“Heroism is not a military term. Wherever there is sacrifice, there is heroism… The opposite of heroism isn't cowardice, but selfishness. A selfish person can be brave, but he cannot be a hero...Heroism is sacrifice, and it doesn't have any cruelty in its nature. It is the highest form of service. It is founded on the love of humanity…Only a person who has a lot within him, can give back a lot. He who has a thin personality has nothing to offer to the greater good of others…He who is ignorant cannot be a hero, since ignorance means no interest in those who surround you. Lack of interest means a lack of love, and where there is no love there is no sacrifice, and thus no heroism.”
—In an Op-Ed in Yedioth, former IDF deputy chief of staff, Maj. Gen. Yair Golan quotes commander of the Palmach and a founder of the IDF, Yitzhak Sadeh, and writes: “Just imagine how our lives would have look like if our public sector had more people with the quality of heroism? People who don't live by a desire to rule over others, or limit themselves to their own personal gain; people who use knowledge to increase our society's human riches rather than to accumulate financial gain. People who have a lifestyle of loving their neighbor, whomever he or she may be. Imagine that leaders would be such heroes, like Yitzhak Sadeh was.”

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You Must Be Kidding: 
The family of a woman who was declared a 'Righteous Among the Nations' was allowed into Israel only after a 10-hour grilling at Ben-Gurion Airport. They had come to meet the family she had saved.**

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Front Page:

Israelis, the Time Has Come to Acknowledge the Other Side’s Pain (Alit Karp, Haaretz+) Every once in a while, in the wake of shooting from Gaza, there is a military operation of the kind that destroys the little that is left of the place. In a random survey conducted yesterday on TV’s Channel 13 news at the Ashdod beach, there was agreement among the bathers: We should have attacked them a little more, and it’s a shame that it all ended so quickly. The years of hatred and separation have done their job: All the participants in the random survey thought that killing a few more Arabs is really not so terrible. And now suddenly, 100 flesh-and-blood [Palestinian -OH] people who have also lost their dear ones in hostile acts, will arrive deep inside the State of Israel, and it will turn out that not only do they have faces and names, but that there is a group of people in the State of Israel – even if small – that is willing to acknowledge their pain and the injustice done to them. [Reference to the Alternative Israeli-Palestinian Memorial ceremony. - OH] We don’t even know their names, but now we will hear them and we will also learn about their stories and their pain. And why is that important? Because the long years of hostility have erased the face of the other side, and it’s easier to hate someone you don’t know – certainly someone whose pain you don’t acknowledge.
Joint Memorial Day event a deception (Ben-Dror Yemini, Yedioth/Ynet) While in past years I argued Israeli-Palestinian Memorial Day ceremony is about peace, reconciliation, organizers Combatants for Peace recently expressed support for 'right of return,' a fantasy intended to deny Israel's right to exist as a Jewish, democratic state, not promote peace.
'Die, Leftist’: Why Israeli-Palestinian Memorial Drove Right-wingers Out of Their Minds (Ravit Hecht, Haaretz+) Most of the audience was from the cultural elite that is currently fighting for its life, which has no connection to the demonstrators outside, as if they were residents of two different galaxies.
There is no equality between the parents of murderers and the parents of murderers (Chairman of Almagor organization for victims of terror, Meir Indor, Israel Hayom Hebrew) Why not allow Holocaust Martyrs 'and Heroes' Remembrance Day ceremonies together with the families of the fallen Nazi soldiers who fell in the war? After all, most of them did not murder either. If "bereavement is bereavement and it unites," as the High Court judges ruled when the Defense Ministry was forced to allow the families of terrorists to attend a joint ceremony with families of terror victims - then, why not? “Sometimes bereavement, a kind of partnership of fate, can be a source of identification and unity, as difficult as it may be,” wrote the justice. Then comes the punch line. The judge ended her remarks by quoting Motti Hammer's poem, "We are all one living human tissue." You understand? All of us, the murderers and the murdered - one human tissue. When the High Court of Justice makes no distinction between terrorists and legitimate combatants who respect the purity of arms and sometimes pay with their lives or are wounded (as happened to me), it cheapens the principle it preaches, or grants the Palestinians an exemption from the duty of purity of arms. In the folds of the ruling, therefore, there is an almost explicit permission for the Palestinians to commit acts of murder and terror as part of their national struggle against us.  This is a sad and new message in the development of the judicial rulings of the High Court of Justice. The bereaved and terror victims who initiated the alternative memorial ceremony for IDF soldiers and victims of terror hurt most bereaved families and wounded..they are reminiscent of the Stockholm syndrome - in which the abductees identify with their kidnappers. Self-flagellation in the Jewish people is an old phenomenon. Jews have always tried to find the blame for the hatred of the Jews - among ourselves. After a terrorist attack in which a son of one of the group's main activists was murdered, she called her schoolmate, Benjamin Netanyahu, and blamed him for the attack. "You're guilty," she cried in his ear with genuine heartache. In the discourse of that small but influential and highly-budgeted group, they accuse the settlers and non-occupation of terror. Not everyone there justifies terror, but almost everyone there understands it. For me, as a son of Holocaust survivors - everything is clear. There is a side that murders girls and children and there is a side that defends itself. I do not have a "single human tissue" that unites the attacker and the attacked. I have one sacred value of "all of Israel is responsible for one another."
*What our fallen soldiers can teach us about the meaning of heroism (Former IDF deputy chief of staff, Maj. Yair Golan, Yedioth/Ynet) Heroism is based on sacrifice and a love for humanity, and is the antithesis of selfishness; imagine how our society would have looked like if our leaders encompassed this sense of mission and optimism?
Why Does Hannah Arendt's 'Banality of Evil' Still Anger Israelis? (Michal Aharony, Haaretz+) Nearly 60 years after she attended and wrote about the Eichmann trial, Hannah Arendt remains a controversial figure among intellectuals in Israel.
The price of Jewish independence must be weighed against the horrific alternative (Prof. Arieh Eldad, Maariv) Israeli soldiers fell to defend the State of Israel. So that we will no longer be ashes of fields, smoke from crematorium chimneys, so that we won’t be living carcasses in the forest, piles of anonymous bodies in a pit.
Israel Independence Day 2019: A Time for Dwindling Hope, a Time for Growing Fears (Chemi Shalev, Haaretz+) The clear and present danger isn’t from Iran or Palestinians but rather, as Walt Kelly noted: 'I have met the enemy, and he is us.'
This Memorial Day, Netanyahu's Biggest Achievement Is the One He Won't Talk About (Anshel Pfeffer, Haaretz+) Far fewer Israelis have died from terror and warfare under Bibi, but this belies his image as a tough man to meet on the battlefield.
Firing zone: In the virtual realm of Israel, a war is going on (Nir Kipnis, Maariv) Until not so many years ago it did not seem necessary to emphasize our commitment to each other by virtue of being brothers. The recent election campaign has caused a rise in tones on the social media networks. Therefore, my friend, if you are a real man, do not hold a virtual battle with me, but on the contrary, hug your brother whether he is on your right or on your left (of course, if that does not work you can always hit him, but even then - not so that he changes sides, but just till he admits that you are brothers).
Israel's War for Judicial Independence (Haaretz Editorial) The leading candidate to be justice minister, Yariv Levin (Likud), proved on Monday that the coming year could be symbolized by a war for the independence of the judiciary. Levin criticized the High Court of Justice’s order to the state to allow 100 Palestinians to enter Israel to attend a joint Israeli-Palestinian Memorial Day ceremony at Yarkon Park — an order that overturned a decision by Prime Minister and Defense Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Celebrating together (Hanoch Daum, Yedioth Hebrew) There were four Israeli victims in the last round of fighting with Gaza: an ultra-Orthodox Jew, an Arab, a secular Jew and a religious Jews. At least the very least it is a symbol. Because while internal quarrels seem always very important and urgent, it doesn’t interest our enemies. They do not see our differences. They shoot at everyone.
Israel Is Independent, but Not Free (Zvi Bar'el, Haaretz+) Generations of pupils no longer know to sketch out a map of the country and can’t distinguish between Kiryat Arba and Kiryat Gat, or between Ofra and Gedera, or Shfaram and Nablus. Generations of students haven’t learned and won’t learn about the Palestinian struggle or the Nakba. They have been trained to identify anyone who isn’t Jewish as an enemy and in adulthood they will also point to half the Jewish population as an enemy of the nation and country. They will not know what “love of homeland” is because they have been born and bred in an unfinished skeleton of a country. They will be asked to become shahids of the religion of the territories, which has become the only permissible belief, and in its name they will kill Palestinian children, not because they threaten the country’s security but because they interfere with fulfilling a dream of divine promise.
Latest Israel-Hamas flare-up made Palestinian state a possibility (Sever Plocker, Yedioth/Ynet) The recent deadly round of border violence between Israel and Gaza militants, might well be the last one, because now more than ever, Hamas is prepared to let the Palestinian Authority take control of the crumbling enclave.
Life in Southern Israel Is Back to Normal. But What About Gaza? (Gideon Levy and Alex Levac, Haaretz+) Independence Day flags and mourning in Ashkelon and Ashdod, sick Gazans who can’t get home: A tour of the sites of destruction along the Gaza border.
Jihadi missiles, Israeli mourning (Ruthie Blum, Israel Hayom) Unlike the terrorists who control Gaza, who use their people as hapless human shields and faceless cannon fodder, Israelis honor every individual casualty of war.
Qatari Cash and Egyptian Mediators Brought Israel-Gaza Calm, but for How Long? (Amos Harel, Haaretz+) Paradoxically, the last round of fighting increases the chances of a large-scale operation in Gaza; U.S.-Iran tensions may have repercussions and Lieberman's silence indicates he may return to the Defense Ministry.