Can you run an army where soldiers can refuse orders?
Jewish Home party leader Naftali Bennett set off a firestorm on Friday, when he suggested that soldiers refuse orders to expel Jews from their homes. That's been a burning issue since the 2005 Gaza expulsion when a very few soldiers refused orders. The reason it's such a burning issue is that with the IDF's officer corps being 40% religious, there are doubts whether, if a Prime Minister ever gave the order to expel Jews from their homes, there would be enough soldiers to carry it out.
“If I am ever given an order to evacuate a Jew
from his home… personally, my conscience won’t allow me to do it; I’ll
ask my commander to grant me an exemption, [but] I won’t call for [mass]
insubordination,” Bennett said during a heated conversation with
Channel 2 interviewer Nissim Mishal (a full video of the Hebrew
interview can be found here).
Further pressed about the values he instilled
in his soldiers as an officer in the IDF’s elite Sayeret Matkal commando
unit, Bennett said: “I taught them that a command that’s topped by a
black flag should not be carried out.” The “black flag” terminology
refers to the IDF ethos that an order that is patently illegal must not
be obeyed.
“To kick people off of this land is a terrible
thing; I’ll do whatever it takes to prevent it from happening again,”
Bennett stressed, alluding to Israel’s unilateral 2005 disengagement
from the Gaza Strip and removal of four settlements in the northern West
Bank, during which thousands of Israeli settlers were evacuated from
their homes.
“I’ve been a soldier for 22 years, I led
soldiers into battle…. Don’t lecture me about what I can and can’t do,”
said Bennett, who still serves as a major in the IDF reserves.
“Conscientious objection is an intrinsic part of being a soldier.”
Still, he continued, the Jewish Home party,
which, he stressed, was full of former officers in elite infantry units,
“will accept the will of the politicians…. We’ll consult with rabbis,
but we’ll make our decisions in the political realm.”
The indignant reactions weren’t long in coming.
Bennett has since walked back his words. But maybe he should not have walked it back so quickly, because as I highlighted above, the IDF does recognize circumstances in which orders should not be obeyed.
Moshe Feiglin has a brief post on his Facebook page (link in Hebrew, translation below) in which he backs Bennett's initial conception.
The idea that a soldier or citizen in any circumstance must heed any law or order is blatantly opposed to the entire concepts of Judaism, freedom and democracy.
Specifically in the Jewish state, and especially on the day of the General Kaddish [the national date of mourning for murdered Jews whose date of death is not known with certainty], it is worthwhile for all of us to remember to what point it is possible to lead people who ignore the commands of their conscience.
I always supported conscientious objectors who were willing to suffer (real) punishment, both from the Left and the Right. They are not causing the army and the state to disintegrate, but just the opposite. They are setting out moral limits for us and are creating a more value-based and stable society.
And believe it or not, former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who expelled all the Jews from Gaza, agreed. Or at least he did in 1995.
Let's go to the videotape.
So what was the big deal about Bennett's comments? Sharon said what he did in 1995 - before the assassination of Prime Minister Rabin. Since Rabin's assassination, we have a paranoia in Israel that every time someone opposes the government over an issue, they are going to foment violence and attempt to murder the Prime Minister or another high-ranking government official. That paranoia is itself a creation of Israel's Left, and particularly the media, which uses it to suppress opposition to heir favored policies.
In a post which is behind the JPost paywall, but which I received by email in full, Evelyn Gordon wonders whether the government controls the IDF anymore.
Ironically, the one officer who evidently did take the Sinai threat seriously was the man the government wanted as chief of staff: Yoav Galant. According to the Haaretz report, the last significant boost in the IDF’s deployment along the southern border occurred four years ago, when Galant, as GOC Southern Command, allocated more resources to this border from within his own command.
There’s obviously no guarantee that Galant would have beefed up the border further had his appointment gone through. Nor would an increased troop presence necessarily have prevented the negative outcome of the Eilat attacks: the loss of both Israeli and Egyptian lives and the consequent diplomatic crisis with Egypt. But war with Egypt would clearly be disastrous, and it ought to be equally clear, as I wrote both in May and last week, that enough such border incidents could eventually spark one. Hence trying to prevent such incidents should be top priority.
And as it turns out, the government actually did try: It decided over a year ago to boost deployment along the southern border, and it chose a new chief of staff who took the Sinai problem seriously.
But a coterie of unelected officials thwarted its efforts. Two successive chiefs of staff reportedly ignored its deployment order, while the state comptroller, attorney general and Supreme Court joined forces to nix its preferred choice to succeed Ashkenazi – and did so, incidentally, over alleged offenses far less serious than rank insubordination. That left the government scrambling for a last-minute replacement whom the legal mandarins would deem acceptable. And on this score, Gantz qualified.
The outcome obviously raises serious questions about Israel’s security. But it raises even more serious questions about Israel’s democracy. No country can call itself a democracy if its military is not subordinate to the elected civilian government. But in Israel, it turns out, the elected government has no control over the army: It can neither force a recalcitrant chief of staff to do its bidding nor replace him with a successor of its own choosing.
So is Israel in fact still a democracy? Or is it governed by an unelected junta of legal and military officials hiding behind the façade of democratic government? It’s hard to say precisely where the tipping point lies, but the trend is clear: For far too long, the unelected officials have been expanding their power at the expense of the elected ones. And unless the elected government starts fighting back, Israel can kiss its democracy good-bye.
Actually, it would probably be fairer to say that the Supreme Court controls the IDF given the court's continuing insistence on interfering with the IDF's operational decisions (like the 'security fence' route).
Golani soldiers wear anti-expulsion t-shirts to graduation
Remember this incident in which soldiers from the Shimshon Brigade unfurled a banner at their graduation saying that they wouldn't expel Jews? It's happened again, this time in the Golani Brigade.
Soldier's from the Golani Bridage's Battalion 13 who completed training Thursday wore t-shirts protesting the use of IDF soldiers in expelling Jews in Judea and Samaria from their homes.
The graduation ceremony, held at the Golani junction, was attended by soldiers and parents from across the political spectrum. The soldier's shirts read: "The Golani fights enemies and doesn't expel Jews."
The Yesha Council, representing Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria, said, "the Defense Minister and senior political officials need to take stock of how they deploy soldiers. Using soldiers to expel Jews from the settlements instead of fighting the real enemy leads people from all corners of the population to declare not to give them these kinds of tasks."
Indeed.
UPDATE 6:22 PM
The IDF soldiers involved in this incident have been sentenced to 10-30 days in the brig.
Yair Ben-David, creator of the t-shirts that have caused an uproar in the IDF, demonstrated on Friday outside the home of Golani commander Col. Ofek Buchris for sending his brother to 30 days in prison.
The incident took place Thursday night at a ceremony for soldiers of Golani's 13th Battalion who had completed their training. The soldiers were pictured wearing t-shirts with the slogan "Golani fights the enemy and does not expel Jews" written on their backs.
Buchris, who was not present at the ceremony, immediately summoned four out of the 10 soldiers who wore the shirts and sentenced them to jail time for "expressing political opinions", something soldiers in uniform are not allowed to do. Ben-David's brother was sentenced to 30 days since Buchris accused him of knowing of the scheme to wear the shirts. The other soldiers were sentenced to 20 and 10 days in jail.
Ben-David tells a different story. He said he brought the shirts to the ceremony after seeing soldiers wear them at a different ceremony. In contrast to original reports, Ben-David claimed Friday that the soldiers did not wear the shirts during the ceremony and only put them on after the ceremony was completed, they had been discharged to their homes and were standing in the parking lot.
"This was not a political protest," Ben-David said Friday. "The soldiers did not show the shirts during the ceremony. They weren't even wearing them then. They only put them on after the ceremony was finished and they were released home for the weekend."
As a former soldier from Golani who had served in the past under Buchris, Ben-David said he was surprised by the harsh punishment.
"I wonder if a soldier who wears a Peace Now shirt under his uniform would be punished this way," he said. "There is also nothing political with what was said on the shirt. I think everyone in Israel will agree with me that Golani's job is to fight our enemies and not fellow Jews."
The IDF is investigating Ben David's version of the story, and says that if it turns out to be true, the sentences may be reduced or canceled.
And no, no one would be punished for wearing a Peace Now shirt. That is precisely the problem.
The people in the picture have nothing to do with the story.
Haggai Segal reports in Makor Rishon (a Hebrew-only paper with no website that is very popular in Judea and Samaria) that three months ago, an IDF Colonel presented troops from the Carmeli brigade with a training psychodrama that was 'resolved' by killing a Jewish 'settler.'
Scenario #2: A group of soldiers sets up a roadblock in the territories an hour before the Sabbath. A tense driver approaches from one of the settlements. The soldiers explain that he can’t pass for the time being because of a suspicious item in the area, He demands that they let him pass anyway because it is almost the Sabbath but the soldiers insist on blocking him. The settler driver then gets out of his car, draws a knife and puts it against the neck of one of the soldiers and threatens to kill him if they don’t let him pass.
With the participation of the reserve soldiers watching the psycho drama performance, the drama is “resolved” by killing the settler with shots to his head.
Settlers among the reservists protested the scenario, noting that such a scenario never transpired but the colonel who wrote the scenario rejected the complaints, saying that he didn’t understand what all the fuss was about.
Segal notes that the same scenario was repeated at the next round of “Dilemma Theater” presentations to reserve solders in the brigade but it was dropped after that.
The IDF Spokesperson defended the scenario to Segal, writing that “scenarios are frequently intentionally exaggerated in order to prepare the commanders so that they can deal with complicated situations”.
When was the last time soldiers had a psychodrama with a confrontation like this with a member of 'Peace Now'?
About to go out of existence, Newsweek suddenly concerned about religious soldiers in IDF
With Newsweek about to merge with the Daily Beast and go out of existence, it has finally awoken to the reality that the demographics of the IDF officer corps are not from groups that are likely to want to surrender land to 'Palestinians' unnecessarily.
But if a peace deal is ever achieved, it would undoubtedly require the evacuation of at least some settlements—a job for the Army. Some defense analysts and former officers worry that the military’s new religiosity could lead to mass insubordination. “If soldiers decide they don’t want to participate, that’s one thing,” says Mikhael Manekin, a reserve lieutenant who co-chairs the left-wing group Breaking the Silence. “If commanders don’t want to participate, that would be much more worrying.” (Manekin says all his commanding officers were settlers during his four years of active duty.)
The threat isn’t as farfetched as it sounds. Ever since the government demolished the West Bank settlement of Homesh in 2005, former residents have kept trying to establish an illegal outpost there, and authorities have kept sending troops to evict them. A year ago, during swearing-in ceremonies for new recruits of the Shimshon Battalion in Jerusalem, several soldiers unfurled a banner proclaiming: SHIMSHON DOES NOT EVACUATE HOMESH. The military court-martialed the perpetrators, sentenced them to the brig, and expelled them from their unit. But in the weeks that followed, similar signs were displayed at two other units’ training bases.
Although the military publishes little information about the backgrounds of its enlistees, a recent issue of the defense journal Maarachot reported that in recent years some 30 percent of graduates from the infantry officers’ course have defined themselves as “Zionist-religious,” up from only 2.5 percent 20 years ago. (About 12 percent of Israelis in general choose that label.) Many of those fledgling lieutenants, along with a number of higher-ranking combat officers, were drawn from Jewish settlements in the West Bank, and some are residents of outposts—smaller, makeshift settlements—established without authorization from the government.
The mere specter of widespread refusal is enough to make the government think twice before ordering evacuations, whether of settlements or of outposts, says sociologist Yagil Levy, who specializes in military trends. (The threat might explain why most outposts remain standing despite Israel’s promise to dismantle dozens of them under a U.S. initiative back in 2003.) Some analysts have suggested that the police should handle future evacuations, rather than the Army.
The rise within the military of the “knitted skullcaps” has been building for years. In the 1990s, after the controversial first Lebanon war, many liberal Israelis stopped encouraging their kids to go beyond the mandatory three years of national service. “We secular people can only blame ourselves for no longer being able to convince our kids to spend as many years in the military as in the past,” says Avshalom Vilan, a former member of Parliament from the left-wing Meretz Party and a kibbutznik.
At about the same time, more religious Israelis were concluding that their community should have played a larger role in building the country’s secular institutions decades earlier. Embracing military service more fervently was a way to make up for lost time. “The religious community has to be involved in all public institutions, not just the Army,” says Rabbi Eli Sadan, 62, at his home in the settlement of Eli, deep in the West Bank. “That’s the revolution we’re creating.” Sadan oversees one of a string of West Bank pre-military academies where rabbis teach Torah and Jewish philosophy for up to two years while preparing students for military service and imbuing them (this is where some secular Israelis get nervous) with a religious sense of mission. Most graduates forgo the option of serving in strictly religious units, mixing instead with the general population.
Name me another country in the world where the army or police was told to expel people from their homes (in which they were not squatters) so that the homes could be given over to people who wanted to kill them. It's insane.
Yes, the country has shifted right. There are two factors behind that. One is that the new immigrants have been mostly from the Right (both the Russians and the Americans among others), while those who leave are mostly the yefei ha'nefesh (a contemptuous way of saying 'beautiful people' in Hebrew) from the Left. Second, the people have seen what we got for Oslo and the 'withdrawals' from southern Lebanon and Gaza. We have decided we don't want anymore of that.
You won't hear most Israelis worrying too much about the army carrying out its orders. It's a concern of the Leftists - just look whom Newsweek interviewed.
The picture at the top is Rabbi Avichai Ronski, who was the IDF chief rabbi until he was forced out in the aftermath of Operation Cast Lead. He had the gall to encourage soldiers to believe they were on a mission from God (which they were).
I am an Orthodox Jew - some would even call me 'ultra-Orthodox.' Born in Boston, I was a corporate and securities attorney in New York City for seven years before making aliya to Israel in 1991 (I don't look it but I really am that old :-). I have been happily married to the same woman for thirty-five years, and we have eight children (bli ayin hara) ranging in age from 13 to 33 years and nine grandchildren. Four of our children are married! Before I started blogging I was a heavy contributor on a number of email lists and ran an email list called the Matzav from 2000-2004. You can contact me at: IsraelMatzav at gmail dot com
