Soldiers need to know they are in the army, not in free society. Soldiers do not get to choose what they do and what they do not do. As long as they are not being given illegal or immoral orders, they need to be disciplined and follow orders. That is Army 101. An army cannot function without army discipline and a lot of what soldiers go through during basic training is to teach them the discipline required for military success.
So, if the army wants the group to visit a series of graves, you go even if you don't like one of them. Dont say tehillim on his grave or put a stone or whatever, linger in the back of the group, but go.
If the army was taking them to a series of graves of dead prime ministers and heroic soldiers, then go to them all, even Rabin's. However, and I don't know what graves the group was visiting, if the army is taking the group specifically to Rabin's grave to indoctrinate them in something, then I can understand their skipping out. The army needs to train the soldiers to fight and fulfill their various roles, not to teach them ideology or to decide who needs to be admired and who not.
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When joining the army, one does not check his moral compass at the door.
ReplyDeleteThat said, having been in the Israeli army and been on this tour-- The Hard Herzl tour is historical in nature, and with a left wing slant.
Herzl is visited, a few minutes are spent by Jabotinsky sometimes, regular soldiers make up the rest. Rabin's monument is particularly galling being both ostentatious and the way he is described completely lacks context, his opposers condemned with no qualifications whatsoever. When discussing vandals to his grave, no mention of the family who was directly harmed by his actions and therefore harmed the grave.