Because our invader was also but a dog – a mutt, a scavenging mutt that had made our base its home. After a brief search, we soon found it, rummaging in the dirt, and gently coaxed it into the back of the jeep. From there, we took it to the camp commander, who we assumed had some secret kennel in his office or some other cunning solution. But there was nothing of the sort. Instead, he told us to take the dog to the road behind the central bus station in Ramle, and to leave it there. In the most Moral Army in the World, we do not shoot dogs – we merely evict them.

My past was coming back to haunt me. A few months earlier, I had got into a fight with some friends in Eilat over what to do with an injured cat that had been discovered on the side of the road. I wanted to leave it behind; my friends insisted that we care for it. So this mission was my punishment. Remembering the barren consequences of my decision in Eilat, I decided to offer resistance. “Can’t you get an animal shelter to come and pick it up,” I asked. No, he replied, I don’t have their number.

Throughout all this, Igor stood on impassively, which was strange given that he was rather emotional when we were trying to convince the dog (who we belatedly named Michel) to join us in the jeep. This, combined with my excitement at the prospect of my first armed trip off base, meant that my resistance faded no sooner had it started, and soon we were on our way. As we approached the gates to the base, Igor told me not to worry – the dog would be back by the morning.

Off into the minaret-dotted night we went, and within five minutes we had reached our destination. In an unlit street behind the station, Igor crawled out of the vehicle and said his goodbyes to Michel, while I kept my eye on the clock in case any of Ramle’s residents thought they were witnessing a rerun of 1948. My intensive training had all been leading up to this moment, and I wasn’t going to fail now. Michel scampered off, while Igor shrugged his soldiers and got back into the car. “He’ll be back in the morning,” he prophesised again, before blasting out my ear-drums with some Russian hip-hop.

We reported our successful completion of the mission to the commander, who congratulated us for our sterling efforts to defend the State of Israel. He said that they perhaps even surpass the efforts of the pilots who bombed Syria the other week without even knowing what they were being sent to target. At least you showed an interest in what you were doing. That dog was a menace to the safety of the soldiers, like a Qassam exploding every minute. It’s not as if he had any space to roam around here, after all, given that it takes six minutes just to drive around the base. He was a constant menace.

With a warm feeling of patriotic pride, I headed off to order some take-away, having missed dinner for the cause. Early next morning, I wandered over to the front-gate to pick up the newspapers, to be greeted by the pastoral image of Michel nosing around. Igor’s prediction had come to pass. The dog had returned. And this time, when the commander found out, he didn’t hatch any grand plans, or suggest putting a bullet in its neck. He just shrugged and let out a wan smile, a gesture that suggested Michel’s right to come back would not be violated. He returned in peace, and now he is here to stay.

Lone soldiers receive special benefits – a bit more money here and there, additional time off – all in all just that bit more leeway. Various bigwigs line up to applaud us for our service, leaving us feeling suitably inspired, although within a day one of these bigwigs would be shouting at me for not keeping the front gate of the base clean while I am on duty. But the bark is worse than the bite; I was more scared by my mum’s intimidations when I failed to tidy my room.

But Boded doesn’t just mean lone, it means lonely. It is a designation which conjures up the image of an impoverished soldier returning every weekend from the front to an empty, friendless room. In my case, I live in one of the more affluent neighbourhoods of Tel Aviv, and even have one or two friends. I need the army’s financial assistance to pay the rent, but can just about survive apart from that (breaking your key in the lock doesn’t help matters, but that’s another story).

However – proud man that I am – I still think my status is important. I deserve to be acknowledged. I could have got out of the army, and I certainly didn’t need to sign on for an extra six months. More than the perks of the job, then, I guess I crave that occasional recognition, the understanding that spending two hours every Thursday morning doing manual labour isn’t what most of my contemporaries are doing, that being shouted at for not shaving will never make sense to me, no matter how many times you tell me “that’s the army for you.”

But those that do understand simply think I’m mad for being here, that I should have followed in the footsteps of my peers. What they perhaps don’t realise is that I’m taking more than I could ever give back (especially when it takes me over four hours to translate a mere eleven pages of text!) – a shortcut to being absorbed into Israeli society, and the best Ulpan there is. For this, I’ll happily suffer the indignities and the humiliations, the authoritarianism and the manual labour. And this is something it’s simply impossible to see from the outside, which is why do many from my world will choose the margins. However comfortable those margins might be, right here right now, I wouldn’t swap my life in the army for anything else in the land. Things done changed.

The problem dates back to May 8th, that blurry alcohol-hazed day when I officially joined the world’s most moral army. That day, I was given my uniform. Now, in the IDF, there are two types of uniform – Aleph and Bet. Bet is for use out in the shetach, the territory. Aleph is for travelling to and from base and other formal occasions. As a jobnik, 90% of my time is spent in Aleph.

On that day, I was given but one pair of Aleph trousers. I didn’t realise it at the time, but I was meant to get two. Woe is me. One measly pair – all day, every day, with one wash at the end of the week. I resolved to obtain an extra pair of trousers as soon as possible.

If you’re a devout reader of these missives, it shouldn’t surprise you to learn that this task was anything but simple. There was no Aleph at Michvei Alon, where I did basic training, nor at Kishrei Hutz, where I spent that dangling month of reading.

In the meantime, the problem became decidedly more urgent. In one of its weekly outings to the washing machine merry-go-round, my beloved trousers began coming apart at the seams. The top section of material, where the belt goes (is there a technical term for this?), began splitting from the rest, like an iceberg in the Antarctic. Now, I have been told of a possibly apocryphal story which involved me managing to go home from school one day without my trousers. Here, I was faced with the reverse, and then some – turning up for my duties without uniform.

I had three options. 1) Sew them, 2) Go to Bakum and get some new ones, or 3) Grin and bear it until my new base in Ramle became equipped. Those who know me won’t be surprised that 1) was never an option. Neither was 2) – going on a day trip to pick up a rag cobbled together by some slave-labour in China seemed a bit excessive. So I plumped for 3) – doing a delicate makeshift job with my trousers each morning, one which ensured my modesty would not be compromised.

For weeks, I managed to cope. And then there was hope. I was told that Aleph would soon be delivered to my base. Oh happy days! On the day of delivery, my joy barely concealed, I headed over to the equipment store. There, after the interminable waiting, I was told that they had been delayed. Woe was me. Deflated, I staggered through the heat to my office, and slumped myself into the chair.

The following week I returned. The tiny soldierette took out a heavy file, which detailed every bit of equipment I had ever borrowed, and begun once again that demented twenty minutes on the computer. Then, the go ahead. She beckoned me to accompany her to the warehouse, where I could finally be kitted out. She took her time looking at various files before telling me sadly that she did not have the keys to the appropriate wardrobe. The person with the keys will be returning in a week. I protested this neglect, to no avail. As I trudged back again, I reassured myself with the hope against hope that next week I would finally have a fresh pair of trousers.

Today, my dreams were realised. The girls really did crack the Iranian nuclear code. In between, they expressed that now predictable astonishment at my age, with the one who looked about twelve even joking that I should marry her. After the torment of keeping my trousers from me, what Chutzpah! She got out my file, which rather alarmingly said I was being freed from service in 2010, and opened the cupboard with the trousers.

There they were in all their glorious banality, that wonderful khaki-green, those old-school seams. I can be funky-fresh-dressed-to-impress once more. Tomorrow, tomorrow, I shall wear them with pride. And I shall be more careful when I put them in the washing machine.

If this is what happens when a private asks for a pair of trousers, is it any wonder that there are national enquiries into the army’s failures in more serious matters?

As I’ve ended up with the Home Front by chance, I’m a bit of an oddity around base. Only the professional soldiers and the reservists are older than me. Everyone else is at least five years younger. It’s like being thrust into first year of university on a parallel universe. But I am hard to detect. As I’ve only been in the army a few months, I have no rank whatsoever. The Semitic shine on my face hides my British upbringing. And apparently I don’t look that old either. In short, there is sadly no reason to suspect that I am anything other than an eighteen year old just embarked on his army service.

In truth, it can get a little depressing at times. At the end of the day, I have signed on for an extra six months, at a time in my life where convention dictates I should be out there ‘settling down’. In an institution which recognises only rank, it would be nice if there could be some recognition of my difference. In that sense, it’s been good to be appointed samal toran, although even that accentuates my difficulties.

One of the tasks of the samal toran is to make sure the young soldiers clean up in the morning. Until they do this properly, I can’t be on my way. Now, I’d like to think I’ve acquired plenty of skills in this field during my years as a youth worker. But trying to lead a bunch of Israelis is something else. I knock on the door of the soldierettes, asking them to come out for the aliyat degel, the raising of the flag. The accent is detected, and I am slaughtered. One week later, they are still squealing in excitement when they see me, giggling as they perform impressions of my inflections.

Of course, being a lone Anglo on an IDF base does have some benefits. As the title of the piece highlights, it confers on me a sort of star status. Life on base can be so dull, so predictable, that meeting someone with a different background can be the equivalent of Rose Tyler’s first meeting with the Doctor. And people remember you more easily. With my primary reason for serving so long being the wonders it is doing for my Hebrew, this is all to the good.

The other day, I was having my hair cut by the base’s hairdresser. Does it surprise you that there is such a thing? I have to admit, it surprised me, but I suppose you need somewhere to send people whose hair is deemed too long. Hence there is one girl – bleached blonde as ever – whose army service consists of coming in every day and cutting the hair of the male soldiers. The girls prefer to go elsewhere. So I was sitting having my hair trimmed while four yoof gathered impatiently. They shared banter while constantly enquiring when their turn was to come. Israeli nineteen year old boys can be tricky to deal with. But this time she had a secret weapon – me. “Look how the Londini behaves,” she said to them, which queued a chaotic frenzy of questions, and distracted from their fundamental lack of patience.
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The point of all this is that I’m very much out of place at Home Front central command. This could be rather disorienting, but so far I’m managing to deal with it. Moreover, for a new immigrant opportunities to be out of place are actually few and far between. To integrate to even a minimal level, then, is a great opportunity, even if it does prevent difficulties. As Jeru the Damaja might have put it, I’m not your average jobnik. Which certainly livens thinks up a bit…

As I mentioned last week, my department is responsible for arranging visits to the Israeli Home Front by senior officials from around the world, as well as trips abroad for Israeli officers. This week, for example, I sat in on a briefing given to the heads of British Search & Rescue. Now, during my twenty six years on this planet, I’ve brilliantly managed to avoid ever having to do what is drearily referred to as a ‘proper job’. But, as Justin Timberlake reminded us recently, what goes around comes around. This isn’t a proper job. It’s a proper job on speed, taken to its logical and mind-boggling conclusion.

Our working hours are from 8.15 to 5.30, with the lunch-hour coming between 12 and 1. Sometimes, if it’s a quiet day, we might be allowed out a little early, but that entirely depends on the whim of our commander, and he’s just as likely to make us sweat it out to the end. Everything is done according to strict procedures, procedures which may fit the army ethos, but arguably don’t actually lead to maximum efficiency. This is a point I’ll develop in a future post: it (obviously) makes sense to run fighting units on military lines. But perhaps it makes less sense to do so with the jobniks, who are primarily engaged in what would typically be described as civilian work.

I’ve been wondering what a top management consultancy firm would make of it all. From my time working with the youth movement Noam, for example, I know that a daily meeting of all the staff is a basic idea to improve communication and efficiency. There are four of us in my new unit, so it’s pretty easy to implement. Here we are apparently lucky if we meet once a month. And I wouldn’t even know where to start regarding suggesting changes. At a certain point, people becoming impervious to change. Institutions all the more so. When my commander tells me that he is supposed to do an interview with me regarding my background and current situation, but then tells me that he’d prefer me to write the answers down – because it’s a waste of time to sit and talk about it – I realise that point was reached long before I arrived. There are going to be many things I’m just going to have to grin and bear.

But the work is stimulating. There’s a lot to be done, and it involves interesting topics and interesting people. I just think it would be so much better if it was done in a civilian atmosphere. But those who opt for an army career believe civilians to be a different species. “Civilians sometimes don’t understand things,” was one nugget I heard this week. So the 5.30 wake-ups will continue. And the reporting my every movement to the commander. But so will the ongoing food for thought.

The Israeli Home Front Command was created in February 1992 following the Scud missiles fired on Israel during the first Gulf War. It deals with the organisation of civil defence – search and rescue, bomb shelters, gas masks, chemical and biological attack – everything from forest fires to ‘mega’ terror attacks. In most other countries, the Home Front is a civilian organisation. Thus far, attempts to civilianise the Israeli Home Front have failed.

The Israeli Home Front Command is justly famous for being able to disproportionately pull its weight in the field of disaster response. Israel regularly sends teams abroad to assist in the case of tragedies, whether it is the tsunami in South-East Asia or forest fires in Cyprus. You may recall the offer of assistance to Iran following the Bam earthquake, which was predictably rebuffed. Israel has garnered a lot of expertise in the field, expertise which it is earnest to share with those who are willing. This is (and here I’m editorialising) partly a matter of public diplomacy, partly an extension of ‘light unto the nations’, and partly an extension of the ‘Alliance of the Periphery’, an early foreign policy doctrine.

But the unit’s reputation has taken a battering of late. It was not spared the ire of the various reports into failures during the Second Lebanon War, and its future direction is as uncertain as any other unit of the army. But domestic concerns are beyond my purview. I have been assigned to the External Relations unit. We organise trips from foreign delegations who wish to come and learn about the Israeli Home Front, as well as trips abroad by Israeli luminaries in the field.

So this week, after we had finished moving to a new air-conditioned office, I was given a thick file full of arduous bureaucratic Hebrew (surely Israel must be the only country with a dictionary which translates army terms into English but explains the concepts in Hebrew, implying that it is for native speakers) to prepare myself for the rigours ahead. Next week a new delegation arrives – to the base that some of my fellow Schlav Betniks will be learning to drive a tractor – and I plan to waltz in in triumph.

It’s still the army of course: I have to do guarding three times a month, and every week there is avodah rasa (I hope you’re getting the lingo by now), but it does look to be a promising job, with plenty to keep me occupied between 8 and 5.30 everyday. Now, I just need to fill in my extremely thick security questionnaire – apologies to anyone I’ve ever slept with – in the sense of sharing a flat – I am obligated to list your names. As for the enemy agents I’ve been in touch with, I’m sorry to you too. On Sunday I will be interviewed on what I write, which should be fun, although I only need to pass the lowest-level of security clearance that there is, so I doubt there will be anything to write home about. And if there was, I wouldn’t be allowed to anyway…

At the central bus station I flash my soldier ID and am waved straight through security, feeling immortal. Before boarding the bus, I purchase a pizza bureka and an apple juice. I forget the Heebs for what I want in the innards of my pastry, but there is no switch to English. In uniform, no matter what, I am always spoken to in the holy tongue. The bus pulls up; the soldiers rush it. I am determined to get a seat this time, and I succeed. I switch on the iPod, and drift off.

***

After changing buses in Afula, where I run into one of our mefakdot looking like a scowling school-child, I arrive at the meeting-place. My comrades trickle in, gossip from the weekend is shared, while some get a few minutes shut eye. Finally our deadline arrives, and we must formally make the transition back to army mode. We gather in our tsfatim [teams], and are briefed about the week ahead. Then, after a brief delay, it’s onto the bus for the short ride to the base.

Once back home, we are sent to reclaim our guns. We stand in lines of three [shlishiot], gently swaying in the heat, waiting. Perversely, I think to Roman Polanski’s The Pianist – the Jews of the Warsaw Ghetto falling like flies as they stand waiting for their deportation. But we are Jews who fight back, and our M16 is soon back in our hands, like an albatross. The guns are checked and declared free of bullets, and we are on our way to lunch.

Face-off: We are standing outside the dining-room in shlishiot. A mefakedet [commander] accuses a comrade and I of moving ahrei sof ha’zman [after the end of the allotted time]. Zazta muli she asks incredulously. You moved in front of me? He confesses. I do not, for I know I am innocent of the charge. She pauses, not used to this dissent. In stilted Hebrew, I explain myself – any movements that she witnessed were entirely natural, exactly the same as anyone else standing in this line. I expect a come-back, but she chooses instead to launch into a morality tale about the importance of always telling the truth. I stand my ground, escaping punishment. Then our samelet emerges, and – yet again – I get into a Chaplanian pickle whilst trying to tuck my hat under my shoulder-collar in the allotted ten seconds. As I wander to the back to do my twenty press-ups, I detect a smug satisfaction on the face of the mefakedet who had first tried to bring me down.

***

For those that are seeking Zionist mythology, this is the moment. We are sitting in the auditorium to hear various luminaries. For the first time, we meet someone older than us. I am not sure exactly what his position is, but he is like something out of Uris’ Exodus. This is rabble-rousing New Jewism at its finest. He tells us that one in four and a half IDF soldiers is an immigrant, that we are extremely important to the army, and that nobody should tell us that we are anything other than full Israelis. He tells us that there should be no place in Israel for those that do not want to serve, unless they are pacifists. He gives us his view of the region, albeit from behind the barrel of the bayonet. The next speaker is the complete opposite – rambling, inaudible, unbearably dull. Our enthusiasm has been quickly diluted.

First-aid training. Our mefakedet spits out Hebrew medical terms at an M16-fire pace. I learn that the recovery position is different in Zion than it is in the UK, I learn that ‘English flag’ is the name for one of the methods for tying on a bandage. But throughout the day, I keep getting into trouble. I am forgetting that this is a game. We are sent to change into a different uniform; I am unable to finish in time. Confusion abounds as to the precise regulations for requesting more time – my mefakedet reprimands me for not doing so, I explain that I thought I was not permitted. I remind her that our inspirational speaker that afternoon had told us we were supposed to be treated like the mevugarim [adults] that we are. She tells me that one more mishap will lead to me spending an hour after bedtime in the company of the mefakedet, which is not as pleasant a prospect as it might be were we not in the army.

The twilight hours are spent doing various sports activities. I have not yet purchased trainers, and look rather peculiar in my shorts, t-shirt and boots. Pitying me, my mefakedet gets me to guard the guns from marauders. Then, the final disgrace. As ever, while waiting to be sent in for dinner, for one reason or another, I get sent to do thirty press-ups. Somehow, someway, while engaging in this activity, I manage to mislay my water-bottle, although I don’t notice the fact until I am about to break bread. I alert my samelet to this devastating loss – she asks my comrades if anyone has seen it, to no avail. I spend dinner time (ten minutes) pondering what to do.

The samelet returns, ready to free us for our break. As she begins to speak, a comrade appears behind her, clutching a water-bottle. I look on yearningly, and then I glance over at a former school-chum who is also in the army with me. As ever, we descend into hysterics. The samelet asks the eternal question – is something funny? – and I try to direct her attention to the water-bottle. It is placed on the table, where I am unable to work out if it is mine. I put my head down as far as possible, so as to avoid further outbreaks of laughter. We are dismissed, and I reclaim my chalice.

***

In the end, I receive the one hour punishment, although it is postponed until another day. At ten o’clock, after our shatash [free time at the end of the day], we gather again and are sent off to bed. Within minutes, I am lying on my scabius (term for army blanket – yes, from scabies), and drifting off. I will be up at half past four, ready for another day of excitement, more regimented wasting of time. For now, I spend my final waking moments reflecting on the fact that the game is starting to wear thin, although it really won’t be lasting for much longer. I am already half-way through basic training, and the end is in sight. That, though, is for the future. For now, this day’s done.

On Monday, we finished the period known as tironout. We had the final examination – written and practical. Somehow, I passed the practical with flying colours. I slipped on my gas mask with ease; I bandaged my comrades with all manner of techniques; I showed my prowess at doing the ‘Indian Crawl’, a method of scrambling along the ground without letting your gun drop. Following the test, the entire pluga gathered together. Then, the samelet stepped forward to let us know the new rules of the game.

In one-on-one situations, we can address our mefakdot by their real names. Our mefakdot will no longer wear their hats. There will be far less running around. We will receive a generous amount of time from our superiors to get from one place to another. There will be no more press-ups. The atmosphere will be more relaxed, there will even be opportunities to laugh together. We will be able to use our mobiles during the break, and are finally permitted to enter the promised land of the shekem, a place to buy chocolate and ice cream from dour faced recruits.

So far, so good – that was our thinking. But it hasn’t been quite as cushy as it might seem. In place of press-ups, we were presented with a formal menu of punishments that we will receive if we do something wrong. Late for class? Work with the samelet after bed-time. Late returning to base after the weekend? A two hour delay on your departure the following week. Tempted to take a piss at three in the morning without taking your gun with you? The ubiquitous mefakdot will know – and your punishment will be severe. Try to think of your unloaded and thus impotent M-16 as an extension of yourself.

Most of this week has been spent in the classroom. We have had classes on the Declaration of Independence, Theodor Herzl, the various aliyot to the country, and the pre-state militias. There was even a visit from a Lechi man, a story I’ll save to the end of my service, when I’ll finally turn to the question of the politics of the IDF. We continued with krav maga and fitness training. And, each morning, there is a peer-led lecture. I’ve volunteered my services, and next week – somehow, someway – I’ll be giving a talk in Hebrew about Ahad Ha’am, the Cultural Zionist thinker.

Finally, we have some choice. Breakfast is served at 6.40, but if we prefer we can sleep in until 7.30. I cannot overestimate how much I have learned to appreciate this. As much as our time in hardcore tironout was condensed beyond belief, it has taught us to value time and freedom more than ever before. Seconds seem like minutes, minutes like hours, any time we get to ourselves is used to the fullest. 

From here, the distance will be broken further. There is already occasional banter between us and the mefakdot, and far more two-way dialogue about how things are going. We had an amusing session on army slang. I learnt such gems as reach shel bakum – smell of the recruitment centre – a derisory term for new recruits such as myself. By the end of the course, we will be on first name terms with our mefakdot, and I will finally be able to understand why the IDF is known as the most informal army in the world.

But the next two weeks may just be the most intense yet. We are scheduled to complete our final hike, which will take place before our swearing-in ceremony. And then, next Friday, we are sent for a week of shmira – guarding – in as yet unspecified locations. For this, we will have another day of shooting; although this time we will do it out in the open, rather than in front of a target. And then we head off to defend the realm. And this time, we get bullets. In the meantime, I’m trying to ponder what I did with my mimia, and whether its absence will be noted when I return to base…

First time, ever I saw a gauge
Fat Joe (Gangstarr, We got Gunz)

Tonz of gunz, everybody’s getting strapped, tonz of gunz, better watch your fucking back
Guru (Gangstarr, Tonz of Gunz)

More rules of the game. Once again we gather in a het. We must place our water bottles parallel to our right boot, vertically, up and to the right a bit. If not, it’s matsav shtaim (literally Situation Two, figuratively a whole load of press ups). On this particular occasion, we are about to learn the ten golden rules for handling a gun. These, we are told, are rules written in blood. A fellow soldier, from Kazakhstan, is selected to read. A few hours previously, I had reminded him that the army was a game, and that the best way to get through it was to play by the rules. Here, he took matters into his own hands. In a tone of ultra-exaggerated enthusiasm, in which the Borat comparisons were hard to ignore, he began to plough his way through the Hebrew truisms. Our group descended into hysterical, uncontrollable laughter. Missing the point, our mefakedet [commander] asks why we are laughing at our fellow soldier. Together, we are made to perform matsav shtaim. And then we get guns.

***

A month or so before enlisting, I went hiking with a few friends in the Yorkshire Dales. At the end of our trek, we relaxed in front of Jackie Brown, Tarantino’s underrated follow-up to Pulp Fiction. In an early scene, Ordell Robbie (played by Samuel L. Jackson) schpiels about the various firearms on the market. Eventually he arrives at his favourite – the M16: “When you absolutely, positively got to kill every motherfucker in the room, accept no substitutes.” My mind drifted to what was to come. The machine-gun that was being proudly paraded on the screen by a tough bikini model would soon be in my hands. How, I ask myself – thinking both personally and historically – did it come to this?

***

We are taught about our guns before receiving them. We discover its length and weight, its history, and its pros and cons. We learn never, but never, to put it onto automatic. We take a brief test, in which we are told the answers. We are going through formalities. It is urgent to receive our weapon.

The easiest cliché used to describe the relationship of an Israeli soldier to his/her M16 is that of the permanently attached lover. In reality it is more of a noose. We take it everywhere with us: to the toilet, to the shower, to class. At meals it sits perched on our lap, while we try somehow to manoeuvre our knives and forks around it. When we were out in the shetach (literally territory) this week, it lay next to us in our sleeping bag. At first it hurts to carry around, but one soon gets used to it. But woe betide us if we forget it. If we are seen without it for even a second we are liable to get punished. This week, at least half a dozen of us were kept behind for an extra two hours for committing this crime.

(Our memem informs us of this with a fantastic ritual. At the end of the week, all the tsvaatim [teams] gather together in one gargantuan het. The guilty are summoned by name. They are asked if they know why they have been called, before being issued their punishment. The tension is so palpable I almost wish I were among the sinners.)

So we take our gun everywhere. But there is more to it than that. We treat it like the proverbial cup final ticket that is embedded deep in our pocket, but which we nonetheless constantly check is there. When we rise in the morning, we check that there is no bullet in it. Haneshek parook, badook v’natzor hamefakedet, we shout as confirmation. Before taking it apart to clean it, we check that there is no bullet in within. After taking it apart to clean it, we check that there is no bullet within. Now, everybody knows that there is no possibility a bullet could have magically entered the gun during this time. But we do it nonetheless. We are encouraged to be constantly neurotic. Before asking why this might be, however, we must use the weapon.

***

Shooting the gun. We trek down to the shooting range, through beautiful countryside that will never be viewed by civilians. Finally, we reach our destination. Set between two densely forested hills sits the range. We are split into groups. The first group heads into the shooting area, the rest gather to learn various shooting positions. Finally, my time comes. We are asked if we are nervous, whether we have shot before, whether we are ready. I am not nervous, but neither am I particularly relishing what I have to do. To get used to everything, we fire one bullet. Having been standing nearby for half a day, I already knew that the sound was horrendous. Needless to say, when it is your own finger behind the trigger, the noise is magnified to the tenth degree.

I take aim at my target, twenty five metres away. It is a diagram on an A4 piece of paper, pinned to a piece of cardboard. We are in a valley, and the echo of the bullet seems to surround us. It is hard to take aim, particularly with glasses, and the pressure on the arms is excruciating. I tell my mefakedet that I am ready. I shoot. I see nothing leave my gun and I see nothing reach its destination. All I hear is that horrendous noise. For the first time in my life I have some inclination of what it must really be like to be shot. It is hard to take aim, particularly with glasses, and there is a sharp pain from the recoil if you do not position yourself perfectly.

After our trial run, we have five bullets to shoot at will. Then another five. Once finished, we have to remain prone on the floor, with our guns lifted to an angle of sixty degrees, while we wait for everyone to finish. I experience a breakdown of sorts. The sound of the bullets whizzing away remains horrific, and I feel a real sense of anger that I have to do this. Later on, during our second round of shooting, it gets easier. We do various kinds of marksmanship. My scores are low, but I handle the weapon competently. I comfort myself with delusions of grandeur. One is a warrior or a thinker, I tell my comrades, but rarely both.

***

The one skill every single member of the IDF acquires – from the lowliest desk clerk to the meanest paratrooper – is to fire a weapon. This means, theoretically, that the entire country knows how to shoot. Israel is an army with a state, literally a nation at arms. Why is this? After all, even in our darkest imagination, surely no one really believes that the time will come when we will all be required to fight off the enemy. In the nuclear age, it would never come to that.

Is the M16 now the embodiment of the new Jew? In the shtetl, we had but our holy books to protect us. Now, all of us get to pack heat. Fat Jews, fit Jews, religious Jews, Jews in skirts, gay Jews, black Jews, all Jews. We even give some to non-Jews. Jews got gunz. Is this what we are trying to tell our enemies? I think this to be too trite an explanation. Because one thing I’ve learnt this week is that guns don’t kill people, bullets do. When I was awoken from my tent at 4.15 in the morning to do guard duty, cursing the Zionist entity to its core, I wondered what the point was. After all, if any marauders did appear, I didn’t have a single bullet with which to fend them off.

That may change. But, for now, our M16 is but a toy – and with good reason. There was one accident this week at our shooting range. Nothing serious, but a warning nonetheless. We are told never to place our finger on the trigger, and never, ever to point the gun at someone else. For fucks sake, I wonder, what else is the bloody thing for? But in one session, we watch a video warning against the dangers of playing games with guns. This is where most of the accidents occur. Extraordinarily, in a society where everyone gets a gun, people losing control with their weapon (albeit outside of a political context) is almost unheard of.

Israelis are taught to revere their weapon. To what end, I’m not sure. Maybe for the hell of it. Maybe because it’s a heavy burden to carry. I was certainly happy to hand it back in at the end of the week. As a non-combat soldier, I’m not allowed to take it home with me, and I’ve got no complaints about that. While I’ve learnt that hip-hop does indeed sound better with a gun by your side, I’ve also learnt that to shoot a single bullet, even in the middle of nowhere, is a horrible thing. I have nothing but contempt for the machismo of those who can’t wait to shoot. Yes, Jews do indeed now have guns. But to what end? To what purpose? Maybe, as I continue with my service, I will find out…

Between the original False Dichotomies and the resurrected version, there was Hayal Boded, an exclusive email  consisting of tales from The Most Moral Army in the World. False Dichotomies is proud to present, for the first time, Hayal Boded – The Tales of a Lone Jobnik…

She emerged from the night rain, her shining and hidden at the same time. We gathered around her, eager to meet this new figure in our lives. Just a few minutes earlier, we had been drifting off to sleep. For the second successive night, we had been ordered out of our bed to do exercises. The night before had been a fire drill – and amidst the din, I thought it was the same again. But no. This time we were meant to be in full military garb. Time was running out, so I decided to forgo socks. But this time we had to run, with urgency, for our important meeting. As I stood there, feeling the pain of my dumb decision, straining to see the samelet [corporal], my mind wandered to the opening line of London Fields: This is a true story but I can’t believe it’s really happening.

***

It first dawned on me that I was really in the army on the bus that transported us from the processing centre to our base up north. After a drunken night followed by a series of tests and injections, I was ready to relax with my new iPod. Again, no. Our mefakedet [commander] was quickly barking out our first instructions. We were not to listen to music or to talk on our mobiles. And if a terrorist threw something at the bus, we should duck. There and then I realised that this is my new life. What can I tell you? I could pause to consider this rationally, but there would be no point. Asking questions would not help me. Existentially an absurdist, politically a rationalist, a lone soldier like me is caught in a bind. To question or not to question. To think or not to think. To play the game or not to play. These are the issues at hand. But before explaining them, I must explain the game’s rules.

We wake at around half past six in the morning. We have twenty minutes to get into our uniform, and then we need to form ourselves into a letter het so as to greet our commander, a girl barely – if at all – out of her teens. We stand in bakshev, an uncomfortable flexing of the elbows and hands behind our back, but easy enough to slip into a slouch when no-one is looking. We greet her with ritual: Five minutes to reception of the commander, if you’re ready to receive the commander, stand to attention. ATTENTION! we roar. Or at least that’s an approximate translation. We are then sent to order our bags or to tidy our rooms. Again, we have a proscribed amount of time to complete the task. One second more, and it’s press-ups, albeit unobserved ones. For the hell of it, we spend half an hour changing from Uniform A to Uniform B. Pointlessly brilliant.

The walk to the dining hall for breakfast is a three minute stroll. Or it would be if it we didn’t spend its duration forming parallel lines every twenty metres. If we want to speak to our mefakdot we say Akshev [attention] Mefakedet. If we forget to say Ken [yes] Mefakedet after every exchange, we are liable to be punished. We gather outside the dining hall in lines of three, where we practice taking our hats off our heads and placing them under our shoulder strap. In one Chaplinesque moment, my hat fell with only one second to go. Then, when our samelet told us to put our hats on, I was still on the tucking in stage. My head was isolated and bared, and I was summarily dismissed to the limbo-land of press-ups. These are the basic rules of the game.

***

There are around one hundred soldiers in my programme. We will do a month or so basic training, a month or two of Ulpan [intensive Hebrew], and then we will go our separate ways. Some will become combat soldiers, others will begin to do a particular job within the army. It is a cliché, but thus far the camaraderie amongst the soldiers has been the best aspect of my brief army experience. As we are – at least in theory – mevugarim [mature], we are endowed with two essential attributes for dealing with absurd situations: a sense of irony and a heavy dose of cynicism. Politically, I was expecting the loony right, but again I have been pleasantly surprised by the variety of views and the commitment to reasoned debate.

Whilst carrying out the important task of guarding our bags from local marauders, a fellow hayal [soldier] tells me I look like I belong here. Of that I’m not so sure. As I said, thus far I’m playing the rules of the game. I’m thinking about the army as an institution; the extraordinary and mind-boggling role it plays in Israeli society. If I think too long, I will descend into hysterical laughter. My mefakedet will ask what’s funny, and I will devastate her with my patronising response: you probably won’t understand now, but believe me you will in a few years. I do not resent the role they play. The fact that they can keep it up all day every day is deeply impressive. But I do hope they are constantly thinking about it. As Socrates taught us, the unexamined life is not worth living.

I am extremely glad that I have joined the Israeli army. While it could never be described as enjoyable, it is a fantastic exercise in absorption , the first peep beneath the veneer of Israeli life. Ani hayal. Despite the boredom, the sleep deprivation, and the physical difficulties, it provides constant stimulation. And we haven’t even done anything yet. On Sunday, I will be issued with my M-16. So it begins.