response

As soon as you use the words 'ilk' and 'parasite' we are off to a bad start because you are being derogatory without even hearing the other side's reason. I hope you don't do that at home. One has to put aside the wild emotions and romantic talk and look at fact and argument. You use a lot of buzz words like "defend Israel" that get the heart pumping but is it rational? Many a nation has gotten itself into stupid wars with these man crushes on the military. Example, the USA and World War One. The USA and the war in Iraq. The USA and Vietnam. Israel has not had a war in 40 years. And even the war in '73 was avoidable as Egypt wanted the land back that was taken in '67 and announced for two years its intention to attack. The Camp David accord which followed was what they had asked for and we've had peace with Egypt ever since. In '67 Israel attacked knowing that Egypt was not going to. Begin admitted that. So 70 years since a war. And even that war came because Ben Gurion declared a state in defiance actually of the British who said they would not implement the UN resolution if the Arabs weren't happy with it. And should they have been happy to lose 56% of the land to 33% of the people who owned 6% of it? In general, Arabs have weak armies and don't pose much of a threat. You don't need a universal draft when you are not a war. It puts a tremendous drain on the country. It is very damaging to the youth, most of whom are not military types. I have friends who still wake up from nightmares because of their time in the IDF. They didn't see combat. It was the training that did it. But they did abuse Palestinians and it messed them up too. If you study the history, you'll see that Israel has been the aggressor in nearly every encounter it has been in. Read the books of Zev Me'oz, Israeli military analyst. As for the reference to parasites, Israel gives $2,000 a year to yeshiva students. Nobody lives on $2,000 a year. It's a fraction of expenses. So none of these guys are living off of the state. Would you call the State of Israel parasitic for getting $4 billion a year from the USA? Many people do. Many of the yeshiva students want to work but having any kind of job, even for one day, destroys their exemption from the draft. And the military is a very non-religious atmosphere so religious youth have a reasonable claim to not wanting to be a part of it.