It’s been 36 years since the IDF fought a conventional war against the army of an enemy state. Perhaps this fellow is right – perhaps it’s time to eliminate compulsory service, limit the role of the IDF to the defense of Israel proper against foreign invasion, and declare that the settlers are on their own. Why should secular Jews from Tel Aviv fight to protect people like him?

I should add, I agree with everything you said except the implied “all” orders, I would say all LEGAL orders.

And before you reply, consider a 2nd Lt. ordering an Army quartermaster to give him US Army goods to be sold on the black market.

There are exceptions…no matter what your politics…hence the word “legal”.

But in Nuremberg we hung [rightly so] people [after a trial] for following orders. Did you mean to say?

“but not obeying a direct [legal] order is a time for courts marshall.”

You might be ordered to herd women & children into showers to be gassed [an illegal order], would you follow your order then?

I am going to assume you would disobey the order and face punishment. Or as I once put it, I swore an oath to the constitution…not the [deleted] mob.

Disagreement with your country’s military mission is one thing but not obeying a direct order is a time for courts marshall. I am a liberal and some think a radical in my own family but an Army without discipline will turn into a mindless mess.Everything the enemies of Israel would like to see.

To my ears this sounds like chickenshit:

“He didn’t want to die because commanders were too concerned with Arabs’ lives.”

He’s not arguing higher law, he’s arguing for his sorry ass and some esthetically pleasing killing style.

This quotes morality:

“…it was the left that argued about selective disobedience — particularly about refusing to do reserve duty in the occupied territories.”

Depends on whether seizing the land is legal, if an international court says the occupation/expulsion of people in conquered lands is legal, then the leftniks are peeing up a rope.

My own view is, international law is pretty clear on this subject. Just as the US invasion of Iraq will eventually be held to a “war of aggression” so too do I believe Israel’s occupation/expulsion of people will be found to be illegal. So in that sense I do not see a moral similarity between the two situations, however, on a practical level they pose a similar problem for an Army.

It’s nothing new for a person to join an army only to discover that there are orders he/she finds impossible to obey. Seems like a new twist to join an army of one’s countrymen with the deliberate intent of disabling it, maybe call it “own-side infiltration”?

Had the law been enforced (in regard to West Bank settlements), there would have been no settlements (they are all illegal) and Israel’s religious Jews would have had to wait for (and maybe work for!) peace with the Palestinians in order to have any chance at living in the West Bank. Now, instead, the law has been derogated, the settlements built and expanded, and Israel — it seems — is being pulled apart. What is happening at the same time to Palestinians is too well known to require comment.

The “funhouse mirror” story is about dangers that lurk within Israeli society. But too many divert their gaze to look anxiously at Iran or Hezbollah or Hamas.