It's a myth that all Israeli Jews serve in the IDF. What is true is that all Israeli Jewish men and women, as well Druze and Circassian men, are liable for conscription into military service. The reality, however, is that many in the appropriate age range for conscription are exempted. In 2020, one-third of all Jewish males and close to 50% of Jewish females received exemptions from military service. Since an average of 15% of Jewish males don't complete military training, that means nearly half of all Jewish males and females don't do post-training military service or serve in the reserves. https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/half-of-israeli-youth-do-not-enlist-in-idf-614604 I know an Israeli man in his fifties who says foreigners are always surprised when he tells them he has never touched a firearm, much less served in the IDF. Roughly one out of every two Jewish Israeli men and women never do military service. They are civilians in the strictest sense of the word. Anyone who claims it's morally defensible to kill Israeli Jews because military service is compulsory in Israel is just groping for a defense of terrorist murder. Israeli Jews are given exemptions for a variety of reasons, mainly because they are deemed physically or psychologically unfit for military service. Married women and single mothers are exempt, as are many ultra-orthodox Jews because the rules, rituals and religious practices that govern their daily lives make military service impossible. I have never encountered a Zionist or other supporter of Israel who claimed the conflict with Palestinian Arabs began on Oct. 7, 2023. Zionists above all others know Israeli Jews have been fighting for their survival ever since the U.N. announced its partition plan for Mandatory Palestine in 1947. The most recent iteration of this 78-year conflict did indeed begin on Oct, 7, 2023. The difference between Hamas terrorism and IDF military action has been explained several times, but I am happy to do it again. The deaths of civilians in Gaza are caused by collateral damage from urban warfare in a densely populated area, with the casualty count exacerbated by Hamas' tendency to conceal fighters, weapons and firing points in protected civilian facilities. The deaths of so many women and children in Gaza are tragic, but this is an unfortunate consequence of conflicts that have been forced on Israel.. IDF air strikes against Gaza are the same as WWII Allied bombing of German and Japanese cities. The bombing in all these cases was part of a strategy to win an armed conflict. Hundreds of thousands of German and Japanese children were killed in Allied (mainly U.S.) bombing. In one night's fire bombing of Tokyo in 1945, over 100,000 Japanese civilians were killed, with at least 70,000 believed to be women, children and the elderly. More civilians were killed in ONE NIGHT than during the entire Gaza conflict, but no one accuses the U.S. of war crimes or genocide against Japan. Israel is being held to a different standard than other nations at war.
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