In the Israeli revolution there is no smashed down statue of Lenin or Saddam in the city square. The IDF is there instead
The IDF is the smashed statue. We are witnessing a historic moment. And it is very rare for a shattered statue to be rebuilt
By Rogel Alpher • [Translated by Sol Salbe]
The agitated public polemic over the harsh comments hurled by right-wingers at the IDF chief of staff and generals is jolting Israeli society because this is a religious crisis. And religion is everything: from the foundations to the rafter of society it’s the axioms and the vision. The IDF was the religion of traditional Israeli Zionism. It seemed to be a national religion. Its worship was the worship of death, bereavement, the Jewish martyrs who were sacrificed on the altar of the sovereignty of the Jewish people. The IDF was not only the most moral army in the world, but it was the very theory of morality, the ethics of this religion. The IDF was holy, forming a side of a sacred triangle whose other two sides are the Holocaust and bereavement of Israel’s fallen. They are also sacred, of course. This is the correct historical context for understanding the tremendous resonance which a tweet written by Erez Tadmor (who’s close to the PM) and shared by Yair Netanyahu received. The Tweet suggested Halevi is the most washed-up and destructive Chief-of Staff in the history of the IDF. MK Limor Son Har-Melech’s statement accusing the Officer Commanding Central Command of carrying out a pro-Arab policy was met with a similar response as was Minister Amsalem’s claim that there is a rebellion in the army and that the rebels should be dealt with accordingly. The shock stems from the fact that this is sacrilege.
Son Har-Melech and Amsalem have a different religion. Theirs is a fascist, dictatorial, racist, theocratic religion. They reject the IDF religion. This is neo-Zionism’s reformation. In this Reformation, the Chief of Staff is the Pope, and the Air Force is the Vatican. Amsalem is Martin Luther. You can’t be Catholic and talk about the Pope and the Vatican the way the Bibists lash out at the chief of staff and the various wings of the military elite. And Netanyahu is no longer Catholic. He endorsed his son’s retweet with his silence. His statement of support for the IDF following Amsalem’s rant was feeble and belated, and its phrasing declared it to be mere lip service. The Zionism of the protest leaders such as Bressler and Radman — and the prominent politicians who support them, such as Ehud Barak, [Moshe] Bogie Ya’alon and Gantz — has no other religion. Not only do they have no other country, they have no other religion either. The Conscription Law [exempting the ultra-orthodox] is another hammer that crushes their idols. But they too are undergoing a reformation. The cessation of volunteering in the Air Force and other units of the military elite is also a demonstration of shattering the IDF religion. There are, it turns out, values above it. This is how the Israeli elite looks helpless as the God they created crashes before their eyes. Poisoned arrows are shot at it from outside, and its innards are being burnt from the inside. As in the REM song, they are losing their religion.
In the Israeli revolution there is no huge statue of Lenin or Saddam, smashed down in the city square. The IDF is the smashed statue. It’s not just the Air Force that will never be the same again, in the words of the IAF commander, Major General Bar. The very introduction of the conscription law signals to the entire community that exemption from IDF service can be enshrined as a legal ideological right. We are witnessing a historic moment. And it is very rare for a shattered statue to be rebuilt.
