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Show Views&Opinion Page 12 Monday, Jan. 5, 2009 Israel: Latest conflict causing some to test old ideals and question the future [•continued from page 11 my son faces Iranian-supplied antitank weapons - one more price we will pay, along with the missile attacks on our towns, for the Gaza withdrawal just as the Israeli right had warned. Still, 1 don't regret that withdrawal. If Israelis are united today about our right to defend ourselves against Gaza's genocidally minded regime, it is at least partly because we are fighting from our international border. My son and his friends have one crucial advantage over my generation's experience in Gaza: They know, as we did not, that Israel was ready to. make the ultimate sacrifice for peace, uprooting thousands of its citizens from their homes and endorsing a Palestinian state. My son confronts Gaza knowing that its misery is now imposed by its leaders. He knows that his country was even prepared to share its most cherished national asset, Jerusalem, with its worst enemy, Arafat, for the sake of preventing this war. That empowers him with the moral self-confidence he will need to get through the coming days. The face of my Gaza enemy was a teenager throwing rocks; the face of Gavriel's Gaza enemy is a suicide bomber. But we are hardly free of moral anxiety. Even as I pray for Gavriel's physical safety, I pray too for his spiritual well-being: that his tank doesn't accidentally shell civilians, that he isn't caught in some terrible mistake, which can so easily happen in a war zone where terrorists hide behind innocent people. For the past eight years, Israel has fought a single war with shifting fronts, moving from suicide bombings in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv to Katyusha attacks on Israeli towns near the Lebanon border to Qassam missiles on Israeli towns near the Gaza border. That war has targeted civilians, turning the home front into the actual front. And it has transformed the nature of the conflict from a nationalist struggle over Palestinian statehood to a holy war against Jewish statehood. Except for a left-wing Growing up in Jerusalem during fringe, most Israelis recognize the the suicide bombings in the early conflict in Gaza as part of a larger 2000s, he has already known danwar that has been declared against ger, intimacy with death. A 13year-old acquaintance was stoned our being and that we must fight. But how? Even some right-wing- to death, and was so mutilated that ers are saying that we should have he could be identified only by his declared a unilateral cease-fire DNA. A friend lost the use of an after the initial airstrike and then eye in a bus bombing on his way to dared Hamas to continue shelling school. At least now, Gavriel and our towns, rather than risk another his friends can defend themselves. quagmire. And even some left- Perhaps one reason most of them wingers are saying that we should volunteered for combat units was now destroy the Hamas regime because now the generation of the and then offer to turn Gaza over to suicide bombings can finally fight international control or, if possible, back. Just before the conflict in Gaza an inter-Arab force led by Egypt. Every option is potentially disas- began, I happened to visit Gavriel trous. Most Israelis agree on two at his base. His unit's barracks points: that we cannot live with a had been turned into what young jihadist statelet on our border, and Israelis call a "zula" - a hangout. that we cannot become occupiers There were muddy couches, chairs without backs, a darbuka drum, a of Gaza again. The despair of Gaza is conta- TV (Jay Leno was on). It could have gious. One friend, a Likud sup- been a teenage scene anywhere porter, said to me, "I don't know in the West, except that hanging on the walls were Hamas banwhat to hope for anymore." Meanwhile, I try to reassure ners captured by the unit's veteran myself about Gavriel's safety. members in a previous round of fighting in Gaza. In a corner of the room hung a photograph of a fallen soldier. Across the bottom someone had written, "What was the rush, Shachar? Why did you have to leave us so soon?" Even now, perhaps especially now, I feel that our family is privileged to belong to the Israeli story. Gavriel, grandson of a Holocaust survivor, is part of an army defending the Jewish people in its land. This is one of those moments when our old ideals are tested anew and found to be still vital. That provides some comfort as Sarah and I wait for the next text message. This was written for The Washington Post by Yossi Klein Halevi, a senior fellow at the Adelson Institute for Strategic Studies of the Shalem Center in Jerusalem and the author of "At the Entrance to the Garden of Eden: A Jew's Search for Cod with Christians and Muslims in the Holy Land." Assume: Dispelling stereotypes D continued from page 11 GEICO. A15-miniitecall could save you 15% on car insurance. My optometrist noted, forced myself to chuckle, "Every Mormon family I've as 1 tried, in my mind, to ever met has had a trampo- divorce holy water from line in their backyard and a Catholicism and understand piano in their house." why this gentleman thought Check, check. It must I would appreciate this joke be an unwritten command- as a Mormon, especially ment. since the punch line is borA gentleman that I was derline profanity. But, I am a sitting next to on an air- sucker for funny, so I began t0 S'8g'e> regardless of the plane, after discovering the religion that encompasses joke's pertinence, because my belief system, told me the whole situation reeked that he had a joke to share with unintentional humor. that I would appreciate. I'm Good joke tellers gena sucker for jokes, so I gave erally keep a straight face him permission to contin- after they reveal the punch ue. line, but 1 am grateful that "How do ya make holy this gentleman exploded water?" he asked me eagerly with outrageous laughter as he eyed me inquisitively. because it made it easier "I don't know. How?" I for me to laugh at his dud of asked automatically, just as a joke since I was laughing a good joke listener should. at his laughter. "You boil the hell out If 1 could give the world of it!" he guffawed with a one piece of advice about heaving laughter that shot telling jokes, it would be out of his nostrils. , .. this: if you are-a bad joke . "Ha ha ha," I politely- teller, always laugh at your 65521 State Street Tray u i 84107 !\ own jokes. Your tacky laughter may be the joke's only salvation. Other advice more relevant to my initial topic: Don't assume anything. Latter-day Saints, don't assume that all the people around you know what a "ward" or "family home evening" is, and non-LDSfolk, don't be afraid to ask questions to your friendly neighborhood Mormon in order to validate or quench your own assumptions. Melissa Condie is a junior majoring in music education. Comments can be sent to m. conc//e@ aggiemail. usu.edu See usu.edu/asusu for events ;/:^M : i^W '<:;.,*.*j&*-r* h I January 5th-1 Oth :.;*£. c 8*T*"'''** \ <J ASSOCIAlbDSliUDfchllS |