Finding Love in the Most Unexpected Place: An IDF Love Story

We couldn’t find a better love story to tell you this Valentine’s Day than the one between the soon to be married Staff Sgt. Robert Cohen and Sgt. Rebecca Dekno. Though deeply in love today, the road to happiness was not all roses for this young couple.

Robert was born in Germany months before the fall of the Berlin Wall. He grew up in France and Belgium and finished High School in Brussels.

“I just started University when Operation Cast Lead began. My grandparents, though not Jewish, used to live in Israel and I visited the country twice every year as a child. During Cast Lead one of my friends was injured in battle and that made me understand that I too should take an active stand for Israel’s safety. I moved to Israel and within several months I had already enlisted. One day during my service I had to take a bus to my base near Karmiel, and that’s where I met Rebecca.”

Two Lone Soldiers Falling In Love

“I volunteered to the IDF in 2006 after Aliyah from Hawaii and was assigned to the same base as Robert”, says Rebecca. “That day when I took the bus to base, I wanted to put my huge backpack into the trunk and accidentally got myself caught in the trunk just as the bus driver closed the doors. Robert saw what happened and alerted the driver. He saved my life. We sat next to each other on the bus and talked a bit. Robert kept looking at me and all I could think was that I had never had a guy this cute look at me.”

The two didn’t meet again until two weeks later when they ran into each other at the bus-station in Binyamina. They began talking again and Rebecca regretted not having taken his number the first time they met, so this time she gave him her’s.

“We arranged two dates but had to cancel both of them for different reasons and ended up not hearing from each other for five months. At some point I thought that he had forgotten about me. After about another two months I reactivated my Facebook so I could stay in touch with my mom and saw that he had sent me a message asking for my number because he had lost it – he hadn’t forgotten about me after all. So I sent him my number again and he called and we finally met that same weekend after I came back home from my base.

Rebecca returned home only to find out that her roommate had trashed their apartment during a big party. Just as she was standing in all the mess, Robert called to tell her that he was a few minutes away and asked her to come pick him up. After a great day together, Robert asked her to be his girlfriend, but Rebecca said no. She was already extremely busy with the army and didn’t think that she could split her time between the army and a boyfriend.

Love conquers everything – this young couple overcame many obstacles to find each other

But this wouldn’t be a romantic story if Robert had just given up here. Undeterred, he kept calling her after this; they didn’t, date but remained friends. One night when he called to speak to her, Rebecca was on guard-duty so she couldn’t answer. Robert left her a simple message: “I love you!”

”We started dating again and it didn’t take me long to realize that I loved him too. Our first kiss was like in the movies. We we’re out for a walk and just as the sun was setting, Robert kissed me. It was the most amazing kiss of my life.”

The young couple kept on dating and one day Robert asked his love to marry him after they get released from the army. Obviously she said yes, but only under the condition that he ask her father first. So when Rebecca’s father came to Israel for a visit, Robert did just that.

“I never liked any of Rebecca’s previous boyfriends, but Robert is a very good guy. I am very happy that she found someone like him.”

Rebecca and Robert – Off to a bright future together

Rebecca and Robert will get married on the 27th of June, the same date that Robert’s grandparents tied the knot many years ago.

Israel, U.S. Divided Over Timing of Potential Military Strike Against Iran

The U.S. and Israel are publicly disagreeing over timing for a potential attack on Iran to prevent it from acquiring nuclear weapons.

“There’s a growing concern -- more than a concern -- that the Israelis, in order to protect themselves, might launch a strike without approval, warning or even foreknowledge,” Aaron David Miller, a former Mideast peace negotiator in the Clinton administration, said today.

The U.S. and Israel have a “significant analytic difference” over estimates of how close Iran is to shielding its nuclear program from attack, Miller said today. The differing views were underscored by public comments yesterday by senior Israeli and U.S. defense officials.

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said Israel must consider “an operation” before Iran reaches an “immunity zone,” referring to Iran’s goal of protecting its uranium enrichment and other nuclear operations by moving them to deep underground facilities such as one at Fordo, near the holy city of Qom.

“Today, unlike the past, the world has no doubt that Iran’s nuclear program is steadily nearing readiness and is about to enter an immunity zone,” Barak said in an address to the annual Herzliya Conference at the Interdisciplinary Center academic campus north of Tel Aviv.

U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta declined to comment directly on a report by Washington Post columnist David Ignatius that Panetta believes there is a strong likelihood Israel will strike Iran in April, May or June. Panetta and other U.S. officials have repeatedly warned Israel not to act alone against Iran.

Not a Rift

“Israel has indicated that they’re considering this” through public statements, Panetta told reporters traveling with him in Brussels yesterday. “And we have indicated our concerns.”

Israelis think Iran will reach the immunity zone in “half the time the Americans think it will,” Miller said. Even so, Miller said, “to take that difference and talk about a growing rift” between Israel and the U.S. “is by and large an overstatement.”

Panetta stressed today that the U.S. and Israel are in agreement on the need to do what is necessary to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear power.

“We’ve made very clear that they cannot, they cannot develop a nuclear weapon,” Panetta told troops at Ramstein Air Base in Germany.

Strike ‘Premature’

The chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Martin Dempsey, has said it is “premature” to resort to military force because sanctions are starting to have an impact on Iran. In a Jan. 26 interview with National Journal, Dempsey said he delivered a similar message of caution to Israel’s top leadership during a visit to the Jewish state in early January.

U.S. intelligence agencies think Iran is developing capabilities to produce nuclear weapons “should it choose to do so,” James Clapper, the U.S. director of national intelligence, told the Senate Intelligence Committee on Jan. 31.

“We do not know, however, if Iran will eventually decide to build nuclear weapons,” he said.

While leaders of both countries agree that time must be given to gauge the impact of the latest set of economic sanctions on Iran, Israel’s patience is shorter than that of the U.S., Ephraim Kam, deputy director of Tel Aviv University’s Institute for National Security Studies, said.

‘May Be Too Late’

“It will take at least six months to see whether sanctions are effective and by then it may be too late,” said Kam, author of the 2007 book, “A Nuclear Iran: What Does it Mean, and What Can be Done.”

Israeli leaders have said their country is able to withstand Iranian retaliation, according to Kam, pointing to a Nov. 8 statement by Barak that “in any scenario there won’t be 50 thousand or 5,000 or even 500 dead.”

U.S. concern that an Israeli strike may also expose American personnel and its allies to Iranian retaliation makes the Obama administration more cautious, Kam said.

“We’re definitely using different clocks,” he said.

Barak said again this week that military action must be considered if sanctions fail.

“Today, unlike in the past, there is widespread global understanding that if the sanctions don’t achieve their goal of halting Iran’s nuclear weapons program, there will arise the need of weighing an operation,” Barak said.

Moshe Yaalon, Israel’s vice prime minister and its former top military commander, said Iran still doubts international resolve to take military action against it.

Iranians Doubt Resolve

“The Iranians believe that the determination still isn’t there, both in regards to military action and in regards to sanctions,” Yaalon told the Herzliya conference a few hours before Barak spoke.

“It’s possible to strike all Iran’s facilities, and I say that out of my experience as IDF chief of staff,” he said referring to the Israeli Defense Forces.

Israeli Army Chief of Staff Lieutenant-General Benny Gantz told the conference on Feb. 1 that his nation must be “willing to deploy” its military assets because Iran may be within a year of gaining nuclear weapons capability.

Gantz said international sanctions are starting to show some results. The European Union agreed last month to ban Iranian oil imports as of July 1 and freeze assets of its central bank and eight other entities. The U.S. has also imposed restrictions on financial transactions with Iran.

IAEA Plans Talks

The U.S., its European allies and the International Atomic Energy Agency have said that while Iran halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003, there are indications it may still be trying to move toward a nuclear weapon. They have challenged the government in Tehran to prove that its nuclear work is intended only for energy and medical research, as Iranian officials maintain.

Nuclear talks this week between senior IAEA officials and members of Iran’s government progressed enough for both sides to commit to more negotiations, Chief Inspector Herman Nackaerts told reporters on Feb. 1 at Vienna International Airport after returning from Iran.

To contact the reporters on this story: Nicole Gaouette in Washington at ngaouette@bloomberg.net; Jonathan Ferziger in Tel Aviv at jferziger@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: John Walcott at jwalcott9@bloomberg.net