Following Orders, But From Who?

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak’s removal last week of the West Bank Yeshiva Har Bracha from the Hesder Yeshiva Movement because of the statements and actions by its dean was meant to send a clear message: insubordination within the IDF will not be tolerated. It is not clear whether Barak’s move will ultimately serve to stamp out – or fan – the recent flames of discord emanating from some religious soldiers and elements within the broader national religious camp.

Defense Minister Ehud Barak’s removal of Har Bracha came after its spiritual leader and dean, Rabbi Eliezer Melamed, refused to meet with Barak to discuss Melamed’s public support for soldiers’ refusal to follow army orders. This abrogation of a Hesder by the Defense Ministry is a first for the decades-old Hesder movement, which enables soldiers to alternate between military service and religious learning. Aside from expulsion, the direct result of this sanction on the yeshiva will be a loss of funding from the Ministries of Defense and Education. Within the defense establishment, it did not come as much of a surprise that Melamed and his Hesder yeshiva was the first to be removed. In an article in the Israeli daily, Ma’ariv, a high ranking officer was quoted as saying:

“Since 2004, we have been hearing the most extreme calls for disobedience by Rabbi Eliezer Melamed, which have no connection to democracy in any way whatsoever. The IDF issued warnings, but nothing helped. A call went out to the Defense Minister at the time, but no firm decision was made on the matter and after five years, it seems that the time has come to make it clear that this is intolerable."

A statement issued by the Defense Ministry on Sunday read: "The actions and statements of Rabbi Melamed undermine the foundations of Israeli democracy, actions which incited some of his students to refuse orders, take part in demonstrations, and harm the spirit of the IDF, [actions] which have no place in a properly functioning country." The statement continued, "One must make an effort to keep the IDF out of a political dispute."

In response, Rabbi Melamed told Yedioth Ahronoth:

“All the charges that the defense minister attributes to the boys of our yeshiva and to me personally are blood libels that perhaps advance him politically, but which destroy the IDF, destroy our national cohesion and crumble the foundations of democracy in the country."

In an article on the pro-settler Arutz Sheva web site, Melamed wrote “that a soldier must disobey orders only when he is ordered to assist in expulsion; however, a soldier is not necessarily obligated to protest at an oath-taking ceremony in the IDF.” Referring explicitly to the swearing-in protest, Melamed said he “would have recommended that the soldiers not hold up protest signs during an oath-taking ceremony at the Western Wall.”

In recent months, disobedience among national-religious soldiers in the IDF has become more pointed and determined. In late October, at an official swearing-in ceremony at the Western Wall for an infantry unit stationed in the West Bank, a few soldiers held up signs pledging to disobey orders to evacuate Jewish settlers from the occupied territories. One month later, four soldiers from the same brigade displayed banners in opposition to the army’s demolition of illegally built structures near a West Bank settlement. While the soldiers in the incidents were sentenced to varying amounts of time in the brig, settler organizations rallied to their defense, awarding prizes and monies to the insubordinates and their families.

In the aftermath of President Obama’s push for a settlement freeze and Prime Minister Netanyahu’s implementation of a ten month partial freeze, there has been much fury within the settler and national religious camps. The settler movement has staged protests and attacked police officers and settlement inspectors. A mosque was torched in the West Bank village of Yasuf, allegedly at the hands of settlers. Within this broader milieu, the Barak-Melamed affair is an integral component. As Ofer Shelach writes in Ma’ariv:

Melamed's provocation could ignite the confrontation that the security establishment fears so badly, and until yesterday, yielded to the rabbis time after time: A direct collision not only with some of the Hesder yeshivas, but with the national-religious camp in its entirety, the same camp from which such a large share of the officers in the infantry brigades comes.

Indeed, while IDF personnel numbers are notoriously hard to verify, there are clear signs that combat units are becoming more dependent on Hesder manpower. Matthew Wagner of the Jerusalem Post notes that religious soldiers’ graduation rates from officer training school range from 30% to 50%. In an August Yedioth Ahronoth article commenting on the induction of 500 Hesder graduates into the army, it noted that more than 80% will go into combat units. The reliance on Hesder graduates in combat units creates a serious predicament for the IDF, and the Hesders know it, which is why some are considering the pursuit of a two year strategy consisting of inactivity. As Israel Radio reports, “they intend to cause a two-year stoppage of Hesder yeshiva activity in order to show the IDF, as they put it, that it has more to lose by removing yeshivas from the Hesder program.” Rising out of this potential is the question of whether former and future Hesder graduates would purposefully weaken the IDF. And, if this transpired wouldn’t the IDF look in a new direction for comparable manpower resources?

As a direct result of Har Bracha’s expulsion, many Hesder deans rallied to Rabbi Melamed’s defense. Rabbi Eliezer Waldman, dean of the Hesder in the Kiryat Arba settlement said “today we are all Har Bracha.” A petition to the army signed by more than 60 former combat officers and soldiers – all Hesder graduates – was delivered earlier this week, stating:

At these yeshivas, we absorbed the spirit of combat, sacrifice and giving. If the decision-makers push Hesder yeshivas out of the Hesder movement, this means that the IDF is rejecting us from our service as combat soldiers, and is forcing us to be ejected from its ranks. If the threat should be carried out, we regret that we will not be able to see ourselves in the ranks of the army that has rejected us.

Earlier today, a group of Hesder yeshiva rabbis expressed its support for Melamed and distaste for Barak. Rabbi Benzion Algazi of the Kerem B'Yavneh yeshiva, said "Now, after the act, Rabbi Melamed represents the whole world of Hesder yeshivas."

However, not all Hesder graduates, rabbis and members of the national-religious camp share Melamed’s radical views. On Wednesday, the chair of the committee of Hesder deans met with Barak and tried to reach a compromise. Coming out of this meeting he expressed frustration and hope. Quoted in Ma’ariv by Ben Caspit, Rabbi Haim Druckman said “The majority of Hesder yeshiva directors oppose disobedience and support service in the IDF.” But, the Rabbi went on to say Barak was playing with fire and empowering Melamed since he is “the only 'real man' to have taught Barak a lesson, and he has simply been made into a celebrated leader.” Other Hesder deans are also pushing Melamed to back down. Additional pressure is coming from a group of Hesder graduates and former combat soldiers who, according to Israel Radio, unambiguously asked Melamed “to adopt the position of the Hesder yeshiva directors who are opposed to political demonstrations and to holding signs in the IDF.” And, Melamed is wavering. In his weekly column in a religious newspaper, Melamed said he is considering signing a statement saying that soldiers who demonstrate in uniform are wrong.

Looking at Melamed’s positioning within the national religious movement, in Yedioth Ahronoth Alex Fishman points out that Barak’s move is likely to weaken Melamed’s yeshiva, and other Hesders are unlikely to cross Barak as a result.

A Hesder yeshiva like the one led by Rabbi Melamed will dry up without the army’s financial support. It’s also possible that the rabbi will now draw delusional characters from isolated communities and from the hills, turning into a yeshiva supported by donations.

Other rabbis who will condemn the Defense Minister’s decision do not want to face such a situation themselves. Hence, we can assume that their protest will not cross the same red lines as Rabbi Melamed did. Meanwhile, the students of Hesder yeshiva rabbis who serve in the army now understand that not everything is permitted, and that they won’t be forgiven for everything.

Increasing politicization of IDF service could have drastic implications. As Yair Sheleg in Haaretz writes:

Even people who believe that removing settlements is totally wrong must take into account that widespread refusal by soldiers to do so would soon lead to a refusal by leftist soldiers to serve in the territories or guard settlements there. Dividing the army into those who obey right-wing orders and those who obey left-wing orders is a sure recipe for disaster for both the army and Israeli society. In terms of Jewish law, preventing such a situation could be defined as saving the life of the nation, and we all know that saving even an individual life permits one to disobey almost all of the Torah's prohibitions.

On Monday, under pressure from some of his coalition partners to support Melamed’s Hesder against Defense Minister Barak, Netanyahu instead issued a strong statement saying “he had no intention of intervening in Barak's decision to remove the Har Bracha Yeshiva from its Hesder arrangement with the Israel Defense Forces.” To a certain extent, Netanyahu has the public backing in this regard. In a Shvakim Panorama poll conducted for Israel Radio's Hakol Diburim program, when asked, do you support the decision to remove the Har Bracha Yeshiva headed by Rabbi Eliezer Melamed from the existing arrangement between the IDF and the Hesder yeshivot, 43.5% responded yes, 31.6% responded no and 24.9% said they don’t know or did not reply.

This Sunday, all of the deans of the Hesder yeshivas are gathering to meet and discuss their coordinated response and future steps. This meeting will be a breaking point, and Ben Caspit in Ma’ariv remarks that “if matters do not change by then, the call to escalate the battle is expected to be renewed.”

Netanyahu has a lot of tough decisions to make—supporting Barak in this case is not one of them. As he remarked in November in the wake of the banner protests: “The IDF was established on the basis of hierarchy in the ranks…If you want to get rid of the IDF, then support refusal - it will bring about the collapse of the state.”

David Halperin contributed to this article.

For more context on the national-religious and the settler movement and their relationship within Israeli society and vis-à-vis the IDF, please listen to the latest IPF conference call which occurred on Thursday, December 16, moderated by Professor Steven L. Spiegel with Dr. Shlomo Fischer of Hebrew University, the Founding Director of Yesodot - The Center for Torah and Democracy.