I read this article in todays local paper. It somewhat explains why I support these folks. and not the cowards who target school busses and children.
[b]Iraeli teen Natali Ovadia knows the pain of a terrorist's bullet and the fear that follows her everywhere.
Americans, she said, have known the same abiding fear since Sept. 11.
"You are now," Natali said, "a partner to the situation."
The 16-year-old, joined by three teenage colleagues from Israel, delivered a somber message during a question-and-answer session yesterday at Brush High School in Lyndhurst.
The teens typically discuss differences and common ground in their cultures. This year, unfortunately, much of the talk is of the killing and violence that has America imploring Israelis and Palestinians to call a truce.
The Israeli teens, all of them from collective settlements called kibbutzes, said they feel safer here than in their homeland.
Natali, a dark-haired teen with a pierced nose, was hospitalized two months last year after snipers fired on a car she was riding in just outside her kibbutz. One bullet ripped through her right thigh, and bullet fragments remain in her body. Two friends were shot to death.
But she still goes out on the road where they were attacked.
"Everything is very scary," she said. "But if we stop going to the road, then they win."
Her colleagues said they do not go out at night or sit outside at restaurants. They find themselves looking at strangers, wondering if they are "a citizen or a terrorist," said Avihai Armon, 16.
The teens provided a glimpse of the roiling politics inside Israel. Brush sophomore Ilyusha Verzub, 15, asked their views on the Jewish settlers whose land claims anger Palestinians.
Irit Bagon, 16, said the settlers "are not supposed to be there" and that leaving the disputed land might ease tensions.
But Ilan Erlich, 16, said the land belongs to Israel. His country gave back the land once, expecting peace, he said. But peace did not happen.
"You've just seen a classic Israeli debate," Armon said.[/b]
Anyone this young who has the courage to keep going back to her home after the shootings, and bombings, and as we can see even the internal political disagreements deserves our support and respect.