Pulling up to the Sapir sports grounds deep in the Arava, Shlomo Artzi blares out from the radio July August Heat: The youths are handsome/ The summer endless. This was a typical tumultuous week in Israel that witnessed the return of a deadly Palestinian suicide bombing, the army's reconquering of West Bank cities and angst- filled protesters filling the streets. It was a week in which the 17th Maccabiah opened to flout the triumph of Jewish athletes and the week the disengagement unofficially began, with the sealing off of the Gaza Strip from Israelis.

It was sports day for the IDF's Caracal battalion, the unit that fields both male and female combatants. They have just wound up their routine task of securing the border with Jordan between the Dead Sea and Eilat and are now preparing for their new mission: spearheading the IDF's evacuation of Jews from the Gaza Strip.

Caracal is not a microcosm of Israeli society. It is more like a living anachronism of pure Zionist ideology in uniform, comprised of the cream of elite youth movements and ideologues, many of whom dedicated their year after high school to helping distressed communities. All female soldiers must sign on for a third year of military service for the privilege of serving in the combat unit. The men are drawn from Nahal garinim or have volunteered. About 70 percent of the battalion is female.