Posted on: 03/22/2013

Model Bar Refaeli in trouble with Israeli army


The new commercial, launched by the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs, promotes the country"s advanced technology and features an appearance by the Israeli model at the end. IDF spokesman Brigadier General Yoav Mordechai drafted a letter to the Foreign Ministry on Sunday criticizing the decision to cast Refaeli in the ad because she never served in the Israeli army, a duty required by all Israeli women over the age of 18. "I wanted to direct your attention to the negative message this sends to Israeli society by the use of Bar Refaeli, who did not serve in the IDF, as an official representative of Israel in a campaign abroad," Mordechai wrote, according to The Jerusalem Post. "In recent years, the IDF has been trying a variety of methods to improve the value of military service and to combat draft evasion in order to preserve the moral dimension whereby the IDF is the people"s army." This isn"t the first time Refaeli has been targeted by the IDF. She became the subject of criticism in 2007, when she briefly married a family friend to dodge military service (Israeli law exempts married women from serving in the army).