Hello blog readers. I must admit total delinquency in posting to this blog. A year and a half have past since I have been true to my goal here. I have no excuse other than the journey of life itself and its various complexities. But here, at last, is another post.

     I have been reading a book.  I often make this announcement to my friends who gather for coffee after our water aerobics class. One or the other of these friends usually cut me off right there and say, "Well, good for you." or "Isn't a book remarkable?"  Well, this book that I want to tell you about here is a truly remarkable  book.

     This book is more or less the life story of Tal Keinan who is an American Jew who in order to find his identity decides to become an Israeli citizen, as a 19 year old. He becomes an Israeli Air Force pilot and later instructor. After his military service is complete in Israel, he founds a company called Clarity for which he works half a year in Israel and half a year in the US. The book is well written and reads well as his life story. But mixed in with his experiences are very thoughtful analyses of the economics, sociology, religion, current divisions in politics of Israel, and the future challenges to the survival of the State of Israel. 

     I guess I am particularly interested in this topic, because I am an American, formerly a Protestant, now married for 52 years to an Israeli sabra. We have lived our married life completely in the US but at one time we considered going to live back in Israel. But my husband thought it would be difficult for me, not only being a non Jew but also because in the 1970s, life was just not as easy in Israel as it was here. There were not the aids to daily living that we had here in the US. There were no delis, no laundromats, no ease in finding household help. It was just harder to maintain a household. I was going to be a practicing physician and would need all those aids that I could get. So we made the decision to stay in the US. Now from this book I am indeed learning how difficult it would have been to go back and live there. That is not all I am learning. This book is not just for the Jew or even for someone directly connected to Judaism like me. There is a tremendous amount of info to learn on the current stalemate that the State of Israel is in. It's future is very questionable. I am half way through the book but the review says that the author has some ideas for ways out for Israel but the State needs to bring together the various factions and form a unified vision taking into account all the divisive forces. No doubt it will be tricky to accomplish this. But the world needs a unified Israel and this ideal needs to be accomplished. 

     To give you an example of just one of the deep dilemmas that the author considers, he speaks about the Israel Air Force and its missions to respond to and protect innocent Israeli lives when Hezbollah from Lebanon, and Hamas from Gaza are lobbing rockets into Israeli villages to kill civilians there. The Air Force is often called in to carry out very tricky operations to eliminate those bombs or the firing squads. But neither of  these terrorist organizations care about their civilians and they hide their munitions and themselves in private homes, hospitals, schools, etc. This makes it exceedingly difficult to prevent the use of the rockets or to retaliate. Accordingly Israeli forces do sometimes inadvertently kill Palestinian civilians. And then, often the world reacts negatively on Israel, whereas there was not even record of the rockets falling  on Israel that forced Israel to react to protect itself. Here is what Tal Keinan says about some of these opinions and how they hurt in Israel.

     "But they (the Air Force pilots) pay a personal price,  and large segments of the Israeli and world Jewish population fail to acknowledge it, A smaller but growing segment even view their defenders (Air force pilots and soldiers in general) with scorn. This attitude is not sustainable.

     "When mission we flew were condemned in global forums, I found I could accommodate the most unrestrained hypocrisy with equanimity. I did not care much about the misinformed opinions of commentators and institutions that had not been moved to action when Jews were being exterminated (in the Holocaust). We were no longer relying on these people to protect us, and we would not seek their approval when we protected ourselves.

     "It was the Israeli press, and the occasional global opinion piece by a European or an American Jew that upset me.  It was a betrayal when a Jewish writer ignorantly portrayed us as cavalier in the face of Arab civilian casualties as if we were not doing everything in our power to prevent them, as if they did not haunt us personally, as if it had never occurred to us that they harmed Israel. When i read a Jewish writer casually throwing around nonsensical terms like 'disproportionate response' as though this war was a business transaction in which we would readily exchange the life of an Israeli civilian for that of a Palestinian civilian, as though defense by whatever means necessary was a privilege in which only American or Europeans were entitled. I felt undermined by the very people I was serving. "

     This double standard has always been present in world dealings with Israel. This is just one conundrum that the author eruditely considers. I highly recommend this book.