Israel's religious force Far-right officers 'pursuing their own agenda' in army

Israel's army, the country's pre-eminent secular institution for much of its seven decades, is increasingly coming under the sway of a national religious movement that has made bold moves across Israeli society in recent years.

- Peter Beaumont

About 40% of graduates from its infantry officer schools now come from a national religious community that accounts for 12% to 14% of Jewish Israeli society and is politically more aligned with Israel's right and far-right political parties and the settler movement.

Critics say its growing influence, including from the more orthodox group Hardalim, is pursuing its own agenda within the army.

The views of the national religious community are shaped by the teachings of Abraham Isaac Kook, the chief rabbi during the pre-state British Mandatory Palestine, who saw the foundation and settlement of the "land of Israel" - which the current national religious community views as also encompassing Palestinian land on the West Bank and in Gaza - as a divine mission.

The war in Gaza has seen some soldiers from the national religious community, including army officers, involved in statements and religious activities promoting the Jewish re-settlement of the Palestinian territory that have drawn rebukes from the senior leadership within the Israel Defense Forces.

Known as national religious, or religious Zionist, and colloquially as "knitted kippah" from the style of head covering favoured by men, the community stands in contrast to the ultra orthodox, known as haredi, who have long resisted military service, and sees the army as a route to promoting values that some of its key thinkers describe as in tension with more secular and progressive Israeli society.

"That's their fear, that if the national religious are in the most influential positions in the army, that not only will determinate the character of the fighting but also the character of Israeli society as a whole," said Rabbi Uri Sherki, a prominent spiritual leader in the national religious community.