"How Can You Defend Israel?"

[shira]

<snip>

Looking me straight in the eye, he proclaimed, as others standing nearby listened in, "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." Yes, I'm proud to speak up for Israel. A recent trip once again reminded me why.

<snip>

It's Save a Child's Heart, another Israeli institution that doesn't make it into the international media all that much, although it deserves a nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize. Here, children in need of advanced cardiac care come, often below the radar. They arrive from Iraq, the West Bank, Gaza, and other Arab places. They receive world-class treatment. It's free, offered by doctors and nurses who wish to assert their commitment to coexistence. Yet, these very same individuals know that, in many cases, their work will go unacknowledged. The families are fearful of admitting they sought help in Israel, even as, thanks to Israelis, their children have been given a new lease on life.

<snip>

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 Hezbollah in Lebanon; nuclear-aspiring Iran's calls for a world without Israel; Syria's hospitality to Hamas leaders and transshipment of weapons to Hezbollah; and enemies that shamelessly use civilians as human shields. Or the global campaign to challenge Israel's very legitimacy and right to self-defense; the bizarre anti-Zionist coalition between the radical left and Islamic extremists; the automatic numerical majority at the UN ready to endorse, at a moment's notice, even the most far-fetched accusations against Israel; and those in the punditocracy unable - or unwilling - to grasp the immense strategic challenges facing Israel.

<snip>

That's the country I'm proud to stand up for. No, I'd never say Israel is perfect. It has its flaws and foibles. It's made its share of mistakes. But, then again, so has every democratic, liberal and peace-seeking country I know, though few of them have faced existential challenges every day since their birth. The perfect is the enemy of the good, it's said. Israel is a good country. And seeing it up close, rather than through the filter of the BBC or the Guardian, never fails to remind me why.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-harris/how-can-you-defend-israel_b_801765.html