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People's Army Ltd.: The salaries of the soldiers and the pocket of us all

The IDF's plan to raise soldiers' salaries is a masterpiece of populism and failure to tell the truth, to say the least.

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• IDF

• Wage increase

• Regular soldiers

• Permanent servants

• Defense Minister

• The Chief of Staff

Nir Kipnis

Sunday, 17 October 2021, 09:57 Updated: 10:35

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The ink on the paper on which the additions to the defense budget were printed has not yet dried, including the scandal known as the "Chief of Staff's Addition" and an alert has already been announced in the IDF, no - not the kind that will land in our mailbox Order 8, Receive from time to time from the defense establishment.

This is, to remind you, the same huge security system that is unable to take care of the soldiers' transportation to and from the base, but now wants them to at least have money to spend before they have to sneak into the trunk of buses to get to the base.

After taking care of its senior officers and opponents in the campus (for example), the IDF embarked on a particularly populist struggle to raise the salaries of regular soldiers by 50%. Where does the money come from?

In other words, it tells us, the citizens, that the remaining 70% - at least another half a billion shekels - will be funded by us: from the health, welfare and education services.

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Soldiers are waiting for a ride.

The IDF likes to elaborate on the strings of our hearts, but is actually aiming for a pocket (Photo: Meged Guzni)

The battalion commander as a fig leaf

Before they start with the hymns "We are a small country surrounded by enemies, cyber people have high demand outside the IDF, Iranians have an atomic bomb" and more, we will clarify the obvious: a strong IDF is in the interest of every Israeli citizen, good commanders and good professionals must To be rewarded for work done 365/24/7 and yes, such work requires some of the commanders to sacrifice their family lives - and apart from appreciating all of us they are entitled to full compensation for it.

The problem is that the combat battalion commander has become the fig leaf of the IDF's backbone, the one behind which all those who do little and get a lot are hiding.

Now that we have agreed that we are all on the same page, it is time to examine the IDF's latest move, which incorporates all the cynicism against which everyone who criticizes the system goes out - not out of a desire to harm it, but out of a desire to set boundaries. The honor, is actually the national security company that instead of saying what it is capable of doing or not within a given budget, has made security a protection: give me more and more, otherwise terrible things will happen here ... as if it were a criminal threatening a business owner.

Combat soldiers in the exercise.

Does anyone believe that the brigade commander's salary employs them at all? (Photo: IDF Spokesman)

When the IDF lies without blinking

It is no coincidence that the IDF raises the issue of the salaries of conscripts right now: the image of the government is low, the finance minister is sharply criticized for abandoning his election promise (which was nothing but pure populism designed to recruit young voters) - and it's time to pass another 30 % of it is rooted in the defense budget.

of course, that would tell us about the "bitterness" duty soldiers holding face of rising wages of career military personnel. Although many years have passed since I was a regular soldier, but I can not remember a single case where some even wondered earn my battalion commander This is for the simple reason that conscripts, probably the guts in them, see before their eyes mainly the lieutenant colonel, the sergeant, the PA - at most the lieutenant colonel, the first three are conscripts and the last is usually a regular at the beginning of his career. D, the brigadier general and God are floating together on the same cloud, so in the mind of the free.

It is true that in rear units the situation is slightly different.

In cyber units, young hackers work with more senior officers from Nablus to Nablus, but hey - isn't that exactly where a look of envy is required on the part of young people in senior positions, if only to make them want to stay in permanent service?

So who exactly is the IDF trying to work on when it spreads lies, just like that, about the so-called "resentment" of the Sadriniks, that is, the conscripts?

For a long time no "People's Army"

The IDF builds, as usual, on the empathy that the soldiers arouse in the heart of every Israeli and this is exactly the point that needs to be addressed.

Gone is the era when the IDF was the people's army. In the days when only about half of the candidates for security service enlist, it is time to stop this lie: the percentage of non-enlisted non-commissioned officers is gradually rising - both because of the natural increase in the ultra-Orthodox and Muslim population (who enlist, only marginally) and because of Who feel that no disaster will happen if they are not enlisted, at a time when the social sanction taken against those who have not served is diminishing.

This matter must also concern IDF leaders, but instead of preparing for it, they prefer to postpone and push the end, in terms of: Give as much budget as possible now, the erosion in the image and recruitment rates will be left to the next chief of staff.

Perhaps the army is a camel that has a hard time seeing its own hump, for that matter, at least on paper, it was supposed to be a defense minister.

But ... alas - the Minister of Defense, instead of being the one in charge of the army, is his flesh and blood, that is, the representative of the army around the cabinet table.

So what can be done?

This requires one of the most painful surgeries in the history of the State of Israel, but - if the image continues - a life-saving surgery.

Load in the emergency room at Tel Hashomer.

The hospitals will be happy to be assisted by a reinforcement of auxiliary force from the national-compulsory service system, which will replace the mandatory recruitment to the IDF (Photo: Reuven Castro)

A professional and rewarding army

Abolition of the conscription obligation and its replacement with a two-year national service obligation, which will not be repaid except by a modest reimbursement of expenses. This transition will also allow the recruitment of ultra-Orthodox (who can integrate into required professions where there is no danger of being exposed, R.L., to the thigh of a Madasnik in shorts), also of Arabs (who can integrate in a variety of necessary roles without fear of having to shoot their people) and even of pacifists from the north Tel Aviv (if you stick to the not very accurate stereotype), or right-wing youth who are afraid that they will be ordered to evacuate an outpost.

Moreover, the removal of some of the barriers to recruitment, as part of national service, could exacerbate the sanctions against anyone who seeks to evade even that, for example - the conditioning of quite a few benefits provided to the country's citizens in national or military service.

The IDF will become an army of volunteers and will be able to reward those who come through its gates with differential salaries: those who prefer to serve three years in an administrative position at a rear base, over two years of national service as a hospital paramedic or firefighter (as examples, of course).Will receive a certain reward.

Anyone who volunteers for combat service for at least four years will receive a much higher salary.

The same applies to career officers, rewarded today (except for discrimination and other such supplements) laterally Who demand for their services as part of a civilian is high, rewarded appropriately, just as the battalion commander who sees his children only once every three weeks.

It would be fair to them, it It would be fairer to us - and yes - it would cut the fat that is usually found in the IDF in its current form, with too many permanent people doing less and getting more.

Who will pay the price of IDF populism? Are special education students (for example) not all of us children? (Photo: ShutterStock)

Soldiers at the expense of the children

And back to the conscripts: two of my children have already completed their conscription. The third will soon receive her first order. How much she will earn for her military service is the last thing that concerns her and her parents. After all, even if the salary increases by 50% as part of the populist kidnapping that the IDF is trying to carry out, it will not contribute anything to it other than, perhaps, an improved entertainment budget on the weekends when she gets home. Of the parents.

Moreover, the IDF details our heartstrings that treat conscripts as "children" (and again, in this context it is worth mentioning the "Sunday disgrace" in which regular soldiers gather on bus openings).

It's just that there is nothing in the budget, and we all know that this money will not be deducted from the deputy minister's budget for anything, but from the places where it is most needed: from the medicine basket, special education, at-risk youth and more.

The time has come for the IDF to understand that its current populist demand will only deepen the alienation, which is already spreading, between the people and its army.

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