Sleeping with Boots On and Winning Barefoot

On October 7, in the Gaza Division, they didn’t sleep in their boots. Had they slept in their boots, as is customary in field units along the borders, the division’s forces would have gone on alert at dawn and would have been prepared for battle with the Nukhba terrorists.

In contrast, Israel’s athletes at the Paris Olympics won barefoot: Seven Olympic medals were awarded to Israeli athletes in sailing, judo, rhythmic gymnastics, and the floor exercise. It turns out that total victory in competitive sports is possible—even without shoes. And unlike Israeli athletics, Israel’s national soccer team, which competes in shoes, remains the crown jewel of Israeli sports. Since the World Cup in Mexico in 1970, the team has not succeeded in qualifying for the World Cup or the Euro. This is despite the fact that the budget of the Israel Football Association has surpassed NIS 108 million during the past three years. The budget of the Olympic Committee of Israel during those years reached about NIS 94 million.

Despite similar budgets in recent years, Israeli soccer has repeatedly failed, in contrast to the successes of barefoot athletics.

The victories of the Olympic team stand out against the backdrop of the Israeli defeat on October 7. In war, Israeli victory requires sleeping in boots. In sports, Olympic victories were achieved in events where Israeli athletes competed barefoot.

Sun Tzu, the fifth-century BCE Chinese theorist of war, connected sleeping in shoes with being barefoot. In The Art of War, he emphasized that trickery and deception are planned in secret, and the army is ready for attack and defense 24 hours a day. Sun Tzu’s army slept in leggings—the shoes of his time. In contrast, trickery and the art of deception belong to the realm of being barefoot. Trickery and deception replace the need for large investments in manpower and weapons, enabling military victory with limited resources. Sun Tzu also stated that “tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.”

The planned regime coup and the demonstrations against it were the noise before the October 7 defeat. Instead of sleeping with their shoes on to defend its citizens, the government was preoccupied with a war against the Supreme Court and other state institutions. The government’s disavowal of responsibility for its citizens is now starkly expressed in the heartless treatment of the hostages and their families.

In Israel, the future of sport lies in professionalization in barefoot sports. In contrast, in the army, those engaged in warfare, on the front lines and the home front, must sleep in boots. Sleeping in boots will cause every soldier and commander to internalize the fluidity of the security situation and be ready for war at a moment’s notice.