The thumbnail image for this video has been updated - thumbnail added by vaporlock.

The thumbnail image for this video has been updated - thumbnail added by vaporlock.

The thumbnail image for this video has been updated - thumbnail added by vaporlock.

The thumbnail image for this video has been updated - thumbnail added by vaporlock.

The thumbnail image for this video has been updated - thumbnail added by vaporlock.

D-D7-G-Gm

The soldiers are wearing Magav uniforms, which means Border Patrol, and make them part of the Israeli Police and not Army. Small technicality, but it does make them answer to a different set of rules.

Nabi Saleh has population records going back to 1922 on Wikipedia. I could only find a Hebrew version though. The settlement across from it is called Halamish, and was founded in 1977. According to Wikipedia it's a religious settlement, which doesn't really surprise me. Google maps can show you how ridiculously close they are.

I have no idea what this incident was about, but the Magav guys don't appear to be looking for anyone in particular, just going in looking for trouble and to cause fear. Their most likely reason is that someone was throwing rocks at cars on the road.

At any rate, this video makes me sick. Fuck anyone who thinks this is an appropriate way for people to behave, fuck their commanders for sending them there so obviously to generate a response, and fuck them for arresting people on their own home. Even if they were there to stop people throwing stones, how the hell are they supposed to find out who it was?

Fuck.

Alright. Let's start with a few facts:

- Israel doesn't have the separation of church and state the US has. We study bible since elementary school, we learn a lot about Jewish history and so on.
- There have always been Rabbi in the IDF. Just like there are priests in the US army, the UK army and so on.
- Some Jews pray every morning (Sha'harit, or prayer of dawn) and every evening (Ar'vit, or prayer of evening). Some will put on a Ta'lit and T'filin during that prayer. Those prayers can be performed alone, but when possible, they would prefer to pray in groups of 10 or more, to have what's called a Min'yan.

Now that the scary Jews wrapped in weird shawls rocking back and forth look less intimidating with the cannons in the background, I'll concede a few points:

- Israel is a racist society. There are many ways this is expressed, but it's usually vs Israeli Arabs and Palestinians, which many Israelis regard as the same group.
- There are many "factions" in Judaism, not unlike the differences between Catholics, Protestants, Jehova's Witnesses, Mormons and any other faith that can still call itself Christian. Some of these factions in Judaism will take the bible very literally.
- The population in the settlements is extremely Jewish. They sort of have to be, to want to move to a place you have to hold by force, with the constant threat of being removed from your home by a government treaty. For those who already forgot, read a bit about the Disengagement plan of 2005, where the Israeli Army forcibly removed residents of Jewish settlements in Gaza.

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Now that that's all out of the way, let's move on to the video at hand.

The video says the army is (or, was) "proudly secular". That's quite simply false. Every soldier who wants to can go to prayer every morning, even if it disrupts the normal schedule. Every base has a Rabbi and a synagogue. It's been that way since the IDF came to existence.

The video then goes on to show Rabbi going through a lecture during an officer training course. The video goes as far as calling them an "elite unit" within the IDF. By that logic, since I went through basic training and fired a rifle on about 5 separate occasions, I'm now a part of an elite commando team trained to fix computers behind enemy lines.
There are many courses at the officer training school (called Bahad 1). These men are going through a standard non-combatant officer training. It is required to get any form of officer rank.

The video loves showing you clips where the guys are either handling their rifle, or where the rifle is very visible. That doesn't mean anything regarding the training they receive. I had a rifle for the entire duration of my army training. I took it home every weekend, had to think of where it was all the time, and my greatest worry was "what if someone steals it". If I ever had to shoot it in a real situation, I'd probably drop the clip, get it jammed and throw it at someone before I actually managed to use it to shoot at them. Even if I had, I wouldn't hit anything.

The story of Masada isn't very proud, as far as I'm concerned. Read about it yourself, and make sure you notice the part where they commit mass suicide at the end. Masada in an army context is usually a site where a training course comes near the end of the training. The climb up from one of the sides is physically challenging, and there's a story of a small bunch of Jews standing up to the Roman army at the top. The ending is usually glossed over.

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Now, Cast Lead. The one-year-old atrocity.
I wasn't in the Army at the time, and I don't know anyone who was called for reserve duty for it, so I can't speak from experience on that one. It is surprising to me that the army Rabbi actually went with the combat units into action, and I find it very hard to believe that it was the case with every combat unit. It would simply disrupt their combat operation too greatly to have someone with that little training there. It seems more likely that they went together during the initial entry to Gaza, which was mostly logistical, with very little resistance, and then stayed behind at the actual fighting. Again, though, this is pure speculation on my part.

As for more and more religious Jews joining the army, that's actually a stated goal, not "something the army is ashamed of and is making headlines in Israel". There's a law in place (known as the Tal law) that gave religious Jews an exemption from the three year mandatory army service. This created a great deal of resentment among the secular population, since they're now "carrying the load" for the religious ones.

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That's basically it. The video gets lots of facts right, but some of the contexts wrong. It starts out with the premise that the army wasn't Jewish before, and is becoming Jewish now, and mixes irrelevant pieces of data to "prove" that. I'm just left wondering where the "Shocking news: Hamas is becoming more Islamic, if that was even possible" video.

Disclaimer: I'm an Atheist Jew living in Israel. I served for 3 years in the IDF as a non-combatant.

Very komish!

The Times They Are A-Changin'
Words and Music by Bob Dylan

(The one in the video is tuned down one step)

G Em C G
Come gather 'round people wherever you roam
G Am C D
And admit that the waters around you have grown
G Em C G
And accept it that soon you'll be drenched to the bone
G Am D
If your time to you is worth savin'
D D7 Gmaj7 D
Then you better start swimmin' or you'll sink like a stone,
G C D G
For the times, they are a chang - in'

Come writers and critics who prophecies with your pen
And keep your eyes wide the chance won't come again
And don't speak too soon for the wheel's still in spin
And there's no tellin' who that it's namin'
For the loser now will be later to win
For the times they are a-changin'

Come mothers and fathers throughout the land
And don't criticize what you don't understand
Your sons and your daughters are beyond your command
Your old road is rapidly agin'
Please get out of the new one if you can't lend a hand
For the times they are a-changin'

Come senators, congressmen please heed the call
Don't stand in the doorway, don't block up the hall
For he that gets hurt will be he who has stalled
There's a battle outside and it's ragin'
It'll soon shake your windows and rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changin'

The line it is drawn the curse it is cast
The slow one now will later be fast
As the present now will later be past
The order is rapidly fadin'
And the first one now will later be last
For the times they are a-changin'

this song is called D7, and is a cover of the Wipers by Nirvana.

Wipers version:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MRa5BWOOGZM