IDF Making a Mess in the Negev

As if there weren’t enough forces out there trying to destroy Israel, you can add another name to the list: the Israeli Army. According to an article in Tuesday’s LA Times, the Israeli Defense Forces are wrecking havoc on the native ecosystem of the country’s Negev Desert, where training exercises are conducted using tanks and other heavy machinery. The Negev, which constitutes about 60% of Israel’s land and has been used as training ground by the military since the Sinai Peninsula was returned to Egypt in 1979, is home to foxes, wolves, sand rats, porcupines and the noble Oryx. The desert is also home to various scavenger birds, who are apparently mistaking shrapnel and other waste from the training soldiers as bone, which the birds use as a source of calcium.