Well said. We do owe them a huge debt of gratitude, not only for
the training, but equipment others won't sell us, and sharing
technology on various armaments/equipment, which continues to this
day. Not sure what they (Israel) really got out of this
relationship aside from revenue from equipment sales.
Based on my readings, several big names in Israeli
military/politics were involved in some way in setting up our
military (especially S'pore's Army), including Gen. Itzak Rabin
(Chief of Staff - not directly involved but issued orders to look
for most suitable armaments and not to force us to purchase only
Israeli-made ones) and Col. Rehavam Ze'evi (wrote up the doctrine
and creation of Mindef and intelligence bodies). Both are now dead,
Rabin assassinated by a rightwing Jew, Ze'evi was Israeli Tourism
Minister, the first Israeli minister to be assiassinated (by the
PFLP, a hardline palestinian militant group).
