‘What I would like to believe is a typical image of the Israel Defence Forces (IDF): there isn’t one soldier in this line who is standing in the same position as another. Everything uniform about an army is missing. That was typical of the army of the 1950s and 60s. No saluting. No Prussian drill. No bullshit. But it wasn’t a bad army, by any means. One of my editors, a former US Marine officer, once visited Israel and commented, after seeing a few soldiers in the street: “They’re about the sloppiest looking soldiers I’ve ever seen. But they sure can fight!”’