Charedi MK Rabbi Yisroel Eichler of the United Torah Judaism party was in town recently.

In an interview with the Jewish Tribune, he set out his view why there was "no place" for a yeshivah student to be in the Israeli army.

Whereas the number of soldiers was important in the past, today technology made it possible for an army to fight with fewer people, he argued.

The army was also designed to be a melting pot to produce a "single homogenous stereotype - the Tzabar (the New Israeli)."

And this what struck me: "With the benefit of hindsight, we can now see the outcome, which is not an encouraging one," he was quoted as saying. "One telling example: the number of Israelis living outside the borders of our Holy Land nearly outnumbers the current population in Israel."

And in case you ask, I have no idea the size of the Israeli ex-pat population. But in the UK, it has consistently been overestimated at tens of thousands - when the number is only around 25,000.