A nationalist religious group has swelled the ranks of Israel’s military
The Hardal support Gaza settlement, violent West Bank settlers and ‘revenge’ against Palestinians
Israeli soldiers of the Jewish ultra-Orthodox battalion Netzah Yehuda hold morning prayers as they take part in their annual unit training in the Golan Heights on May 19, 2014. Many Netzah Yehuda recruits come from the Hardal sector. Photo by AFP/Menahem Kahana
A little-known national religious group, known as the Hardal, is trying to reshape the Israeli military — and may just succeed, with alarming consequences for the integrity of the IDF, and the future of Israel at large.
Hardal is an acronym for the Hebrew words Ḥaredi Le’umi, which translates to “Nationalist Haredi.” The Hardal sector blends Haredi practices with nationalist ideology. Unlike mainstream Religious Zionism, it promotes halachic stringency, including gender segregation, the integration of halachic principles into Israeli law, and, most notably, an uncompromising messianic belief in Jewish ownership of the entire land of Israel. Unlike Israel’s Haredi community, those who belong to Hardal are actively involved in both the workforce and military service. As the stream that spearheaded the fundamentalist settler Gush Emunim movement, it aligns itself with right-wing political parties
The Hardal sector represents an organized minority, comprising a small percentage of Israel’s total Jewish population, yet it aspires to reshape the military. It wants to refocus the IDF on advancing the settlement enterprise — while opposing the integration of women in combat, and exhibiting an intolerant stance towards LGBT individuals. It believes the military should prioritize victory as a supreme value, free from ethical dilemmas. It wants to reduce Israel’s commitment to international law, and opposes the idea of risking soldiers to protect enemy civilians.
If Israel does not recognize the seriousness of the threat this vision presents — and the extent of the quiet strides the Hardal has made toward achieving it — it will risk not just further damaging its international standing and finding itself with a less effective military, but also its very identity.
A religious movement with a political plan
The Hardal’s agenda became more pronounced after its failure to prevent the evacuation of settlements in the Gaza strip during Israel’s withdrawal in 2005. That withdrawal was a major defeat which led Rabbi Eli Sadan, a prominent leader within the sector and founder of an elite Hardal pre-military academy in Eli, to call for the community to “enter the existing systems of the military, the Israel Security Agency, Mossad, and police” to exert influence. And it’s working.
Today, the Hardal sector runs an extensive network of pre-military academies and yeshivas, where approximately half of national-religious male youth study between high school graduation and military service. Many among these graduates are not Hardal but the network is, under the guidance of sector rabbis.
This system annually supplies the military with hundreds of combatants, creating a significant presence, mainly in infantry and armor units, along with an increasing presence within the officer corps. For instance, the percentage of religious males among infantry officer cadets rose from 2.5% in 1990 to approximately 35% in 2018.
The Hardal rabbis leverage their organizational and political power to negotiate with the military, in particular by bargaining over the integration of women in field units. These negotiations have been partially effective in blocking the integration of women into combat roles. Significantly, the IDF is the only military in a democratic state that actively negotiates with religious figures on the status of women in the military.
But the Hardal’s influence extends beyond gender issues. The rabbis forbid their graduates from participating in the evacuation of settlements and illegal outposts in the West Bank, effectively deterring the military from engaging in such evacuations, which have become increasingly rare. The growing presence of this group in military units and command positions significantly reduces the likelihood that the military will be able to evacuate settlements in the future, which is necessary for a permanent solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The Hardal influence is also reflected in the daily operation of the military in the West Bank. Hardal graduates have increasingly staffed the policing forces of the West Bank. Recently, Major-General Avi Bluth, a graduate of the Eli pre-military academy, was promoted to head Israel’s Central Command, the formal authority over the West Bank. This significant presence exacerbates bias among the forces, often prioritizing settlers’ interests over the duty to protect Palestinians. The rise in settler violence since Oct. 7 in part reflects this bias.
Hardal officers also populate the ranks of the military rabbinate, which often promotes religious extremism, and they effectively push for stricter kosher and Sabbath observance within the military. And the military command has often tolerated the sector leaders’ demands, recognizing that the heads of the pre-military academies and yeshivas play a crucial role in whether their graduates enlist for combat service.
The formation of the current right-wing government in 2022 further empowered the Hardal sector, which is politically aligned with the Religious Zionism Party led by Bezalel Smotrich. This shift in power was evident as the government reduced oversight of the military’s policing activities in the West Bank, especially through Smotrich’s appointment as a minister in the Defense Ministry. This position granted him partial control over the management of the West Bank and enabled him to direct funds to settlements — a move precisely in line with Hardal’s goals.
A turning point after Oct. 7
Last year’s Hamas attack marked a significant turning point. It presented a new opportunity for the Hardal sector to leverage both political and military failures to validate its criticism of the current operations of the military, claiming that secular elites had weakened it — a weakness that the emerging Hardal service elite could remedy.
This backdrop gave rise to new manifestations of Hardal ideology, including: Public displays of mass prayers; a surge of rhetoric focused on revenge against Palestinians, which has since gained significant traction among the troops — often accompanied by boasting about the use of violence; and a concerted push by rabbis to eliminate the idea of “innocent” civilians in Gaza, accompanied by efforts to delegitimize actions aimed at restraining the use of force that might risk soldiers in order to reduce casualties among Gazan civilians, as required by international law.
Perhaps the most significant symbolic culmination of these developments was the revival of the movement to return to Gush Katif, the block of Israeli settlements in Gaza evacuated in 2005. Hardal troops have consistently used social media to document calls for returning to Gush Katif, and troops’ placing mezuzahs in Palestinian homes in Gaza as symbols of ownership.
These voices have in turn inspired a right-wing movement promoting this initiative. In this way, Hardal discourse has come to openly challenge the authority of military command and military codes — and prove that it can do so with at least some efficacy.
That efficacy comes in part from Hardal’s claimed record of producing exceptional military cadets. Sector leaders rightly assume that their graduates will perform more exceptionally from those educated in secular institutions. An inspiring example is Colonel Ofer Winter, later promoted to brigadier general, who during Operation Protective Edge against Gaza in 2014 issued a religiously charged letter to his troops, urging them to confront “the terrorist enemy that dares to curse, blaspheme and scorn the God of Israel.” Against this background, this is the only sector that effectively demands the promotion of senior officers who are graduates of their educational system and frequently complains about discrimination in appointments.
Ideas like these, propagated by the Hardal minority, attempt to undemocratically reshape the IDF’s identity while obstructing its hierarchy by injecting rabbinic influences. The Hardal sector endangers the ability of the IDF to continue operating as a military force bound by accepted ethics and international law. They will further undermine Israel’s international standing and its ability to negotiate arrangements with its neighbors. It is time for Israelis and their allies to recognize the terrifying implications of these efforts — and take steps to stem them.
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