If ever there has been a national institution that is revered in Israel and has the power to unite the country, at least its Jewish population, it is the Israeli army.

Nevertheless, no one and nothing is sacred in the eyes of the corruption case defendant, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and his allies in their desperation to cling to power — and perhaps, for some of them, to ensure they avoid a jail sentence.

Not even the Israeli army can avoid the damage and destruction that government officials are inflicting on their own people, because to them, and particularly to Netanyahu, the end justifies the means, and this includes sowing the seeds of division among security forces in the middle of a war.

This is particularly disturbing in a country whose army comprises mostly conscripts and reservists who face unprecedented challenges and should therefore be prevented from becoming embroiled in divisive political squabbles.

Since Israel gained independence, the Israeli army has essentially been regarded not only as a defense force but also a great social equalizer, a melting pot of Israeli society where people of differing backgrounds and gender were united in the objective of defending their country. 

The practice of this has not always matched the theory but, despite the cracks that have shown through the years, the ethos has prevailed.

It is now under a severe threat, which manifests in at least two phenomena. The first is a moral deterioration, much of which is the result of nearly 57 years of occupation that increasingly has turned the Israeli army into a tool for oppressing the Palestinian people, and eroded the moral fabric of the military, from the rank and file all the way up to its commanders. 

It has also caused deep divisions between those who support the occupation and its repressive measures, and those who oppose it yet will not refuse to be part of it.

This moral erosion, accompanied by the deterioration of operational discipline, is even more evident in the way in which the war against Hamas is being conducted, and the behavior of some Israeli troops in Gaza since the conflict began.

The second development, which started before the Oct. 7 attacks and is once again gathering momentum, is the protest movement. It includes letters signed by thousands of retired, reservist, and volunteer soldiers and officers, including those in the highest ranks, who oppose the government’s policies but still stop just short of announcing they will refuse to serve.

An army whose soldiers no longer believe in its mission or trust the intentions of their politicians is in real danger of decline.
Certainly, an army with a backbone of conscripts, but particularly reservists, brings with it certain advantages in terms of motivation and a sharing of the burden of serving in defense of one’s country.

However, those who serve in this way bring with them widely differing opinions and attitudes, and even moral values, and at a time of deep crisis and prolonged war this surfaces in terms of readiness to serve and behavior during the conflict.

In the immediate aftermath of Oct. 7 it was apparent, though completely unjustifiable, that the anger among Israelis could only lead to a war in which military objectives were mixed up with the dark, primordial instincts for revenge.

Furthermore, these feelings were directed not only against those who perpetrated that terrible massacre but against the entire Gazan population.

The country’s most senior politicians cultivated this permissive environment; for some of them it was a means to deflect attention from their own failure to defend Israel against the Hamas attack.