Israeli Defense Forces Chief of Staff Warns of Massive Splits Within Army
Jose Nino
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General Herzi Halevi, the Chief of Staff of the Israel Defence Forces, issued a warning on July Sunday that the division within the army poses an existential threat to the Jewish state, per local media reports. With thousands of reservists promising to end their voluntary service in protest of the right-wing coalition government’s proposed judicial proposal, Halevi believes the IDF’s unity has been “dangerously” damaged.
“I call on them to return to service. If ours is not a strong and unified army, and if the best do not serve in the IDF, we will not able to continue to exist as a state in the region,” Halevi said in an open letter to IDF troops per a report by the Times of Israel.
“We have acted to keep [the Israeli army] out of the debate, but due to its intensity in Israeli society, we were pulled into it, and the cohesion [of the military] has been harmed,” he added. “It is our duty to prevent these cracks from widening.”
Halevi noted that no member of the IDF has the right to say that they don’t want to serve any longer. “They have no right not to show up for duty or refuse an order.”
Per a spokesperson for the IDF, Daniel Hagari: “Failing to report to reserve duty hurts the IDF and state security. Over the past days, it is evident that cohesion has been damaged, which will take a long time to repair.”
There’s trouble in Israel. Owing to demographic shifts that have witnessed the country have an increasingly religious/ethnonationalist demographic take control of its politics, Israel is moving in a hard Right direction that’s unsettling both the traditional political establishment and international observers.
Political chaos will likely be the norm in the Jewish state as the ascendant hard-Right begins to flex its political muscles.
This ensuing chaos and other reasons such as Israel’s location in such an unstable region should compel US leaders to stop subsidizing the Jewish state and recalibrate its entire relationship with it.
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