All Israelis will soon be TDY Negev Tourists
For Some Three and One-Half Years of TDY Duty
Articles following Discuss how Negev’s being Prepared
For Joyful Future Events after Israel suffers much Despair
June 23. 2008
http://www.tribulationperiod.com/
Israeli Soldiers don’t know it,
but the model Arab village the IDF is now using in the Negev Wilderness to train for necessary future incursions into Gaza and Lebanon, will see their training used in the future to push all the way north to Hamath in extreme northern Syria and west to the great River Euphrates. It will be used for three and one half years to defend Israel surrounded in the Negev by Islam, and then to break out of the Negev at the end of their entrapment.
The Scriptures teach that, in the last days of the Gentile Age, an attack will come against Israel, in which the following series of terrible events will become a reality in Israel. These terrible days of great tribulation will close by Israel’s deliverance at Messiah’s Second Advent, and she will begin to reign like a life giving shower in the midst of the peoples as their queen. Israel will finally know the rest of peace when her Messiah, by his grace, saves a remnant of her out of tribulation in the wilderness of the Negev, which he prepared as a place for her to live for the
final three and one-half years of the Age of the Gentiles. If you want a line by line exposition of this, consult Whole Numbered Archive Prophecy Updates 62 to 69 under Prophecy Updates on our Web Site Menu.
Zechariah 13:8 – And it shall come to pass, that in all the land, saith the Lord, two parts therein shall be cut off and die; but the third shall be left therein.
Matthew 24:21,22 – For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be. [22] And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved: but for the elect’s sake those days shall be shortened.
Jeremiah 30:7 – Alas! for that day is great, so that none is like it: it is even the time of Jacob’s trouble; but he shall be saved out of it.
Revelation 12:6 – And THE WOMAN fled into THE WILDERNESS, where she hath a place prepared of God, that they should feed her there a thousand two hundred and threescore days.
Zechariah 13:9 – And I will bring the third part through the fire, and will refine them as silver is refined, and will try them as gold is tried: they shall call on my name, and I will hear them: I will say, It is my people: and they shall say, The Lord is my God.
Jeremiah 31:1,2 – At the same time, saith the Lord, will I be the God of all the families of Israel, and they shall be my people. [2] Thus saith the Lord, the PEOPLE WHICH WERE LEFT OF THE SWORD FOUND GRACE IN THE WILDERNESS; even Israel, when I went to cause him to rest.
Micah 5:7 – And the remnant of Jacob shall be in the midst of many people as a dew from the Lord, as the showers upon the grass, that tarrieth not for man, nor waiteth for the sons of men.
PROPHECY UPDATE NUMBER 68 ON MICAH 5
What is the Nationality of the Antichr
ist?
Part 7
May 17, 2002
Please review Prophecy Updates 62, 63, 64, 65, 66 and 67 before reading 68.
Then Read Update 69
Micah 5:5,6 – And this man shall be the peace, when the Assyrian shall come into our land: and when he shall tread in our palaces, then shall we raise against him seven shepherds, and eight principal men. [6] And they shall waste the land of Assyria with the sword, and the land of Nimrod in the entrances thereof: thus shall he deliver us from the Assyrian, when he cometh into our land, and when he treadeth within our borders.
Prophecy Update Number 67 closed by stating the following:
“Israel will claim all the land from the River of Egypt and the Mediterranean Sea to the Euphrates River, with a northern latitudinal border extending to Hamath (Hama) in Syria, and a southern border extending to Kadesh in the Sinai. And all this is not by accident, but by design and promise, for it was God’s ancient land grant promise to Abraham and to Israel. Its periphery is laid out in Genesis and Ezekiel. Its northern limits were to extend to the latitude of Hamath (Hama) in Syria, and its southern limits to the latitude of Kadesh. Its longitudinal limits to the west were to extend to the Mediterranean Sea and to the River of Egypt, and its eastern longitudinal limits were to extend to the “entrances thereof” of the Euphrates River. This is the area of Micah 5:6 that Israel will “waste” and then claim for a thous
and years.
After Christ has himself (all by himself) defeated the Assyrian at the battle of Armageddon to being in “the peace” of a thousand years, then Israel will roar north out of the Negev to mop up what is left of a demoralized army that is fleeing north. Israel will first recover Jerusalem, then drive north, northeast, and east to claim all the land west of the Euphrates River.”
Micah 5:7 – And the remnant of Jacob shall be in the midst of many people as a dew from the Lord, as the showers upon the grass, that tarrieth not for man, nor waiteth for the sons of men.
Just as man had no control over the elements of God that were responsible for the sudden arrival of moisture over a wide area of land, neither would man have any control over the sudden arrival of Israel spreading across the vast tract of land God had said He would one day give to Israel. She will exist as the most important nation on this planet in the midst of all the Gentile nations.
Micah 5:8 – And the remnant of Jacob shall be among the Gentiles in the midst of many people as a lion among the beasts of the forest, as a young lion among the flocks of sheep: who, if he go through, both treadeth down, and teareth in pieces, and none can deliver.
When Israel’s Lion of Judah, the Messiah Jesus Christ, returns to free her from the bondage of the Assyrian, she will be the most powerful nation on this planet. All the other nations left on the earth will fear her for some 1000 years because of the awareness of the Second Advent of Christ, and His reigning on the throne of David in Jerusalem. Israel will be a Lion nation in the midst of sheep nations. The temple will be rebuilt after the Second Advent and then Christ, the Messianic Glory of God, will enter it to begin a reign that lasts forever: First, an earthly reign of 1000 years, which then laps over into a heavenly reign that lasts forever.
Ezekiel 43:4-7 – And the glory of the Lord came into the house by the way of the gate whose prospect is toward the east. [5] So the spirit took me up, and brought me into the inner court; and, behold, the glory of the Lord filled the house. [6] And I heard him speaking unto me out of the house; and the man stood by me. [7] And he said unto me, Son of man, the place of my throne, and the place of the soles of my feet, where I will dwell in the midst of the children of Israel for ever, and my holy name, shall the house of Israel no more defile, neither they, nor their kings, by their whoredom, nor by the carcases of their kings in their high places.
Micah 5:9 – Thine hand shall be lifted up upon thine adversaries, and all thine enemies shall be cut off.
Israel will be the most powerful and feared nation that has ever existed on this earth. For some 1000 years no nation or nations shall dare to stand against her because of her God. All the Gentile nations will be required to send representatives to Jerusalem each year at the Feast of Tabernacles to worship the Messiah. If they fail to do so God will cause famine and plague in their land until they submit to His will.
Zechariah 14:16-19 – And it shall come to pass, that every one that is left of all the nations which came against Jerusalem shall even go up from year to year to worship the King, the Lord of hosts, and to keep the feast of tabernacles. [17] And it shall be, that whoso will not come up of all the families of the earth unto Jerusalem to worship the King, the Lord of hosts, even upon them shall be no rain. [18] And if the family of Egypt go not up, and come not, that have no rain; there shall be the plague, wherewith the Lord will smite the heathen that come not up to keep the feast of tabernacles. [19] This shall be the punishment of Egypt, and the punishment of all nations that come not up to keep the feast of tabernacles.
Begin Jerusalem Post Article
In ‘enemy village,’ IDF trains for battle that may lie ahead
June 19, 2008
Abe Selig , THE JERUSALEM POST
A warm dawn haze lifted over the desert, but the moon was still out, and it dimly lit a group of soldiers in the distance – dots of green against the dark, barren landscape – charging silently towards the village.
Within minutes the silence was shattered. Gunfire, smoke and the low boom of grenade explosions echoed through the early morning, as regular infantry outfits mixed with occasional long-haired reservists advanced on their targets, yelling out commands.
“Cover me, I’m moving ahead!” yelled one private, lifting himself up from the ground and bee-lining to a small house on the village outskirts. His comrades followed, one after the other, as rays of sunlight and the neon green light of mosque minarets began to better illuminate the scene
The soldiers moved boldly, pushing forward in clear, decisive steps. Their mission: Enter the large Arab village in pursuit of a terrorist cell and engage in intensive house-to-house combat. Each section of the built-up area would need to be cleared.
We could have been in Gaza, the West Bank or Lebanon. But the “fighting” that took place early Thursday morning was actually a training exercise outside Beersheba, and the guns were firing blanks.
Dozens of infantry companies, mainly from the Givati Brigade, stormed the large “village” set up in the desert, at the start of another day’s instruction at the IDF’s Ground Troop Training Center.
Built a year and a half ago, the GTTC is a mock Arab village complete with outlying rural areas, a downtown district and a winding maze of streets and alleyways, pregnant with the constant risk of an unexpected close encounter with the enemy.
During Thursday’s drill, that enemy was a company of female soldiers, dressed in khaki pants and camouflage jackets – a nod to the garb of choice among Hamas and Hizbullah gunmen. Equipped with machine guns, Humvees mounted with rocket-launchers and a steady hold on key positions in the village, the “enemy” soldiers’ resemblance to the IDF’s most potent recent threats extended far beyond clothing.
Explosions continued rocking the town as the sun began to show itself completely, and soldiers, some of whom lay “wounded” or hunkered-down under enemy fire, were forced to deal with a range of volatile factors in the battlefield. As the drill progressed, dozens of officers monitored their troops, looking for flaws and weaknesses that on a real battlefield, in a real conflict, would mean real casualties.
“What are you doing?” barked one company commander as his troops barreled their way into the courtyard of a home. “Do you want to die? You have to move in better than that if you want to do it right.”
Troops were seen evacuating their wounded comrades to safety as others focused heavy gunfire at buildings where “terrorists” had been trapped and were firing in volleys at approaching soldiers.
Designed to train combat units
for urban warfare, the GTTC village aims to replicate situations that soldiers may encounter in an urban combat situation. While Thursday’s drill highlighted basic familiarity with the buildings and other logistical factors in such an environment, other drills feature civilians, media personnel and a central market area filled with people and goods.
Additionally, the GTTC has made the implementation of lessons learned from the Second Lebanon War a top priority. Concepts such as the maneuverability of infantry forces and greater collaboration with the Air Force are heavily stressed, with an emphasis on creating a light, fast-moving fighting force that suffers minimal casualties – a tacit acknowledgement of key mistakes made in the summer of 2006.
Soldiers seemed to be adjusting well on Thursday morning, and commanders, who refused to be interviewed, seemed pleased with their troops’ performance and hard work.
As the drill ended, smoked billowed over the village and the sun was rising red behind a hulking minaret. From that point, commanders were taken to a debriefing room outfitted with the latest digital equipment, to review snapshots, analyze video clips and make recommendations for improvements.
Soldiers were seen taking a break from combat, smoking cigarettes and sitting down in the sand as they relieved themselves of vests and stretchers. The village stood empty in the morning light. And preparations for the next drill were likely already under way.
Begin Haaretz Tourist Excerpt
From the big city to Negev luxury
Begin Haaretz Tourist Excerpt
Tags: Israel travel, Negev, Israel attractions, Carmey Avdat
Attraction review
June 12, 2008
In 1953, David Ben-Gurion left the office of Prime Minister and moved to Kibbutz Sde Boker, south of Be’er Sheva, where he lived out his vision of settling the Negev. Today not far from that spot, his vision lives on at the Carmey-Avdat vineyard.
Carmey-Avdat was founded 10 years ago by Eyal and Hannah Izrael as part of the Negev Wine Route project. The venture was launched in 1995 by organizations including the Jewish Agency for Israel and the Ramat Negev Regional Council and aimed to promote tourism and create jobs. Today, the couple offer wine, relaxation, and ideology.
The Negev constitutes 60 percent of Israel’s land mass, but only accounts for 8 percent of its population. According to Eyal, the Negev has not been a focus of national development priorities since the 1950s.
“The State of Israel was very busy doing other things -with developing Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and developing the Galilee,” he says. “It seems that it is the turn of the Negev to be the next place to develop.”
While a pro-development ideology played a large role in founding Carmey Avdat, it was not the sole reason. For the founders, it also required a strong element of passion.
“You cannot take a vision of somebody that lived 50 years ago and say that I’m following this vision unless it goes with your vision,” Eyal maintains.
Hannah nor Eyal were born in the Negev, in fact, both were northerners – Eyal from Haifa and Hannah from Kiryat Shmona. But during their travels and army service they fell in love with the Negev and a decade ago decided to take root where a vineyard existed 2,000 years ago.
The couple decided to expand Carmey-Avdat into a bed and breakfast business by building six guest cabins in 2002. The function of the guest cottages is not merely to provide an escape from mundane city life; part of the Izraels’ vision was to bring “people that don’t really know about the desert and don’t really know they could love this region.”
To achieve this end, the two took a unique approach: “There are no televisions in the cabins because we think television and computers and that kind of stuff is what people have in their houses in an ordinary life and we think this will take the focus from the desert.”
Begin Jerusalem Post Excerpt
Begin Jerusalem Post Excerpt
New Negev Research Center to Test Solar Technology
Stephanie Rubenstein
(Jerusalem Post)
June 12, 2008
The newly built Negev-based Solar Energy Development Center is on track to move forward the initiative of a U.S.-Israeli company to build the world’s largest solar plant in California’s Mojave desert.
The site features more than 1,600 glass mirrors, known as heliostats, which track the sun and reflect light onto a 60-meter-high tower. The concentrated energy is then used to heat a boiler atop the tower to 550 degrees Celsius, generating steam that is piped into a turbine, where electricity can be produced.
Begin Arutz Sheva Article
New Town in Israel’s Negev: Bahadim City
14 Nisan 5767
by Hillel Fendel
(IsraelNN.com) The Cabinet unanimously approved this morning (Sunday) the establishment of a new “city” in the Negev – a large collection of army bases, with a roving population of 11,000 career officers and soldiers serving their three-year army stints.
The area is to be called Bahadim, based on the popular acronym for IDF Training Base, Basis Hadrachah. Bahadim City will spread out over 1.25 square kilometers, and hundreds of people will be employed in its construction. It will be located at the Negev Junction, 17 kilometers south of Be’er Sheva and ten kilometers northwest of Yerucham.
“This is a historic moment for the Negev,” Prime Minister Olmert said about the plan, “which brings great tidings for Be’er Sheva and the south.
The establishment of Bahadim City will change the face of the entire area, will create thousands of new jobs, and will give a boost to the transfer of quality people to the south.”
Prime Minister’s Office Director Raanan Dinur was slightly more specific, saying, “This will raise the quality of life in the entire area – primarily Be’er Sheva and the nearby Bedouin villages.”
One air force base from the Tel Aviv area has already been relocated to the Negev, with its career personnel living in the area. The technological units of the IDF, including the intelligence and computer units, are also scheduled to be relocated to the south. It is not clear whether the Gitit training base in Samaria will be included in the move.
Vice Premier Shimon Peres, who served in the past as Minister for the Development of the Negev, said, “This decision is a critical part of the implementation of the plan for the development of the Negev. Bahadim City will be an employment anchor for the area and will help strengthen the entire region.”
Defense Minister Amir Peretz said, “This is a major national project, initiated and led by the defense establishment. It will strengthen both our defense and societal security.”
The plan is also backed by the Health and Environment Ministries, which will work to ensure that pollution from the nearby Ramat Hovav industrial and waste-treatment plant will not contaminate the area.
Begin Jerusalem Post Negev Article
Negev IDF’s Officer Training School near Mitzpe Ramon
Bah’d 1 (Basis Hadracha – Instruction Base)
Grooming the IDF’s top guns
Yaakov Katz, THE JERUSALEM POST
May 29, 2008
Maj.
Yoni Shetbon paces back and forth at the front of the classroom.
His M16 rifle slung over his shoulder, the bearded Shetbon walks up to the board in the front of the hall and writes down two words – “Combat Ethics.” He then turns to his audience – a group of 300 wide-eyed young soldiers in the last weeks of their studies before becoming officers. They are sitting in the Yitzhak Rabin Memorial Hall at the IDF’s Officer Training School near Mitzpe Ramon, popularly known by its Hebrew acronym Bah’d 1 (basis hadracha – instruction base).
Shetbon knows what he is talking about when it comes to combat ethics. During the Second Lebanon War, the 29-year-old religious father of four demonstrated them as chief operations officer of Battalion 51 of the Golani Brigade.
On July 26, Battalion 51 lost eight soldiers, including several officers, during a battle with Hizbullah in Bint Jbail. Shetbon took command of one of the companies and in what he says was a split-second decision took a team of soldiers and retrieved the bodies of their dead comrades before they were taken by Hizbullah.
Following the war, he was one of 17 soldiers to receive a citation of excellence from IDF Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi.
Due to his exemplary service, after the war the IDF sent Shetbon to be an instructor for Battalion Gefen, the combat officer course. The breakdown in military values discovered during the war, the drop in motivation to serve and the overall feeling of discontent in the military was behind the decision to send officers with a record like Shetbon’s to educate the future generation of infantry commanders.
There is no better way to do this than by telling his personal story from Bint Jbail.
“A commander has several seconds to make a decision,” Shetbon tells his soldiers, a mix from the IDF’s various infantry brigades and special forces units. “In Bint Jbail there were five bodies in an open field and we received a tip on the secure phone line that Hizbullah intended to seize them. I had to make a decision within several seconds whether to send soldiers to risk their lives to retrieve the bodies or not.”
The soldiers, most of them just over 18 months in the army and with almost no combat experience, sit riveted in their seats as Shetbon continues.
“The top brass is telling us that a conflict with our enemies can erupt at any time,” he says while retelling the story of Maj. Ro’i Klein, Battalion 51’s deputy commander who was killed in Bint Jbail. “A commander who doesn’t live according to a set list of values will not know how to make those split-second decisions and will not jump on the grenade [as Klein did during the battle] in the moment of truth.”
This is the IDF following the Second Lebanon War, investing not just in new training regimens and advanced combat platforms but also in the moral standard of its soldiers and ensuring that its future commanders will be taught the right values so they understand what they are fighting for.
This is not a simple task, particularly in light of the recent rise in draft-dodging.
Ahead of the IDF draft last summer, the Human Resources Department reported an increase in the number of teenagers dodging military service. The total reaches 25 percent of those born in 1989 and scheduled to be drafted this year – 11% of them are haredim and received exemptions, an increase of 1% over last year. Seven percent did not enlist for medical reasons, including physical and mental conditions. The figure is nearly double what it was in the 1980s.
Motivation to serve is not the only problem. Following the war and the damage it caused the IDF’s image, the Ground Forces Command recorded a 20% drop in the number of soldiers who asked to go to officer training school, which not only creates a more difficult service for a soldier but also extends it by another 18 months – four and a half years instead of the mandatory three.
The drop in applications, which has in the meantime been curbed, is possibly one of the greatest challenges this training school has faced since it was established 40 years ago in the barren hills near the Ramon Crater.
BEFORE THE BASE opened its doors, the IDF’s officers’ school was in Pardess Hanna and then at Camp Sirkin on the outskirts of Petah Tikva. With the establishment of the state 60 years ago, the IDF replaced the Hagana which had since 1921 held training courses for its fighters in Kfar Giladi in the North.
Before the 1967 Six Day War, prime minister David Ben-Gurion decided to transfer all of the IDF’s training schools from the center of the country to the South as part of his efforts to settle the Negev.
Bah’d 1 was chosen as the first school to make the move, which was pushed off until 1968 due to budget constraints. On May 27 – this week 40 years ago – the new school opened its doors. Since then it hasn’t stopped for a day.
Today, the school gives a number of courses for staff officers, support combat officers and combat officers. The first two are fully integrated, and female soldiers make up more than half of the cadets in most classes.
The combat course lasts 13 weeks, following which infantry officers carry on for another four months of specialization. Soldiers from the Armored, Engineering and Artillery Corps complete their specialization back at their units of origin.
The IDF is facing another growing challenge when it comes to officer training – 25% of the cadets in the combat course come from the national-religious camp, including a large number of settlers, by far the largest representation of a single sector.
IDF officers point out that these soldiers are highly motivated and are found predominantly in the mid-ranks of infantry brigades like Golani, Nahal and Givati. They are eager to fight Israel’s enemies but as Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s peace talks with Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas advance, there is an underlying concern in some political circles that these soldiers will not follow orders to evacuate West Bank settlements.
Base commander Col. Aharon Haliva is not concerned with the statistics or the political unease. The makeup of his training school is after all, he explains candidly, an exact reflection of trends in Israeli society.
“Today the national-religious see themselves as the state’s pioneers,” he explains from his desert office where bookshelves are stocked with sets of Talmud, several volumes of the Bible and assorted books on military, Jewish and Israeli history. “This is today. Years ago the pioneers used to be the kibbutzniks.”
In his previous job, Haliva, 40, who climbed the ranks in the Paratroopers’ Brigade, served as commander of the Ephraim Regional Brigade, responsible for all military operations in Tulkarm and Kalkilya. Commander of the officers school is almost a definite step toward general. Of the last 16 commanders, 10 went on to become generals, including Transportation Minister Shaul Mofaz, a former chief of General Staff.
In what some might interpret as controversial, Haliva speaks openly about the different sectors in society and those which are sending and not sending their children to the school. Like one of the predecessors – OC Human Resources Maj.-Gen. Elazar Stern – Haliva is critical of the education youth are receiving in urban areas.
“We don’t get enough soldiers from cities,” Haliva said. “This is because of the type of education they get at home.”
Following the Second Lebanon War, Stern stirred controversy when he said in a radio interview that he did not need to visit bereaved families in Tel Aviv. “I see which homes I visit and, with all the pain and pride, I also look at the homes I don’t go to… there’s no bereavement in those homes. There’s no bereavement there and there won’t be bereavement there.”
Following in the footsteps of his self-proclaimed mentor, at the end of each course Haliva sends thank-you letters to high schools whose graduates become IDF officers.
One of the things he is most concerned with is the apparent disconnect between Israeli youth and their Jewish roots and values. “We need to have our finger on the pulse of our country’s educational system all the time,” he says.
Haliva served in the territories in a wide range of positions throughout the second intifada. He says candidly that one of the country’s mistakes ahead of the Second Lebanon War was that “we sanctified the watchtower and the patrol car in the West Bank.” In contrast, since the war and having taken over officer training, the curriculum he set up has cadets spending a mere 10% of their time on training for low intensity conflicts – like the conflict with the Palestinians. The rest of the time, soldiers learn how to lead platoons in a conventional war.
“If a cadet learns how to be an officer and lead troops in a conventional war against another country like Syria, then he will know how to operate inside Nablus,” Haliva says.
WHILE HALIVA was leading troops when the second intifada broke out in October
2000, Shetbon was just starting his officer’s training course.
Looking back at his training, Shetbon says that today the IDF is putting a greater emphasis on what some might call “old-fashioned” military values such as the need to always strive for contact and engagement with the enemy.
The importance of this value was made clear in April when Ashkenazi fired a battalion commander who, according to military probes, failed to engage Islamic Jihad terrorists who infiltrated the Nahal Oz fuel depot along the Gaza border and killed two Israelis.
“We make clear to cadets that they always need to strive for contact with the enemy,” Shetbon explains. “We teach them to understand that they have capabilities – both physical and mental – that they don’t yet know about.”
Shetbon recently wrapped up three weeks of intensive training on the Golan Heights with his company of cadets. There, the future officers practiced storming mock Hizbullah “nature reserves” – fortified positions found in southern Lebanon and used to launch Katyusha rockets – and also honed navigational skills by sending each cadet for a 30-kilometer hike alone at night.
“We try to simulate for them what a battle will look like,” says Haliva. “We run live-fire exercises after they haven’t slept a whole day and create an atmosphere like there is a real war, since we need to be ready and we need to win the next war.”
Micki Ohayun from the Paratroopers’ Brigade and Yoav Sarussy from Golani are currently finishing their officer training. Both fall into the minority sector of their course – they are from cities – Beersheba and Haifa.
Sarussy, 20, says that before he volunteered for officer training school his friends tried to dissuade him from signing on for more time in the army. “They asked me what I needed this for,” he recalls. “I told them that someone needs to do it and if it won’t be me, who will it be?”
Ohayun is a littler older and has been in the army for more than two years. He grew up in a military environment and attended a military high school. During the Second Lebanon War his battalion was deployed in Maroun A-Ras. The home he holed up in came under heavy Hizbullah rocket and machine-gun fire. One of his officers was killed.
“That event helped me make up my mind that this was what I wanted to do,” he says. “Today with people talking about destroying us, there is no doubt that we need a strong military.”
Soldiers like Sarussy and Ohayun are given the option of attending officers’ school after a year or more in the army and after undergoing a series of tests. According to Haliva, more than 6,000 cadets come through the school annually, with some attending the staff courses, combat support course and combat course.
The cadets not only study military tactics and strategy but are also imbued with Jewish values. They are taken to Jerusalem to visit the Old City, Yad Vashem and the Supreme Court.
Shetbon, Sarussy and Ohayun’s commander, says that while youth today are more self absorbed than in the past, the soldiers who arrive at the school are the “crème de la crème of Israeli society.”
“Most people today care about how what they are doing affects them,” Shetbon says. “Bah’d 1 is proof that youth today are still willing to sacrifice themselves on behalf of the other.”
While he will be celebrating his school’s 40th anniversary this week, Haliva says he is extremely concerned with what the next 40 years have in store for the country and not just from a security perspective.
“I wonder what type of country we will have in 40 years,” he says, leaning back in his chair with a massive picture of the Temple Mount behind him. “Will we have peace with our neighbors? What will be with the economy and national security?”
One thing he is sure of is that the school will still be here when Israel celebrates its 100th anniversary. “This school,” he says, “is guaranteeing our future.”
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