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Photo: Ohad Zwigenberg
MK Bezalel Smotrich (Bayit Yehudi)
Photo: Ohad Zwigenberg
Alex Fishman

Closing in the ranks

Analysis: Faced with a constant attack from religious Zionists, the IDF is finally trying to halt them from taking the army over from within; ill it succeed, or will Bezalel Smotrich and his ilk have the last smirk?

This week, a monumental, almost historical event took place: the IDF Chief Military Rabbi Rafi Peretz and the IDF Chief Education Officer Avner Paz-Tzuk put out a joint Tisha B’Av letter. An unbelievable sight, as such unity hasn’t been seen in years. It is doubtful that the soldiers receiving the letter are aware of the enormity of the occasion, or even that they had read it at all. But in regard to those higher up in the IDF, the joint letter holds a great deal of significance, as one small step in a larger effort to halt the ruthless attack the Chardalim (Zionist Haredim) have been waging through the Judea and Samaria Council, as they try to turn the IDF Rabbinate into their stronghold in an effort to influence IDF values.

 

 

It took the army time to wake up and realize that the motive for this attack was not just ideological, but the product of a changing of the guards in the Judea and Samaria Council, as the Bezalel Smotriches replace the Ze’ev “Zambish” Hevers. These changes signal a change in essence and style: for years, the Judea and Samaria Council raked in political and financial achievements by throwing their weight around and paralyzing the political system whenever the idea of evacuating settlements came up. Smotrich’s generation, however, has come to the conclusion that to ward off the threat of eviction, they should intimidate the army. They never miss an opportunity to berate the IDF, aggravate it, and begin disputes between army leaders and the political echelon that interacts with them.

 

Betzalel Smotrich (Photo: Yoav Dadikovich)
Betzalel Smotrich (Photo: Yoav Dadikovich)

 

They go to absurd lengths to achieve their mission. After the IDF Chief-of-Staff Gadi Eisenkott announced his plan to open up the middle officer ranks—namely regiment and brigade commanders—to younger soldiers, Chardalim took to social media to protest the move, saying it was a way for the army to skip over them and look instead to the younger secular soldiers who enlist at 18. They same happened when the IDF issued a ban on its soldiers growing out their beards and for supporting the LGBT community. Their protests intentionally twist these events, in an effort to keep the army in a constant state of self defense. They are acting like a disenfranchised Cossack, who keeps on inflating the myth that the IDF is held together by religious Zionists. We’re the major player here, they are saying, so don’t mess with us. We’re the one who are going to set the tone here.

 

The army, for its part, has had its fair share of mistakes: when an officer at the IDF Officers’ Training base Bahad 1 announced to his cadets that they will be taking on some work in the community, and allowed them to choose from several options that included a gay youth center, the Preparatory Rabbinate immediately received a phone call from one of the cadets and proceeded to cry out in protest. When senior commanders bring in controversial figures to speak in front of their units, their soldiers turn to the media to complain: they made us listen to an Arab, they made us listen to a settler, they sent new female recruits to take part in the traditional Jewish “dough offering” ceremony. These are all local initiatives that were made with the best intentions, much like the case of the officers at the Intelligence Training base Bahad 15, who decided to introduce their soldiers to the children of refugees and did not forsee how in doing so they would be stepping into a political ambush. It’s no coincidence that Deputy Minister of Defense Eli Ben-Dahan, himself a Chardali, was involved in the matter.

 

And so, the army finds itself on the defensive. During a visit of the IDF Chief-of-staff to Bahad 1, he told the instructors there: “I finished my officers’ course without a single lecture on the tears in Israeli society. If you have a free hour, use it to train.” Eisenkott repeated the sentiment in conferences for the army’s top officers, saying: “The current attack on the IDF necessitates that we close in our ranks.” His statement is problematic, as it could be taken to mean that the army should curl up into itself, avoid any social initiatives or voicing one’s own opinion. Which would mean, of course, that the Smotriches had won.

 


פרסום ראשון: 08.20.16, 21:18
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