How do you get your friend to drop the idea of joining the army to fight against Israel due to what is happening in Gaza?

Answer 1

Answer 1

There are the typical ideas that a person could use to dissuade an individual from joining any military, such as the physical strain, possibility of his own death, the requirement to kill other individuals, corrupt national military policy, and the failure of war as a means to achieve a permanent solution to problems.

As for the Gaza situation vis-à-vis Israel, there are a few other reasons worth considering as to why a person should not fight against Israel:

Armies currently fighting Israel: All of the militaries currently involved in fighting Israel are the militant wings of radical Islamist groups like Hamas and Hezbollah. They have a mentality that promotes suffering, a love of violence, and a hatred towards multiplicity. Ask your friend, why he would wish to advocate these views. When you fight against something that you may not like, you are also fighting for something. Is Israel really the greater of two evils in this situation?

Arab-Palestinian Conflict: If we count all of the Palestinians who have died in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, the death toll comes to 13,500-14,000 Palestinian individuals killed. While that is a high number, note that it also includes the suicide bombers who died for the express purpose of killing others. However, Israel is not the worst offender against the Palestinians. Black September in Jordan alone (1970) was rumored to have killed as many as 20,000 Palestinians. The invasions of Refugee Camps in Lebanon such as Sabra, Shatila, and Nahr el-Bared killed untold thousands of unarmed Palestinians at Arab hands. Palestinians in Syria are not even allowed to have jobs or to leave the refugee camps, leaving them in abject squalor. If you seriously wish to fight for Palestinian Rights, start in the Arab countries which have made much more concerted moves to eliminate and harm them.

Kurdistan, Balochistan, Darfur, et al: While there is certainly a serious crisis going on in Gaza, why are the Muslims who die in Gaza somehow more important than Muslims who are fighting for independent states that die at the hands of other Muslims? Why do Muslims deserve the right to repress their fellow brethren, when the Israelis (mostly Jews) do not? These three conflicts: Kurdistan, Balochistan, and Darfur were each more extensive than the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, resulted in more deaths of the repressed people (40,000 Kurds, 15,000 Balochs, 10,000 Darfurians dead from the violence and an additional 40,000 from starvation and disease from being on the run from violent pursuers). If you wish to address great pain and suffering, do these people not merit your attention first since their situation is more serious?

Answer 2

Your friend is not going to join any Army, stay calm. He is playing hero to impress the girls. So, just remind him of two things:

1. Israeli Army is unbeatable when it's fighting on its own land;

2. There is not any State that would be ready now to start a war against Israel, knowing that the chances of winning a war against Israel are very slim. So, there is not any Army your friend could join.

If this does not cool him, just shrug- and tell him go and join the Army. You will see that he will stay at home.