I went to Thanksgiving dinner yesterday at a home of someone who is not Jewish. One of the other guests was an Israeli woman (who lives in the USA) and her husband. I have known her for years but yesterday was the first time we discussed politics. She is left wing, secular and Sephardic. She said Israel is full of right wingers now (if only it were true). I asked who these right wingers were, did she mean Bibi. She said yes, I pointed out that he does not govern as a right winger.
From there we discussed the IDF, with me being in the strange position of being their defenders. She told me about her Army life, that after 3 days she freaked out and called home to ask her father to get her a psychiatric deferment (she described the horrors, none of which seemed so bad). Her father had influence so it was worked out that she got easy treatment in basic training and spent the rest of her army career making movies for the Army. She complained that the army was turning people into killers. I noted that Armies were meant for that purpose. She started talking about peace. I told her about my cousin who was in Auschwicz and that if armies were necessary to stop those type of things from happening it was worth it. She said we needed an alternative to killing. I said that if someone is trying to kill us, it makes sense to kill them first. She smiled and walked away. You would think I had just urinated on the living room carpet in public. She told me she had relayed our conversation to her husband (he had tried out for and been rejected by the IAF as a pilot) and he was shocked.
She still hugged me and said a pleasant goodbye when she left but I have to admit getting a liberal upset always feels good.