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Beastly Boy

(12,507 posts)
14. For context, which is entirely absent from your article:
Thu Apr 24, 2025, 11:23 AM
Apr 24

Moshe Dayan's speech was made in 1956, when Gaza was annexed by Egypt. It was a eulogy for Roi Rutenberg, a security guard in an Israeli Kibbutz by an Egyptian policeman who illegally crossed the border (then the border was between Egypt and Israel) with other Egyptian subjects of Gaza and ambushed Roi. Roi was shot off his horse, beaten and shot again, then his body was dragged into Gaza. Rothberg's attackers included an Egyptian policeman and a Palestinian farmer. Badly mutilated, his body was returned on the same day after United Nations intervention.

In this context, here is the full text of Dayan's eulogy for Roi Rutenberg:

Early yesterday morning Roi was murdered. The quiet of the spring morning dazzled him and he did not see those waiting in ambush for him, at the edge of the furrow.

Let us not cast the blame on the murderers today. Why should we declare their burning hatred for us? For eight years they have been sitting in the refugee camps in Gaza, and before their eyes we have been transforming the lands and the villages, where they and their fathers dwelt, into our estate.

It is not among the Arabs in Gaza, but in our own midst that we must seek Roi's blood. How did we shut our eyes and refuse to look squarely at our fate, and see, in all its brutality, the destiny of our generation? Have we forgotten that this group of young people dwelling at Nahal Oz is bearing the heavy gates of Gaza on its shoulders?

Beyond the furrow of the border, a sea of hatred and desire for revenge is swelling, awaiting the day when serenity will dull our path, for the day when we will heed the ambassadors of malevolent hypocrisy who call upon us to lay down our arms.

Roi's blood is crying out to us and only to us from his torn body. Although we have sworn a thousandfold that our blood shall not flow in vain, yesterday again we were tempted, we listened, we believed.

We will make our reckoning with ourselves today; we are a generation that settles the land and without the steel helmet and the canon's maw, we will not be able to plant a tree and build a home. Let us not be deterred from seeing the loathing that is inflaming and filling the lives of the hundreds of thousands of Arabs who live around us. Let us not avert our eyes lest our arms weaken.

This is the fate of our generation. This is our life's choice - to be prepared and armed, strong and determined, lest the sword be stricken from our fist and our lives cut down.

The young Roi who left Tel Aviv to build his home at the gates of Gaza to be a wall for us was blinded by the light in his heart and he did not see the flash of the sword. The yearning for peace deafened his ears and he did not hear the voice of murder waiting in ambush. The gates of Gaza weighed too heavily on his shoulders and overcame him.
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/moshe-dayan-s-eulogy-for-roi-rutenberg-april-19-1956

Dayan, and the generation of settlers he was addressing, are long gone. So are the Palestinian subjects of Egypt who perpetrated the atrocity. What is left is the existential threat to Israel from the hateful enemies it is surrounded by and the absolute necessity of defending the sovereign State of Israel's right to exist, by force or otherwise.

Recommendations

3 members have recommended this reply (displayed in chronological order):

Israel's critics are always accused of anti-Semitism , a charge that serves to silence even the mildest questioning of t IrishBubbaLiberal Apr 23 #1
Not always. Only when criticism of Israel is punctuated by overt antisemitism. Beastly Boy Apr 24 #15
Consortium News Is a left wing piece of garbage. They blame Ukraine and JohnSJ Apr 23 #2
Roger Waters is mentioned on Consortium News's "about" page as a major donor. N/T lapucelle Apr 23 #4
I guess that says it all. Thanks, I wasn't aware. JohnSJ Apr 23 #7
Consortium News changed the verb "settle" to the noun "settlers" in their fanciful retelling of Dayan's eulogy. lapucelle Apr 24 #10
Consortium News was 100% CORRECT about Bush and the Iraq war... Jack Valentino Apr 23 #5
Did you read the link I supplied: JohnSJ Apr 23 #6
No.... that anchor text is disconcerting indeed. Jack Valentino Apr 24 #8
Without question Iraq was a complete setup, and was the perfect example of unintended JohnSJ Apr 24 #9
Consortium News is rated left wing by both News Guard and Media Bias Fact Check. lapucelle Apr 24 #11
How odd of Consortium News to actually change a key word and conflate decontextualized lapucelle Apr 23 #3
The usual folks won't like this malaise Apr 24 #12
If by "usual folks" you mean DUers who object to changing words, lapucelle Apr 24 #13
They already don't Bettie Apr 24 #24
THIS malaise Apr 24 #25
Of course DUers don't like what is typically a right wing tactic. lapucelle Apr 25 #26
For context, which is entirely absent from your article: Beastly Boy Apr 24 #14
Genocide is not the answer IrishBubbaLiberal Apr 24 #16
"Genocide" is the strawman concocted by anti-Israel propagandists long before the Gaza war. Beastly Boy Apr 24 #17
UN defines genocide, is exactly what Israel is doing in Gaza IrishBubbaLiberal Apr 24 #19
What you cited is the incomplete definition of genocide, Beastly Boy Apr 24 #22
It is NOT what Israel is doing in Gaza, lapucelle Apr 25 #28
Israel is committing genocide in Gaza IrishBubbaLiberal Apr 25 #31
It's clear from your citation of the Geneva Convention that it is not genocide. lapucelle Apr 25 #32
Dec '24: Amnesty International investigation concludes Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza IrishBubbaLiberal Apr 25 #33
Amnesty admits on page 101 of their report that the war does not fit the definition of genocide. lapucelle Apr 25 #34
Trying individuals for genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and aggression IrishBubbaLiberal Apr 24 #20
Accusing, or even chargung, is not trying. Beastly Boy Apr 24 #23
They know where he lives. yagotme Apr 25 #27
So the ICC arrest warrant is not for genocide? lapucelle Apr 25 #29
countless families across Gaza, their lives shrouded in darkness of this genocide IrishBubbaLiberal Apr 24 #18
What does this response have to do with my post, or the invokation of Dayan inyour OP? Beastly Boy Apr 24 #21
Why would somebody born in Gaza be a "third generation Palestinian refugee"? lapucelle Apr 25 #30
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