This is not Yael, our beautiful Israeli sharpshooter. Security forbids us from posting her real name or image. But you get the idea, right?
“How long did it take you to qualify as a sharpshooter in the IDF?”
“Not too long. I had a natural aptitude with the rifle. I started out at 15 meters, then moved up to 30, 50, 100, 400 then all the way up to,” she hesitates, “classified meters.”
Israeli soldiers are famously and appropriately tight-lipped regarding training and operational details.
Yael–not her real name–is an unbelievably beautiful young Israeli woman. Her moca skin–flawless, like dark glass–testifies to a Bukharin father and Yemenite mother, a genetic mix I strongly recommend. She looks like the American supermodel Tyra Banks, only slimmer, more beautiful — and far more lethal.
Yael sits ram-rod straight. Her neck is swan-like, and her fingernails–lacquered red as a Chinese vase–are sharp as switchblades. Melting over her head is raven hair with a sprinkling of bronze highlights that give her the look of a post-punk goddess.
It’s Friday night, Shabbos in Israel, my wife Karen and I are visiting our childhood friend Deborah. We all went to the Yeshiva of Flatbush together. Deborah married an Israeli and has been living in Israel ever since. Yael is Deborah’s daughter-in-law.
“Are you also proficient with a pistol?” I ask
“Sure, I qualify with the polymer Jericho.”
“I understand you’re also a black belt in Karate.”
“Yes.”
I look at Yael’s husband, an unassuming and bookish young man.
“What happens when you guys have an argument?”
“She wins,” he deadpans.
“When you shoot do you have such long fingernails?”
She glances fondly at her dagger-like tips, shakes her head side to side.
“No, of course not. When I shoot, these are off.”
She folds her hands in her lap. Yael’s fingers are long and tapered, perfect little animals for trigger-pulling. I notice that she has the ability to stay still as a pilaster. Her stillness is taut, like a coiled steel spring, stillness that reminds me of a cobra.
Welcome to Israel, where men and men and women are, um, beautifully lethal.
“The Mossad tried to recruit me to go to foreign countries to train special units in counterterrorist tactics,” Yael says.
“What countries?”
“Tsk, tsk, I cannot say.”
“Fair enough.”
“We know how to operate in urban environments, three-dimensional warfare. We have lots of experience,” she adds.
Hmm, I have heard rumors that the U.S. has quietly brought over Israeli soldiers, consultants to help train our troops for the rigors and complexities of warfare in Iraq and Afghanistan, warfare against the Islamist enemy.
“They were paying so much money,” she sighs.
“What happened?”
“I decided to stay home. Take care of my man.”
“Lucky guy.”
“Yes, he is.”
Yael’s husband cheerfully nods.
“Tell me something, what was your motivation?”
“Moti-what?”
“Your reasons for becoming a sharpshooter?”
She shrugs, ponders a moment: “It was a challenge. I just wanted to prove to myself that I could do it. That I’ve got the talent.”
Talent.
“That’s it?”
“What, there has to be more?”
I’m just a dopey screenwriter. I expect grand speeches about patriotism, fighting the Arab Muslim terrorists, protecting the Jewish state.
But Yael is a tough Israeli woman. She lives in a dangerous neighborhood and that’s something she takes for granted. Thus, her motivation boils down to a somewhat casual, but down to earth approach to her craft.
“What about the future,” I probe.
“Children. I want to be a mother.”
Yael glances at her husband. He offers a crisp salute.
Like a little girl, the sharpshooter giggles.
Deborah’s husband, Yael’s father-in-law, fought with General Ariel Sharon’s brigade in the 1973 Yom Kippur War, the unit that crossed the Suez and enveloped the Egyptian Third Army, Operation Gazelle. He promises to sit down with me and record his memories of that legendary maneuver.
Karen and I walk back to our hotel.
We pass the Cafe Hillel.
A tiny gasp bobs from Karen’s throat.
We remember Dr. David Applebaum, his daughter, Nava and seven innocents who were butchered by an Arab Muslim homicide bomber.
Further down the block we pass another cafe that has twice been targeted by homicide bombers, but each time brave security guards blocked the terrorist’s path.
How long will it be before these homicide bombers explode themselves in cafes in New York, Chicago and Los Angeles. I have no doubt it will happen, for Israel is the testing ground for all murderous jihadist tactics. And when the world excuses their Jew killing, when the world willingly accepts their lies and their grievances as legitimate, well, the terrorists are emboldened, and they realize that any dumb, half-baked grievance will do, because grievances are a dime a dozen — thus the Islamist fascists are given the green light to kill anyone, anywhere.
The latest fashion in makeup for female Israeli soldiers.
Copyright Robert J. Avrech