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Source: https://www.economist.com/international/2021/10/02/the-military-draft-is-making-a-comeback
Youth in Israel Look Forward to Conscription
(Economist-UK) While 24 countries including France, Spain, Italy and Germany abandoned the military draft between 1990 and 2013, Yoni, an 18-year-old student in Jerusalem, is awaiting conscription by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). "I'm looking forward to serving my country," he says. "It's something special that our age group can do." Yoni has joined clubs which help Israeli teenagers prepare for the army's physical and intellectual tests. He and his friends travel to beaches to practice running on sand. Israeli schools boast about the proportion of their students who have been placed in elite combat units. Such units, along with the air force, were seen as incubators of political and professional talent, says Richard Pater, the Jerusalem-based director of the Britain-Israel Communications and Research Center (BICOM). A particular mythology has built up around Unit 8200, a signals-intelligence unit whose alumni have filled the ranks of Israeli tech companies.