No, I'm not referring to Srugim (for a change). I am, rather, referring to the dramatically high proportion of religious young men who fought (and, לא עלינו, paid the ultimate price) in order to defend us from the Hamas scourge. While the Leftists wringed their hands and ignored the plight of the residents of the periphery, it was the sons of that periphery (who are overwhelmingly observant or traditional), along with the National Religious soldiers who bore the prunt of the fighting. (See Matthew Wagner's article in today's Jerusalem Post.)What further proof does one need of the fact that Jewish Nationalism cannot exist more than one generation, without a strong connection to the Jewish religion?
Far from me to question the logic and analysis of our esteemed blogmsater -but could some of the reason for the disparate casulties reflect the commands that Hesder stucents enter-I believe that kravi commands are major entry ways for hesder and RZ dati soldiers. My gut feel is thatthey are not represented as heavily in the air force which was at least as crucial for any success in the Gaza operation.
ReplyDeleteOf course if one were to include the chareidm as datiim then the porportion of those who serve in the IDF in the IDF is far lower than the dati community.
mycroft