I normally wouldn’t buy Yediot Achronot, but there was something very interesting on the front page. They were publishing the once secret draft demographics for IDF inductions.

After reading the article I realized the numbers are irrelevant.

Does it really matter that Tel Aviv actually does have the lowest percent of those drafted from the applicable population of inductees (excluding the Arab and Chareidi cities)? Does it really matter that the percent of those actually inducted from Tel Aviv that go into combat units is also not so great.

Nope, none of it matters because as the article points out, “Northerners and Southerners are drafted the most, but no one beats the Kibbutzim when it comes to percents of Combat soldiers”.

One little problem with the article. There is not a single statistic on Settlers (there is one and I’ll get to it).

It’s very easy to crown the Kibbutzim, when you kill off the actual King.

There is not a single breakdown of Settlers whether as a unit or as a whole.

5% of the population is ignored. The article completely doesn’t mention that we simply outrank the entire country in our percent of inductees and those that go into combat units.

So that’s right, so read their stats with a grain bag of salt because they deliberately wiped the Settlers off their statistics map (and obfuscated other numbers) – because we beat all the other sectors.


Other little games they played.

They claim that between the Moshavim, Kibbutizm, and the National Religious, the National-Religious have the lowest percent of draftees (still more than the national average though).

One little problem. If you actually read the article to see that their numbers for the National-Religious don’t come from those actually claiming to be National-Religious (or even Settlements), rather just from those that went to State-Religious schools.

That’s right, they excluded all other religious school that aren’t State-Religious schools (which is definitely not where a significant number of the National-Religious or Settlers send their children), and they ignored that probably half the student body of State-Religious schools aren’t even religious much less “National-Religious”, but rather their parents send them there for a variety of reasons (less violence, better education, etc.) – which is perhaps part of the reason why most actually National-Religious kids (and definitely the Settler ones) go to private schools.

And then the only actual statistic they have on Settlers is the number of those released for mental health reasons. There somehow the Settlers come in third, right after Jerusalem and Tel Aviv (they didn’t mention the Chareidi cities).

We know Jerusalem leads (with an extreme percent) because the Chareidim pretend to be crazy to get out of being inducted, many in Tel Aviv have obviously learned to do that trick to, but…

But again a purposely misleading number as they are including the Chareidi Settlements (Beitar, Elad, etc.) which is where they play their “crazy” game to get out of the army.

So I ask you, what is the point of this article and these numbers?

They don’t show the true breakdown of who goes and who doesn’t.

They purposely obscure the Settlers true contribution, and purposely show false numbers when it comes to the “National-Religious” in order to prop up the Kibbutzim.

You know what?

Not only are these numbers worthless, so is the newspaper that wrote the article and their agenda.