Israeli Army Lifts Ban On Soldiers With HIV
Image by Wikimedia
The Israel Defense Forces will now draft HIV-positive people, changing its policy.
Speaking to reporters Tuesday, Col. Moshe Pinkert, head of the IDF’s Medical Services Department, said that due to advances in treatment that have increased the vitality of people living with HIV, and given the low risk of contagion, such people can now serve in non-combat positions.
The announcement was made on World AIDS Day. Infection with the HIV virus can lead to AIDS.
Combat would be too dangerous for HIV-positive people, Pinkert said, given the risk of heavy bleeding from wounds. The policy change is expected to affect dozens of people.
To be drafted, HIV-positive people will have to receive a declaration of health from a physician.
“This is an important move to accept these people in society, to lessen the social stigma and make them part of Israeli society,” Pinkert said. “With this, we’re making them like all the people Israel.”
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.
If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.
Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
