"This... Is...Judeah!!!!"

A-la the famous 300 scream by Gerard Butler, ya know.

Education minister: More combat soldiers needed, is the title of the article, the sub-title is:
"Sa'ar visits military recruit center, promises full cooperation between education system and IDF".

Jesus fucking Christ, are they kidding!?

Because we need the IDF to venture even further into the brain washing tactics of the Israeli Education System.
The system, from kindergarten to high school, is built to prepare us for the fact that we, good Israeli citizens (so long as we're not Palestinian identified, that is) that we will serve loyally in the IDF.

Over the past few years there has been a huge moral panic regarding the "shirkers", those who through means and ways get an exemption from IDF service and usually go on to do some kind of civilian oriented national service which should (though it isn't) be considered equal to military service.
Conciousness objectors who are 18 are rare. That's why they're the ones spoken about more often than not.
The largest section of the (Jewish) population that do not serve in the military are the Yeshivah (Haredi - the people in shtreimels and black suits all year round) Boys who due to religious conviction do not serve, this is the reason Orthodox girls (not Haredi)
Backfire, is putting it mildly.
Demographically, they are also the fastest growing Jewish sector.
I feel the urge to mock and laugh, but that doesn't do much good, because the people vilified by the witch hunt committed upon the "shirkers" are the ones who do not serve either for physical health reasons or mental health reasons.

Bluntly, these are the people that the IDF, the system, rejected. Still, they continue to persecute those deemed "lesser" because serving in the IDF is the way you are "made" into a Good Israeli.
A Good Israeli is a Loyal Soldier, willing to Die for Land and Nation.

Whatever.

The State created loopholes through which people can avoid the draft, legally. Then they get their panties into a twist that people use it.

The IDF is supposed to be a defensive army, obviously it acts as a police force over a civilian population and commits as many war crimes as any other army in the world while it continues to chant: "Most Ethical Army in the World".

During my two years of service I'd never received more than a cursory skim over what constitutes an illegal order or command. I know from friends who were in combat units that they first heard of an illegal order during boot camp like everyone else and never heard those words again.
The skim is in a little pamphlet new draftees get when entering the system, reagrding the behaviour of an IDF soldier.

In the article linked above, Education Minister Gideon Sa'ar says:

"The Education Ministry regards with great significance the issue of encouraging IDF service, increasing recruits' rate and combat recruits' rate," the minister said.
[...]
"The education system welcomes a full collaboration with the IDF. I feel positively regarding the introduction of officers into schools."

Minister Sa'ar also stressed that "some of the parameters of the success of an educational establishment are matriculation eligibility, social values and dropout prevention. Military service is an important parameter. Schools in which dropout rates are low should allow a special effort for raising recruitment rates."

There you have it. Kids from low socio-economic backgrounds should be encouraged to follow a path in which they put their lives in danger for a state that would rather have cannon fodder than invest in the actual neighbourhoods.

Some of those kids may attain actual life skills that will grant them upwards social and economic mobility, but in the context of the Occupation and the destructive economy in which Capital and Capitol are more intertwined than ever, I find this a very discouraging development in what should be a civic establishment and not a pre-military education camp.

Coming Out Shenanigens

Today I came out to my hair dresser, who has been cutting my hair for seven years.

It had never come up, because I had never spoken to her about anyone I had been dating, I'd vent about my mom, we'd talk about my hair... sexuality was not the top of the agenda.

Her exclamation of surprise: "You're gay?!" irked me a bit, but that passed and now I can process why that is.

Obviously the whole discussion came up because I went to get a hair cut in order to somehow make a change in myself and somehow deal with the tragedy of my community.

I mentioned that that was one of the reasons I needed a hair cut.

"You were there?" she asked anxiously.
"No," I replied "but it was an attack on my community"
"You're gay?!" she exclaimed.
Feeling far too worn out to start the whole gay vs. bi thing I simply said "Yeah".
"Well hello!"

The next half an hour was filled with me talking, venting and pretty much being pissed off, but nicely.

What irked me, is the constant assumption of heterosexuality. I'm not blaming my hair dresser or anything, this is the way society is constructed. The assumption is that most people are straight, so how are we supposed to know who is not until they say so.

And along with the assumption of heterosexuality, come the stigma of queer.
I've now veered away from my hair dresser (my hair looks great, just my the way).
Through out the past few days, I've been reading articles upon articles telling me that the police have no clue as to where the gunman is.
People raising hypothesis that this was a vendetta by a spurned lover, that it was a self-hating queer person who was rejected from the youth group (what?!) and of course that the LGBT community are falsely accusing the Orthodox community and spreading the hate.

I have had it up to *here*, I swear.
My dad asked me about that "lead" the police had regarding the spurned lover and at the vigil I attended yesterday someone glibly said that if it the killer wasn't hate motivated then it would feel really empty.
I opened my mouth on both that person and my dad:

#1 How can one even try and justify murder in that way, because that's what it is. Trying to find an "excuse" as to why a killer decided to kill.

#2 It's derailment of the issue. This is a hate crime. Homophobia is a prejudice that goes on without censure. It is transparent, it is jokes and violence committed because of it goes under reported more often than not.

#3 The degradation and defamation of LGBT people is ongoing. The reason we had no "build up" for this tragedy is because we are under constant attack. All the time. Every day. Every where. And no, I'm not exaggerating.

And finally #4 Whoever this person was, he didn't just go after one person, or a specific individual. The man carried an Uzi. That mass destruction and multiple shots in rapid succession.

Coming out to my hair dresser (see what I did there) was my choice. Those kids lying in the hospital were Outed in a way that will leave them scarred forever, beyond the physical and emotional trauma of being the victims of a shooting attack because some of the families have rejected them.

We've been told to not be afraid.

I can't help but seethe in the dark and I am afraid.

That ended up being much more dramatic than I intended..