Not long ago I wrote a post which addressed the question of Who is Samir Kuntar? At the age of 16, Kuntar became a hero to the Palestinian people, and now to Jew-haters everywhere, by slaughtering an unarmed man and his 4 year old daughter. Hezbollah began the current war with Israel by killing Israeli soldiers and seizing 2 young Israeli soldiers, with the express goal, often stated explicitly by Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, of trading the soldiers for prisoners held by Israel. Every time Nasrallah has made this statement, he has mentioned Samir Kuntar by name. Kuntar is emblematic of the kind of inhuman monster that is considered a hero to many of the people of the Middle East.
Last week I received a note from Daniel Brook thanking me for my post on Kuntar. He is a nephew of Danny Haran:
Dear Charles of LGF, owner of shrinkwrapped.blogs.com, your supportive readers, and everyone who has blogged about terrorist Samir Kuntar's triple murder,
I'd like to thank you for your blog entries about the terrorist Samir Kuntar. As you know, on April 22, 1979, a group of terrorists led by Samir Kuntar murdered 28-year-old Danny Haran by machine gun, then murdered his 4-year-old daughter Einat Haran by smashing her head in, and also causing the death of 2-year-old Yael, as her mother, Smadar, tried to protect her.
These were members of my family and I know that Danny's mother, Nina, who is very elderly now, and his father, David, who died a few years ago, would be particularly grateful for your support that the terrorist Samir Kuntar should serve the full three life sentences that he received for his cowardly acts of cold-blooded murder.
I can't speak on behalf of my whole family but I'm sure many of them would agree with me when I say that the only way I want Kuntar to return to Lebanon is in a body bag. The torment, the tears, and the sheer savagery and mindlessness of this triple crime has remained with us all these years. My part of the family live in England and on every visit to Israel, we have to visit a triple grave: a dead father with his two dead children on either side. His mother will often talk about the murders as if they only happened yesterday. Her yearning for her son and grandchildren go on to this day.
Why should Kuntar go free from his responsibility for what he did when we are not free from the result of what he did?
I'll make Nasrallah a deal - a prisoner swap of a lifetime. If Nasrallah can give us back Danny, Einat, and Yael, and turn back the clock for all the time we've lost, we'll give Samir Kuntar back to Lebanon - alive. Anything less and Nasrallah has no deal.
Needless to say I'm somewhat insulted by Nasrallah's shameless mouthpiece of savagery spurting out his poison - but he's so full of hate that there's only one place he's going. Hatred is, after all, self-consuming. Also, Hezbollah's indiscriminate killing of Israeli civilians and the taking and killing of soldiers all done partly so that they can get the release of a cold-blooded triple murderer is beyond any decent human being's comprehension.
However, this hasn't stopped my own ignorant MP, Ms Dianne Abbott, on the BBC calling for the release of Lebanese prisoners on her arse-about-face prediction that all the violence will then stop. She's famous for doing 360 blubber-whale turns when it's her son on the line, but anyone else can just like it or lump it. Like Nasrallah, she has picked on the wrong family this time.
So that you can put a face to the decent loving human being Danny Haran was, I've included two photos of Danny holding me when he came to visit us in London. These were taken approximately six months before he was murdered.
May I say that at this difficult time all your support is greatly appreciated.
Thank you,
Daniel Brook
I asked Daniel if he would give me permission to post his note and the pictures and he agreed.
Here is his response:
Dear SW,
Of course you can post my e-mails and the pictures. Although I was shocked to find this all on the blogsphere, I agree with you and Smadar that the world needs to know what Hezbollah really stands for and what they really intend where Israeli civilians are concerned. This hurts like hell, but I'm not willing to stay silent while Nasrallah dupes the world into an obviously fake quick solution of a so-called "prisoner exchange".
Each time Hezbollah attacks Israel in some phoney attempt to get prisoners released, and demands Samir Kuntar - a convicted murderer - to be released, it opens up old wounds for the whole family, particularly Danny's mother, Nina, who phones us from Israel angry as hell that the Israeli government could even consider such a transparent smokescreen as a prisoner exchange. Samir Kuntar is not a political prisoner in any size, shape, or form. Samir Kuntar and his terrorist gang murdered 3 people - civilians - directly, one of whom was a four-year-old child, and he caused a mother to accidentally smother her two-year-old child to death in her desperate attempt to protect her.
Samir Kuntar hasn't begun to pay for those cold-blooded crimes. For one, he's young enough to take up arms again; he was only 17 when he smashed open my four-year-old cousin's head against a rock with his rifle butt. Did you know that when the paramedics picked her up from Naharia beach they said her brains fell out. What kind of 17-year-old does that to a four year old child? Danny's mother asks me that question every time I see her and I've never been able to give her an answer.
My mum tells me Kuntar has been allowed conjugal rights - somehow, he's been allowed a wife and kids of his own while denying Smadar her first family. Where's the justice in that?
I find out through the blogosphere that Samir Kuntar is hero-worshipped in the death-cult that surrounds Israel. So clearly releasing him would be a reward to that death cult - a reward and a boost of unspeakable proportions. The Israeli government needs to understand that they wouldn't only be re-opening the wounds that ripped my family apart, but they'd also be rewarding the murderer and his fanatical supporters into going further. Nothing recruits terrorists more than rewarding terrorists because nothing else demonstrates terrorism's efficacy more.
As you can probably tell, thanks to Samir Kuntar still being alive and Hezbollah's attempts to fool the world into releasing him, my family have never been able to heal properly; every few years it's all thrust into the open again for us to defend our dead relatives. Not only that but many more families have had to mourn their loved ones killed defending the north against Hezbollah's death-cult fanatics.
What difference would a cease-fire make? Israeli civilians and soldiers will still be killed whether there's a cease-fire or not - and Hezbollah will still use Lebanese civilians as human shields while they "re-arm and reload". I don't know about you, but I'd rather die fighting than die as the result of the international community's blood-thirsty need for Realpolitik. Why is Israel always the world's sacrifice to the gods?
As for my family, I can think of one quick solution to the Samir Kuntar wound-opener, and I can assure you, what the world thinks of my solution doesn't feature on my mind.
And now look, I've written another long e-mail about this terrible event! Sorry.
If you have any questions, I'll do my best to answer them. There are only a few people I've ever mentioned this to - my family tends to avoid talking about it, which is understandable, it's just so upsetting to talk about. Even more tragically, we're not alone in our grief, everyone in Israel has lost someone to the surrounding death cult. I haven't yet been able to mention what happened to my family on my own blog; I didn't want to upset Smadar or Nina. Only my mum and Nina have ever talked to me about it at any length, so finding Smadar's article on the internet through the blogosphere came as quite a surprise. I think we can all learn from her courage and Nina's - they're true matriachs of Israel. You know, mothers who cherish their children's lives in a life cult as opposed to the death cult across the border where some children are bred as human bombs deliberately just to fan the flames of this conflict.
Kind regards and thank you once again for your understanding and support,
Daniel
There is a quite disturbing dynamic that has occurred with every war for survival that Israel has had to fight. It is a dynamic which has spread to the American attempt to fight a "kinder and gentler" war in Iraq. In their wars, the liberal Democracies, Israel and America especially, have been held to impossible standards of conduct, including an absolute focus on the humanity of the victims of Israeli and American arms. At the same time, the enemy is held to the lowest possible standards and their victims are accorded no presumption of humanity. Danny and Einat Haran, along with Nick Berg, Kristian Menchaca and Thomas L. Tucker, among so many others, were real people slaughtered by monsters who denied their humanity along with their right to live.
The press and Western governments have conspired to deny the humanity of the victims of some of the most evil killers on the planet, all the while making the most flimsy accuations of atrocities against those conducting the most humane warfare in history.
The dynamic makes winning any war much more difficult and perhpas impossible, and the basis for it is worth pondering; I hope to address this in a forthcoming post.
Recent Comments