Yesterday I received an e-mail from Honest Reporting, asking me to "Send a Soldier a Smile!" You post a message of 100 words, and the soldiers get the message plus some treats from "Gilli's Goodies."
I clicked on the link and stared at the space to write the message. What do you say to a soldier who is risking his life to protect the State of Israel, while I sit on my butt in "chutz la'aretz" (outside Israel), comfortable and safe? It seemed like such an empty and meaningless gesture to me. "Hey guys, take care in Gaza, we're all behind you here in Canada!" My ass we're "all behind them" here in Canada. If we want to be "behind them," we should be THERE, in Israel, voting, paying taxes, not hiding behind their Uzis so they can protect a State we find convenient to visit from time to time.
I don't have any business sending them words of comfort. In addition to that e-mail, I got a chain e-mail telling me that the soldiers "desperately need toothpaste, toothbrushes deodorant, socks and underwear." How could the best military in the world lack such basic necessities? I believe it, but I also have an inherent mistrust of chain e-mails, and I can't quite believe that if I mail off a box of deodorant to Israel it's going to find its way to a platoon in Gaza. And of course, there are the e-mails asking us to pray: Psalms 121 and 142, a special prayer for operations in the south, etc. Prayers. Not that I don't believe in prayer... but I also believe in guns, and responsibility, and not passing the buck.
So if I have a message for the soldiers of Israel, it's this: I am grateful beyond measure that you shoulder this burden. I am ashamed that I shoulder none of it. I think my appreciation of what you do is of little use to you. But for what it's worth, there are Jews elsewhere in the world that are thinking of you and praying for you and know that your job is a heroic and noble one. From all of us, thank you.