Word: idf
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...commission said that Israel failed on three counts: the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) failed to rescue the two soldiers kidnapped by Hizballah militia in a cross-border raid; second, despite heavy bombing raids inside Lebanon, Israeli forces failed to destroy Hizballah's leadership; and, finally, the IDF did not protect its citizenry from Hizballah's ceaseless barrage of rockets in northern Israel. More than 1,000 Lebanese and 160 Israelis were killed in the 34-day war. Concluded the report: "We found serious failings and flaws in the lack of strategic thinking and planning, in both the political...
...eviction itself went relatively smoothly, but the hard feelings it generated resound deep inside Israeli army barracks. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) were initially assigned only to secondary tasks, such as manning roadblocks to stop religious Zionist sympathizers from joining their Hebron brethren. Still, when orders were given to the Duchifat Battalion to assist evicting the two settler families, 38 out of 400 soldiers initially refused to obey after many called their rabbis on cell phones. Eventually, all but eight relented. These "refuseniks," as they were dubbed in the Israeli press, were slapped in the army prison...
...incident has left lingering doubts over whom soldiers will obey: their commanding officers, or hard-line rabbis who believe it's the destiny of Jews to occupy the Biblical lands of Judea and Samaria, even if they are now in disputed Palestinian territory? One senior IDF commander complains to TIME: "It seems like every soldier is consulting his own rabbi." The more extremist rabbis, he says, "want to change the system," bringing Israel's vibrant secular society more in line with their orthodox views...
Without the army, the Jewish settlements in Palestinian territory could not exist. The IDF guards the roads leading to the settlements. The senior army commanders consult on a weekly basis with the settlers' council on possible security risks coming from Palestinian militants. In Hebron, where over 500 troops protect the city's settler families, the boundaries between soldier and settler are even more blurred than elsewhere. Six settler families actually live inside a Hebron army outpost, and their illegal presence is tolerated. Officers routinely arrange for a settler to lecture troops on the significance of Hebron to Jewish history, advocating...
This manpower shortage led Defense Minister Ehud Barak to complain recently that the IDF was no longer "the army of the people but of half the people." That leaves new Russian and Ethiopian immigrants, along with religious Zionists, to fill the ranks. Meanwhile, to ensure that the IDF remains a melting pot, some generals say that special units, comprised of religious Zionists who spend two-thirds of their time in religious studies, should be more integrated into the regular army...