Sophia Salma Khalifa (34) was the first Israeli Arab Muslim to enlist in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). She gives lectures in defense of Israel, without accepting payment: "this is how I thank the country that has given me everything". Her mother was illiterate because her grandparents did not believe that women should be educated. But in Israel it is the law, and Sophia is happy to be educated. She got her BA in electronic engineering at Tel Aviv University, and traveled to the US (where she lives with her husband and children) for a master's degree at Stanford. Apartheid state? Quite the opposite: "Israel grants all rights to minorities, and more. At the university they gave me many advantages because my mother tongue is not Hebrew. Something they never did at Stanford. Sophia belongs to the growing minority of pro-Israel Arabs. Maybe because they understand what Hamas is.