Israel, the beautiful and strong

In Judaism, it is a big mitzvah to take part in a funeral, and over the past few days many Israelis have done this painful mitzvah. Tens of thousands of Israelis showed up at the funerals of three lone soldiers, Staff Sgt. Sean Carmeli, Sgt. Max Steinberg and Staff Sgt. Jordan Ben-Simon, who fell just so that we could be here. Attending the funerals is part of "love thy neighbor as thyself." All Israelis, whether secular, traditional or religious, have been fulfilling that mitzvah with a heavy heart and teary eyes.

As we expected, the funerals emboldened our enemy, who thinks we are weak and unable to deal with loss. Only that Hamas, and the Middle East as a whole are discovering our resilience this time, our unity. They see that "All Israelis look out for one another," in case anyone forgot.

We have a gone a bit astray over the past years. We fell in love with disagreeing. We loved butting heads, fighting, we looked for a reason to argue. Fighting over what? Almost anything you can argue over. Stopping short of erasing the word consensus from the dictionary -- we did it all. The saying "all Israelis look out for another" suddenly became "all Israelis look to fight with one another."

While Judaism does embrace differences of opinion, over the past few years modern Zionism has turned that into an art form. Television networks readily adopted the trend. Reality shows have become high in demand and enjoy high ratings. We peered into the troubled lives of others from our living rooms.

Hamas decided to test us this summer: It was convinced we are complacent, tired and spoiled. It missed the main point: The people of Israel are neither dumb nor naive. Hamas did not realize that while our external appearance may have changed our DNA remains the same. Hamas has also forgotten that we are at our best during the most trying moments.

These days we have seen the "beautiful Israeli" represented by -- perhaps more than all of us -- the first Israeli victim of the war Dror Hanin, who was killed at the Erez crossing bringing food to soldiers.

Israel has rallied to embark on a righteous campaign the likes of which we have not seen in decades, some say even since the 1967 Six-Day War. Citizens of all ages are volunteering and doing everything they can: collecting food and gifts for the soldiers, visiting hospitals, expressing their beliefs and support for the war in every interview, including parents whose children are on the front.

Even the actions of those explicitly opposed to the campaign, and who express that opinion aloud, serves to highlight the actions of the rest of the sweeping majority, that simply do not understand how we could be ashamed of such a great nation.

If we could, we would give up the painful experience that is war, it comes with such a heavy price. But suddenly we are discovering that with all due respect to the assorted reality TV shows -- the best one is ours, the real one. In crisis our true face has come out. "The country we love / a nation forever / the country we will live in / whatever happens, happens."

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