The group Torat Lehima (War Study), an Israeli association whose stated purpose is “disseminating Judaism and Torah to youth to strengthen and encourage motivation for military service; assistance to traditional soldiers; promoting and conducting research and informatics in the fields of Judaism and the military; development of systems of fighting spirit and love of country; and strengthening and preserving the spirit of the IDF, its strength and morale of the soldiers,” on Sunday published the response it received to an inquiry from the IDF Spokesperson.
The matter in question was the IDF’s ban on soldiers who leave their base to go home taking their personal weapons with them. The reason that was given initially was that these weapons are likely to be stolen from the soldiers’ homes. And so Torat Lehima wanted to know how many IDF weapons are stolen from soldiers on furlough compared to weapons that are stolen from the armories on base.
Here are the figures:
2017: from home – 27, from the base – 28
2018: from home – 26, from the base – 32
2019: from home – 16, from the base – 31
2020: from home – 15, from the base – 27
2021: from home – 13, from the base – 15
In other words, it’s safer to let the soldiers take their weapons home for the weekend than leave them on base. Naturally, it’s also safer, in general, to have more armed soldiers on the road on Friday afternoons because, you know, that’s when Muslim terrorists get whipped into murderous attacks by their spiritual guides.
A year ago, Major General Aharon Haliva, Head of the IDF Operations Division confessed in a meeting of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee that 80 weapons had been stolen from the IDF in 2020, so the IDF Spokesman’s numbers are inconsistent with reality. Or as Haliva put it: “Any IDF weapon that finds its way to the public’s hands is not a certificate of honor for us.”
It really isn’t.
