I'm an Israeli soldier. AMA

Lol fat soldiers would not be good soldiers

Favourite thing: cool weather

Least favourite thing: young people having an infinite sense of entitlement and thinking they can live without consequence

yeah but what's the point of doing all that exercise if you can't eat lots of junk food? lol the weather of england as a good thing is new. what do you mean live without consequence?what is your favourite and least favourite thing about israel?

^ all my paragraphs merged on there for some reason. I can't edit on anonymous so you'll have to work out where they go

Like in England the weather is sometimes hot, sometimes cold, sometimes rainy and sometimes both. In Israel the weather is just hot, not fun.

An example of living without consequences, they're happy to get tens of thousands of pounds in debt so they can study some obscure degree and party for three years with little reasonable prospect of paying it all back. Or kids at school not caring about education because they know that the state or their parents will provide for them once they're older - (I know this isn't unique to the UK).

Favourite thing about Israel: the cohesiveness between people of different cultures and backgrounds. Certain elements of the media like to portray Israel being very much Jews vs Muslims/Christians, but in reality we all get along really well!

Least favourite thing: weather always being hot. I would have previously said threat of terrorism, but recent events in Europe and the US have shown that you're probably safer, especially as a Jew, in Israel

making me work smh


mostly cold! is there not a welfare state in israel? how big a deal is economic inequality in israel?

yeah, 20% of israel's population is actually arab, and whilst there is a lot of discrimination in policing etc of the occupied territories, it seems that there is relatively little for Israeli Arabs

I disagree that Israel is safer than the West for Jews, i think that's something that Bibi likes to play upon as a propaganda tool personally

Would you consider marrying an Arab? A muslim Arab?

There is a welfare state, of which I think is better than the UK's. I think the main difference comes from people just having a stronger work ethic and military service helps people gain transferable skills, particularly when the government sponsors university degrees for them

Yes there is economic inequality between Jews and Arabs. The figures for this are quite misleading though since they often include Arabs in the West Bank, who are obviously going to be poorer than people living in main Israel. If we were to just compare Non Arabs/Arabs in normal Israel there's probably very little difference - I'd bet there's more economic inequality between whites and non whites in Europe and the US!

I can understand why you might say me saying Israel is safer doesn't apply to Jews specifically, but there's no denying the fact that significantly more normal civilians have been killed in terror attacks in France than Israel in recent years.

I am half (Jewish) Arab myself so have no issues with the idea of marrying an Arab.
A Muslim? Maybe if I was certain I'd never have to do Muslim things to appease him or his family like wearing a hijab or convert. I think it's very unlikely to happen either way

i definitely agree that many people here have a pretty poor work ethic - and this is something my international friends at uni have noticed too

i meant between israelis in general. i dont think there's much racism involved in the income inequality in the UK at least, many Asian groups do very well for income.

but that's just France, you can't extrapolate that to the UK/West in general; the UK definitely seems to have a much stronger internal security service (mi5 keep up the good work!). how do you reconcile netanyahu saying israel needs more military aid from the US (and reportedly has agreed the largest military aid package from the US ever) with saying that israel is safer than even the US?

half arab - that was unexpected! half jewish/arab ethnically, i assume?

Are you a lone soldier?

Shabbat shalom, soldier.
How are you?