Sunday, April 07, 2019

Inside the Israeli Army Program That Recruits Teens With Autism

 
 
Six years ago, three former Mossad agents launched an experimental Israeli Army program to recruit those on the autism spectrum.
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The Israeli Army's Roim Rachok Program Is Bigger Than the Military
 
It's early June in Israel, as sirens blare and golden explosions burst the black sky. Clashes have been raging since before President Trump moved the U. S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, recognizing it as the country's capital to the outrage of Palestinians, but the relocation sparked the most deadly outbreak in years along the Gaza Strip. Legions of protesters hurl firebombs and rocks at Israeli soldiers over the security fence. Burning kites fly over from Gaza into the brittle, dry fields along Israel's southern border, setting the ground ablaze.

Forty-five miles north, in the heart of Tel Aviv, Israel Defense Forces personnel bustle around the Kirya, the sprawling campus that has served as the IDF's main base and headquarters since shortly after the founding of the country in 1948. On an upper floor of one heavily guarded building, at the end of a narrow hall, a half-dozen young intelligence soldiers in olive-green fatigues stare intently at their dual computer monitors. Aerial-­surveillance photos of the country's borders flicker on their screens. They're doing visual analysis, eyeballing an ever-­shifting cascade of thousands of satellite images, looking for the slightest sign of enemy activity—a small stockpile of explosives behind a hill, perhaps, or a tiny, upturned pile of sand indicating a nascent underground tunnel. Missing one detail could cost lives. Their high-stakes work is crucial for protecting Israeli citizens and soldiers. It's also unforgiving. For nine hours a day, or more during a crisis, they exhibit almost bionic focus, an uncanny ability to stare at a screen and process highly complex data without tiring or daydreaming.

For that reason, as their scruffy, middle-­aged commander Eitan (to protect some IDF identities, aliases are used) tells me, "These are the best soldiers in the unit." They are also the most distinctive—not only in Israel but in the world. They're part of an innovative military program called Roim Rachok, Hebrew for "seeing into the future."

The elite group consists entirely of members of a burgeoning but underserved and overlooked population with powers as special as their needs: teens with autism.

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