The Supreme Weapon

 
The fighting spirit of the soldiers of Israel is the fruit of a tree whose roots spring from, and are nourished by, the various layers and strata which have followed each other in the process of Israel’s renewal, a process which has gone on now for more than 100 years.
 

The educational approach in the army, the framing of  the "do’s" and "don’ts," and the scrupulous concern that officers shall fulfill their duties - these are factors which have forged and molded this fighting spirit. But it was not created out  of nothing.
 

The Return of Zion of our own days, in its very essence, is the movement of a fighting nation, a national liberation movement, pioneering, idealistic. Those who take part in it whether as immigrants or as Israel-born children of immigrants, know in advance - and accept the challenge - that they will be few against many, and that they must
struggle and fight to achieve their aims.
 

The pioneering spirit, the readiness to volunteer and fulfill with one’s  own person the aspirations of Zionism, served as the educational basis on which the Jewish community of Israel has risen anew. Agricultural settlement, Jewish manual labor, the Watchmen("HaShomer"), the Hagannah, ‘Illegal’ Immigration, the Jewish Brigade in the last World War, all were realized by volunteering. The prevailing mood in the community which prompted this widespread volunteering was the readiness of the individual to dedicate his life to the rebirth of the Jewish nation on its soil.
 
 
 

                                           The Ministry of Defense
                                  Publishing House of Ministry of Defense, 1973
 
 

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