With the renewed military confrontations between the Palestinian resistance and the Israeli occupation army, a war of stories that are no less ferocious about aircraft and missile wars is taking place in the background.
While the Palestinians are fighting the battle in the name of defending their land and sanctities in the face of a brutal occupation force that knows nothing but the logic of force, the occupation is fighting the war under the slogan of confronting the alleged Palestinian terror, but behind the scenes, a common narrative is circulating among the ranks of the occupation army about the holy war for Israel on the land it contains. The Lord to His Chosen People.
General Ophir Winter was the undisputed man of the Shin Bet inside the Israeli interior during the last weeks prior to the Israeli war on the Gaza Strip in 2014, and Winter was considered one of the most prominent field commanders in the occupation army, and he was in charge of the "Givati" Brigade, one of the four main brigades of the army, which was running a theater Operations in the southern Gaza Strip during the war, and Winter succeeded at that time in stirring up an argument that was less related to the war itself and more related to the endless identity struggles inside Israel, when an official decree (1) was revealed that Winter passed to his subordinates at a time when the Israeli army was continuing His readiness for war. The pamphlet addressed to the brigade’s officers and soldiers included an unusual religious tone in such official military decrees, where Winter wrote to his soldiers telling them that “history has chosen us to lead the fight against the terrorist Gazan enemy who insults, disbelieves and curses the god of the Israeli forces.”The Shima prayer, "a Jewish prayer in which the worshiper swears an oath of allegiance to the one God," the God of Israel. "
Winter's publication sparked huge storms of protest among the secularists inside Israel, expressing their "fears" about an increasingly religious tone among the army forces, and warning against transforming the occupation army from "an army of the people into a religious militia." Despite the existence of near-consensus within Israel about the Jewish identity of the state, there is a raging historical disagreement over what precisely this "Jewish component" of the Israeli identity means, and whether it means Judaism as a "cultural and national common" or does it mean "the theological teachings of the Jewish religion." While the early founders of the Hebrew state and the occupation army see "Zionism" as a more secular national framework, the religious Zionists who are expanding in Israel today see the matter differently.
Therefore, despite the existence of an implicit agreement between David Ben-Gurion and his colleagues regarding the secularization of the Zionist framework, they avoided addressing this thorny issue in the "declaration of the establishment of the state," and perhaps this identity controversy is the reason that the occupation state remains without a constitution until now despite the passage of nearly seven decades since Tion de facto.
The founding declaration of the occupying state did not mention "the Lord" except once as "the baptism of Israel", and Israel was not described in the declaration of the state (2) as "God's inheritance of the Israelites" as viewed by religious Jews. Instead, the declaration described the land as "the cradle of the Jewish people." In essence, a formula seemed closer to the secularism of the American Thomas Jefferson Declaration.
With the steady increase in the efforts of religious evangelization for the religious, and the remarkable increase in their fertility rates compared to the average, it is likely that this percentage is increasing today in a worrying way in society.
For many decades, secular Zionist nationalists dominated the government and the army, and religious debate over identity remained for many years confined to the ranks of no more than 10-12% of religious "Haredi" Jews who were granted almost absolute exemptions from military participation under an agreement with political parties. While they were noticeably marginalized politically. However, this demographic map of religiosity in the Jewish state started to change very quickly during the last two decades, after the emergence of a new class of religious people more involved in social and political affairs. A 2009 poll showed that only 42% of Israeli Jews today describe themselves as "secular", while at least 20% see themselves as "Haredim" or more religious "Orthodox".
With the steady increase in the efforts of religious evangelization for the religious, and the noticeable rise in their fertility rates compared to the average, it is likely that this percentage is increasing today alarmingly in society, and more dramatically within the Israeli army, which gradually and rapidly transforms from a historical stronghold of secular Zionism to a "strength of God." It is effectively dominated by (3) clerics and their followers from religious Zionists.
Although the early Zionists were clearly keen - for purely strategic reasons - to keep the army a secular institution in its basic values, they did not deny the importance of religion at any time as a militant component of society or even the army (4). Chaim Weizmann, who led the Zionist movement in the period between 1921-1946, argued that the religious motivation "has a unique capacity that cannot be dispensed with in awakening the energies of the Jewish people." Theodor Herzl considered religion as a tool for uniting the ranks of the Jews around his idea, and he also saw the rabbis As "liaison officers" between his movement on the one hand and the Jewish communities around the world on the other hand.
As a result, the clerics ’relationship with the Israeli army actually began from the very first moment of the establishment of the occupation state in 1948, when a unit called the" Military Rabbinate "was established with the aim of caring for religious soldiers, observing the preservation of religious teachings and reminding of Jewish teachings and holidays, which caused an early clash between Religious and secular people within the army, as secularists considered it a means of religious people to gain ideological influence over the soldiers.
But the October War of 1973, and most clearly the First Lebanon War of 1982, constituted significant points that pushed towards reorganizing the social formation of the Israeli army in a way that allowed the expansion of religious influence. This period witnessed a gradual decline in motivations to join the army, especially among secular middle-class groups that formed the historical backbone of the Israeli forces, a famous crisis in Israeli military history known as the "crisis of motivation."
We can categorize this shift within the framework of a broader cultural change (5) whose main core was the retreat of the centralization of the Israeli army in a liberalized society directed towards the market, in addition to a state of restlessness from conflicts and wars that have become seen as "without justification", especially after the signing of peace agreements. With Egypt, and later with the Palestinian Authority in Oslo, and with Jordan in the early 1990s.
As a result, since the 1970s, the middle class has tended to create peace organizations such as Peace Now and Four Mothers, whose legitimacy is based on the contribution of former military activists.
The Israeli army was obliged to reduce its grip on the religious in order to fill a vacuum that is likely to widen in the recruitment system as a result of the reluctance of the middle class to join it, and the beginning came by allowing the establishment of preliminary military religious schools.
After years of alienation and marginalization, this military vacuum represented an opportunity for religious people to return to the army on their own terms, and at the invitation of the military leaders who had always marginalized them, when the leaders of the army branches themselves called on the rabbis to attract religious people to the army, who in turn seized the opportunity to join the military ranks from In order to enhance their social position on the one hand, and in line with their beliefs in "renewing Jewish control" over what they consider to be the "Holy Land" on the other hand.
The matter soon turned into a systematic policy after Rabbi “Ibrahim Shabir” (6), one of the most prominent leaders of this movement, issued a fatwa stating that “conscription into religious units is close to God, and that military service and fighting spirit is a collective task imposed by the Lord with the aim of leading the Jewish project.” . This trend coincided with the settlement project imbued with religious spirit that flourished at that time, which created the conditions for transforming religious Zionism from a marginal current into a central political and cultural current in both society and the army.
At that time, the Israeli army was obliged to reduce its grip on the religious in order to fill a vacuum that is likely to widen in the recruitment system as a result of the reluctance of the middle class to join it and the growing phenomenon of evading military service (7). The beginning came by permitting the establishment of the "Hasdir Yeshivot" or "settlement schools", which are bodies established with the aim of supervising religious soldiers, where their enrollees are conscripted for a period of 18 months, in contrast to the traditional three-year period of conscription in the occupation army for males, In addition to 45 days of reserve service annually, during which military and religious studies are exchanged.
The number of these schools in Israel today stands at 42, and another, more important move followed that step, which is legalizing the establishment of religious academies for military training, so that they provide a lower dose of religious curricula to accommodate the less religious segments, and focus on religious motivation. Today there are 13 schools, most of which are located in West Bank settlements.
These facilities increased the percentage of religious people among the ranks of senior officers, and increased their presence in the field units, and the largest percentage of these officers came from emerging in settlements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, which created a link between settlers and the army in one way, and gave the rabbis greater influence within the military establishment. And increased bargaining capabilities on the other hand. These developments eventually prompted the Israeli army to put in place new regulatory frameworks to avoid the wrath of the rabbis, which included guidelines that regulate the common life of women and religious soldiers by restricting mixing, separating residences, bathrooms and swimming areas designated for male and female recruits, and a pledge to revive Jewish traditions and rituals. Religious soldiers who had graduated from the biblical academies before the military were also given the right to be absent from recreational activities that were inconsistent with their religious commitment.
Today, the graduates of these academies penetrate into all units of the army, but it was different about three decades ago, when there were only 12 Jewish families living in the home of "Hill of Wind" in the settlement of Eli in the West Bank, before Rabbi Yigal Levenstein decided, at the invitation of Amram Mitznehen, Major General of the Central Command, and Yossi bin Hanan, commander of the Tank Corps, transformed the house into the first biblical academy for military training with the help of his student Rabbi Eli Sadan.
The Benny David Academy “Sons of David” became the first model for the 13 biblical academies that were later established to prepare young people to join the army.
While the rabbis used to complain in the seventies of the marginalization of religious people and preventing them from joining the officer corps, 25% of these academies' graduates today enlist in the officer corps, a record rate that rises to a staggering 40% in the case of Beni David academy in particular.
What happened then was more like an implicit deal at which the interests of the Israeli army converged with the religious Zionist agenda.
But the generals began to worry about the religious influence in the army - for absolutely real reasons - in 2005 with the implementation of the withdrawal plan from the Gaza Strip, as the plan included the evacuation of more than eight thousand settlers.
Although the army ultimately succeeded in implementing the evacuation plan, it was obliged (9) to apply unconventional measures that included removing the most religious units from the tasks of evacuating settlers due to the influence of the fatwas of the rabbis that criminalized participation in the operation. Despite this, 23 cases of disobedience to the orders related to the dismantling process were documented. Settlements during this period.
An Israeli rabbi in the army (Reuters)
In the wake of the withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and the concentration of the conflict in the West Bank, the agenda to increase the presence of religious soldiers in combat units has become more and more clear. With the Israeli army needing more manpower to carry out policing tasks in the occupied West Bank, the occupation army has allowed settlers to take up arms since the eighties, and settlement militias have been incorporated into the regional defense units of the army. Settlements are the traditional strongholds of religious Zionists, so it was not surprising that these militias quickly turned into organized gangs to target Palestinians (10), militias that killed at least 124 Palestinians, including at least 23 minors, between 1987-2001.
Also coinciding with the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, the occupation army decided in 2005 to establish the "Kafir" brigade to assemble six infantry battalions in charge of police activities in the West Bank. Ironically, at least half of the members of this brigade were graduates of rabbinical schools, and it also contained a large proportion. A large number of settlers, which led to the blurring of the spaces between settlers and army soldiers and officers.
This overlap raised concerns among the Israeli leaderships of a dual hierarchy resulting from the duplication of loyalty of religious soldiers and officers between their military leaders and their spiritual leaders. The Sasson Report 2005, an investigation requested by the Israeli government into the state of the growth of unauthorized outposts, came out with results that reinforced these concerns. The report concluded that many army commanders view settlers' actions - including the construction of outposts - "legitimate Zionist actions, even if they are illegal," which has led to the involvement of government authorities in establishing and protecting unauthorized outposts. The report also indicated the presence of a large number. Members of the occupation army reside in informal settlements.
Later, 2009 witnessed a more controversial incident (11), however, it did not receive its right to shed light. During a ceremony held for the "Samson" Brigade, two soldiers who had just completed their basic training were observed holding up signs that read, "Samson will not dismantle Homesh," and "Homesh" is a settlement in the northern West Bank that was dismantled as part of the disengagement plan in 2005, but the settlers tried to resettle The same, and the "Samson" battalion was summoned to prevent them. This was the first time in the entity’s history that soldiers carried special protest banners during an official ceremony or inside a military compound, which prompted the occupation army to form a special unit aimed at deterring soldiers from disobeying orders.
However, the concern raised by religious Zionists in Israel is not only related to fears that they will disobey orders if they are assigned the roles of dismantling some settlements, but it extends to debates about sensitive files within the army and society in Israel, especially about the role that women are supposed to play in the Israeli military. .
Religious people not only view the incursion of women into the occupation army as something that threatens the Jewish identity, but some view it as a "conspiracy of liberal and leftist elements" to weaken society and the army
In a press conference on August 10, 2014, General Winter, the commander of the "Govati" Brigade himself previously referred to, was the hero of a new controversial incident, after newspapers reported that he was lobbying to replace singer Sarit Haddad in favor of singer Moshe Peretz in A ceremonial performance with the participation of the brigade’s forces, given his refusal to have a woman present one of the parades before a parade of his forces. The army spokesman was forced to justify the incident that Peretz was ultimately chosen as the most popular singer among the ranks of the army, and that the incident was not considered a form of discrimination against women in the ranks of the army, as the newspapers at the time claimed, but his justification certainly did not meet with much acceptance. .
In February 2017, to complement the projects to empower women in the military, it was announced for the first time that a pilot program to train women’s tank teams would be launched. But with the presence of the religious, these plans do not go quietly and smoothly (13), so the decision collided with a violent speech by Rabbi Yigal Levinstein, head of the Ely settlement academy, calling on young women of the religious Zionist sector to refuse conscription into the army at all, claiming that Jewish women join the army The Israelis bring out "non-Jews."
Levinstein's hostile speech was not the first debate of its kind that clerics have fought over female soldiers. In 2011, at a time when women continued their path of military ascendancy, Chief Rabbi Avraham Shapira asserted that "we should not succumb to the situation that drives one-third of women from religious schools to enlist in the army" and that girls in Israel should be taught "to withstand temptation , Preserving purity, and avoiding the guilt of being alone with men and engaging in forbidden sexual relations.
Religious people not only view the incursion of women into the occupation army as something that threatens the Jewish identity, but some view it as a "conspiracy of liberal and leftist elements" to weaken society and the army. However, the same reasons that the army cannot dispense with religious service or restrict them are the same that push the army to expand its recruitment of women (14) as a fateful issue. Therefore, army leaders often tend to deal with these arguments using the policy of searching for compromises, in order to break the dilemma of choosing between the religious or the women, which the more strict religious circles try to impose on them by responding to the demands of the rabbis at times, and by reducing their influence at other times (15) . But it is far from certain that the military will be able to sustain this difficult balancing act forever.
With the increase in the area of controversy between rabbis and generals, everyone in Israel is realizing that their army today is undergoing a dramatic transformation driven by the increasing presence of religious Zionists who believe that they are right to demand a foothold and a greater voice in the decision-making process, and even in the formulation of the army's own values, at a time of transformation. In it, all of Israel is on the right to become more religious and more conservative since Netanyahu assumed the premiership for the second time in 2009, as part of a systematic plan led by Benjamin to replace the ruling elite in Israel with a "more religious" elite to consolidate his position in power and secure his policies that reject rapprochement with the Palestinians.
There was a feeling that the secular settlement movement was becoming increasingly indolent about its commitment to military responsibilities, and that it was time to replace them, in veneration of the prophecy of Rabbi Ibrahim Isaac Kook.
Winter, the religious Zionist leader, has no problem in declaring his belief that he is fighting an "enemy standing in the face of God," and it is clear that this was not a slip of the tongue, as some army circles played down, as Winter defended his statement in a subsequent interview with Magazine. Myshpacha or the Orthodox family. In that interview, Winter confirmed that he sees war as first - and foremost - a religious issue. Indeed, he decided - all of a sudden - to wear the clothing of the theologian, speaking of a "miracle" that occurred to his army during the fighting near Khuza'a, a village in the Gaza Strip, where he claimed that The "clouds of victory" appeared when a heavy cloud of his forces hid the wounded from the enemy, and Winter sees this as one of the cases of "divine intervention" to grant his soldiers victory in battle.
We can then summarize the issue at hand today in that a current that fights under the "name of the Israeli God" is ascending today at an amazing speed to the ranks of decision-making in the Hebrew army. These people do not see their wars as a mere defense of their alleged homeland, but rather they consider it a kind of divine commandment. While many of them do not deny that secular Zionism played an important role in building their country, they believe that the secular drive is no longer sufficient with the passage of time.
In other words, the transformation can be described - to simplify - as a kind of post-Zionist approach, consistent with the "post-" revolution in describing political phenomena. There was a feeling that the secular settlement movement was becoming increasingly lax about its commitment to military responsibilities, and that it was time to replace them, in an expression of the prophecy of Rabbi Ibrahim Isaac Kook (17) who spoke decades ago that the spark of secular Zionism would not last for long, or more correctly, Zionist nationalism would not be It can stand the test of time if not led by religious Jews.
On the other side of the conflict, the most worrying danger of the penetration of the religious stream into the occupation army is not related only to the issue of settlements and their repercussions as much as it relates to the military nature of the Israeli entity, where former generals infiltrate the parties and tighten their control over the reins of politics (18), which means that Today, the path of "soldiers of the Lord" has become paved for the formation of the face of their country exactly as they wanted it, not only as a national home for the Jews, but as a divine legacy within which the Lord guaranteed his chosen people.
—————————————————————————-
Sources
An Israeli army commander asks for God's help to fight the 'infidels' invaders
Israeli Military Wages an Internal Battle Over Faith
A Religious War in Israel's Army
The struggle of the religious and the secular in the Israeli military establishment
The Israeli Military: Imprisoned by the Religious Community
Fatwas of the Rabbis An objective view of the roots of extremism in Israeli society ... a book by researcher Mansour Abdel-Wahhab
Yedioth Aharonot
In Israel's army, more officers are now religious.
What that means.
Dilemmas of Military Service in Israel: The Religious Dimension
Army Publication: Settlers Heavily Overrepresented Among IDF Commanders
Shimshon troops back 'Homesh protest' in letter
No Touching
How religious female soldiers are transforming the IDF
The Religion of the IDF
Previous source.
Netanyahu vs.
the Generals
Abraham Isaac Cook
Saleh al-Naami, in the grip of the rabbis .. a book