This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2017, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
As right-wing politicians scold the Obama administration for not siding with Israel over the United Nations' condemnation of its West Bank settlements and other countries react harshly toward the Jewish state's actions, one Utah legislator saw a kinder and gentler side of the conflict this week.
State Sen. Curt Bramble, R-Provo, was part of a National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) delegation that toured Israel and other parts of the Middle East to gain a better understanding of the issues that have plagued the region for generations.
The most poignant stop, Bramble said, was at the Ziv Regional Medical Center.
Ninety percent of the patients, near the Golan Heights, are Syrians who have lost limbs in that country's civil war.
Bramble said the wounded Syrians are brought to the Israeli border by care workers and picked up by Israelis, then taken to the hospital, where doctors and nurses, as well as patients, set aside the explosive political issues.
When the patients are able to leave, they are brought back to the Syrian border, where they are met by friends and family.
Bramble met with several patients, including a Syrian rebel who had lost his leg in an explosion and hoped to return to his homeland.
It was a tour, the Utah Republican said, that brought home to the 11 legislators from 10 states a humanitarian effort, free of nationalist sentiments, that gets little attention amid the fiery rhetoric over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The tour was sponsored by the American-Israel Friendship League. Bramble, the NCSL's immediate past president, said such bipartisan excursions help foster better grass-roots understanding of pressing national and international issues.
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Officer friendly • Pam Genovesi, a retired single woman who has been a longtime victims' rights advocate in Utah, returned to her West Valley City home after visiting relatives on Christmas to find her sidewalk and driveway had been shoveled.
It had been one of the worst yuletide storms in state history, and she wasn't looking forward to that back-straining task just to get her car in the garage.
She asked around the neighborhood about which good Samaritan had saved her that expected labor.
Neighbors had seen Joe McCuen, a West Valley City police officer, shoveling her driveway and walks earlier that day.
Genovesi said she hardly knows McCuen. He has been around the neighborhood doing good deeds through projects for the Boy Scouts and the local LDS congregation.
A week after his anonymous work on Genovesi's driveway, McCuen retired from the West Valley City Police Department.
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Officer friendly II • Just before Christmas, Briar Van was driving along U.S. 89 between Interstate 80 and Heber City when her car broke down. It was about 6 p.m. and dark.
She didn't have her cellphone to call for help.
A Wasatch County sheriff's cruiser pulled up, and Deputy Mark Alhberg offered to help.
He jumped her dead battery and got her car running. He then followed her all the way to her home in Heber City to ensure she arrived safely.
And he wished her a merry Christmas.
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Barefoot for a cause • Millcreek resident Janet Thomas' grandson, Mike Rose, is a second-year junior high teacher in Paia, Hawaii, on the island of Maui.
Most of the students in his school come from low-income families.
Just before Christmas, Rose noticed one of his seventh-graders wore worn-out shoes. When the teacher asked his student if he had any other shoes, he said no.
Rose noticed the boy's feet were about the same size as his own, so he took off his shoes and gave them to the surprised student.
Later, when a colleague asked Rose why he was barefoot, he said his shoes had hurt.