Months after New York Times columnist David Brooks told the Aspen Institute that his son is serving in the Israeli army and a controversy erupted over whether the Times should have disclosed this fact to its readers (the Times public editor said it should have; Brooks is a neoconservative who pushed the Iraq war), Brooks has told his readers about his son’s service. The disclosure is swaddled in parentheses deep in a column about Benjamin Netanyahu:
I’m visiting Israel for the 18th or 19th time (my son is currently a member of the Lone Soldiers Program, which allows people from around the world to serve in the Israeli military). I asked a couple of smart Israelis what their coming elections are about.
People from around the world?
From the Israeli Defense Forces Info site, “How to Enlist”:
In order to join the IDF, you must have the right to make Aliyah. This means that you must have at least one Jewish grandparent. If you are not Jewish, and would like to enlist into the IDF, you must convert before making Aliyah or volunteer through Mahal.
The Mahal link goes to this information:
Mahal helps young Jewish men (ages 18-23) and women (ages 18-20) from all over the world volunteer and enlist in the IDF.
Jewish men and women. You must have at least one Jewish grandparent.
So Brooks is evading the major issue. This is a state constructed for one ethnicity, and he skips right over that fact. Why? Because he knows that ethnic discrimination would be offensive to American readers. If a Palestinian American wants to serve in the Israeli military, are they going to be able to? No way. Brooks is simply misleading New York Times readers about Israel because he loves the place. (The US army was desegregated in 1948, by Harry Truman.)
P.S. Netanyahu sounds like Churchill in the piece. Are we really talking about the same leader?
Thanks to Adam Horowitz.
The international militants who join the Lone Soldiers Program should be considered enemy combatants. They are the real terrorists.
As David Brooks said, people from all over the world may serve in the Israeli military. There’s nothing inaccurate about that statement whatsoever. There are certainly Palestinians in Israel serving in the IDF.
Join the most immoral army and suffer the wrath of my friends.
No thank you very much.I am a law abiding citizen of the world and intend to stay that way.
One question??.
How do I make aliyah to a place I have never been to.
Only in lala land called Yesha.Besides, there is no future for the idf or the rogue nation it commits crime on behalf of.
An army which is open to non-citizens – provided they are of the ‘right’ ethnicity – but which closes it’s rank to roughly one fifth of its own citizens because they are of the ‘wrong’ ethnicity, is not a national army in the commonly understood sense of the term, but an ethnic militia.
Once again the comments on Brooks’s article in the NYT are illuminating. Even the NYT picks are largely critical of both Bibi and his hagiographer. Two frequent points made: why is Brooks’s son not serving in his own country’s armed forces; and Netanyahu’s arrogant disrespect of the POTUS.