‘This Hummer ain’t big enough for the both of us!’
HUMMERS are BIG buggers … certainly big enough to ensure that a driver and her male passenger don’t come into close contact.
But this was not good enough for a group of Israeli army religiots who reportedly refused last week to participate in a training exercise that required them to ride in Hummers driven by female soldiers.
The incident, according to Haaretz, took place when a group of armoured corps battalion reservists from Northern Command attended a national ground troop training exercise at Tze’elim base in the south.
The Hummers are used as substitute tanks, and are driven by female soldier. The reservists act as ‘tank’ commanders.
After consultations with the training center’s rabbi and the brigade commander, a compromise was reached in which the religious soldiers who refused to ride alone with a woman driver would instead be accompanied by another male soldier.
An army document drawn up four years ago and entitled “Proper Integration†addresses the issue of religious “sensibilities†and the separation of male and female soldiers. According to the document, nothing prevents a male soldier from riding with a female soldier in a Hummer. The vehicle’s relative spaciousness, it said, means physical contact can be avoided.
According to sources in the army’s ground force operations, incidents such as the one last week at Tze’elim are not uncommon, and increasing numbers of religious soldiers are requesting a stricter separation between male and female soldiers.
Koba's Note: So what, the Israeli army is so immature and lacking in rationality that they still believe girls have cooties? Gimme a fucking break.