From time to time, they also come across questions about the army that appear, seemingly randomly, even in math text books. Students go to art exhibitions at memorial centers for soldiers and find a seemingly natural link between art and the military. On the morning radio show, they hear interviews with only military personnel as authorities on the conflict. In the Knesset and the government, they see only retired generals or religious figures determining our fate. Added to all this is the transparent and deliberate enlistment of the education system on behalf of the Israel Defense Forces.
Posters calling on students to sign up for the various corps fill the walls of the school corridors.
At the Ironi A High School, for example, the IDF posters take up almost an entire corridor, leaving little room for posters dealing with democracy or the poems of Yehuda Amichai. No one makes sure the preparation for military service, if necessary and if basic training is not enough, is done by the IDF alone, before enlistment and after studies have been completed. Author and feminist activist Rela Mazali speaks at the conference about the manner in which soldiers come into the classrooms and speak to the children about the events of war and the parents see nothing wrong with this. She mentions a particular incident in which two soldiers went to visit sixth graders in Herzliya, at a school where her daughter was studying, and spoke of the importance of refreshing gas mask kits. On of the most prominent phenomena in this context is certainly the prevalence of former high-ranking IDF officers in administrative and teaching positions at the schools.