In many communities, children gathered to draw pictures and greeting cards for soldiers and then went to deliver them to nearby checkpoints or bases, often to the pleasant surprise of the soldiers, who in turn offered smiles, tickles, and sometimes candies to the children.
From the looks on the soldiers’ faces, they felt that it is nice to know people value their contribution to our safety. The children learned a lot about the situation in Israel and got to show their own brand of pure appreciation, without letting politics or other considerations affect their thinking. Some of the soldiers even gave impromptu tours of their bases, showing the children where they sleep, where they eat, where the cars and jeeps are kept, and where the soldiers play basketball during some free time.
And from the looks on the children’s faces, they really enjoyed the experience. They always see soldiers at bus stops and marketplaces, but now they learned that these soldiers are also people just like them, who eat, sleep and play, who are scared, who have families and friends, and who are doing a very important job keeping us safe from our enemies.
Which brings me to the adults. Most cities and local authorities in Israel decided to cancel the public celebrations of Independence Day this year. There were discussions about this decision on the radio, with soldiers complaining loudly that they felt insulted by the decision. It seems to the soldiers that the local authorities do not appreciate their contributions to the continued existence of the State.
One soldier complained that with decisions like this, the soldiers are unsure what exactly they are fighting for. What is it that they are meant to be protecting?
When a soldier goes to fight for his country, he takes with him a strong belief in the justness of his cause, and the legitimacy of his identity. The best guarantor of these things is the continued existence, development, and progress of the country he is defending. The soldier does not only fight to protect soil or water. He fights to protect an idea, a nation. He fights to protect the values for which his country stands. Without independence, those values and ideas cannot be implemented. The soil and water will remain regardless of the victor in a war, regardless who controls the area. But the values and ideas that underpin a nation live and die with that nation.
On Independence Day, we celebrate the continued thriving of our ideas and values. We celebrate the existence of the Jewish nation in its own State, free to evaluate its past and determine its future. As such, it is the soldiers defending our borders who are the first people who should be celebrating. They are the first people we should be honoring, and the first we should be remembering. The placement of Remembrance Day for Israel’s Fallen right before Independence Day is no mistake.
At the same time, the decision to cancel public celebrations of our independence at a time when a war is being fought to preserve that independence is a direct insult to the soldiers fighting that war and to the memory of all those who have fallen in the war – soldier or civilian. It belittles the sacrifices made by these individuals and calls into question the entire purpose of the war in the first place. Why else are the soldiers fighting if not to enable us to continue celebrating our independence?
The children who handed out Independence Day greetings to the soldiers, some as young as three or four years old, got it right. They learned from the soldiers that there are times we must fight for what we believe in, and times we must live in barracks rather than at home with our families. They learned about some of the people who stand guard for our independent nation, and they learned that soldiers are people too.
The local authority politicians who cancelled their celebrations have plenty to learn from these school children, including what it means to be truly independent.
Copyright 2002, all rights reserved. Yehuda Poch is a journalist living in Israel. Reproduction in electronic or print formats by permission only.
