Forty years ago, Israel technically “owned” the guns, but at least they had the prudence to leave them in the hands of men who’d been trained to use them. Many, many reservists had their IDF-issued guns — while not on active duty. Soldiers on bases had their guns with them — not locked in an armory. Reservists on kibbutzim — especially kibbutzim near Arab villages — had their guns. Infiltration was a VERY serious concern.

To me, one of the heartbreaking things about pre-October 7, is the analysts (mostly young women) had brought their concerns to their superiors that Hamas was planning something big, and their warnings were not taken seriously.

It’s heart breaking and inexplicable.
We’ve always had “something” going on since at least the Great Pequot War. Ten percent of the men of military age of the Bay Colony died in King Phillips War. Given military medicine, maybe an equal number wounded. So, maybe half were shot at.
My father’s division commander, Terry Allen, was an Army brat, said by his biographer to have grown up playing with the children of the “hard, old Indian-fighting Army.” His son was killed in Viet Nam.

But after, say, 1820, there’s always been a place behind the frontier, which got further and further west. Still…. We don’t think as you describe the Israelis, whose experience is like ours except compressed and nobody’s out of the line of fire.

It’s been better than sixty years but…I don’t think we sixth grade guys stood around discussing what to do if the Germans invaded the first grade recess. But if the subject had arisen, we’d have discussed it, tactically. There was no other way. We’d heard our fathers.

Some time back, describing the incident on the Thalys train where the Americans stopped an atrocity to my granddaughter, then twelve and raised in pretty high middle class. Related what the WaPo fashion writer had said about the iconic pic of our guys getting the French award. Their outfits were appropriate, said Givhan. Polos and Dockers are what young guys wear when they know they’re supposed to get dressed up but don’t know what the fuss is.
Granddaughter shrugged. “We’re Americans. It’s what we do.”

And yet, Israel, in the pressure cooker….

Not. Getting. It.

It is interesting that the Israelis most understanding and amenable to Minister Ben-Gvir’s promotion of American-style gun ownership and self defense are those who have suffered decades of delegitimization and exclusion at the hands of the Leftist elite – the settlers, Sephardics, and ex-Soviets.

I retired as an ISC.

as Stephen Decatur veteran of the French and Barbary skirmishes, millions for defense, none for tribute, I relate in high school because of high verbal scores on the ASVAB, I tried for the Navy, but I was flagged three different ways including the Navy hearing test, flat feet, bad back,

It was gun ownership they questioned. Not the usefulness of guns for self defense. It breaks my heart to read about the kibbutzim talking about how the guns WERE THERE. Locked in the armory, available to authorized personnel.

In general, when I was was in the Navy as an Intel officer we’d evaluate allied Navies and our own an over reliance on technology was a negative. Yes, I served in the training battle group on the West coast. And any battle group workout to deploy had to satisfy us. we made the training as brutal as possible. I was one of the Intel evaluates and I’d take away the Intel department’s mission planning automated systems and demand them to show me they could plan a mission using navigational charts and a slide rule (we had special slide rules but they were circular; don’t hold me to it but if memory serves we called whiz wheels; they were specialized and I could still plan a TARPS mission if such a thing still existed) . The point wasn’t to embarrass them but to teach them.

OBTW I always included first aid challenges. If you’ve been struck by an exoccet and medical can’t get to you with all the fire and twisted metal, what are you going to do?

The sad part is the Navy, which I tried all my life to maintain as a force that can sustain combat, may not longer exist

I live near Ft. Benning (not going to call it the new name). The range where I used to shoot had a lot of guys from Benning shooting there. They said it was easier to get range time at a private civilian facility than it was “on post”. At Benning. Home of U.S. Army Infantry. Think about that.

(In 1982, Israel went into Lebanon. The active-duty troops went in first, while the reserves were called up and then took over for them, while the active duty returned to their bases and prepared more reservists.)

Whenever we American students went on field trips, the men who were our (for lack of a better term) resident assistants, brought what I assume were university-issued ones. And as I mentioned before, students had to serve guard duty three times throughout the year. The American students were paired with an Israeli — who was given a university firearm. You would see men on campus, dressed in regular clothes with their rifles slung over their shoulders.

I think the men who kept their rifles while serving in the reserves were soldiers who served in units that might be called to the front lines in the event they were unexpectedly called up. So a “jobnik” probably would not because he was going to go back to his base regardless. Also, I did visit a base while i was there, and they ALL had their rifles. I think that now they do the American base thing in which they do not. If they did, I think the soldiers on that one base on October 7 would have been able to better defend themselves.

Now, I am not an Israeli and never served in the IDF. I only know what I saw and what Israeli friends told me, and it was forty years ago.

BTW, they were always men, too. Because it was VERY few women (possibly none back then) who served in the reserves after active duty.

That being said, the people rifling through your purse when you would go into a store were usually older people who had aged out of the reserves and I never saw one with a firearm.