The Ron Arad saga: National trauma or national obsession?

• Published date: 07 October 2021
• Author: HERB KEINON
• Publication title: Jerusalem Post, The: Web Edition Articles (Israel)

An "obsession" generally has negative connotations, with the vocabulary.com website definition being that "an obsession with something is an unhealthy, extreme interest in it."

Gideon Levy, the far-left columnist for Haaretz, shares this view and takes it even further. In a column headlined "Israel's Obsessive Worship of the Dead," Levy writes that "the insane hunt for the body of missing Israeli navigator Ron Arad can only be described as state-sponsored necrophilia." No less.

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Counter that with how Bennett told the Knesset that the Mossad last month carried out two operations to try to obtain new information on what happened to Arad, whose plane exploded on a mission over Lebanon on October 16, 1986. Arad's fate has been seared into the nation's consciousness, along with a carefree picture image of him with his young daughter, Yuval, on his shoulder before captivity, and a haunting picture of his bearded, hollow-cheeked visage after he was taken prisoner.

"Last month, Mossad agents – men and women – embarked on a complex, wide-ranging and daring operation to find new information about the fate and whereabouts of Ron Arad," Bennett said – completely unexpectedly – in his speech opening the Knesset's winter session.

"That is all that can be said at this time. We made another effort in the attempt to understand what Ron's fate was."

Redeeming captives, Bennett declared, "is a Jewish value that became one of the holiest values of the State of Israel.... It is the type of thing that appears odd and even exaggerated to those looking at Israel from the outside. But it is what defines and unites us. We will continue to work to bring all of our boys home from anywhere they are found."

The Knesset plenum, which was raucous up until that point, was dead quiet when Bennett made this dramatic announcement. It then erupted once again after Bennett moved on to another topic. But even that eruption paled compared to the public debate that followed.

Why did Bennett make this announcement? Why did he not give more details? Was the operation a success, or a failure? Was the announcement meant as a signal to Iran? Was it somehow connected to an Israeli-alleged Iranian plot to kill Israeli businessmen in Cyprus?

Then there were the political questions: Was Bennett just trying to grab headlines, succeeding in making sure that this – and not...