Reporting from Jerusalem -- The winter assault on the Gaza Strip was officially portrayed in Israel as an attempt to quell rocket fire by militants of Hamas. But some soldiers say they also were lectured about a more ambitious aim: to banish non-Jews from the biblical land of Israel. http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-israel-holywar25-2009mar25,0,4876301.story
The soldiers' testimonies also reportedly told of an unusually high intervention by military and non-military rabbis, who circulated pamphlets describing the war in religious terminology. "All the articles had one clear message," one soldier said. "We are the people of Israel, we arrived in the country almost by miracle, now we need to fight to uproot the gentiles who interfere with re-conquering the Holy Land." http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?threadid=157981&perpage=6&pagenumber=1