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Status Update Details IDF Plan

It’s complicated for kicked-out Israeli soldier

by
Liel Leibovitz
March 03, 2010

Ugh, remember that time you had told your friend, who you’re like friends with or whatever but didn’t feel like dealing with, that you were just going to stay in for the night, but then you went out and the next day someone posted a picture of you on Facebook, and you were busted? Well, this story out of Israel is kind of like that. Except replace “picture at a bar” with “status update detailing a military operation against Palestinians in a village near Ramallah”! And replace “busted” with “kicked out of your IDF unit”!

Yes, a soldier in the Israel Defense Force redefined the meaning of Too Much Information last month when he logged on to Facebook and posted, “On Wednesday we’ll clean out [the village of] Kattannah, and on Thursday, God willing, we’ll be home.” He also provided the name of his unit, and the exact location and time of where the operation was slated to take place.

Several of the soldier’s Facebook friends, shocked by his indiscretion, reported him to the army’s Division of Information Security. Almost immediately, the operation was called off and the soldier tried and ejected. An unfriending for the history books.

Liel Leibovitz is editor-at-large for Tablet Magazine and a host of its weekly culture podcast Unorthodox and daily Talmud podcast Take One. He is the editor of Zionism: The Tablet Guide.