> I have some thoughts on the Israeli slackers issue that might be of
> interest to people on the list.
>
> When I was in Israel 2 years ago, I was really struck by the fact
> that the Israeli army, being a citizen army made up of almost the
> entire (Jewish) population, included many people who were not
> soldierly at all and in fact very uncomfortable with being soldiers.
>
> Three anecdotes:
> 1) We talked to an Israeli film director, who was in his late
> twenties. He had been called up to go do reserve duty in Gaza. He
> refused to go. In telling us this story he wanted to make one thing
> clear: he didn't refuse to go out of political reasons, he was not
> a refusenik who was opposed to the occupation, rather his motives
> were purely self-interested. He had an infant daughter and he
> wanted to see her grow up. Therefore he preferred to go to jail
> than to go to Gaza. As a result of his decision, about half his
> family and friends stopped talking to him ...
>
> 2) Another film maker told us gleefully that he was algeric to
> metal and therefore didn't have to serve. He seemed quite proud of
> this.
>
> 3) It is illegal for Israeli soldiers to hitch-hike, since there
> have been incidences of Palestinians pretending to be military
> hitch-hikers who have kidnapped those who picked them. When we were
> travelling in the north, we saw a young woman in uniform who was
> hitch-hiking. Our Israeli driver told us we should pick her up
> because he was sure she was a genuine Israeli soldier. We took her
> in. She started telling us that she's been have a lot of problems
> with the military because she keeps disobeying orders. Again, this
> was not something ideological, simply the fact that she was just a
> teenager and didn't like being told what to do. In fact, she said,
> she wanted us to drop her off at the local military jail, where she
> had to stay for the weekend to serve a sentence. Her crime? She had
> hitch-hiked a few weeks ago. So she was now hitch-hiking to serve a
> jail term for hitch-hiking.
>
> Best, Jeet