Songs have been banned before on the IDF''s radio station, Galatz. Like HaSela Ha''Adom in the 1950s which was thought to attract youngsters to cross the border into Jordan and reach the 'Red Rock', Petra, where, more enough than not, they would be murdered by either Beduin or Jordanian soldiers. Then there was, for example, Chava Alberstein''s 'Chad Gadya'. Now, there''s a new song. It is entitled, 'It''s A Matter of Habit', by Yizhar Ashdot, written by his partner, Alona Kimchi. And it besmirches IDF soldiers. The official press release by the station''s commander, Yaron Dekel, was that 'due to the song''s content, it was decided that there is no place at the IDF radio station to celebrate a song that despises IDF soldiers and those who sacrificed their lives for the country''s security and who defend it' The song''s message is it is all our fault, we are the corrupted and ignore the enemy, and, as a result, we are losing human values. And these words caught my attention:- They translate as 'Hey, what here is ours and what belongs to you?' Who is he singing to? Who is the 'we' and who the 'you'? Is the Arabic-styled font intended to suggest Arabs are the 'you'? Is this a political song? But to the point: IDF soldiers learn to defend and to do that, they must be trained in warfare and how to kill. There is no room for pacificism here. The IDF soldiers defend us against our enemies, those who seek to kill us, who terrorize us, who use their own children as shields and who attack almost exclusively civilians and most usually schoolchildren. Ot kids on buses or in restaurants or movie theaters. Or Bar-Mitzva parties. Where I live at Shiloh, they try to kidnap women drivers who are alone in their cars at night. They use axes and knives to kill and the killers, both Arab men and Arab women, blow themselves up even in their hatred of us. They terrorized us before we liberated Shchem and Hevron and Shiloh in 1967. They killed us at Tel Chai in 1920, at the Immigrants'' Hostel in Jaffa in 1921, at Tzfat and Hevron in 1929 and the Hadassah Convy in Jerusalem in 1948. They threw a grenade into a school at Kfar Chabad in 1956. If you think either I or Yaron Dekel is a bit harsh, here are excerpts from the lyrics by Alona Kimchi, my translation:- To learn to kill is a matter of momentum you start small and afterwards, it comes You patrol all night in the Casba of Shchem Hey, what here is ours and what is yours At the beginning just an exercise a rifle butt smashing on a door Shocked children Unnerved family And after, the closure This is already danger Death lies in ambush Behind every corner He cocks the rifle The arm shakes The finger stiffens Close on the trigger The heart goes wild Beating nervously He knows next time It''ll be easier They are not a man or a woman They are but objects, just a shadow To learn to kill Is a matter of habit To learn to fear Is a matter of momentum You start small And afterwards it comes… We are but a small group And they so many A small state Eaten by enemies In their hearts only hate An evil urge and darkness To learn to fear Is a matter of habit To learn cruelty Is a matter of momentum It starts small and afterwards comes… The cousin (the Arab) is an animal Already used to seeing blood He does not feel the suffering Is not human In field uniform and a skin rash Exhaustion and regular action From idiocy to evil The path is short Only for us, only for us Is the Land of Israel To learn cruelty Is a matter of habit ...Come home, child Come home Home Home To learn to love Is a matter of softness With a careful step In a cloud of grace To be for just a minute Just now, only today, On the other side Of that checkpoint But our hearts are hard And the skin so thick Deaf and blind In the bubble of the present In amazement we''ll see The falling angel To be a caring human Is a matter of habit… And do not forget, the IDF''s Galatz budget comes from the taxpayers. And a P.S.:- In 2010, Ashdot and the members of Tislam were involved in another politically-based incident, when the band members cancelled an appearance by Israeli singer Ariel Zilber at their show simply because of his rightist views. In August, Dekel ordered a live broadcast on Army Radio from Susya, near Hevron, to go on as scheduled despite attempts by leftist anarchists to stop it. Prior to the broadcast, the anarchists protested outside the station's studios in Yafo in an attempt to get the station to cancel it. ^
(photo credit: The Jerusalem Post)