A commanding general of one of the battalions in Lebanon, brought a friend of his - a citizen! - into Lebanon without permission.
The civilian was killed by enemy fire.
HY”D
https://yated.com/my-take-on-the-news-376/Last Wednesday, the media reported that the famous researcher Zeev Chanoch Ehrlich, who is known by his nickname “Jabo,” was killed by terrorists in Lebanon. Most people immediately raised the obvious question: What was a 70-year-old man doing in Lebanon? When the media followed up by reporting that he had entered Lebanon with permission from a senior officer in the army, the criticism shifted toward that officer. It seemed as if someone high up in the IDF (and associated with the right, of course) had permitted Jabo, a well-known right-wing figure, to enter the danger zone for no discernible reason.
Ehrlich, a long-time resident of the settlement of Ofra, was killed in a confrontation with terrorists in Lebanon after entering the area as a civilian with authorization from Yoav Yarom, a colonel in the reserves, who was believed to have authorized his visit in violation of IDF regulations. Yoav himself was injured in the same incident, and another soldier was killed. That was all it took to trigger an uproar in the media.
The political right did not respond at first, although it was obvious that something about this story did not add up.
It was soon revealed that this wasn’t the first time that Jabo had entered a war zone as a civilian; in fact, he entered Gaza during the early months of the ground incursion, with the approval of senior IDF officers, and he had previously visited Arab-occupied areas of Yehuda and Shomron under guard from the IDF. At that point, the niggling questions blossomed into a full-blown mystery. What was the meaning of this? Why was this academic in his seventies frequenting dangerous war zones? The leftists began painting a picture of an eccentric man who received permission from the army to enter war zones for no good reason, and whose capricious behavior had caused the death of Gur Kehati, the other soldier killed in the incident. The flames of incitement were fanned, and tensions began rising.
But then it became clear that the agitators had gotten the story completely wrong. Zeev Ehrlich, a renowned historian and archaeologist, had indeed entered war zones with the army on a regular basis—at the army’s request, when his expertise on ancient buildings was needed. Jabo, who wrote a book on Jewish buildings in Gaza, was considered an expert in the field, and when the army needed immediate information on the interior of a historic building in the battle zone, they would call on Jabo, who would always respond instantly. The famed researcher was prepared to don his IDF uniform and arrive at the scene on a moment’s notice; when Jabo as asked to help defend Eretz Yisroel, he did not hesitate to come to the army’s aid. In fact, it is believed that his expertise saved the lives of many soldiers in the past, thanks to the detailed information he was able to provide about historic structures that might have been harboring terrorists.In this case, there was a historic building in Lebanon that the army refrained from bombing from the air due to its significance. The IDF suspected that there might be terrorists hiding in the building, and they consulted with Jabo to learn about its interior. Unfortunately, two terrorists were indeed holed up in the building, and they killed Jabo and Kehati and injured Yarom, who is considered one of the most cautious commanders in the IDF and recently clashed with the chief of staff on the subject. The entire controversy, then, proved to be one massive blood libel, which was at least deflated fairly quickly. The levayah was held in Ofra (even though the army offered him a military funeral at a military cemetery, a privilege accorded to every soldier who is killed in action) and was attended by a large crowd, and many people visited the family during the shiva as well. I felt a certain connection to the family since one of the aveilim, Yitzchok Amitai, is my coworker in the Knesset. He is the spokesman for the Knesset Health Committee and is one of the most popular Knesset employees, as well as a talmid chochom and a yarei Shomayim. On Wednesday, he released a sharply worded statement against the IDF spokesman, who initially joined the ranks of the critics until he realized the truth of the matter.
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