I had been looking closely at casualty figures myself and noticed the absence of Tel Aviv residents. If they only make up 5% of the population we would expect to see this percentage reflected in the statistics. Is it just that Kibbutzniks go the front and Tel Avivniks stay on the beaches and on the peace demos? In Tel Aviv it is well known that they avoid military service because they do not want to be 'suckers' (?freiers)

listen and learn from Col. Randolf C. White, listen to what he has to say!: http://hotair.com/archives/2006/08/15/lt-col-randolph-c-white-a-great-american/ Enjoy

Huldai's response is that Tel Aviv represents less than 5% of the population? Well, the Kibbutzim represent less than 3%.

As if we don't have enough divisions in this country, along comes Mr. Stern and adds another one. Way to go, Stern.

Stern is absolutely correct. This will continue as long as celebrities who evaded the draft are appearing daily on our TV screens. These people should be made to feel ashamed of their actions.

know anything about demographics? 'Family' households in Tel Aviv are either (1) quite senior in age, hence no kids young enough to still be in reserves, (2) young and wealthy, with 'big jobs' (meaning connected enough not to be on the front line) or (3) non-IDF veterans / non-citizens. The balance of residents are singles whose families do not live in Tel Aviv. Families that CAN afford Tel Aviv and have children in IDF, prefer to live in other towns where they get more house for the money... and where they have parking... another problem in TA due to JOBNIKS at the Kirya, who ignore parking tickets, anyway.

in 1975, I was one of 4 who went to a fighting unit out of a graduating class of about 150... tel aviv is all about "I" and career and coffee-house talk. very little about "the other". and mayor ron huldai (a former pilot) did very little to change that as a high-school principle - not (i think) because he didnt try but because even don quixote never really took on pure mud.

This man is an obvious idiot, he knows nothing about what makes a soldier, and why is he addrssing the press. Thats the IDF's problems too many chiefs, who are no chiefs at all, all with an Ego so big you could fit a whole planet in it. Soldiers prepare for peace not war.

Interestingly enough the casualties among the soldiers seem to be concentrated among religious soldiers from the west bank and the kibbutz's and moshav's. Not so much Haifa and Tel Aviv. Somebody should really break this down.

I think he actually means the greater Tel-Aviv area or Gush Dan. And he is right, the Jews of the Kibbutz, Judea, Samaria & Former Gaza villages took the most disproportionate amount of casaulties. From all the names I believe I only saw one or two from Gush Dan. It's time for them to leave aroma and go to the army.

perhaps if the Tel Hashomer would accept more volunteers (such as myself) who tried to enlist for the army, but who were apparently 'too old' for them (at the ripe age of 31 years), there would be more participants in the IDF from Tel Aviv. in Israel, where we will ALWAYS be at war with our neighbors, it seems idiotic to me that the IDF would turn down young, healthy, people willing to volunteer to be trained for service. pity.

the officers such as elazar stern, now he is trying to put an edge between the Israelis. Shame on you

This looks like a new low for the Israeli generals. Instead of investigating if their conduct of the war had caused that many combat deaths they are complaining that not enough soldiers had died from Tel Aviv.

Look at the casualties. They come overwhelmingly from the kibbutzim, moshavim, Judea, and Samaria. I don't like Stern for his role in the ethnic cleansing of Jews from Gaza, but he's right: My city of Tel Aviv didn't do its part in the war. Our residents don't serve in combat units like others do. And my neighbors and colleagues at work think that I'm a sucker because I did. The IDF needs to specifically go after Tel Aviv's youth to get them into combat units- to save the next generation from the hedonism and narcissism of their parents' generation.

It is to be expected that people from Kibbuzim and people from settlements will be more ready than people who live in TA. I don't know where the 5% figure comes from though. Perhaps someone will explain it to me ? Fortunately nobody is any longer talking about future withdrawals from the West Bank so something good came out of this fiasco !

You have more combat soldiers from a community of Eli (which Olmert wants to destroy) than from the whole Ramat Aviv. Simply stated: Ramat Aviv people and Arabs do not serve.

The army enlists soldiers into combat units according to their profile number. I guess the low profiles, aka jobniks, all live in the Tel Aviv area.

Correct, Zvi. As if there is not anough hate going , Stern makes sure to add some.

This is the most ridiculous and even downright LOW article I've read in a very long time. The demographic distribution of fallen soldiers can be attributable to about a million different factors. Every fallen soldier is a son of our country and a sacrifice we didn't want to make. They will be missed and the world will be less without them. No matter where they grew up.

As soon as Olmert gets back to his top priority -- forcibly deporting Jews, destroying their homes, and turning the land over to terrorists -- I'm sure he'll have plenty of volunteers from Tel Aviv.

I think that it is reasonable to assume that this particular general has exact statistics of the areas all combat soldiers come from, so all this indignation of the posters is silly. What he addressed is the disparity in carrying the burden of defending and dying for the country. So far, everybody only spoke about the haredi Jews, shirting their obligations, but now it appears that others can be put in the same exactly category, but without a religious excuse. His statement also accounts for all those photographs of praying soldiers I have seen, and non-army religious guys leading those prayers on the frontlines. Funny that the people who earlier spoke about not wanting to die or kill defending "settlers" now worry about putting an edge between the Israelis. The obvious question is, should the people who don't want to fight for the safety of "settlers" still expect that those same settlers fight and die defending them? Remember the Netanyahu’s nephew, a conscientious objector, made an international peacenik celebrity, from Haifa?

Stern needs to look to himself & examine his errors and the errors of the IDF as a whole. This is the type of petty foolishness that one does NOT see, nor expect to see, from winners. Perhaps, this short sightedness is a symtom of what caused Israel's loss in this battle. The really terrible news is that the war was fought so poorly that it's not over, only hafsaka, and more Israelis will suffer the price. At the least, Omert, Peretz, and Halutz need to be replaced with those who understand how to win a war, and have the backbone to follow through. The rest of the BS is just that: B*ll Sh*t.

The Tel Aviv crowd complains about their children serving in dangerous places while the kibbutz and settler crowd carry their security on the backs of their children. Look at our combat unit statistics - almost half come from Yesha (and a competitive of the rest are from the kibbutzim). Those two groups only comprise 11% of Israeli society put together. Between them they are roughly 75% of the combat forces.

$100 says most of these cases were draft dodgers or otherwise too busy selling heroin and STDs.

shouting first and loud against haredim exempt from army duty. It seems that t.avivians expect the haredim to protect them while they are profaning quietly the whole tora.