Uh, David Ben Gurion, former Prime Minister of Israel and one of the founding fathers, has been dead for a fairly long time. How is he going to solve our problems?
In 1949 Ben Gurion gave an exemption from army service to yeshiva students. There is a famous story of how Ben Gurion met with the Chazon Ish that led to his agreement in granting the exemption. The exemption at the time applied to 400 yeshiva students.
As of 2010 there were over 62,000 receiving exemptions from army service (deferments, really).
They recently discovered, not that this has any legal standing, that in 1963 David Ben Gurion sent a letter to then Prime Minister Levi Eshkol in which Ben Gurion wrote "I do not think you need my advice regarding matters of State, and I do not intend to give advice, but the rampage of the extremists has crossed all boundaries. I think that I am responsible in part for this by having granted the army exemptions to the yeshiva students. I did so when their numbers were small, but they are continuing to increase. Their disturbances are a great danger to the honor of the State. We cannot appear to the world like Alabama or South Africa.
I recommend that any yeshiva student over the age of 18 who will be caught at illegal gatherings, throwing stones and rampaging against other civilians, or any other form of violence, should be immediately drafted into the army and serve the full 30 month service (RG: army service was shorter back then) as a regular soldier, and not in a religious capacity."
While throwing the thugs in jail has been proven to be ineffective, and even counter-productive as they consider it a badge of honor of sorts, and their friends then riot and get them out of jail fairly quickly, perhaps tossing a few into army service will frighten the rest into living like semi-normal people.
In 1962 Ben Gurion was still PM and not Eshkol
ReplyDeleteyes, but in 1963 Levi Eshkol was Prime minister...
ReplyDeletespeaking of which, I wonder why only in 1963 did Ben Gurion express his regrets and not a year earlier when he was still prime minister and could have acted on them? did he only wait until he could pass the buck to someone else?
ReplyDeletethanks Shimon. I first wrote 1963 which was correct. In the 2nd spot I wrote 1962. corrected now.
ReplyDeleteI think a better idea is if they are getting say an Arnona discount. If they are arrested the home which they are living in loses that discount. If they change their address it still stays off where they lived and where they are moving to.
ReplyDeleteLets hit them where their pocket is.
I don't think arming them with army issue rifles is the solution.
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't want any of those characters anywhere near me in the army (if I were still serving).
ReplyDeletethey could be made into jobniks. give them jobs like cleaning the toilets.
ReplyDeletethey could be dealt a very difficult basic training. maybe under an especially tough commander.
Who knows, the army has "converted" a lot of people and turned them into disciplined and responsible folk. Maybe it would do so for them as well.
But even if not, just a tough training system would be enough to work them over a bit. they also would not have any standing left in their community when they finished or got weekends off.
Great idea!
ReplyDeleteAnd it doesn't matter what you do the ones you catch. What matters is how the ones that you don't catch behave after seeing a few examples made.
" We cannot appear to the world like Alabama or South Africa."
ReplyDeleteThis greast Zionist even with his state for 20 years , is still worried about the goyim A Shanda far da goyim