IDF Nixes ‘Palestinians Are Gay – Stab Them’ Haredi Recruitment Drive

Draft office personnel were unable to explain the sudden reversal.

Tel Aviv, August 3 – The Israeli military today canceled a nascent publicity program to increase recruitment among ultra-orthodox that would have appealed to the demographic’s perceived desire to kill homosexuals, portraying the country’s enemies as dangerously gay. No reason was given for the cancellation.

Following last week’s fatal stabbing attack on the Jerusalem Gay Pride parade by Yishai Shlissel, a Haredi man previously imprisoned for a similar attack in 2005, the Israel Defense Force recruitment arm reacted quickly by developing a plan to make IDF service more attractive to Haredim by depicting it as an opportunity to rid the world of the abomination of homosexuality. Senior commanders quickly rewrote their recruitment plans to reflect the new angle, even quickly commissioning graphic artists to produce posters and leaflets that reflect the Palestinians-are-lesbians-and-homosexuals-and-we-must-defend-the-holy-Torah-against-them angle. On Monday, however, Chief of Staff Gadi Eizenkot ordered the plans shelved.

Haredim are exempt from the mandatory military draft, but the High Court struck down the law that enshrines that status, leaving the sector in legal limbo as politicians attempt to resolve the issue. Programs do exist under which some Haredim serve, but they constitute a tiny minority of Haredim and often face abuse and harassment from other Haredim opposed to serving the secular state. The new drive was expected to help counter that animosity by appealing to the sense of a shared enemy in gay Palestinians. Since the weekend IDF Recruiters had already braced for an influx of Shlissel-minded Haredim, believing his actions to be representative of the ultra-orthodox population. But Eizenkot’s announcement this morning prevented the campaign from being launched, and no posters, flyers, radio ads, or other publicity media ended up carrying the message to the erstwhile target audience. Draft office personnel were unable to explain the sudden reversal.

“We had an entire publicity and recruitment portfolio ready to go, but then the Chief of Staff gave the order to trash it,” said Jerusalem draft office director Major Eli Jibiti. “I’m not privy to the deliberations of the General Staff, so I can’t speak to the specific reasons the program has been canceled, but I do surmise that somebody thought maybe the campaign wouldn’t appeal to quite as broad a swath of the Haredi population as originally hoped.”

Experts offered other possible reasons for the cancellation. “I’m sure what happened is that someone pointed out the awkwardness of the IDF recruiting the haters of homosexuals while the IDF itself is among the world’s most open, gay-friendly armed forces,” offered Toey Va, who studies gender issues in the armed forces. “Even if Haredi recruits serve in separate units from everyone else, the cognitive dissonance would be too much.”

Va noted that a similar Hamas recruitment drive last year enjoyed great success, though it was Jews that it depicted as fomenting homosexuality.