Haggai Luber is very well known in Israel as an actor, playwright, theater director, acting teacher, and the founder and artistic director of the Aspaklaria Theater and Acting School. He is the father of Yehonatan Hy"d, who fell in batle in Gaza in the Swords of Iron War, leaving a pregnant wife and infant son.
To all those who blithely signed letters (former air force, intelligence and medical personnel, etc recently signed letters saying that the hostages must be freed even if the price is stopping the war, ed.) against the ongoing war, don’t wave your military-security past in our faces and don’t wave your professions in our faces, you are no more worthy than anyone else in Israel. Your past is irrelevant, and your profession is of no significance.
We have seen enough “emeriti” has-beens who in the name of their military record, pushed us into the blood-soaked, egregious Oslo disaster, we have seen the “intelligentsia” and the “wise experts” who led us to leave the Katif Bloc in the Gaza Strip while swearing that not one rocket would be launched from there and that tranquility would reign at our southern border. It did not quite work out that way. The time has come for a bit of humility.
To my mind, my sweet son Yonatan was killed because of the Oslo Accord adventure and the Disengagement, plans that most of you supported. The spirit of those disasters permeates every line of your letters.
Despite that, I am not accusing you of not valuing my son’s life and the lives of so many others who were victims of Oslo and the Disengagement from Gaza, nor am I accusing you for your naive eagerness to sign agreements with murderers. I am not accusing you of “personal and political interests” that made you advance the vision of the lauded “New Middle East” that collapsed on us.
Don’t you dare accuse me either.
You have opinions, and the right to express your opinions, but you do not have the right to taint me and millions of other people who think differently. You do not have the right to say that we want the war to continue because of a “desire for revenge” – that is a disgusting lie.
And on the same subject:
You do not have the right to say that we are willing to abandon the hostages because of “political and personal interests.” That, too, is an abominable lie. It is a mendacious portrayal of me, and of the government with whose policies millions agree, policies that say that in the name of the sanctity of the lives of the hostages, the citizens and the soldiers, it is incumbent upon us to continue to fight with all our might until the last terrorist is eliminated.
And don’t you dare preach to me about the “sanctity of life.” Believe me, I know what it is to lose someone. I cry for my fallen holy son every day, I want the hostages home no less than you do, but I still think differently than you. Say whatever you wish. Erase the idea of refusal to serve. And stop saying that all the truth and morality is in your hands. It is insulting to those who go out to battle as you do, it insults others in your profession who do not agree with you. It insults me. Become accustomed to hearing disagreements with respect, even on critical issues, and learn to listen to other opinions.
Leave your echo chamber.
Translation: Rochel Sylvetsky