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Israeli Soldiers Know Why They Fight

(Townhall.com) W. Thomas Smith, Jr. - * Ten years ago, as a journalist covering the West Bank, I found myself on patrol with Israeli paratroopers in Hebron. Those young paratroopers were proud. What bolstered that pride was a committed-to-death blending of nationalism, military tradition, and religious faith that few national armies can match. Though military service is mandatory in Israel, there is an almost spiritual quality to it. There is a reason for that. * Grafted to an ancient homeland that had achieved statehood only a few decades earlier, the soldiers I patrolled with knew their country was surrounded by enemies. They knew those enemies wanted Israel driven into the sea. They also knew that their forebears had fought a series of blistering albeit successful wars against those enemies, and they themselves were battling domestic - sometimes foreign - terrorism. * Israel had to learn to fight, and it had to learn fast. On the day after declaring its independence, the new Jewish state was attacked by five Arab armies. It won that war, and all others militarily (though there have been some politically based concessions over the years). The nation, however, has suffered tremendously at the hands of suicide bombers and other terrorists, and Israel's citizens have been hit with missiles from neighboring countries. * Fortunately, Israel has become a master of both conventional warfare and counterterrorism. They also stand by their allies. And we Americans - today, deeply involved in our own war against terror - have learned much about combating terrorism from the Israelis.
2006-05-02 00:00:00
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