Go with God Ezer Weizman.
Posted on 04/28/2005 12:08:12 PM PDT by IAF ThunderPilot
Jerusalem - April 27
Israel is a land which lack heros, but yet every Israeli is a hero. For all who live, sweat and work in this Middle-Eastern democratic state, facing sand storms, overdraft and terrorism, one must be a hero. But some cast shadows larger than others.
Ezer Weizman was the very definition of a hero. A man distinguished by exceptional courage and nobility and strength. A native of Israel, a Sabra, who enjoyed the challenge of flight and dared to speak when others remained silent.
Thousands of mourners from Israel and abroad gathered Tuesday to bid farewell to this Israel peace pioneer, fighter pilot, businessman and former President Ezer Weizman, who chose the working class city of Or Akiva for his burial.
Weizman, who died Sunday at age 80, was President of Israel from 1993 to 2000 and pioneered contacts with Palestinian leaders at a time when such meetings were illegal under Israel law. During this period he was as outspoken as a Prime Minister. A role for which Weizman enjoyed as he united a country with his easy smile and longing eyes but held distain for the ceremony of office. Almost without actual powers, the Presidency is an institution that relies heavily on style.
Ezer Weizman's strong personality and unique manner, which have pervaded every task he has undertaken from air force commander to government minister, have also colored his Presidency. Weizman's down-to-earth manner has been quite different from the statesmanlike image and "elevated status" that characterized most of his predecessors. His unique character has endowed the Presidency with an informality and lack of reserve that reflects the warm, dynamic and unstructured nature of Israel's society. Thus, the office has in many ways come to mirror the typical Israeli - direct, familial and unceremonious, candid and spontaneous.
As a Cabinet minister, he helped bring about the Jewish state's first peace treaty with an Arab country. Israeli Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz, left, Vice Premier Shimon Peres, center, and Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom, right attending the funeral of former Israeli President Ezer Weizman in the cemetery in Or Akiva Tuesday, April 26, 2005. Weizman, a political moderate who pioneered contacts with Palestinian leaders and helped bring about the Jewish state's first peace treaty with an Arab country was buried Tuesday. Israel Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz, left, Vice Premier Shimon Peres, center, and Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom, attended the funeral of former Israeli President Ezer Weizman
Weizman, a political moderate who pioneered contacts with Palestinian leaders and helped bring about the Jewish state's first peace treaty with an Arab country was buried Tuesday. Instead of the expected burial place of Mt. Herzl in Jerusalem, where other former presidents and Israeli notables have been interred, Weizman chose to be buried in Or Akiva, a working class city next to the upscale seaside community of Caesarea, where he lived after leaving the presidency.
Eight Israeli generals carried his coffin to its grave, alongside those of his son Shaul and daughter-in-law Rachel, who died in a 1992 car crash. Four F16 fighters flew over in salute to the man who was a founder and commander of the Israel Air Force, followed by the historic black Spitfire piloted by Weizman in Israel's early years. His pilot's wings were laid on his grave.
After spending five hours in the sun, being hassled by security guards, and listening to loads of similar eulogies, mourners finally encountered one moving moment that wordlessly symbolized something real out of all the superlatives uttered yesterday at Ezer Weizman's memorial service: Immediately after a quartet of F-16s roared over the grave, an old Spitfire appeared from the north. The announcer mentioned this was the plane Weizman flew as a World War II combat pilot, and later in the Israel Air Force. The Spitfire flew low, its engine issuing an ancient sputtering that was far more pleasant to the ear than the preceding display by the hi-tech jets. Then it soared up high with cheeky aerobatics, swooped down once more toward the cemetery, waved its wings and disappeared into the sunset.
The United States was represented at the funeral by C. David Welch, assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs. In three decades in political life, Weizman made a highly public transition from hawk to dove, saying the Jews had to learn to "share this part of the world" with the Arabs. The story of his life, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said at a memorial service, was the story of Israel.
"Ezer, my friend, you always believed in the strength of Israel, in its talents and in the courage of its citizens," Sharon said. "We shall always remember you."
Although Weizman spent the last 36 years of his life as a politician, businessman and president, longer than the 27 years he spent in uniform, he received a military burial, with a coffin, flag and eight generals carrying him to his final resting place.
The Israel Defense Forces produced a dignified ceremony that went by without a hitch, but was also rather alienated from the local population of Or Akiva, whose connection with Weizman was one of the main motifs mentioned by all over the past few days. It was an exclusive ceremony for the old guard and political top brass, who were bidding farewell to an old friend, along with symbolic representatives of various communities - ultra-Orthodox, Druze, Muslim, Christian and Bahai. Most Or Akiva residents lined the main road to watch the coffin being driven to the cemetery.
Only after the funeral ended was the road opened and the residents "allowed" to file past the grave. Weizman's coffin was placed in the plaza of the town auditorium a 9 A.M., flanked by an honor guard. Thousands came to pay their respects, many with a life story that somehow related to Weizman in one of his many incarnations.
Rosa Kleiner of Or Akiva, who immigrated from Leningrad 14 years ago, recalled how she met Weizman in Caesaria just weeks after arriving, and that he kindly asked how she was settling in. Sigal Hadad and Hannah Gvili, ultra-Orthodox women who came with their children, said they were paying their respects to a man who symbolized a leader who was part of the people. They are Or Akiva residents and remember how, as girls, they once walked to the Caesaria beach on Saturday, and Weizman invited them in for a drink of cold water and showed them around his house. Eli and Galit Sarid from Kadima waited patiently in their wheelchairs for the crowd to thin around the coffin. Eli worked with Weizman on an election campaign, and has since admired him. "We don't get out much for obvious reasons, but I just had to come."
On a low stone fence on the outskirts sat an elderly man dressed in traditional Druze garb. In 1996, Ali Amar of the Galilee village of Julis lost his son Hussein, an Israel Defense officer killed in pursuit of terrorists in Lebanon. "Weizman personally came to console me," he said. "I felt that he truly feels my pain. I had to come here."
At noon, access to the coffin was blocked and the enormous army of Israel guards and police began bringing invitees into the plaza, where hundreds of chairs had been reserved for government ministers, MKs, Supreme Court justices, the Mossad and Shin Bet chiefs, mayors, clerics of every denomination, diplomats and old warriors. The last three rows were unmarked, filled by locals who had stood in a long line to hear the speeches. For the politicians, the funeral was an enjoyable reunion. Moshe Shahal, Raanan Cohen and Itzik Mordechai embraced at length and shared secrets; MKs past and present slapped each other on the back, and ex-generals stared pointedly at the row of younger generals waiting by the coffin and tried to identify who's who.
The Or Akiva mayor's secretaries were so excited by the profusion of celebrities that they mistakenly called Amir Peretz Bibi Netanyahu, but successfully identified Eyal Berkovic, the soccer player who passed by them. The last to arrive were the close family members, Weizman's widow, Reuma, his daughter Michal and the grandchildren. There was an embarrassing moment when they were nearly stampeded by the photographers. Then the eulogies began. First a relative said kadish, then President Moshe Katsav spoke. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon also eulogized Weizman, speaking of his heritage, his shaping of the air force and state, but Sharon also spoke movingly about intimate encounters with him. Michal spoke last, about a father who fought up to his final moment. "You were always surrounded by drama, even in death," she said.
Weizman was born in Tel Aviv and raised in the northern port city of Haifa on June 15, 1924. His uncle, Chaim Weizmann, was Israel's first president. He learned to fly at 16 and in World War II underwent flight training in the British Royal Air Force, later serving as a fighter pilot in Egypt and India. He began his long military career as a fighter pilot during World War II, joining the Royal Air Force in 1942 at age 18. Returning to Mandatory Palestine after the war, Weizman was one of a handful of pilots who founded the "Air Service" of the Israel Haganah. He served as a fighter pilot during the Israel War of Independence, commanded a squadron, and later (1958-66) was O.C. of the Israel Air Force, in which capacity he introduced the use of electronic warfare systems in aircraft.
In 1977, Weizman made a secret trip to Egypt. That trip and the friendship he formed with Egyptian President Anwar Sadat served as a catalyst to the negotiations that culminated in the U.S.-sponsored Camp David agreements between Israel and Egypt in 1978, which led to a peace treaty the following year. He later resigned from then-Prime Minister Menachem Begin's Cabinet, complaining about his strict interpretation of interim peace accords with Egypt.
Weizman believed unremittingly in the need to expand the peace with Egypt to include Jordan and Israel's other neighbors. Jordan signed a treaty with Israel in 1994. After the Palestinian uprising began in 1987, Weizman held meetings with the Palestine Liberation Organization, then outlawed in Israel as a terrorist organization, and its leader, Yasser Arafat.
"Nothing contributes more to defense than peace," he said at the time. "Let's try to talk to Arafat. We have one of the best air forces in the world, we have one of the best armies in the world. What the hell are we worried about?"
With AP and Ha'aretz
RIP, Mr. Weizman. He was one of the great ones.
Check this out!
May your soul rest in peace, Ezer! God bless you real good!
Ezer Weizman, one of Israel's founding fathers. Rest in Peace and Shalom.
I'm embarrassed that all we sent was an "assistant secretary of state;" surely the guy merited more than that.
Rack him
RIP Ezez
Go with God Ezer Weizman.
A man is gone. A great man.
BTTT...
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