Stands for the
Israel(i) Defence Force.
Was established at 1948, by the 3 larger underground organizations "ha'hagana", "ha'etzel" and "ha'lehi" ("ha" means "THE" in hebrew).
Although all three organizations resisted the on-coming combination, the all out assult made by all arabic countries around
israel - egypt, syria, jordan, even few armies from iraq and saudi arbic, forced all leaders to put thier difference of
opinion aside and join forces.
Through out
history the IDF never lost a
war, including war in terror, as the IDF is the only
army that actually WON terror.
The military power itself divided, unlike the US
army, to many sub-categories, not just by air, ground and sea. for example, the big infantry brigades - "Golani", "Givaty", "Nahal" and "Tzanhanim" (paradroopers) make the "infantry"
army, but the armoured devisions are a whole different
army, agian, unlike the US military, which includes the armoured devisions and the infantry as
one "ground
army", with
one central command.
Although VERY small in size and young in age, the IDF known to be one of the
best armed forces in the world, which comes to fruition by training forigin armed forces, for example - the israeli sea commando "Shayetet 13" (AKA S13) helps (yeah, they actually do that) navy SEALs when it comes to off shore raids and attacks. S13 also known to train navy SEALs as long as about 1/3 of SEALs' course.
Another known yet seceret counter terror unit is "sayeret MATCAL" (stands for "General Staff rangers"). this unit made some of the most daring, most astonishing raids in
history, operation "spring youth". during this operation more then 70 terrorists were killed in lebannon, after a combained operation of "sayeret MATKAL" and "the MOSAD" (israeli CIA), while no israeli operator was harmed.
A common proverb, simple but powerful, was "made" to describe this
army, who built itself from nothing, after the terrible disaster of the holocaust, when 6 MILLION jews were killed by the nazis. "behurenu ha'metzu'yanim" - our great guys!