We, too, are in a tunnel. Not a terror tunnel, God forbid, but a time tunnel. It has taken us back to the summer of 1967, when there was consensus throughout the home front, very similar to what we are seeing now. On the front lines our soldiers fought bravely to defend our home and return victorious. The will of the soldiers to win, just like then, has not changed. Even if we would like to stay and reminisce a little more with the generation of 1967 and revere the more than 700 heroes who could not return home, we are forced to come back to the present and to the war taking place here and now. And we are proud of our soldiers, who have emerged just as heroic as their predecessors. The enemy has since changed, as has the type of war we are fighting. The type of warfare we have seen in other parts of the world has reached our doorstep, with Gaza becoming a type of Vietnam. The one big difference, of course, which has bolstered our soldiers' motivation, is that missiles were not being launched at the United States from Vietnam. It is not surprising then that our army today feels it is fighting for its home. It is not surprising that our soldiers want to win. The irony is that in 1967 against the armies of Syria, Egypt and Jordan, augmented by Iraqi, Libyan, Algerian and Moroccan units, it was possible to reach a decisive, overwhelming outcome. It is more difficult to do this today against 18,000 guerrilla fighters hiding behind civilians and children or deep underground in their tunnels. Regardless, the challenge did not unnerve our forces, who feel "an impossible mission" does not exist here. They only asked one thing of us: Let us do the job. The world, however, has changed in the meantime and has also become an obstacle. The most moral soldier in the world, the Israeli soldier, has been labeled a barbarian, while the barbarian has been portrayed by the foreign press as some sort of enlightened freedom fighter. The Israel Defense Forces deserves an enemy with a little more honor. What do the warriors of today seek, if not for the same badge of respect as their predecessors? The fighter from 1967 expanded the country's borders. The fighter in 2014 is not seeking to expand any borders, but to ensure that the residents of Kibbutz Yad Mordechai and Kibbutz Nahal Oz can continue living in the south of the country. This is not a battle for our home, it is a battle for our country. They tell us it will end any time now. What will the soldier of 2014 tell his grandchild? He will talk of victory, and maybe of some inequitable person in America who sought to dictate the rules of the game. There were times in Israel, and they have been rekindled. We no longer need a tunnel to go back in time. There were also times in America. Let us wish for them and for us that they one day return.
