Grandma's army

  You are reading a book. It describes a hair-raising  episode of an ordinary plane flight, consisting of  166 Israeli passengers (including 30 children) and eight other nationalities, making 174 altogether. With no prior warning, the co-pilot (a Muslim from Oman), suddenly begins to viciously stab the captain multiple times with a sharp axe-like instrument, which was behind him on the plane. Despite his almost fatal wounds and severe bleeding, the Indian captain Smit Machchhar (our main hero), somehow succeeded  in sending two distress codes denoting "general emergency" and "unlawful interference/hijacking".    Most importantly, while literally fighting for his life, he made a superhuman effort and managed to open the cockpit door a moment before collapsing. [The Israeli who eventually saved his life by doing all in his power to stop his profuse bleeding, and never left his side, is another hero - a dentist called Shota.] The first to set the alarm ...

Yoel Zilberman grew up on a cattle ranch in Moshav Tzippori in the Galilee, the third generation of a family rooted deeply in the soil of northern Israel. From an early age, he witnessed the quiet devastation by Bedouin (nomadic Arabs) terrorists of agricultural crime up close. It was obvious that these weren't random acts, but crimes strategically designed to drive Jews off their land. Yoel (like Nir Amitai) saw his future in the military, in long-term command. He and his brother were in the army, and their father was left alone to face repeated land invasions. The terrorists cut fences, poisoned animals, threatened him, and eventually attacked him with severe violence and stole his car. Every complaint was closed for ‘lack of public interest.’ Hundreds of complaints, sometimes two in a single day. Farmers across the region were suffering. When things escalated, a police commander advised his father to give up part of the land. He told him frankly: ‘We’re dealing with murder...