Now for those who are ignorant of Jewish hair-splitting or the ancient art of disputation over practically everything, there is an example in a case involving soldiers in Israel.  An original attempt to nail down a definitive description of this art goes something like this:  There are two versions of a story.  One version is O.K. but the other is a problem because there are two possibilities.  One the one hand if you accept one as true then there is no problem.  However, if you accept the other possibility, there are two possibilities.  And it goes on and on.

There are always two ways of looking at a thing and two possibilities that expand as the disputation develops.  It is like looking into a mirror with you mirrored in another mirror and your image then replicated endlessly.  I would venture a guess it is something like cloning.

The current interest in an Israeli court decision points up Jewish angst over being caught in a trap of their own devising.  Israel is a nation very much like the Swiss in that every citizen is a citizen soldier.  These citizens keep weapons at the ready at home waiting for the call of national military service.

Some Israelis are willing to lay down their lives as soldiers fighting an enemy but choose not to serve as “peacekeepers” protecting Jewish “settlers” in “occupied” Palestinian “territories”.  An Israeli court decided between two kinds of conscientious objectors.  The court could see the validity of someone who did not want to serve at all but the court did not accept the objections of someone who would serve but not in territories occupied by Israel. The relationship between the nation of Israel and the Palestine Authority is terribly complicated.

I do not agree with the judges although I can see their point.  Service to your country “right or wrong” is the root of this problem.  It is right to defend your country but wrong to take up arms in a bad cause. Soldiers are always put in the position of doing wrong because they were “just following orders”. We have heard this excuse before.

Soldiers in Israel face a dilemma of having to kill children and civilians in hunting down killers of both their fellow citizens and visitors to their country.  On the one hand, it is good to be a savior of lives but on the other hand, it is reprehensible to take other lives to protect what is yours.  It is a puzzlement.  I think Israel should get the “settlers” out of what most will agree is land belonging to Muslims, Christians, and others who call themselves Palestinians. Homeland security is one thing.  Invasion of rights of others is another.