What A Woke Army!! Asleep in the Trenches

JEWISH SOLDIERS SUSPENDED FOR SAYING SHEMA YISRAEL
[worried about 'climate' and 'gender equality' not soldier morale]

 JERUSALEM (VINnews) — In an interview with Serugim, the soldiers suspended for reciting the Shma on a loudspeaker system in a Jenin mosque last week responded to their suspension and explained why they felt the need to say Shema there and why the decision to suspend them was wrong and politically motivated. The soldiers are due to complete their week-long suspension and return to their reserve unit for duty.

G, a reserve combat soldier who fought in Jenin and came to the mosque, said that “We left everything, children, family and work and came for intensive warfare including explosions, booby trap devices and terrorist infrastructure. Instead of focusing on victory and on the harsh fighting, they focus on a Shema Yisrael which was designed to raise morale in the battalion. The lack of support is a huge blow for soldiers who are putting their lives on the line for the nation and the country.”

G. describes how a few hours earlier the soldiers had located explosive devices which could “blow up armored vehicles.”

“Jenin isn’t a game of children stonethrowing, there are terrorists bent on doing a repeat of Oct. 7th, Jenin is no different from Gaza, where mosques are being blown up and nobody says its immoral.

“What we wanted to do was to lift spirits, it wasn’t something negative to IDF values and not political. We were in a crazy operation, we were shot at numerous times, there were terrorists wandering around in Jenin and we needed to eliminate them. It is a city full of terror, we found hundreds of walkie-talkies, proving that they act like an organized army. In Jenin there is terror like Gaza, we found significant ammunition and Hamas flags.

G. described how they usually find three or five explosive devices but on this occasion they found 35 with intensive searches. Because some were found in a mosque they weren’t blown up on the spot but taken outside (despite the inherent dangers) and blown up outside the mosque. The mosque was full of ammunition “even in the minaret we found proof that terrorists had fired on soldiers from there and people had warned them of our arrival from there.”

“We went in to rest after this dangerous operation, we ate some snacks and found the loudspeaker, so in order to raise morale we said a few words of inspiration and added Shema Yisrael.”

G. believes the media blew the matter out of proportion, since “Those who condemned it were not the enemy but rather the media, they even reported us as suspended before there was a trial.” He stressed that they had not violated rules or IDF values and had not been told otherwise. They walked in the mosque with shoes which is against Muslim values and nobody said anything about it.

Even the officers didn’t understand the issue. “We felt that the officers including the brigade commander who is Druze understood us and didn’t have much to blame us for, he punished us because the politicians were pressing him too. He didn’t hear our side but got an order from above. The media is strong and sets the tone, they decided our guilt while we were still fighting.”

G. says that morale is now lower, 150 soldiers even threatened to leave but in the end they stayed to protect the region. They are very hurt and angry and feel abandoned over every small matter.” He adds that the media didn’t even describe their amazing and successful work in eradicating terror infrastructure without any losses TG.

“We came to central Jenin, to a mosque full of terror, and said the most important verse for Am Yisrael”, he concluded.

Jewish Force minister Itamar Ben-Gvir sparred with IDF chief of staff Hertzi Halevi on Tuesday over the mosque suspension, claiming that it was wrong and immoral to suspend soldiers for declaring their Jewish values. Halevi said that the action “violated IDF values.”

https://vinnews.com/2023/12/20/idf-soldiers-who-said-shema-in-jenin-mosque-respond-to-suspension/