the hype about this has kind of died down, but it's still on my mind and i think it's important for my loyal zero readers to be thinking about it. i'm talking about the prisoner exchange between israel and the hezbollah.

people have been questioning the wisdom of this exchange, and from the looks of it, there may be some terrible unintended consequences. no doubt it was a hard decision to make. but in fact, it was a decision israel had to make, not just for the sake of morale or morality, but for the sake of national security.

a few days ago my mom fowarded me an email from a friend of a friend of hers who made aliyah - moved to israel - a few years ago and sends out weekly updates. he talks about what's been all over the radio, t.v., and people's minds during this whole thing: the importance of "bringing the boys home." i won't reprint it out of the request of the writer, but you can read it online here.

he talks about his son and his friend watching the news on t.v., and he says, "And for that moment, at least, it seemed worth it. Without question. Those kids watching TV with me need to know that we bring boys home." it's certainly important to those who will be going to the army (as all of my friends from the year i spent there did or will do), but it seems almost more important for their parents, who eventually will have to make the decision to let them go, or to send them away, if they feel it is not worth it.

for a country whose military is facing a severe legitimacy crisis, there is nothing more important you can do than to make unquestionably certain that at least your own people believe your decisions and actions are just. that soldiers aren't expendible units in a larger political game, but that their lives are taken seriously. israel needs its people to believe in its military.

it reminds me of something that one of my favorite professors told us about once: the idea that it takes four types of femininity to make war happen. one of those types is the patriotic mother - the one who believes that the cause is just, and that if her children are going to die, they're going to die for the right cause. the idea goes that one of the downfalls of the vietnam war was that the mother-type of femininity wasn't convinced.

i think that, if bush were smart, he'd take a page out of israel's book. the war on iraq and those who were behind it are teetering on the edge of a crisis of legitimacy. and bush, aside from those two famous photo ops, doesn't seem to have a whole lot of empathy.

of course i can't seem to resist the trap of talking about politics when i mean to be talking about relationships, so i'm going to stop here.