Although the current war between Israel and Hizballah has served as a great unifying force among the Lebanese and HIzballah, who receive overwhelming support from the Palestininian population in Israel, this support is not universal. As an example of this, check out the blog post below from a university professor in Israel, telling about how one of her most promising students - who happens to be an Arab-Israeli - has been motivated by the events of the last month to enlist in the IDF to help defend Israel.

I had a lot of meetings with students today as crunch time is approaching for many of them to turn in their thesis proposals and for others to turn in the finished product and they are panicking to almost a one. The one I am talking about is one of my students who would generally be defined as an Arab-Israeli, although today he is defining himself as simply an Israeli. He lives in Haifa and, along with a number of my other students, makes the long trek to his classes. Although he is one of my best and brightest almost-done thesis students, today he was not thinking about studying. He was not thinking about his thesis. Today he was thinking about joining the military. Today, actually, he was doing more than just thinking about it.

He didn't join the military when he was younger --Arab-Israeli citizens are not required to serve, although many do --because, as he explained to me, he is at heart a pacifist. And he felt ambivalent about serving. And he has family in Egypt (his family came from there in the early 1920s along with many others because the wages here were higher and there were many job openings with our cities, such as Tel Aviv, rapidly being built) and in the Palestinian Territories and so ...Today he is not feeling ambivalent. Today he was worried that the IDF might not take him because he is just one month shy of 26. We cut our meeting short because he had an appointment to see if he can enlist along with his younger brother, 19, whom I got to meet and who is a student at Tel Aviv university. Their parents were anxiously awaiting news as to whether they would be accepted to serve in our forces; they had not only given their blessing but charged them with enlisting.