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"How Can You Defend Israel?"

(Huffington Post) David Harris - After a lecture at a British university, an old acquaintance said to me: "I read the things you write about Israel. I hate them. How can you defend that country? What happened to the good liberal boy I knew 30 years ago?" I replied: "That good liberal boy hasn't changed his view. Israel is a liberal cause, and I am proud to speak up for it." Sometimes it's the small things, the driving lesson in Jerusalem, with the student behind the wheel a devout Muslim woman, and the teacher an Israeli with a skullcap. It's the two gay men walking hand-in-hand along the Tel Aviv beachfront and no one looked at them. It's the Friday crowd at a mosque in Jaffa. It's the central bus station in Tel Aviv where a free health clinic was set up for the thousands of Africans who have entered Israel, some illegally. While tiny Israel wonders how many such refugees it can absorb, Israeli medical professionals volunteer their time in the clinic. It's Save a Child's Heart, an Israeli institution providing children from Iraq, the West Bank, Gaza, and other Arab places with world-class cardiac care for free. It's the Israelis who, with quiet resolve and courage, are determined to defend their small sliver of land against every conceivable threat - the growing Hamas arsenal in Gaza; the dangerous build-up of missiles by Hizbullah in Lebanon; nuclear-aspiring Iran's calls for a world without Israel; Syria's hospitality to Hamas leaders and transshipment of weapons to Hizbullah; and enemies that shamelessly use civilians as human shields. The writer is executive director of the American Jewish Committee.
2010-12-28 10:42:13
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