honor your heroes

Honor your heroes!
By David Verveer
We, Israelis, do not know how to honor our living heroes. Our dead heroes are celebrated and beatified, but only after they departed from this world. For example, look how we treat Retired Colonel Elhanan Tennenbaum, who risked his own life and precautious health, by voluntary entering an hostile country, in order to promote a drug deal (with operators in Dubai), but was kidnapped by the Hezbollah. Would he have succeeded in his business, he would have paid off his gambling debs and would have promoted the sale of cheaper drugs in Israel (an important advantage for young drug users, which have difficulty paying the expensive drug use).
But all this did not happen, as poor Elhanan was kidnapped by those bad boys and kept in confinement (three years, guilty only of embezzlement, drug dealing, betrayal and other irrelevant micro-crimes) by the Hezbollah. The Hezbollah tried to break Elhanan down, in order to betray Israel’s secrets, but apparently, Elhanan did not know sufficiently, in order to satisfy his captors, and his only remaining value was the prisoner swab card. And indeed, as Israel does not leave his courageous soldiers in the hands of the enemy, and specially not high ranking retired Colonels, somehow relate to the ruling class of our society, he was exchanged, together with three dead soldiers for 436 Arab prisoners, plus a German spy.
436 Arab prisoners imprisonment cost is estimated at least 1,300 dollar per capita / yearly or in other words, worth more than 500,000 U.S. dollars per year or in 3 years (average remaining prison time) – 1,500,000 U.S. dollars. Our hero Elhanan saved this expense for you, the Israeli tax payer, with his unselfish and courageous behavior, and for this, he should be praised, but no, we ignore the poor fellow, we make fun of his former precautious health, which, thank the Lord, has remarkably and surprisingly improved, after his return to us.
I am happy to notice that the Government treats Elhanan much better than the media, which was demonstrated recently, when Elhanan admitted that he tried to arrange an international drug deal, and our court declined to charge him for International crimes, as they had reached an agreement not to process his alleged crimes. Imagine, the Government breaking their promise to a guilty (by admission), drug dealer! Who would be prepared to assist in catching real criminals (such as tax offenders, illegal workers, elderly people not paying their taxes, etc.).
Elhanan is only one example of many, silent heroes, trying to do their duty to the nation, without expecting any payment for their sacrifice (did I mention, that Israel paid a pension to Elhanan’s family, during his imprisonment in Lebanon?).