Thousands rally to free Israeli captives
By Seth Mandel
The Jewish State
More than 5,000 people gathered July 16 at Dag Hammarskjold Plaza in New York to rally for the immediate release of the three Israeli soldiers now in their second year of captivity at the hands of the Hamas and Hezbollah terrorist groups.
N.J. Rep. Frank Pallone slammed the lack of enforcement of the United Nations Security Council resolution that ended last summer's war between the Israel Defense Forces and Hezbollah, and called for the soldiers' return.
"The bottom line is there is absolutely no reason why these kidnapped soldiers shouldn't be returned. They should be returned immediately," Pallone told the crowd at 1st Avenue and 47th Street, across from the United Nations headquarters. "It should be that when the violence ends, and there is a cease-fire, the individuals should not continue to suffer."
N.J. State Senator Tom Kean, Jr., who in January introduced a resolution calling for the return of the soldiers, said that residents and their representatives in the state legislature "send a clear message that we in N.J. stand united to see the immediate and unconditional release of these three soldiers."
About two weeks before last summer's war broke out, Cpl. Gilad Shalit was kidnapped by Hamas. Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev were then taken by Hezbollah agents in a cross-border raid during which three other Israeli soldiers were killed, sparking the month-long military conflict.
Goldwasser's mother, Miki, and wife, Karnit, spoke at the rally. Miki Goldwasser said she last saw her son the day after he and Karnit's October 2005 wedding. Since then, she said, she has been made to wonder about the fate and condition of her son.
"I know nothing," she said.
Karnit, who spoke at the end of the two-hour program, noted that this was the second such gathering across from the building where UNSC resolution 1701 was voted on.
Karnit has been traveling around the world, rallying support for the release of her husband and his fellow soldiers. Recently, in a 24-hour span, she met with French President Nicolas Sarkozy, French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner, Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi, and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.
"And still it's not enough, and this is why I'm asking for your help," she said.
Many of the speakers at the event led the crowd in chanting "Free them now! Free them now!" Aryeh Mekel, Israel's Consul General in New York, was one of the first.
"We will do, and we will continue to do, everything possible to free the soldiers and bring them back to their families," Mekel said.
Some of the speakers, including Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations chair June Walker, spoke of the Jewish mitzvah of freeing captives.
"Liberating captives is an obligation we bear as Jews," Walker said. "Today we returned to this spot to say we have not forgotten. We will not forget."
Neither will we forget, Walker said, that Iran stands behind Hamas and Hezbollah as their patron and primary financier of Middle East terrorism. She said the international community must unite behind Israel's right to "defend themselves from the forces of hatred and inhumanity."
New York City Rep. Jerrold Nadler also touted the gathering as an expression of the Jewish community's devotion to pidyon shvuyim, freeing captives.
"This isn't the high seas but we are dealing with pirates, with the same morality and the same values," Nadler said.
He then turned his attention to the building across the street.
"What has the United Nations done to enforce its own resolution? Not a heck of a lot," he said.
What, he asked, has the U.N. done to stop the smuggling of weapons across the Syria-Lebanon border?
But, he warned, the Jewish community must be careful to ensure that such lethargic, irresponsible, and dishonest inactivity isn't contagious.
"We must be vigilant to free Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev from the pirates of Hezbollah, and Gilad Shalit from the pirates of Hamas," Nadler said.
Nadler's vitriolic condemnation of the U.N.'s toothless balking at enforcing its own resolutions was a common theme throughout the program as well.
N.Y. Rep. Anthony Weiner said the New Yorkers in the crowd could probably all remember driving past the impressive-looking but morally hollow U.N. building with their kids. The children, awestruck by the building's appearance, ask, "What goes on there?"
"Nothing," Weiner responded.
The U.N., Weiner said, "doesn't even lift a finger for the easy things."
He said the institution praises democratically elected government on Election Day, but turns its collective back when those "democracies" lob missiles and rockets at Israeli population centers.
"The United Nations often is a feckless institution," he said. "Today they can be something different; they can stand up for... justice."
N.Y. Rep. Gregory Meeks said he thought it was more important to be at the rally than in Washington because of the dangers of silence.
"If voices are silent when bad things are going on, then they could be just as guilty," Meeks told the crowd.
Meeks, who is African-American, fondly recalled the support the civil rights movement received from the Jewish community. The Jewish community wasn't silent when the African-American community was seeking justice, and so he wouldn't be silent now, when the Jewish community needs and deserves voices from outside its own ranks.
He quoted Dr. Martin Luther King, who said "Cowardice asks the question, 'Is it safe?' Expediency asks the question, 'Is it politic?' Vanity asks the question, 'Is it popular?' But conscience asks the question, 'Is it right?' And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but one must take it because one's conscience tells one that it is right."
"Listen to your conscience," Meeks implored. "Let's stand up together and let's make sure we get the return of these soldiers in a timely fashion."
Connecticut Rep. Christopher Shays echoed the warnings against keeping silent.
"There is a silence going on," Shays said. "That silence is cruelty, it is torture."
The rally included representatives from the Asian, Latino, Turkish, and Christian communities. Members of various Jewish camps and synagogue youth groups were in attendance as well, and major Jewish organizations handed out signs, wristbands, and dog tags with the names of the kidnapped soldiers.
As is customary, both the American and Israeli national anthems were sung, and flags of each could be found among the crowd. Songs of Jewish unity, such as Od Avinu Chai and Acheinu were also sung during the program, and Tehillim and a special Misheberach were recited for the missing soldiers.
Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer said that rage is a popular and instinctive reaction to the kidnapping, one that is not necessarily inappropriate.
"We will use our outrage, our protest, our political firmament to make sure that this never happens again in the world in which we live," Stringer said.
Other local officials included Janice Shorenstein, president of the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York; Christine Quinn, Speaker of the New York City Council; N.Y. Assemblyman Sheldon Silver; and Josh Shapiro, president of UJA-Federation of New York.
If Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran think the Jewish community has forgotten its missing pieces, they are wrong, Shorenstein said; if they thought that thousands would not gather again at that very spot, they were wrong; and if they thought the passage of time would quell the community's hope and desire to see its soldiers free, they were wrong.
"We cried out for their freedom, and although a year has passed, we cry out for their freedom again," Shorenstein said.
Quinn said that Israel doesn't just have a right to defend herself, she has a responsibility to do so.
"That is something that doesn't just matter to Israel, it's something that matters to all of us in the United States and especially here in New York," Quinn said.
Elie Wiesel spoke just prior to Miki Goldwasser, and called the kidnapping and subsequent refusal to return the captives "an insult to all civilized people" -- to Jews, Christians, and those who have no religion or faith but do possess a sense of decency.
He called Hezbollah's and Hamas's actions "inhuman behavior," adding that even terrorism has its degrees, and Hezbollah and Hamas have exhibited their occupation of the lowest rung of an already morally bankrupt and savage segment of society.
"Those who kidnapped our sons a year ago are quite simply cowards and criminals," Wiesel said.
The perpetrators must and will be punished, he said, before turning to the family members of the soldiers.
"Believe us," he told them. "We are here to tell you that your pain is our pain, and our hope can justify your own." 