National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, chairman of the Otzma Yehudit party, has unveiled a comprehensive plan to make sweeping changes to the Israel Defense Forces’ code of ethics, known as the “Spirit of the IDF.” The plan aims to strengthen the military’s Jewish identity and prioritize the value of absolute victory over Israel’s enemies.
1+The most prominent change in the plan is eliminating the “Purity of Arms” clause and replacing it with “Justice of Arms.” The new clause would add the principle that the moral code guiding soldiers is “If someone comes to kill you, rise up and kill him first.” At the same time, language limiting action to “only what is required” would be removed, as would the prohibition on harming “uninvolved parties.”
Under the plan, the IDF’s supreme objective would be redefined as striving for victory and defeating the enemies of the State of Israel. The military’s value sources would be expanded to include a central emphasis on Jewish morality based on the Bible, Hebrew law, and the tradition of Israel, while defining the IDF as a “Jewish state army” and removing references to “universal moral values.”
1+As part of the plan, new IDF values were presented, including: “Love of the people of Israel and the Land of Israel, and loyalty to the state”; “Statism,” according to which the IDF is “the people’s army, a Jewish state army, subject to the law and the government”; and preservation of “human dignity,” defined as a value not conditional on origin, religion, nationality, gender, status, or role.