Israelis May Put Pigs on Guard Duty

The reviled pig - whose name ancient Israelites would not even say, and which is still plucked from the boxes of imported toy farmyards - is set to make a comeback in Israel, guarding Jewish settlers from their Palestinian foes.

The Hebrew Battalion, an organisation that supplies dogs to protect settlers, has won permission from rabbis in a number of Jewish colonies in the West Bank to use hundreds of pigs because they have a better sense of smell.

The rabbis cite a biblical let-out that permits otherwise prohibited actions if they save a life. "Pigs' sense of smell is far more developed than that of dogs," the head of the Hebrew Battalion, Yekutiel Ben-Yaakov, told Ma'ariv newspaper.

But the Israeli army said it would have problems "drafting" an unclean animal.