Rabbis back Israeli 'guard pigs'

[emad]

From BBC News:

An organisation in Israel has gained rabbinical approval to train pigs to guard Jewish settlements in the West Bank. Until now, Jewish settlements have been guarded by men with guns and also by guard dogs. But a new idea - guard pigs - has been thought up by an organisation called The Hebrew Battalion.

The man in charge, Kuti Ben-Yaakov, insists it is a serious proposal. He says pigs have a highly developed sense of smell, and that with proper training they will be able to sniff out gunmen hiding near settlements. But getting his plan off the ground is not straightforward.

Under Jewish law, the pig is seen as an unclean animal, so Mr Ben-Yaakov has had to seek special approval from rabbis in order to begin training his hoped-for legion of guard pigs. To some here the idea is more crazy than controversial. "Spare us from this nonsense," one settler spokesman told the BBC. "It will never happen."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/3221079.stm

So is it Kosher? In UK slang, pigs mean cops. Maybe it's a rascist story because Ramadan has just begun....

[Cat Atomic]

1. Pigs really do have an incredible sense of smell, and they're smart.

On top of that, their squealing puts a dog's barking to shame. It demands attention.

On the other hand, pigs are delicious, and they don't have the offensive abilities of a dog. :)

[emad]

3. Some downside aspects of the porky argument::

While they're highly intelligent, they are immensely greedy and easily distracted by any kind of food smell. Unless they're being trained to attack terrorists with a view to eating them, can see some flaws in their deterrence value to the security situation.

Then there's the religious aspect thinggie: pigs are supposedly objects of disgust to jews and muslims alike and their presence in security hotspots would give a new meaning to the term offensive.

But they would certainly give poor old German Shepherds and Rottweilers a break from years of bad press dating back to WW2...

[TahitiNut]

2. duplicate

See http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=187056

I'm locking this thread. Interested DUers are welcome to continue discussing this in the referenced thread.

Thank you for your understanding and cooperation,
TahitiNut - DU moderator