Brian M Downing
Armies prize discipline and respect for law and procedure. This attracts them to conservatism, at least in most of its manifestations. The American officers corps, according to Military Times polls, is staunchly conservative. Israeli generals, though, have historically supported parties across the political spectrum.
Yigal Allon helped found the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and later served in Labor governments. The same can be said of Yitzhak Rabin and Moshe Dayan, though the latter moved to centrist parties. There are many generals on the right, the late Ariel Sharon foremost among them, though even he moved toward the center.
In the last year several prominent generals have expressed grave concern over the growing power of their country’s ultra-religious/ultra-nationalist Right and the direction it is taking the country. Several are giving their support and prestige to centrist parties to counter the growing power of the Likud.
Yair Golan noted last year, “if there is one thing that is scary in remembering the Holocaust, it is noticing horrific processes which developed in Europe – particularly in Germany – 70, 80, and 90 years ago, and finding remnants of that here among us in the year 2016.” Golan is not an intemperate pamphleteer. He’s an active-duty general who shares his peers’ wariness of the Likud and its popular support.
Ultra-nationalism and ultra-religion
The Right today fuses a potent and reflexive love of country with a zealous religion that glorifies an ancient past. The fusion began with the astonishing victory in 1967 after which nationalist celebration and messianic hopes swirled into an increasingly powerful movement. Israel was no longer simply a refuge for landless people. It was a rising power that had won back land that God had granted the Jewish people thousands of years ago.
For some parts of the Right, the establishment of Israel in 1948 and the miraculous 1967 victory are omens. The end of days is at hand. A great leader will come to vanquish all enemies, end rule by men, and establish justice in the world. And of course people can take part in the unfolding of great events by rebuilding the sacred Temple, where Muslim holy sites now stand.
Secularism formed a basis for the country back in the forties. The principle was not encoded into any constitution or founding document. The generals see Israel moving toward theocracy.
Institutional coherence
The IDF has historically been a secular institution, one that nonetheless saw pious Israelis as loyal countrymen. The latter served in the armed forces or, as with the Haredim, they availed themselves of legal exemption and studied sacred texts.
The army faced internal discipline in the nineties when the prime minister ordered the dismantling of settlements in Gaza. Many soldiers refused to comply with the order and the generals had to find reliable troops for the task. Paradoxically, the prime minster was Ariel Sharon, a former general and conservative politician who’d abandoned the Right to found a centrist party.
In the last two decades, the generals have witnessed an influx of ultra-religious personnel into their institution. The influx is not simply into the rank and file, which is based on universal conscription. The ultra-religious are becoming career officers, often in elite units. It is feared that they are more loyal to religious and political figures than to the senior officer corps.
This could be problematic, if not disastrous, if a center-left party should gain a majority and take an unpopular stand, say, on the West Bank. It was these ultra-religious who branded Yitzhak Rabin a traitor and called for his assassination. Some celebrated when a young settler did just that.
Changing mission
The IDF began in the 1948 War of Independence during which it repelled forces from Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, and Egypt. Since then it has developed from a group of determined amateurs into a professional, highly-effective force that has defeated foreign enemies in three subsequent major wars.
The 1967 victory brought the beginning of a new responsibility – one that many generals then and now are uncomfortable with. When the West Bank came into Israeli hands, it had to be administered, but for how long? General Allon noted that holding on to it would turn the land into a “Bantustan” – the term used by the white South African government for its black homelands.
The implication for Israel was clear and a denouement may be forming in popular calls for pardoning a soldier recently convicted of executing an incapacitated Palestinian. The government is weighing the matter.
Since then the army has administered the West Bank. This has forced it to reorganize several units to repress internal protests, rather than to counter foreign threats. At times this requires mobilizing reserve units to crush uprisings. Other times it has required, on the insistence of ministers aligned with settlers, taking regular troops away from foreign borders to defend West Bank settlements. Some troops are refusing to act as a repressive occupying force. Others relish the role. Both sides present problems for the generals.
The army is required to train and arm settler militias on the West Bank. They are known to mete out rough justice upon Palestinians that often goes unpunished by sympathetic courts. There’s little doubt as to where their loyalties lie in the event of a possible controversial order by a center-left government.
The generals see the Right ascendant in militancy ands numbers. The birth-rate on the Right is much higher than in the center and left. The nation’s laws are subordinated to interpretations of sacred texts. The rights of women are being challenged. Israel’s future is being directed toward an emotionally-charged but dubious view of its past.
Tamir Pardo, former Mossad chief and special forces officer, put it plainly: “Internal division can lead us to civil war – we are already on a path toward that. If a society crosses a certain line in its division and hatred, it is a real possibility to see a phenomenon like a civil war.”
Copyright 2017 Brian M Downing
Brian M Downing is a national security analyst who has written for outlets across the political spectrum. He studied at Georgetown University and the University of Chicago, and did post-graduate work at Harvard’s Center for International Affairs.
Most right-wing parties are notable for their ideological rigidity and political intransigence. This doesn’t mean all their ideas are inherently bad, but that such parties are generally bad at governing in a democratic context and incapable of the necessary flexibility to deal with fluid circumstances. It also means that the party’s guardians of ideological purity, who muscle their way into the party’s leadership, are marked by a lack of empathy and a penchant for demonizing opponents.