Ohad Benizri and his mother, holding a sign requesting ‘likes’ to enable him to persuade her to allow him to join a combat unit. Photo: Facebook.

An Israeli teenager made a bet with his mother to persuade her to allow him to join an IDF combat unit, Israeli Channel 2‘s PZM Magazine reported on Tuesday.

Ohad Benizri, whose step-brother was killed during the Second Intifada, and therefore would need parental permission to be recruited to a combat unit in his upcoming IDF service, knew that his distraught and worried mother would never agree to sign off on his desire to do so.

So Benizri, nearly 18, came up with an original idea: He uploaded a photo of the two of them to a Facebook page called “IDF Tweets,” with a sign reading, “My beloved mother said that if I can get more than 5,000 ‘likes,’ she will sign off on my becoming a combat soldier.”

Within a day, his post received more than 10,000 likes and counting.

His mother said, “I was in shock that thousands of visitors gave him a ‘like,’ that they took his side and not mine.” Agreeing to permit him to join a combat unit, she added, “This is the son I raised for years, virtually by myself. I’m still worried, but what can I do? He was raised to love Israel, and this took root in him.”