Like it or not, the dati leumi soldiers, who are generally right-wing, continue to make their mark in the IDF, moving up the ranks and now representing the backbone of the military’s most elite units, including infantry combat units. This is the result of a vision of two men, Rabbis Eli Sadan and Yigal Levenstein, the founders of the first IDF ‘mechina’ prepatory program, Bnei David, in Yishuv Eli close to a quarter of a century ago.

Rav Sadan, the rosh yeshiva and former paratrooper and Rav Yigal as he is known, a senior IDF reserve officer, had the vision and with a large measure of siyata d’shmaiya, have seen it actualize.

For well over a decade, they declined any and all media interviews, aware that if the leftists realized what was taking place under their very noses, they would do something to stop it. The rabbonim were referring to the fact that religious Jews were ‘infiltrating’ the ranks of the nation’s most elite units, slowly climbing the ladder of command.

Well, this ongoing revolution was evident once again this week at Wednesday’s graduation in IDF Ba’ad 1 Officers’ Training Base, where another class of junior officers marked the completion of training. During the ceremony marking the completion of ground forces [combat] officers, the majority of those cited for excellence were settlers, residents of communities throughout Yehuda and Shomron. Even the daily Ma’ariv could not resist reporting this on the front page of its Thursday edition.

One of those cited for excellence, a 21-year-old, was expelled from Atzmona in Ariel Sharon’s Disengagement Plan. He is a member of the elite Duvdevan reconnaissance unit of the Paratroop Corps. Incidentally, the cadet who received the battalion excellence award in the last course was also from Yosh and also a former resident of Atzmona.

The second cadet cited for excellence in this class, receiving the excellence award for his company is a 20-year-old resident of Efrat in Gush Etzion. He is a member of the elite Maglan unit, which is also part of the Paratroop Corps. A third cadet who was cited for excellence is from Kiryat Arba, a member of Sayeret Tzanchanim (Paratroop Corps).

While the media prefers to report on Yitzhar in Shomron in a disparaging tone, two of its residents were among the graduates, now junior officers, one in Netzach Yehuda (Nachal Chareidi) and the other in Sayeret Shaldag, perhaps the most clandestine unit in the military, officially a branch of the air force. It was Shaldag soldiers who arrived in Iraq and placed infrared markers to permit the successful aerial bombing of the nuclear reactor in 1981, the mission called Operation Opera.

Interestingly, the IDF did not release statistics regarding how many of the latest graduates of the officers’ training are from Yehuda and Shomron as it does following the graduation of new air force pilots when its boasts the members of kibbutzim and moshavim.

(Yechiel Spira – YWN Israel)