Israel is in a quandary, much like the American fighter pilot in Joseph Heller’s 1961 novel Catch-22. The book is a satire about the absurdity of war.

World War II, 1944: Those who plunge blindly into enemy fire without fear are crazy. And only crazy people can be exempted from the mission if they are assessed by the squadron’s flight doctor as unfit to fly. But really any pilot willing to voluntarily fly such a suicidal mission must be assessed thus. So, anyone who asks for an exemption would be a reasonable person, but then they are not exempted. And thus, the protagonist found himself always assigned to new bomber missions.

The American author, who was a Jew by the way, described the dilemma that a person or a people cannot escape conflict due to conflicting rules. A simple example of this are young job seekers who constantly complain: “How can I ever gain experience for a job if I am always rejected due to a lack of experience?”