After the most recent loss of Israel in Lebanon, it became clear that Tzahal is about to lose the title of one of the best and most orderly armies in the world! Before the incursion into Lebanon, Tzahal was something that all Hebrew were proud of and Israeli youth accounted for honor to be enrolled to do military service in. Before this shame of the Israel Army, their soldiers were known as fearless warriors... Now it is in the past. Members of the Israeli services represented themselves as greenhorns, unable to cope with their emotions and stress. It looked like they were in torpor, absolutely inappropriate, affected by shock they failed to recover from. That's possibly why there were so many casualties among Israeli soldiers. As I see, Tzahal is undergoing degradation and it is natural that Arabs become so well aware of it. That's perhaps for the first time in the recent history that malicious desertion became mass phenomenon among Israeli service members. Almost every twentieth soldier abandoned his post during the land operation in Lebanon! Mind it – it's almost 1,500 people granting that 30,000 people were invoked! That's why Israeli officership decided to use so-called "regular rearguard barrier squads" to prevent soldiers from fleeing on pain of death. Members of these squads were empowered to shoot anyone who tries to desert. By the way, the option of official use of "barrier squads" is now discussed in the Knesset. It is also up to them whether to randomly penalize turntail subdivisions with capital punishment as for betrayal.

Wow. Just wow. That's pretty brave Naomi. See, that's why I look up to you guys (and girls). You'd never hear an Islamist saying that. Not in a million years. Wow. You go girl!!!

Where do you get your facts from? Do you have a source for the interesting things (I can't quite call them facts until I can see them verified) that you cite in your post?

Are you Israeli? Jewish? How connected are you to Israel? Sounds very connected to me.

Will talk further once I get some verification for the statistics you offer.

Yeah, enquiring minds want to know....

Yeah, come on, let's have the low-down, as dirty as it gets.

(And sweaty, and all deliciously pink with the pigskin and all that)....

Oy.... you know, I actually had to do that exercise once. To decide, where exactly to place my pickets. That, taught me volumes. Definitely not your simple "trap the bad guys" exercise....

Which reminds of another character from my college days.... David Spiro....

Sorry, I'm getting a little far afield here.... sorry about that.... just suffice it to say that I haven't been entirely honest with y'all, my experience with the multiple sides in this equation goes back, WAY back... back to the days of black-light stars on the ceiling, and Jim Morrison black-liste posters on the walls, and anesthetic ether emanating from somewhere within a fireplace attached to a brick building constructed in 1903.....

Oh God, you know, in one way I wish I could relive those days, and in another way, I'm eternally grateful I don't have to....

Except for that one time, when..... never-mind.... (graphic sex at 6am in full frontal view of people with no bigger ambition than to be the most efficient clean-up people in all of New Jersey - and that they were....)

I would be interested to see how any IDF soldiers are charged with desertion from the Army! can't find any links on the web myself.

Interesting though - it would have been a great surprise to the leadership...

Islamofascist propaganda.

How about the FACT that Hezbolah fighters hide behind the skirts of women and the bodies of babies and children?

__________________
"What exactly is this foreign policy experience?" Obama said mockingly of the New York senator. "Was she negotiating treaties? Was she handling crises? The answer is no."

I haven't really heard any great opinions about what to do about the matter. If I was a soldier I would be reluctant to fight for a government that is more interested in world opinion than my safety. Half the ambushes happened in villages. Why where the houses still there. My friend was in Lebanon in one of the units that got ambushed in a village. He survived but his #1 question was why he had to go door to door, an incredibly dangerous operation, when that's what Hezbullah expected and prepared for. Israel has become like the US in Vietnam and more recently Iraq. Not willing to do the ugly things that would be required in order to protect the soldiers and win the war.

I wonder if it would be possible to bring lasting peace to the region? Something along the lines of :

Israel has the right to exist : it's territory must be defined by the 1949 borders as defined by the UN treaty - Also some sensative areas of concern to Israel's security, such as the Golan height must be addressed and under UN patrolled or totally de-miliatrized. These issued must be addressed.

Iran/Syria/Lebanon/Egypt/Palastine : All have to agree the Israel has the right to peaceful existance - but Palastine get the territory back, lst since 1949. Israel must respect the Border and not milatrially intimidate Palastine with such thngs as no fly zones in their own homeland.



Now I'm not saying that is the exact formula for a solution. But the sooner these long outsatnding issues are resolved the better because the way things are going at the moment we might be in for one hell of a time in the near futire?!?!?!