Quote Originally Posted by ClangClang View Post
...snip... I'm not excusing the behavior, just explaining it.

Also, most important... walking around the streets of Jerusalem, you can safely be in condition white and blissfully unaware. There is very little street crime in Israel. There are some rough neighborhoods here and there, but otherwise it's quite safe. The Israeli mentality for carrying is to defend against terrorism, not a simple mugging. Using your issued weapon to defend against a mugging could actually land you in deep shite.

So for all those reasons, many soldiers tend to just sling their guns over their back and forget about it. It's more common in the more "pedestrian" units. As soon as you start moving up to anything approaching SOF (Paratroopers, Seals, lots of other units with Hebrew names) you'll see model weapon control everywhere they go. The girl pictured above is probably a base guard who's never been in actual combat.
Yes, I noticed the same things. It was commonplace for locals to keep doors to homes/ gates to yard unlocked, etc, including cars (even though most cars require that key code before ignition). I enjoyed a lot of long conversations with Israeli's- Jews, Arabs, and Palestinians alike- who were pretty open in discussing what life is really like, for them, there. They all agreed that street crime is extremely low and most attributed it to high numbers of individuals carrying personal protection, even if their intention of carrying is to be ready for a terrorist attack. One really needs to be on a mission to attack someone carrying, and each person who attempted while I was there was immediately stopped, for good.

Overall, the AR carry style was very lax in public, but at the actual border crossings each soldier was at the ready with one hand near trigger and weapon in front of the body- like the picture you posted. One man I was in a room with for about an hour was very disciplined, with rifle across his front and a hand on it at all times, very aware of his surroundings. He had just graduated to Seal within a day or two of when I met him.