MATANYA ROBINSON FALLS IN LINE OF DUTY FOR KLAL YISRAEL
Community Representative Ira Kerem shares his thoughts following death of Matanya Robinson in "Operation Defensive Shield". Matanya was the son of Mark (and Rina) Robinson, the Partnership's first living bridge coordinator.

Matanya Robinson, Of Blessed Memory

In the last 18 months, I have been to a dozen funerals or shiva calls all over Israel - Dimona, Yerucham, Arad, Beit Shemesh, Beit Shean, Kiryat Malachi - towns where I represent American Jewish communities in a Partnership 2000 relationship. Today, I will be travelling to another funeral, that of Staff Sargent Matanya Robinson from Kibbutz Tirat Tzvi in the Beit Shean Valley bordering Jordan and the Jordan River. There is a difference between the previous funerals and this one. In those funerals, I had not met the soldiers or civilians who was killed and I did not know the immediate family. Matanya is the son of Mark and Rina Robinson, two former Americans who have been living on their kibbutz for more than 20 years. Mark has been involved with the partnership with Cleveland from the beginning - for almost 7 years. He served as the first People to People coordinator and organized visits, missions, e-mail connections, camp and school programs between Cleveland and residents of the Beit Shean region. He has also been a close and dear friend. I go the funeral of his son not because I see it as my duty but because I want to be there with my friend and to try to offer whatever comfort I can to him and his wife. Over the years, I have been their guest on numerous vacations and have even slept on their living room sofa. They have 5 children and I remember Matanya in the whirl of activity over dinner as a good looking teenager, involved with all the concerns of life that any teenager faces plus a few more being a modern religious Jew and a kibbutznik. Despite the fact that Mark is no longer so involved with Partnership 2000, about once a month he calls me or sends me a fax about some interesting tidbit on the local Beit Shean take on the relationship with Cleveland. His belief in the potential of P2K to impact the region is unmatched and his willingness to volunteer is truly amazing. His wife has been involved with education on the kibbutz for most of her life there and she is one of the sweetest and most patient people I have ever met.

Matanya was killed in the fighting in Jenin. He and another Israeli soldier were ambushed going into a house from which a sniper was firing. Most armies around the world, certainly the American one as seen in Afghanistan and Vietnam, facing a similar situation would have called in tanks. artillery, or airpower to destroy the building. However, the Israeli army because we really do try to prevent the loss of civilian lives, sends in foot soldiers to do the job and to be killed in the process. I just heard on the radio that at least 10 more Israeli soldiers were killed in another ambush in Jenin, the same city where Matanya fell. What is most ironic, absurd, offensive in all this is that we are accused by the Palestinians of perpetuating massacres there. This charge is repeated by the international media and by world leaders. The Palestinian lists of victims includes everyone - the snipers shooting at Israelis and then killed in return, the suicide terrorists who kill dozens of Israeli civilian victims at a time. In our attempt to prevent civilian loss, we risk and lose more and more soldiers and still get blamed for genocide.

I have always supported Israel's efforts to reach peace with the Palestinians. I believed in territorial compromise, applauded the Barak's government willingness to take a real risk for peace by retreating from 95% of the West Bank and Gaza, welcomed all dialogue with the Palestinians. However, while we were teaching our children to draw pictures of doves amidst Israeli and Palestinian flags, they were teaching their children to hate and the glory of blowing themselves up in order to kill Israelis. I am upset that we have had to again re-enter the towns of the West Bank but I don't know what our reaction should be to the 125 Israelis killed last month. If you are looking for a massacre, there was one after another. Most of these people were not combatants but innocent people trying to get on with their lives. This morning I spoke to a mother of a soldier also serving in Jenin. Her son was in a unit that found 40 belts stuffed with explosives and nails just ready to be strapped on by a suicide terrorist. For this alone and all the deaths that have been prevented was this incursion necessary. I wish that I could believe that Arafat had the will and the ability to deliver on a cease fire. I wish that I could believe that if we only would leave the territories, there would be peace. After 18 months of completely unnecessary deaths, I don't believe that any more. I don't believe that we have any more choice but to defend ourselves as best we can and if that means going into Jenin to root out as much as the terror infrastructure as we can, we will have to do it.

All of this makes the recent statements of President Bush difficult to accept. Until 2 days ago, I was receiving e-mails urging me to write the White House to praise the President's support of Israel's right of self defense. Now, the President is ordering us to leave before the job is completed. We all know what awaits us after such a retreat. Terrorism will return with a vengeance. Eventually after the loss of hundreds more Israeli civilians, we will be forced to go in again and the next time a lot more people will be killed. Instead, of ordering Israel out, the President should be asking Israel to finish the job of uprooting terror, at least as best as can possibly be done. Anything less would mean that Matanya would have died in vain.

Something inside of me does not let me end this piece despite the fact that I must leave for the funeral. I want to tell people that they should be writing the President and other government leaders to give the army more time to finish what the Palestinians started. I want to ask that people write and call the local and national media to correct the distorted picture of Palestinian victimization. I want to urge communities to organize, to rally, to demonstrate in support of Israel. I want those people who have friends and relatives in Israel to let them know that Americans are with them and are working to support them.

Today is Holocaust Remembrance day. I don't want to give the impression that we are in the same situation as the Jews of Europe faced 60 years ago but we are facing a lot more death and destruction if we can not get at the leadership and means of Palestinian terror against an innocent civilian population. I would like to believe that American citizens support that effort.

Nisan 5762 - April 2002