Is Israel as secular as it seems, or is the reality different from what it seems? It is common to answer that Israel is a secular state. While this may seem to be the case on the surface, Israel’s historical practices show us that for years Israel has had a theopolitical agenda with theocratic references underneath its secular exterior. The use of violence and Israel’s understanding of war reflect this theopolitical vein in a particularly strong way. These theocratic references, not only manifest themselves militarily but are also reinforced by radicalized party discourses in Israeli politics.
Israel has been systematically carrying out inhumane acts and military operations against Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza since 1948, targeting civilians and striking residential areas, hospitals and places of worship. However, the roots of Israel’s genocidal campaign go deeper. As Zygmunt Bauman argued, the genocide committed against Jews during World War II was the result of modern bureaucracy, rational thought and excessive and uncontrolled use of technology. According to Bauman, genocide is considered a phenomenon that reveals one of the dark potentials of the modern world and is seen as a natural process. Israel’s self-serving theopolitical narrative, along with the religious ideologies underpinning its founding philosophy, illustrates how it can readily justify acts of genocide. The most crystallized example of this can be seen in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). The genocide that Israel is committing against the Palestinians is the manifestation of radical theopolitical narratives of national religious groups within the IDF, which are called “radical” in Israeli politics.
With the conscious and systematic entry of national religious groups into the Israeli political structure, especially the army, all these inhuman interventions have begun to be “legitimized.” Let’s look at how national religious groups within the Israeli army have increased over time and the consequences of this increase.
Turning points in IDF
The views of the national religious community are shaped by and have roots in the teachings of Abraham Isaac Kook, the first Ashkenazi chief rabbi of British Mandate Palestine. Kook believed that the “Land of Israel” should be established and settled as a divine mandate. According to this idea, for today’s national religious believers, these lands, including the West Bank and Gaza, are the divine right of Jews, and every aspect of extreme violence is legitimate according to them, with permission given by the Torah. This theocratic view held by religious nationalists is not only limited to seeing themselves as the owners of Gaza and the West Bank but also causes them to not see the Palestinians living in these lands as “human” and to objectify them.
It is known that national religious groups come from right-wing and far-right roots. The number of nationalists within the IDF has increased radically in recent years. While national religious groups accounted for 2% to 4% of the Israeli army in the early 1990s, today they have reached a rate of 40%.
Historically, some turning points have accompanied the establishment of national religious groups within the army, their rise to senior command levels and an increase in their numbers. The breaking point started with the Six-Day War in 1967. National religious groups were the first to be motivated by occupying the lands “promised” to them, including the Golan Heights, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, gained through the Six-Day War. They began to join the Israeli army for the first time. Since then, the national religious community has been positioning itself as the central part of the IDF and consolidating its status among the cadres of different levels in the IDF.
In the early years of the 2000s, the status and role of religious radicals noticeably changed. In 2005, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s decision to evacuate Jewish settlers in Gaza was seen as a great betrayal by national religious people, and this event increased the idea that national religious people should increase their influence in the army. After 2005, the number of national religious groups in the army unexpectedly increased rapidly. Today, national religious groups, which have reached 40%, appear as the main actors in the ongoing inhumane interventions and genocide in Gaza.
With the entry of the national religious group into politics and the army, the Israeli state as an institution has begun to transform into an increasingly radical state structure. While politically right-wing and far-right parties are active and supportive of Benjamin Netanyahu’s decisions, they have begun to cover a large portion of the army with the historical breaking points experienced within the army. When the religious movements of the IDF, where national religious groups have increased, are examined, especially since Oct. 7, it is observed that the military doctrine of the army has changed.
Former IDF Deputy Chief of Staff Yair Golan, who served in the Israeli army for many years, made a statement about the change in the tradition of the Israeli army. Golan stated that far-right and even fascist ideas were spreading within the army and that this situation contradicted the democratic structure of the Israeli army. The religious narrative that has long shaped Israel’s policies is now manifesting itself in three distinct ways.
First, the IDF’s systematic bombing of Gaza and now Southern Lebanon and its attack on hospitals, camps, schools, mosques and churches where civilians are staying is a signal of a doctrinal change for the military in Israel. This is because all Palestinians are viewed as a community occupying land that is divinely theirs, thereby usurping their rightful claims. Everything is legitimate for the purpose of their elimination. Just as Machiavelli said, “The end justifies the means.”
Secondly, the behavior of IDF soldiers toward Palestinians, both on the front lines and in the West Bank, shows the soldiers degrading Palestinians by “objectifying” them and degrading them in a way that is devoid of human emotion. Thirdly, the actions of IDF soldiers in daily practice. The fact that soldiers in the IDF continue the same policies of identity and hatred toward Palestinians in their daily lives, especially on social media, is more proof of the IDF’s change toward a more radical and extreme way of acting in the conflict.
The IDF, which shaped the reconstruction process with Zionism and started it on a theocratic basis, determined a radical mission and began to systematically increase extreme violence. As a result, theocratization of narratives of the “other” (in this case Palestinians) within the army has brought radicalization, radicalization has given birth to extreme violence and extreme violence has brought genocidal practices as a natural manifestation of military behavior.
What is next?
The radicalization of the IDF may have consequences beyond just legitimizing the destruction of Palestinians. Religious fundamentalists are gradually increasing their population in the army and politics. Their ultimate goal is to uproot Palestinians from the land they live in and then to live in the lands “divinely given” to them. The IDF, as a military institution where they can put these wishes and desires into action and turn them into violence, is almost perfect for national religious groups. Seizing the opportunity they have today, this group has managed to change Israel’s military tactics and strategy on the ground. But it is not limited to genocidal military behavior. It may also shape the future political trajectory of Israel.
In these conditions where genocide develops as a natural process, the picture in the coming years is not encouraging. While the population and ranks of nationalist religious groups within the IDF increase day by day, an end for Israel seems inevitable. Although there seems to be an organic bond and cooperation between the Netanyahu government and the IDF under today’s conditions, in the long term, if the Netanyahu government is replaced by a liberal government, the army and the government will come to a head. The radicalization of the military and its growing power could exert pressure on civilian politics, leading to the military playing a more prominent role in political affairs. As a result of the confrontation between the army and the government, Israel, which is currently experiencing difficulties in domestic politics, will have to face even greater problems and chaos.
