Matthew Holehouse, New Statesman, September 3:
In 2001 shocking reports surfaced from Gaza of summer schools being organised by Islamic Jihad, which were teaching Palestinian adolescents to become suicide bombers. The Israeli government denounced the camps as evidence that a new generation was being brought up to hate and to kill.
What went unreported was that at a purpose-built barracks in the Negev desert, every summer hundreds of Jewish teenagers from Europe, Mexico and America pay to spend nine weeks saluting, marching, firing guns and otherwise pretending to be soldiers.
Marva, run by the Educational and Youth Corps of the Israel Defence Force and conducted entirely in Hebrew, simulates the basic training of Israeli conscripts for 18-28 year old members of the Diaspora. Dressed in boots and olive fatigues, and obliged to carry an M16 assault rifle at all times, school leavers on gap years do push ups in the dust, perform night marches with laden stretchers, maintain civil defence shelters, fire machine guns at paper figures and simulate military manoeuvres, as well as taking classes in Jewish identity and the history and values of the IDF. Karaoke and dance-offs also feature.
With the security situation improving, increasing numbers of British Jews, through youth groups such as RSY Netzer and Federation of Zionist Youth, are signing up to one of the four 120-strong sessions held every year. One half are girls, and large numbers come from public schools in Manchester and North London.
Blogs written by participants revel in the camouflage-induced machismo. “By the end of the first week we were beginning to look like soldiers” writes American Joseph Fisher. “Strict discipline is enforced by our mefakdim (commanders). There is a great atmosphere of camaraderie.”
Participants deny that the course was overtly anti-Palestinian. “I never heard that sort of comment from an official source – although there were some very right wing individuals taking part,” says Mark Fitch, a Manchester student who took the course last year. “There was a lot of debate about the IDF, and whilst obviously by going on Marva they implicitly endorsed the army, a lot of people said that they were torn about using guns and running about.”