History Main / BadAssIsraeli

* Agent Ben Canaan in {{Exodus}}

* Agent Ben Canaan in ''Exodus''

* IngloriousBasterds

* The UrExample is ''TheBible'', which portrays the Israelites as a ProudWarriorRace. As just ''one'' example, Samson kills a thousand soldiers with the ''jawbone of a donkey''...and [[BondOneLiner follows up]] with a [[IncrediblyLamePun pun]].

** Who is so badass that Gibbs has to remind her to slash the FBI's ''tyres'' not their ''throats''.

** There was a senior Israeli politician on TV (either Ehud Barak or Yitzhak Rabin) saying: "This is the Middle East, a place with no mercy for the weak."

*** Reverted to its original self after the Second Lebanon War, which served as a wake up call for the IDF. Just two years later, during Operation Cast Lead, Israeli forces went out to strike at the Gaza strip due to rocket firing pouring on from it and onto Israeli towns. The result was a decimated Hamas, a whole lot of blown up rocket launchers and weapons stockpiles, a mere handful of Israeli casualties, and sadly, a lot of [[WhatAnIdiot dead human shields]].
*** Dead human shields, you say? Some [[YourMilageMayVary would call that a feature, not a bug]].

*** Reverted to its original self after the Second Lebanon War, which served as a wake up call for the IDF. Just two years later, during Operation Cast Lead, Israeli forces went out to strike at the Gaza strip due to rocket firing pouring on from it and onto Israeli towns. The result was a decimated Hamas, a whole lot of blown up rocket launchers and weapons stockpiles, a mere handful of Israeli casualties, and sadly, a lot of [[ShootTheHostage dead human shields]].

-->-- ''{{Oz}}''.

*** The Israeli Navy also messed up the boarding of the Turkish ''Ship To Gaza'' convoy in the summer of 2010. According to some European specialists, the operation was simply executed unprofessionally, While others attribute the high casualty rate to poor Intel about the people on board the ships, thereby causing a high causalty rate.

Israelis are badass. No ifs ands or buts. They are a ProudWarriorRace and it is a national law that each one must have a CrowningMomentOfAwesome on his Bar Mitzvah. A polite softspoken Israeli with glasses is not around. If by a miracle he appears you can count on him being a BadassBookworm. If an Israeli is a villain you can count on him being something cool like an ArmsDealer or an assassin. If they are heroes they are of course heroes. Every female Israeli is a HotAmazon [[TheSquadette Squadette]] who ''always'' [[GoodLookingPrivates looks great]] in her combat fatigues and beret with her Uzi jauntily slung over her shoulder. Every male Israeli is an AcePilot, or a spy for the Mossad (their other intelligence agencies are so secretive, Hollywood hasn't heard of them). The Israeli Defense Force does not have a single ObstructiveBureaucrat like, oh, every other army in the entire world. It is too much of a BadassArmy.

** The Six-Day War: Egypt and Syria massed their forces for an invasion after [[MoscowCenter Soviet intelligence]] told Egyptian Vice-President Anwar Sadat that the Israelis were planning an invasion of Syria. As it turns out, the Israelis weren't (they hardly dreamed of such a thing), and the intel report was a forgery. However, the Arabs had drummed up their populations to the point where they couldn't very well back down, and they even managed to bring Jordan (whose government was [[TheNotSecret not-so-secretly]] kinda friendly to Israel) along for the ride. Israel launched the most impressive preemptive strike in modern history, destroying the Egyptian, Syrian, and Jordanian Air Forces in a matter of hours. Iraq attempted to send in reinforcements to assist the Arab armies, and though before they could fire a single bullet, they were halted by Israeli aircraft raining down [[KillItWithFire napalm]] upon them. The war ended up with Israel capturing the entire Sinai peninsula, Golan Heights, the Gaza Strip, and the West Bank (including all of Jerusalem, reuniting the city), TRIPLING its territory.

*Before the diaspora the jews were known as incredible badasses, and were highly prized as mercenaries. The romans needed 12 legions to take down the bar kokhba revolt.
*Not Israelis but definitely Badass Jews, the Khazar empire. A dynasty of Turks in the Ukraine converted to Judaism in the early middle ages while still keeping an empire that maintained the peace along the trade routes in the area. They were both a ProudMerchantRace and a ProudWarriorRace and except for not living in Israel would be BadassIsraeli s .

* Subverted hard in Israeli conflicts from the 90's onwards, when IDF heavily relied on air-strikes and distant bombings, which prevented risk from the infantry but laid utter devastation on the other side.
** Also subverted during the Second Lebanon War by many division leaders who preferred operating their forces from command centers and were mockingly called "plasma commanders".
***Reverted to its original self after the Second Lebanon War, which served as a wake up call for the IDF. Just two years later, during Operation Cast Lead, Israeli forces went out to strike at the Gaza strip due to rocket firing pouring on from it and onto Israeli towns. The result was a decimated Hamas, a whole lot of blown up rocket launchers and weapons stockpiles, a mere handful of Israeli casualties, and sadly, a lot of [[ShootTheHostage dead human shields]].

* The UrExample is ''TheBible'', which portrays the Israelites as a ProudWarriorRace. As just ''one'' example, Samson kills a thousand soldiers with the ''jawbone of a donkey''.

** Yes, the Civilians are somewhat militarized, but the opposite is also true: the Israeli infantry is sloppy. Major drawback of Conscription, the average Israeli army man is less physically fit, less well trained than smaller, volunteer forces. Add the fact that during combat operations, these people are ''scared'', far more so than reasonable, Israel has always hated causalities, absolutely ''hated'' them. The resulting trigger happiness is regrettable.

** The Six-Day War: Egypt and Syria massed their forces for an invasion after [[MoscowCenter Soviet intelligence]] told Egyptian Vice-President Anwar Sadat that the Israelis were planning an invasion of Syria. As it turns out, the Israelis weren't (they hardly dreamed of such a thing), and the intel report was a forgery. However, the Arabs had drummed up their populations to the point where they couldn't very well back down, and they even managed to bring Jordan (whose government was [[TheNotSecret not-so-secretly]] kinda friendly to Israel) along for the ride. Israel launched the most impressive preemptive strike in modern history, destroying the Egyptian, Syrian, and Jordanian Air Forces in a matter of hours, and ended up capturing the entire Sinai peninsula, the Gaza Strip, and the West Bank (including all of Jerusalem, reuniting the city), TRIPLING its territory.