Israel’s newest general, 100 years old, finally heals his wounds

The Times of Israel ^ | 10/21/2013 | MITCH GINSBURG

[Former Fetus]

Israel’s newest general, a 100-year-old man who received his longed-for promotion in August, was exasperated. Seated on the couch in his Kfar Yona home, beyond earshot of his in-house caretaker, he lamented the roller coaster of calm and crisis on Israel’s southwestern border. “Give me Gaza,” Maj. Gen. (ret.) Yitzhak Pundak said, “and I’ll do just what I did back when I was the governor.”

That was in 1971. At the time, Pundak said, the locals would ask his permission to play soccer. They’d ask him to ref the matches. The border was quiet. The train ran daily from Gaza to Tel Aviv.

Terror, he went on, would be met with a firm hand. Here’s what he would not be doing: fortifying more Israeli homes and bombing tunnels. “People fire at you and you bomb their tunnels. “How nice,” he said in his broad Polish accent, stretching the Hebrew vowels. “How nice.”

No, he would open up the Strip and offer residents ample employment, and he would wage war each time a rocket was fired on Israel to force the Palestinians “to sit quietly.”

>>SNIP<<

In August, Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon and Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz, chief of the IDF General Staff, awarded him the leaf-and-sword rank of general. Furthermore, after considerable searching, he found a man willing to write the full history of the battle of Kibbutz Nitzanim. It was there that soldiers under his command succumbed to a far superior enemy force during the War of Independence. And it was there that those soldiers returned, facing the unburied bones of their loved ones and the derision of a young nation.

[Former Fetus]

Great story!

[fieldmarshaldj]

Congratulations to the General.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks Former Fetus.

he lamented the roller coaster of calm and crisis on Israel’s southwestern border. “Give me Gaza,” Maj. Gen. (ret.) Yitzhak Pundak said, “and I’ll do just what I did back when I was the governor.” That was in 1971. At the time, Pundak said, the locals would ask his permission to play soccer. They’d ask him to ref the matches. The border was quiet. The train ran daily from Gaza to Tel Aviv. Terror, he went on, would be met with a firm hand... he would open up the Strip and offer residents ample employment, and he would wage war each time a rocket was fired on Israel to force the Palestinians “to sit quietly.”

This isn't 1971. And had Israel committed itself to resettling the Gaza squatters into southern Sinai (which was also occupied by Israel as a consequenceof the 1967 Six Day War) and built out the Strip as completely Israel territory, there would only be Judah and Samaria to worry about.