Israel is witnessing increasing polarization between right-wing politicians and military and security leaders, against the backdrop of political competition over the leadership of the state and determining its paths, and the two sides’ differing views on local and global politics.
This polarization contributes to a decline in the Israeli public’s confidence in the military institution (the army), as some opinion polls show, and the ongoing war in Gaza has contributed to increasing the intensity of this polarization and reaching an unprecedented level of public bickering between the two parties.
This appeared in the press conference of Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Galant on May 15, 2024, in which he openly opposed Benjamin Netanyahu’s post-war trends regarding Gaza, saying that he would oppose any Israeli military rule of the Strip, because it would be bloody, costly, and would last for years, which was met with angry responses. From both the Prime Minister and right-wing ministers such as Itamar Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich.
The historical internal rift constitutes an essential part of this crisis, while the Israeli-American disagreement over dealing with the war contributes to encouraging Netanyahu’s opponents to escalate to this level.
Israeli army and politics
In this regard, a research paper by American political science professor Guy Ziff, published in the Spring 2024 issue of the Political Science Quarterly, dealt with the state of civil-military relations in the occupying state, and the roots of intellectual and political disparity dating back to an early period of the state’s emergence.
The research was based on content analysis of a variety of media outlets, such as Israeli newspapers, news agencies, and wired and wireless services, in addition to conducting personal interviews with experts in Israeli democracy, as well as opinion poll data.
The research paper points out the central role of the army in Israeli politics, “and its tight grip on Israel’s strategic thinking and diplomatic activity,” due to its victories in the wars (1948, 1956, 1967), and that civilian oversight of the Israeli army was not strong at all.
Although the Israeli National Security Council was established in 1999 as a coordinating body, similar to its counterpart in the United States, attached to the Prime Minister and the government and charged with issuing assessments and recommendations regarding national security policy, it had little impact, while the army’s Planning Directorate continued to dominate planning. Strategic.
In a slow and opposite course, the setbacks that the army was exposed to, such as the 1973 war, contributed to the shaking of confidence in it and the distortion of its reputation, which continued in subsequent wars in which it was unable to achieve a decisive result, such as the invasion of Lebanon and the occupation of its south, which turned into “Israeli Vietnam” leading to withdrawal. From the year 2000.
It was also unable to achieve a decisive result in the Lebanon War in 2006, its withdrawal from Gaza in 2005, then Hamas’s control of it and firing rockets from it, and the army’s inability to achieve a resolution in the wars of 2008-2009, 2012, 2014, and 2021.
The army’s adoption of the draft peace settlement agreement, leading to the signing of the Oslo Accords, and then the failure of this path also played a role in directing popular and elite blame to it.
Compete for power
In another motive for civil-military polarization, there is a tradition in which army leaders enter politics after their retirement, and compete to reach the prime ministership in the occupying state, in what researcher Guy describes as “senior officers parachuting into politics after retirement.”
In this, we find that 19 of the 23 army chiefs of staff entered politics, and 3 of the 13 prime ministers of the occupying state – Yitzhak Rabin, Ehud Barak, and Ariel Sharon – were retired generals, and Rabin and Barak were army chiefs of staff.
This tradition makes current and retired leaders potential opponents to other non-military politicians, especially populist nationalists, which prompts the exchange of criticism and early mobilization for future political competition, which contributes to delegitimizing army leaders and portraying them as a leftist elite isolated from society and its interests, as the right is accustomed to describing them. .
Political and religious disparity
Indeed, army generals show a tendency to form centrist or center-left parties, according to the researcher, which makes them traditional competitors to the right and the extreme right. Perhaps this is due to the army’s historical tendency toward secularism, and the dominance of a practical, pragmatic approach to its work.
While this was stable in the army, religious people worked to change it following the defeat of 1973, which they saw as resulting from the unwillingness of non-religious officers and soldiers to sacrifice.
To change the composition of the army, the religious path was opened for entry through the “Yeshivot Hesder,” which are theological institutes that combined the study of the Torah in a religious school with military service, and the “Mishinot,” which are pre-military academies that aim to prepare religious conscripts before their service.
Currently, about half of the National Religious men of military age join one of the dozens of “Heseder Yeshivot” or “Mashinot,” while the current Chief of Staff, Herzi Halevy, is the first religious Chief of Staff of the army since its founding.
The rise of Israeli populism
While populist leaders around the world resort to politicizing the army to impose their control over society, the situation in the occupying state is the opposite, as they resort to limiting the influence of the army to be able to impose their political agenda.
Gay outlines the basic features that characterize the populist radical right: a combination of nationalism and xenophobia with the belief that states should be inhabited exclusively by members of the nation, in which foreign elements are seen as a threat to the homogeneous nation, and a belief in a strictly regulated society, where any violation is punished. The rulings of authority are severe.
Thus, Israeli populist nationalism excludes individuals who are not of Jewish ethnicity, such as Palestinians, and grants the Jewish people the exclusive right to the occupying state, including the territories occupied after 1967, while seeking to expand the scope of Jewish law “Halakha”, which would transform The state became a “Jewish theocracy.”
Populism in the Israeli context “views the media, civil society, universities, and especially the judiciary, as institutions controlled by powerful left-wing elite groups that manipulate the rest of society according to their narrow interests.”
Distance between Netanyahu and the army
After Netanyahu’s election as prime minister in May 1996, the generals’ influence on government policy was sharply reduced. He viewed them with suspicion and considered them leftists pushing Israel to make sweeping concessions as part of the peace process, which he did not embrace throughout his term as prime minister.
Also, Netanyahu often marginalized the security establishment in the decision-making process, preferring instead to rely on those loyal to his party.
Gay dates the start of the most severe wave of this polarization with the humiliating loss suffered by Netanyahu in the 1999 elections, influenced by the harsh criticism from the Center Party, which was co-led by former Israeli army chief of staff Amnon Lipkin-Shahak, in addition to the attacks launched by the leader of the Labor Party, Ehud. Barak, himself a former head of the Israeli army.
The conclusion that Netanyahu reached, after his turbulent first term and his re-election defeat, was clear and unequivocal: “The generals represent the greatest obstacle to his political career.” This strengthened his conviction of the necessity of curtailing the political role of the army, and even all non-elected institutions, such as the judiciary and the media, a path that has been contributing to shaping Israeli internal policy for at least two decades.
In this context, Netanyahu coordinated the submission of a draft of the so-called “Halutz” law, which was named after the then Israeli army chief of staff, Dan Halutz, as it was expected that he would run for prime minister upon retirement in 2007, as the law increased the interval between the retirement of senior citizens. Defense officials and their entry into politics become 3 years instead of 6 months.
Supporters of the law claimed that a longer lag period was needed to prevent a conflict of interest between an individual’s military activity and his or her political activity.
On the surface, this could be seen as a measure that depoliticizes the military, and even promotes democracy by strengthening civilian control over the military, but the real goal was to discourage the tendency of retired generals to run for office, and if they did, they would have lost their luster, due to… Having been outside the military for 3 years.
The Netanyahu era has also witnessed an exclusionary form of populism, with an “us” versus “them” approach, which distinguishes the average Israeli from the “Arab, elite, and left” groups that are seen as threatening the common “us.” Netanyahu resorted to a strategy of manipulating people’s fears, anxieties, and prejudices for political purposes.
During the years of President Donald Trump and beyond, Netanyahu’s war with the media adopted the rhetoric used by his friend in the White House. For example, he adopted terms like “fake news” and “witch hunt” to describe the media’s hostility toward him and his family.
Social media has also emerged as the primary battleground in Netanyahu’s war against his critics, and here, too, he has adopted Trump’s tactics. Netanyahu’s eldest son, Yair, has been a key unofficial advisor to his father and particularly influential in his father’s online strategy.
Resisting the army and bleeding its legitimacy
In 2019, an unprecedented political development occurred when 3 former Israeli army leaders (Gantz, Ya’alon and Gabi Ashkenazi) joined one political party in 3 attempts to oust Netanyahu.
After an inconclusive fourth election, held on March 23, 2021, the “Change Government,” which included Benny Gantz as Defense Minister, replaced the government of Netanyahu, who became head of the opposition before returning to the premiership after the November 2022 elections.
During this short period, a total of 5 former heads of the Israeli army (Gantz, Ashkenazi, Ya’alon, and Barak) in the September 2019 elections, and Gadi Eisenkot in the November 2022 elections – entered the political arena with the aim of sending Netanyahu into retirement.
This long political confrontation, with its continuous attacks by nationalist populist politicians, contributed to the accelerated erosion of public confidence in state institutions, including the Israeli army.
The Israel Democracy Institute found that over a decade, trust in all eight state institutions it surveys annually among the Israeli public (the army, the presidency, the Supreme Court, the police, the government, the media, the Knesset, the government and political parties) has declined. It decreased from 61% in 2012 to 33% in 2022.
An institute poll in October 2021 showed that about 78% of the public trusts the Israeli army, the lowest number since 2008. Although the army remains the most trusted state institution, ongoing populist attacks on all state institutions threaten to further erode His position in Israeli society.
The attack of October 7, 2023, and the army’s failure to predict it and confront it as an unprecedented blow, exacerbated the crisis of the Israeli public’s confidence in its army, and this matter was reinforced by the level of criticism and accusations directed at its leaders by right-wing ministers in Netanyahu’s government.
This unprecedented level of polarization indicates a strategic and tactical difference regarding the war in the Gaza Strip, in terms of deciding the direction on the day after the war. What fuels this polarization is the American position critical of Netanyahu and his government’s failure to present a vision for resolving the war that is appropriate for American policy in the region.
In addition, there are opinion polls that give former generals like Gantz, Gadi Eisenkot, and Gallant hope for a better political future if Netanyahu is ousted and early elections are held, which the latter is resisting in various ways, including prolonging the war and preparing to expand it regionally.
