A lost battle?

There may be no point in continuing to serve in a military devoid of values
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3435154,00.html
Haim Misgav
Published: 08.08.07, 22:18 / Israel Opinion

The IDF is winning again. We can all get comfortable on the couch in front of our TV sets and watch the garbage we are being fed. The military commentators on all channels will be quick to update us, and everything will end before it even started.

The Jews residing in the Hebron marketplace in homes that belonged to Jews at the beginning of the last century have been evicted. In the name of the rule of law, of course, as there's nobody quite like the State of Israel when it comes to the rule of law.

Executing decisions is always a top priority by elected officials. Not all of them, perhaps, but does it really matter, as long as the soldiers who refused to take part in this despicable act are punished and the black-clad police officers, similar to the expulsion from Gush Katif, will once again be able do what they do best – roll their eyes to the heavens and explain to sympathetic journalists why our streets have become ridden with crime.

It's a little sad, but that's what we have today: A lazy army. Not a smart one. Clumsy. It is unable to bring our abducted soldiers back home. It is unable to defend the home front. The generals are occupied with battles of survival. It is unable to stop the Qassam rockets fired at our communities. It also wasn't quite able to overcome Hizbullah, a terror organization comprising several hundreds villagers who aren't overly sophisticated.

The army can only defeat Jews. So no wonder so many young people are refusing to join a military that has become, in practice, a tool at the service of corrupt politicians who are backed by a legal system addicted to its own power and whose honor is much more important than the honor of Jews who seek to settle in the land of their forefathers.

The evacuation of Jews from their homes, therefore, will become another milestone in the almost-certain path that leads to the Jewish state's collapse. We aren't far from the day where the army will only draw young people who fail to secure an appropriate job and enlist in return for a handsome salary, just like the US Army where mandatory enlistment was abolished a long time ago.

Bitter end on the horizon
The Palestinian state that would be established, according to Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni's vision, would enable the Palestinians to fire uninterruptedly at Kfar Saba, Hadera, and Herzliya, as well as other coastal plain communities, and all those fools who are sitting in government today will again ask themselves why is this happening to us.

Yet there will be no way back then. We'll be able to see the bitter end on the horizon. There will also be no point in establishing commissions of inquiry.

The Arabs, and rightfully so from their perspective, will say they see no difference, legally, morally, or publicly between what was occupied in 1948 and what was occupied 19 years later. They will of course demand to get back all the communities they lost in the War of Independence, which they forced upon us. In fact, they will seek to realign (a favorite word in the lingo of our energetic foreign minister) the Jewish state back into the "borders of partition."

And then, who will be fighting our last war? The Olmert draft dodgers? The new recruits from upscale Herzliya Pituach or Ramat Aviv?

There's no doubt that those who today refuse to evacuate the Jewish families in Hebron will no longer be part of the army by then. The same is true for the many volunteers for field units, who mostly come from a very certain population group. What will the defense minister do then? Desert his luxury Tel Aviv apartment? Call on all those who voted for him at Arab communities to come to his aid?

Perhaps Education Minister Yuli Tamir and her friends from Peace Now should already be telling us that it's a lost battle. Perhaps there is no point in continuing to volunteer in an army that has no values and in a state that views the Arab nakba (the Arabic term for the "disaster" of Israel's founding) as something that should be taught at schools? A country whose academic institutions are mostly home to post-Zionist lecturers who view what was established here following the Holocaust that devastated European Jewry less than 70 years ago as a sort of mistake that must be rectified.

The writer serves on the board of trustees and executive committee of the Ariel University Center of Samaria