When the instances occurred recently of religious soldiers walking out from events in which a female was singing, there were claims of the army having an anti-religious agenda.

Personally, I don't think the army has a specifically anti-religious agenda, rather the army is a humongous bureaucracy with rules, and it is not flexible enough to know quickly when any given specific rule should be waived or compromised. Because of that unpleasant situations occur, such as those of the religious soldiers who did not make arrangement sin advance and the army did not know how to deal with the situation on the spot.

The following incident, as reported by Mynet, indicates, I think, that the problem is really just one of an insensitive bureaucracy. An Arab Christian young man volunteered to serve in the IDF with high motivation. As part of the training, his unit was taken on a five day education tour. One day of the five was scheduled to be a "tour of selichos for Elul" in Tzfat. No problem, Gandor, this Arab fellow, decided he did not want to be a part of that day, considering he is an Arab Christian. He requested an exemption from participation, but it was denied. He went along, and on the day itself he asked the immediate commander for an exemption from going into the shul. That was fine, but when all the soldiers put on kippot and went to hear a speech from a rav, he was told he must participate as well.

Gandor did not want to, claiming it was a religious conflict. His commander allowed him to not wear the kippa, but made him go to hear the rav. He followed orders, but expressed his displeasure.

After the incident, Gandor was told by the commander that he would not complete the tour with his unit, but needed to appear before the military court for his behavior.

This is about as insensitive as the other incidents, those of the religious soldiers walking out of the female singing performances. Actually it is worse, because this fellow actually followed orders and participated as he was told to, despite the insensitivity to his situation. he did not refuse to go in, and he did not walk out when the rav spoke. All he did was grumble about how uncomfortable they had made him by forcing him to participate.

The army is a bureaucracy, and it has inefficiencies and insensitivities just like any other bureaucracy. Many of the complaints regarding the army can really just be chalked up to it being a massive bureaucracy. Even the Chabadnik lady who is sitting in jail right now for being AWOL for two years - it is not because the army is anti-Chabad or anti-haredi. it is because the army has rules and laws and it is a huge bureaucracy .


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