IDF Tick Tock

IDF TiK ToK, originally uploaded to YouTube as Batallion 50 Rock the Hebron Casbah and posted on Facebook under the name Rock the Casbah, is a viral amateur dance video in the flash mob style produced by soldiers in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).
The video was filmed in 2010 by soldiers serving in the IDF's Nahal Brigade. It had been viewed more than a 1.6 million times online just days after being uploaded.
Video
The video opens with six infantry soldiers from the Hod platoon of the Nahal Brigade's 50th Airborne Battalion on foot patrol. They are in a two-by-three formation in Hebron, a tense flash point of sniper, stabbing, and other attacks on Israeli soldiers. The soldiers are walking cautiously down a deserted Jabel Rahma Street, near the Tel Rumeida site, in the Jewish section of Hebron, armed and in full combat gear, including bullet-proof vests. The Muslim call to prayer can be heard coming from the loudspeaker of a mosque (all the sound in the video was edited in after the footage was shot).
Suddenly, the voice of American electropop singer Kesha breaks in. She is singing her hit # 1 pop song Tik Tok: "Tonight I'm gonna fight, Till we see the sunlight, Tick tock on the clock but the party don't stop, no".
With the music, the soldiers abruptly break into choreographed dance moves. The soldiers step in sync and gyrate their hips, somewhat clumsily, with moves more often used to dance to the cult Spanish track "Macarena", as they spin, twirl, dance, hop, flap their arms like chickens, skip, and dance hand-in-hand in pairs. Then, just as suddenly as they started, the soldiers resume their positions and continue patrolling. There, two clothes shop salesgirls who are giving begrudging service suddenly go ballistic when shoppers disrupt their folded clothes, and require the offenders to fold with them in moves synchronized to the Tik Tok tune. A video of British soldiers and officers in Iraq going about their routine to Madness’s Must Be Love is another example. The lighthearted genre includes video of uniformed tank mechanics "busting a move" on a sidewalk, in which three soldiers lip sync to The Tokens' recording of The Lion Sleeps Tonight, and another in which a group of Israeli female soldiers dance to Avril Lavigne singing Girlfriend.
Controversy
The IDF released a statement which read: "This was a joke by the soldiers, and the matter is currently being investigated by the battalion commanders." British news anchors laughed, and the Telegraph newspaper lauded the "baddest dudes and grooviest chicks" of the IDF.
The Hong Kong newspaper The Standard noted that the troop which had turned into a troupe had shown off "daring maneuvers", which "appeared to indicate they had undergone some sort of special training". France 24 opined that the soldiers may have to "face the music". The British newspaper Daily Mail joked that the soldiers' next performance could be Jailhouse Rock.
Haaretz reported that the soldiers involved "could face disciplinary action." Political science professor Gerald M. Steinberg commented: "We're talking about 18- or 19-year-old kids in an unimaginably stressful environment. They are trying to lighten up." Their educational video is to be screened in IDF units.<ref name="ynetnews1"/> The other "dancers" from Battalion 50 were already on vacation leave, as they were due to be released from the military in a few days.<ref name="ynetnews1"/>

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