When Michelle Ganz’s 16-year-old daughter and the other high-school students from Phoenix were safely on a boat to Cyprus, heading away from the warzone, and then on a plane back to the United States, and then in Phoenix, and she could finally — as a mom — breathe, it occurred to her that something rare and unexpected had happened.

Something beautiful.

“Once the important thing is done, and they’re home safe, you can see the bigger picture,” she told me. “It’s a chance to point out that it’s still possible for people to work together, to put aside the political stuff and do something that is really important.”

The important thing done by members of Arizona’s congressional delegation was getting back 17 high school students and two staff chaperones who found themselves caught up in hostilities between Israel and Iran, an experience that transformed a cultural tour into harsh, unintended education into regional conflict.

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