Opinion | May 25: Not What You Thought | Israel today

Twice in my life I almost felt ashamed of my Israeliness, a real knife turned in my stomach:

After the event of Madhat Yosef, and the next day the IDF withdrew from southern Lebanon, when I watched thousands of SLA families flee from Lebanon to Israel, as Hezbollah trampled their vehicles and property.

Two cases in which Israel "threw to the dogs" those who thought they were her brother in arms.

In the first affair, a lone fighter was betrayed, but it was experienced as a stabbing among the entire Druze community: a Jewish soldier whose parents could call Carmela Menashe in real time was not abandoned - they felt.

The second affair, in which the actual massacre of SLA fighters and their families in Lebanon was abandoned, has already been perceived as a betrayal by all the factors that help Israel in the fight against terrorism: Palestinian agents or collaborators.

These and those concluded that evil and brotherhood of warriors are values ​​that Israel has sanctified only for Jews with access to the media agenda.

It took me a while to understand that the two value accidents are the responsibility of one person - Ehud Barak - and that the sense of crunch I felt from his decisions is shared by many communities in Israeli society.

It is amazing that all this does not interfere with the fact that every year May 25 is marked by a regular media script: in the Israeli media (by and large) it was and remains "the day of the celebration of the withdrawal from southern Lebanon."

A celebration of defeat, by the way.

And year after year, Ehud Barak becomes the "Minister of Victory" responsible for the achievement, the Israeli "De Gaulle" who is presented as the one whose leadership and courage saved Israel and led to one of its great achievements;

Who the Israeli society will remember, thanks to his intense sensitivity, as he responded to the pain of the warriors' parents and withdrew the last of the soldiers from the Strip to his loving mother.

Without discussing the correctness of the framing, it is worth talking about its morality: the Israeli media devoted itself to concealing Barak's responsibility and her own responsibility - while seeing only the mothers of IDF soldiers in front of her eyes, she completely mimicked the fact that Retreat Day would be a tragedy day for thousands.

From the day Barak decided on the withdrawal, he sentenced the fate of thousands of members of the "SLA community": not only fighters and not only intelligence agents, but also boys and girls, uncles and aunts, grandparents. In the worst case of the Hezbollah massacre, and in the "soft" case of abuse, harsh investigations, imprisonment, exclusion and long-term sanctions under the Cain sign of cooperation with Israel. Or a job.It's time to change the "Retreat Anniversary Script".

This is not just a day of celebrations, but a day of Israeli responsibility for traumas and disasters: forced migration, displacement and loss;

And it is also a day that demands recognition: a significant statement to the members of a community whose parents have made the right choice in the past, who are on the right side of history, who sacrificed a lot for themselves and for Israel, and who knew how to contain their past in the Israeli story.

May 25 should be made a day for the SLA community in Israel.

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