Soldiers in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) are joining a new trend as they wait to join the fight against Hamas: mustaches.
Many soldiers are posing for photos in their new facial hair; others are posting videos to social media that show an entire platoon wearing mustaches.
Some, especially religious men, already have beards, which are allowed in the IDF; women, obviously, go without. But the trend is notable — and it has allowed Israelis to find some humor in otherwise deeply serious circumstances.
The trend is based on the Brad Pitt character in the Quentin Tarantino film Inglourious Basterds, which is a 2009 movie about a fictional Jewish-American unit in the U.S. Army in World War II that takes revenge against Nazis and assassinates Adolf Hitler.
62nd Cannes Internationnal Film Festival. Press conference of the US movie ‘Inglourious Basterds’
Brad Pitt. (Photo by Eric CATARINA/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images)
It helps that Tarantino lives in Israel and has been supportive of the IDF as it responds to the brutal Hamas terror attack of October 7.
There is another historical resonance: the mustache hearkens to the Yom Kippur War in 1973, when Egypt and Syria launched a surprise attack on Israel on the holiest day in the Jewish calendar.
That year, Yom Kippur fell on October 6, meaning that Hamas attacked almost exactly 50 years later. In that war, Israel suffered heavy losses for the first few days, but ultimately won.
The IDF soldiers clearly hope to repeat that pattern, turning the initial shock of 1,200 murders into a comprehensive win over Hamas.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the new biography, Rhoda: ‘Comrade Kadalie, You Are Out of Order’. He is also the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
Editor’s Note: This story was updated to reflect a revised number on the death toll from the October 7 Hamas attack in Israel. The Israeli government estimate of 1,400 was revised to around 1,200, according to Reuters.