 Israelis were killed and 140 people were injured. In response, the Israel Defense Forces launched Operation Defensive Shield, with the intention of destroying the infrastructure of terrorism in Palestinian towns and villages.
In addition to regular forces, hundreds of Israeli reserve soldiers were called away from their families and jobs to defend the Israeli home front against the horrors of Palestinian terror. Conflicting reports appeared in the international media on what transpired in Nablus, Tulkarm, Bethlehem and more infamously, in the Jenin refugee camp.
The stories of the Israeli soldiers who fought in Jenin, where 13 of their comrades were booby-trapped in one deadly burst of Palestinian bomb blasts and gunfire exactly one year ago today, have never been properly told - until now.
In A PSALM IN JENIN, a just-released book, written by Brett Goldberg and published by Modan Press, the reader can at last follow the soldiers into the field and read of their experiences, their hard-fought victories and their painful losses. Goldberg, an Israel Insider columnist, writes of the melting pot of IDF reservists from all walks of life, looking out for buddies and maintaining their sanity and humanity as they take on the Palestinian terrorists in the city of Jenin, rigged with booby-traps and known throughout Israel as Suicide City.
Goldberg WAS ASKED what made him want to write the book. "A week or two after the actual battle, when I first heard stories from friends who had fought there, I understood that the true story of Jenin had to be told in a format that made it clear that Jenin was much more than 'not a massacre,'" Goldberg replied. "It was an embodiment of ethical, humane behavior in the most inhuman of conditions.
"Our people made a choice -- not to use bombardment or artillery strikes -- and the soldiers carried out this mission in an exemplary manner. We need to be proud of these men not only because of what they did, but because of who they are. I want the reader to come to know these men as well as I did," Goldberg said.
Goldberg said he was "struck by the constant internal moral debates which the soldiers carried on even in situations that were kill-or-be-killed. I was also struck by the tremendous pacifism that pervades Israeli culture. It's a phenomenon that isn't often written about, but which can't be missed by a parent traveling back and forth between the two cultures. Israeli popular culture has a distinct distaste for violence. There are no action heroes, no Rambos or Schwarzeneggers. Children are forbidden to play with toy guns. That's what makes it all the more poignant when such devout pacifists are forced to take up arms."
Goldberg, who served in the IDF, was asked what, in his mind, characterized the Israel Defense Forces. "The IDF is characterized by what I would call 'institutionalized altruism.' You're taught to always be there for your fellow soldier. Indeed, most of the casualties in Jenin were soldiers going in to retrieve wounded buddies."
These soldiers - reservists who fought valiantly against dangerous odds so that their families could live normal, safe lives at home in Israel - finally have a chance to tell the tale of what really happened in Jenin. Duff
