2009 Israel Defense Forces T-shirt affair

The IDF T-shirt affair came to light in March 2009, following the 2008-2009 Israel-Gaza conflict, when Haaretz reported Describing this widely spread habit in the IDF, and the fact that the design was given "to the commanders", critics have stated that it is related to a lowering moral standard in the IDF, and depicting a policy of “confirming the kill”, i.e. shooting from close distance to kill a victim.
Sociologist Orna Sasson-Levy from Bar-Ilan University said that the phenomenon is "part of a radicalization process the entire country is undergoing, and the soldiers are at its forefront"
Offensive designs
IDF soldiers sometimes ordered T-shirts with offensive anti-Palestinian images to commemorate the end of their basic training or field duty. Offensive designs have included a child carrying a gun in the crosshairs of a rifle with the message "The smaller, the harder." Other designs are dead babies, mothers weeping on their children's graves, a gun aimed at a child, bombed mosques, the message "better use Durex"" next to a picture of a dead Palestinian baby with his weeping mother and a teddy bear, a pregnant Palestinian woman holding a rifle with a bull's-eye superimposed on her belly, with the slogan, in English, "1 shot, 2 kills,' a Palestinian baby who grows into a combative boy and then an armed adult with the inscription, "No matter how it begins, we'll put an end to it," the slogan "Let every Arab mother know that her son's fate is in my hands!" and a drawing depicting the Angel of Death, next to an anonymous grave and an Arab town.
Another shirt depicted hostility toward the Israel Defence Forces themselves. The shirt, commemorating the end of basic training for a Paratroops company, showed a clenched fist shattering the symbol of the Paratroops Corps.
Manufacturer's response
The manager of Adiv, a T-shirt print shop, says the company prints around 1,000 different patterns each month, with soldiers accounting for about half. "There have been a few times when commanding officers called and said, 'How can you print things like that for soldiers?' For example, with shirts that trashed the Arabs too much. I told them it's a private company, and I'm not interested in the content. I can print whatever I like. We're neutral. There have always been some more extreme and some less so. It's just that now more people are making shirts."<ref name="haaretz-tshirts" />

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