Dual Loyalty?: British Jewish Military Service in the British Military versus the IDF
As I have been progressively documenting in this series of articles about jewish military service; the so-called ‘anti-Semitic myth’ of jewish cowardice, lack of loyalty to non-jewish states and also lack of military service relative to their numbers is not a myth at all but rather the truth. I’ve documented this in the case of British and German militaries in the World War One (1) as well as the American military in the Vietnam War (2) and the recent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. (3)
I have also recently documented how American jews willing serve in the IDF but are significantly and disproportionately underrepresented among those in the US military itself. (4)
This has long been difficult to prove absolutely in that how many foreign jews are currently serving (or have served) in the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) and from where has long been a closely-guarded Israeli state secret (for obvious reasons!), but which has recently begun to be exposed with relatively figures for jews from the United States having been released by the Washington Post earlier this year (2024).
We don’t have the benefit of that with British jews in the IDF but never-the-less we have sufficient information to make a reasonable (and very conservative) estimate. Now before we take a look at the number of British jews in the IDF; let’s look at how many jews serve in the British military.
According to the Ministry of Defence responding to a Freedom of Information (FoI) request in 2014; there were 70 jews in the British military.
These were distributed as follows: 50 in the Army, 10 in the Royal Air Force and 10 in the Royal Navy. (5)
These statistics stayed the same in 2017 when a parliamentary question was answered (the total listed is 80 but the breakdown equals 70 so I am assuming the breakdown is correct). (6)
The most recent figures from 2022 don’t list an absolute number but rather claim that 0.1% of the members of the British military are jewish. (7)
Let’s assume this isn’t just a round-up from say 0.06% or 0.07% or some such which I rather suspect it is in order to show that jews and the like are at least present in the British military.
Then as there are 183,100 personnel (both regulars and reserves) in the British military (8) then that would mean there are 183 jews in the British military in 2022-2024, which would be more than double the number from 2012 to 2017. Hence you can see my point that likely the number of jews is still something like 70 but the 0.1% in the bi-annual report is likely rounding up.
However, let’s be generous and run with that number.
Since jews are 0.5% of the British population according to the 2021 Census; (9) then it already indicates that if jews are truly 0.1% of the British military then they are underrepresented in the British military by a factor of 5 and if there are still only 70 in the British military as the 2017 data indicates then jews are only 0.04% of the British military then jews would be underrepresented in the British military by a factor of 12.5.
Pretty scary numbers: huh?
If we then turn to Israel then we know that despite the fact that it should be - and technically is – illegal for British jews to volunteer to fight in the IDF (10) although the British government loudly claims otherwise. (11) There are significant numbers of British jews fighting for Israel in the IDF.
We know this both from anecdotal evidence from jews themselves (12) and also due to the occasional admissions of such by British authorities. (13)
In 2014 there were an estimated 100 British jews serving in the IDF (14) compared to the already mentioned 70 British jews in the British military.
Put simply this means that there were 43 percent more British jews in the IDF than in the British military from a population which was already underrepresented by a factor of 12.5 at the time in 2014.
If we fast forward to 2022-2024: if we take the 100 British jews serving in the IDF in 2014 as the peacetime figure – although anecdotally it appears that each intake (there are generally 3 per year) is at least 50-80 British jews (15) suggesting that the true figure is likely several times that (probably 300-400) – but now at least another 100 British jews have been officially recorded as having travelled to Israel to join and fight with the IDF. (16)
Then at absolutely minimum there are likely 200 British jews currently serving in the IDF (the 100 British jew peacetime base plus the ‘at least’ 100 extra jewish volunteers) and my guess would be that the real number is more like 500-700 if not more.
But let’s assume the very conservative figure of 200 British jews serving in the IDF in 2023-2024 is accurate. This is still 8.5 percent higher than the best-case scenario number of jews serving in the British military and 65 percent higher if the 0.1% is just a rounding up of the true figure (based off the 2012-2017 numbers) is actually 0.04% (i.e., 70 jews).
Thus, we can see that the truth is very simple in that British jews serve in the IDF in far greater numbers than in the British military and we can therefore see that the idea that jews are more loyal to Israel than to their non-jewish countries of birth, residence and/or citizenship continues to be validated by their own statistics and admissions.
The truth however – as I’ve explained above – is that the real figures are much, much higher than the ones I’ve used.
Scary: huh?
References
(1) See my article: https://karlradl14.substack.com/p/jews-and-military-service-britain
(2) See my article: https://karlradl14.substack.com/p/jews-and-military-service-the-united
(3) See my article: https://karlradl14.substack.com/p/jews-and-the-military-the-united
(4) See my article: https://karlradl14.substack.com/p/dual-loyalty-american-jewish-military
(5) https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5a7db62c40f0b65d88633f28/PUBLIC_1391420325.pdf
(6) https://questions-statements.parliament.uk/written-questions/detail/2017-11-20/HL3351
(7) https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/uk-armed-forces-biannual-diversity-statistics-october-2022/uk-armed-forces-biannual-diversity-statistics-1-october-2022#religion
(8) https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/quarterly-service-personnel-statistics-2024/quarterly-service-personnel-statistics-1-january-2024
(9) https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/culturalidentity/religion/articles/jewishidentityenglandandwales/census2021
(10) https://www.declassifieduk.org/british-fighters-in-israels-military-is-it-legal/
(11) https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/uk-confirms-citizens-can-legally-serve-in-israeli-forces/
(12) For example: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/10/11/uk-armed-forces-soldiers-joining-idf-war-hamas-attacks/; https://www.jta.org/2024/02/14/global/british-university-chaplain-and-family-in-hiding-following-death-threats-over-stint-as-idf-reservist and https://www.thejc.com/news/british-parents-fear-for-their-children-serving-as-idf-soldiers-in-israel-vtj4v4ly
(13) https://www.declassifieduk.org/british-fighters-in-israels-military-is-it-legal/; https://www.declassifieduk.org/revealed-over-100-britons-among-israeli-soldiers-and-settlers/
(14) https://www.channel4.com/news/factcheck/factcheck-britons-fight-israel
(15) https://www.declassifieduk.org/british-fighters-in-israels-military-is-it-legal/; https://www.thejc.com/news/british-parents-fear-for-their-children-serving-as-idf-soldiers-in-israel-vtj4v4ly
(16) https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12623071/At-100-people-travelled-UK-Israel-join-fight-against-Hamas-serve-IDF-Israeli-embassy-reveals.html; https://www.declassifieduk.org/revealed-over-100-britons-among-israeli-soldiers-and-settlers/; https://www.thejc.com/news/israel/hamas-terror-attack-100-people-travel-to-israel-from-uk-to-serve-in-idf-uc0mao7y