The Mahal program

The Mahal program is what the flyers were about that Hillel supposedly got into all this trouble over. Knave has posted a comment at the Link’s site about his experience in this program, that’s quite informative:

To become a citizen of Israel, there is a compulsory military service requirement. For non-Israelis who are considering immigrating, you can do a three month “basic training” to see what army life is like and whether you can handle it.

How does this differ from the army?

1) You can quit/leave whenever you want, try to do that in a real army

2) You do not carry a weapon when on leave

3) You CANNOT be called to fight in any conflict. You can’t even break up a schoolyard battle. Essentially, you can’t do the one thing that military personnel actually do.

So… what is the point of this?

1) You get treated as if you were in the army, so you can see whether you like it or not.

2) You become phenomenally physically fit

3) Unlike the actual army, its kinda fun!

Now, it is fairly obvious that the CSU has its axe to grind against Hillel, and nobody is seriously denying that. But, given that the CSU has taken it upon themselves to enforce Federal Law on behalf of our law enforcement officials and without the meddlesome burden of the judicial system, they should at least know a little something about what it is they are condemning.

Of course, the CSU doesn’t care about that. They’ve been waiting for years for the tiniest excuse to present itself to jump on Hillel for something. The Mahal program really has very little to do with anything.

But since this is my site, and my table isn’t in CSU space, I’ll just mention that the program’s website it over at http://www.mahal2000.com for anyone who wants to check it out. Wouldn’t it be fitting if they got a ton of people signing up thanks to the CSU?

Update: Thanks, Harry, for pointing out the mistake. It seems Knave was actually describing the Marva program above, not Mahal. I apologize for the mixup.