This is the Forward’s coverage of the Israel Defense Forces, the combined military forces of Israel.
IDF
The Latest
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Fast Forward Israeli Cabinet Passes Draft Law To Force Haredim Into IDF Service
Israel’s cabinet approved a draft law on Sunday to abolish wholesale exemptions from military duty granted to Jewish seminary students, stoking ultra-Orthodox anger over the break with tradition. Many Israelis have long bridled over state priveleges handed to the conservative believers or “Haredim” – a Hebrew term meaning “those who tremble before God”. The debate…
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Opinion Barack Obama Asks Americans To Trust Him When History Proves We Cannot
“Noting extensive deliberations in the Situation Room, [the President] added, ‘Unless you’ve been involved in those conversations, then it’s kind of hard for you to understand that the complexity of the situation and how we have to not rush into one more war in the Middle East.’” That’s how The New York Times reported President…
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Culture The Provocative IDF Soldiers You Really Need To See
The Gaza Strip! IDF Girls Gone Wild! These are some of the nicknames for the recent scandal sparked by Facebook photos and video of semi-nude female IDF soldiers, striking poses and dancing on IDF bases and inside IDF facilities, in some cases carrying weapons and sporting (parts of) IDF uniforms. These stories seemed to be…
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Fast Forward Scantily Clad Israeli Female Soldiers Pole Dance Video Goes Viral
A video of female Israeli soldiers dancing suggestively was uploaded to the Internet a week after photos of half-naked female soldiers made headlines. The video taken on a cellphone shows the soldiers using their rifles as stripper poles and spanking each other. The soldier filming the video is heard saying she would upload the video…
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Fast Forward Many Soldiers To Receive Less Training in Israeli Army Due To Budget Cuts
Just five years ago, to great fanfare, the Knesset enacted the Reserve Service Law. After the tiresome speeches about Israeli society’s great debt to the reservists, after the embarrassing distribution of goodies every year − here at last was a binding document that enshrined the perceptions of the Israel Defense Forces’ top brass concerning the…
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Fast Forward Attempts To Abduct Israeli Soldiers Rise Sharply
There has been a significant increase in attempts to abduct soldiers in recent months, a source in the Israel Defense Forces said on Thursday. This has prompted the army to strictly enforce safety measures and remind soldiers of directives intended to prevent such incidents, he said. Since the beginning of the year, the IDF has…
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Fast Forward Israeli Army Apologizes for Book Saying Non-Jews Aren’t Equal to Jews
The Israel Defense Forces has apologized for publishing a book of religious regulations that states non-Jews do not have equal rights in Israel. The IDF issued the apology on Thursday in a letter to MK Zahava Gal-On (Meretz), and said it had halted distribution of the book, which claims that “the concept that non-Jews and…
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Opinion Lord of the Land: Israel’s New Jewish Identity Czar
Israel’s ministry of religious services, headed by economics minister Naftali Bennett of the Jewish Home party, has created a new Jewish Identity Administration in an “effort to increase national awareness of Jewish identity,” says a report in Yeshiva World News. Haaretz says its job is to “instill Jewish values” in the general public. The administration…
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