Island of decency

Reader William Katz has alerted us to this excellent Toronoto Sun column by Michael Coren: “Island of decency.” Mr. Katz comments:

This is a fine column by Michael Coren of the Toronto Sun, who’s just been to Israel and gets it right. (Coren is also a respected talk-show host and a fine author.)

I especially loved this: “More of an extended family than a nation-state, the country moves into spasm each time it loses one of its soldiers. Losses are counted as individuals rather than units and names are far more important than ranks.”

I once interviewed Ranan Lurie, the Israeli cartoonist, who’d fought in Israel’s wars. He taught me that you can tell much about a country by the way it treats its soldiers. Are they citizens, human beings, or simply the property of the state? He recalled going out after a battle to help retrieve Arab bodies, and noticing that not one was an officer. The officers had been in the rear, urging the young kids forward.

People ridicule Israel for getting so upset over the kidnapping of a few troops, but it’s a reflection of the character of that nation. It should be a point of pride.

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