ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to show non-Israeli readers more of who the person is behind the label of "Israeli soldier" and thereby also better understand the internal Israeli experience rather than that portrayed externally in the media. The 1956 Kadesh Operation reinforced the glorification of the warrior tzabar and helps understand the current reality as addressing the destruction of the Jews by the Nazis, as explained by Professor Nathan Rotenstreich. The warriors of the Yom Kippur War—the sons of those who fought the War of Independence—had been youths at the time of the Six Day War just six years earlier. During military combat, the soldier may encounter in his psyche these emotional extremes that he may never have had to face in times of peace. The dynamic of the reappearing sexual drives typical of the sexual maturity stage, together with the oedipal competition, become powerful and therefore more difficult to regulate in the military environment.
