Published: 1 September 2020
Last updated: 4 March 2024
IT WAS ONE OF those unusual, only-in-Israel moments. The army chief of staff had just finished delivering remarks to reporters the morning after Israel’s May 2000 pull-out from Lebanon when a woman seated in one of the front rows stood up and proceeded to the podium.
She asked permission to say a few words but didn’t bother waiting for a response as she grabbed the mic from him. Not one of the decorated generals seated at the head table tried to stop her or even seemed to think this was strange.
“I want to share our joy with the parents whose sons have returned today from Lebanon and who cried out, ‘Mum, I’m home,’” the visibly moved woman, with her long blond mane and weathered face, told the crowd on that historic morning. “But I also want to hug those families whose sons could not return today and cry out ‘Mum, I’m home.’”
Among those who could not return was the woman’s own son, Eyal, killed in action three years earlier.
Orna Shimoni then walked back to her seat and burst into tears. A kibbutznik from northern Israel, Shimoni was one of the best-known faces in Four Mothers – a protest movement that sought to pull Israeli troops out of southern Lebanon. It has been widely hailed as Israel’s most successful anti-war movement.
Four Mothers, the eponymously titled film that traces the rise of the movement, has its premiere screening next week at Docaviv – the annual Tel Aviv International Documentary Film Festival. Because of coronavirus restrictions, the festival is being held online this year – but only for viewers in Israel.
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Photo: Activists from the Four Mothers movement in Jerusalem in 2000. The Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon took place three months later (Moti Kimche)
