JFABNRGR said:
LMCane said:
the IDF has roughly 170,000 troops in the regular standing Army- so imagine if 15,000 of them are in Gaza and you also have Lebanon border, Syrian border, West Bank, Jordanian border, Egyptian border.
they have another 470,000 reservists under the age of 45 but when you call them up that harms the economy.
Of interest, at least years ago, when I was still looking to get in the fight IDF does not accept foreign volunteers.
Not sure if that is still policy or not, but I was surprised at this.
why would that be a surprise?
the USA doesn't take foreign volunteers. It's not like you can be Dong Xi and come from China and say "Hi I would like to volunteer for the SEALs please"
at least you have to be a resident of the United States.
I know of an actual case where a German citizen whose grandparents were Nazis is desperately trying to join the IDF while living in Israel on a tourist visa
I think there are too many potential problems letting any non-citizens into the IDF.
that said, there is plenty of manpower for a war- just not a year long war unless you call up reserves. this is already the longest combat action in Israeli history. although the
Egyptian War of Attrition from 1969-1970 was pretty brutal.
the IDF had greater losses in that conflict than this one with Hamas.
what is amazing is that from 1948-49 in the War for Independence the Israelis had 6,100 dead with a total population of 660,000. so nearly 1% of the entire population was killed. that would be 3.3 million Americans today.
in the Hamas war, 297 have been killed in combat since October 8. 1250 on October 7.
