Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale
Titolo: Un minuto di silenzio

Per i caduti nella difesa della Libertà dal mostro comunista durante la 
Guerra di Korea iniziata 60 anni fa.
 
PP

 PP
 
62, scusate ma sono sopraffatto dalla commozione
 
PP

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Ancora più silenzio, allora
 
-- 
Io non gufo l'Inter. Le spacco le corna.

 Ancora più silenzio, allora
 
http://www.timesofisrael.com/in-israel-jewish-korean-war-soldiers-given-seoul-salute/
 
 
BALTIMORE (JTA) — Draping his country’s ribboned Peace Envoy Medal
over the head of Irwin Goldstein, South Korea’s ambassador to Israel,
Ma Young-Sam, felt a deep sense of national and personal gratitude.
 
National, for Goldstein’s fighting for the United States in the Korean
War. Personal, because Ma’s father held a municipal government
position when the communist North invaded South Korea in 1950 and
might have been executed had his country lost the war.
 
Goldstein was one of seven Korean War veterans residing in Israel
honored by Ma on June 25, 2009. The ceremony has been held each year
since, with the next one set for June 25, the anniversary of the war’s
start.
 
The upcoming gathering at Kim’s official residence on Moshav Rishpon,
near Tel Aviv, also will celebrate a half-century since Israel and
South Korea established diplomatic relations. For the event, Ma’s
successor as ambassador, Kim Il-Soo, has invited 25 American veterans
now living in Israel and hopes to reach others who live in Israel or
will be visiting.
 
“We Koreans appreciate very genuinely the sacrifice by foreign
soldiers,” Kim said. “Without [it], we don’t know what our fate would
have been.”
 
South Korean embassies annually honor veterans in the 16 countries
that fought the North under the United Nations banner. Israel is the
only country outside of the allied nations from the conflict where
such a ceremony is held, Ma and Kim said. While the Jewish state did
not send soldiers to fight in the Korean War, Ma’s research in Israeli
archives yielded two key discoveries.
 
He learned that Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion convened an emergency
Cabinet meeting at President Chaim Weizmann’s Rehovot home seven days
after the war’s outbreak. There, Ma said, Israel made a strategic turn
to the United States by supporting America’s pro-South efforts against
the Soviet Union-backed North. Israel also decided to send $100,000 in
food items to South Korea.
 
“This was 1950. Israel was not rich at the time,” Ma said last week
from Seoul, where he now handles the Foreign Ministry’s public
diplomacy and performance evaluation. “We appreciate that very much.”
 
Ma decided to honor the veterans after seeing a photograph of
Normandy’s World War II battlefield cemetery, which showed a lone
gravestone sporting a Star of David. With just five years separating
the wars, he figured that some Jewish World War II soldiers also
likely fought in Korea — and some must have retired to Israel.
 
He contacted the Washington-based Jewish War Veterans, which connected
him with Korean War veterans living in Israel. He also spoke on the
“Hamador L’chipus Krovim” (Searching for Relatives Bureau) radio
program. He learned that 4,000 American Jews served in the Korean War
and some were indeed living in the Jewish state.
 
“This is just a small return for their contributions, which were
immense,” Ma said. “They saved our country. I feel so fortunate that
in Israel, we could recognize their sacrifice for us before they die.”
 
Another veteran already honored is Netanel Blasbalg, a retired
engineer living near Haifa. Blasbalg, now 81, served in the US Marines
from 1951 to 1953, based near Panmunjom. He welcomed Ma’s invitation
to the first ceremony, and by this June 25 will have attended three of
the four gatherings.
 
“I was tickled pink. I brought my daughter and three grandchildren
because I wanted to show them how a nation expressed its thanks,” said
Blasbalg, a Netherlands native who had followed his parents to Cuba
and New York before he immigrated to Israel in 1955.
 
“It’s a lovely idea,” he added. “It’s a lesson on moral values you
don’t usually come across, where a nation, after 50 [-plus] years,
decides to thank all the Americans who fought. It was an important
lesson for [my family] to learn.”
 
At the 2009 event, Goldstein delivered what Ma recalled was “a very,
very emotional speech” about his combat experiences. Goldstein then
broke into song — “Arirang,” South Korea’s most popular folk melody.
His wife, children and grandchildren chimed in.
 
Ma and his staff were stunned. Goldstein explained that he felt great
fondness for South Korea and had sung “Arirang” at the family’s
Shabbat table ever since the war.
 
A month later, Ma received a call from Goldstein’s wife, Miriam. Her
husband had died the previous week, but had spoken of the medal
ceremony as “the most memorable moment of his whole life,” Ma recalled
her saying.
 
The sentiment warmed Ma’s heart. Goldstein and his comrades set an
example that South Korea lives by today, he said.
 
“We will not forget what they did for us,” Ma wrote of the soldiers in
an email. “A Korean proverb says ‘love is transferred.’ That means
that we get love from parents, but we cannot return it to our parents.
Instead, we transmit our love to our children.
 
“Same [regarding] the help we got from friendly countries. It was
great and essential help,” he said. “We cannot return it all. But we
are providing our very sincere help to developing countries by sending
UN peacekeeping forces or economic aid.”
 

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e dal lardo, soldato palladilardo palmiri.

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si chiama ignoranza, gallo cedrone