The Israeli army reports that the number of Bedouins in active service in the IDF is 1,655. While this represents a tiny fraction of the 176,500 troops who make up the entire corpus of the active military, this minority group dominates the small, elite tracker units guarding Israel’s northern and southern borders. In the north they are tasked with preventing infiltration by Hezbollah guerrillas and in the south they protect the border against terrorists from Gaza, smugglers and infiltrators. Bedouins have intimate familiarity with the terrain and their native Arabic language skills certainly come in handy.
