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Stan Goodenough is an experienced journalist who has written about politics in South Africa and the Middle East for such organizations as The Daily Dispatch of East London, South Africa, the International Christian Embassy Jerusalem, The Jerusalem Post, and the Virtual HolyLand website. He has been a South African gentile resident in Israel for 12 years. Stan is editor of and .
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By Stan Goodenough
April 6, 2007
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It would be an extremely callous person indeed who did not share in the happiness radiating out of television screens as scenes were broadcast around the world Thursday of 15 captured British sailors returning safely home from Iran.
How wonderful it must have been for the emotionally drained families and friends who waited in almost excruciating anticipation for the Sea King choppers bearing the uniformed boys and girl to touch down at RAF Chivenor Royal Marine Base in Cornwall.
As I am sure happened to millions of viewers, I found myself smiling broadly, tears pricking at my eyes as the young Faye Turney and her 14 male colleagues warmly, fiercely embraced and clung to their nearest and dearest -- precious ones who, for 13 endless days, had wondered whether they would ever see one another again.
As Sky News nutshelled it -- there were "celebrations and jubilations" from London's Heathrow Airport, where the British Airways flight from Tehran touched down at three minutes past midday, to Nathan Summers' local pub in Hayle, where extra champagne had been delivered, to the Leicester living room of Adam Sperry's grandparents, who surrounded by his extended family, watched disbelievingly as it all unfolded on their TV.
Americans, too, sat glued to their screens, with Fox News giving long periods of unbroken coverage to the reunions in far away Devon. Iran, whose maniacal president Mahmud Ahmadinejad has defied the world in his quest for nuclear weapons, all the while denouncing the US as the great satanic enemy of mankind, is a hot button issue in that country.
And here in Israel the press put the news in the top slot, as the Jewish people also followed the unfolding drama, thankful, too, that the story was going to have a happy ending for the 15 security personnel and their families.
My feelings on the part of the British families who are tonight rejoicing are genuine and sincere. I rejoice with them.
At the same time, my heart and thoughts are with three Israeli families -- the families of Ehud Goldwasser, Eldad Regev and Gilad Schalit.
These men have been held prisoner for many, many long months. Unlike the relatives of the British sailors, who were able to watch them on television while in captivity (as the Iranians used them for propaganda purposes) the parents of the kidnapped Israeli soldiers have neither seen nor heard from their children since the day they disappeared.
They do not even know if they are still alive.
Unlike the situation with the British sailors, where it seemed like the entire world was watching, waiting and hoping for their release, barely a soul seems to even remember the Israeli captives. The world has all but forgotten about them.
And, damningly, unlike the festivity and celebrations that greeted the 15 as they returned home to England today, it?s a pretty sure thing that when, please God, Goldwasser, Regev and Schalit come back home, the world will show little sign of sharing in the relief and happiness of their families.
For to many millions of people on this planet, where the British sailors were victims, the Israeli soldiers deserve what they get.
Why, then, should anyone really care about them at all?
Views expressed by the author do not
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