Addressing the annual policy conference of the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya on July 2, former Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman, chair of Yisrael Beitenu, launched a harsh broadside at religious radicalization and the religious military preparatory academies headed by rabbis who also serve as their educators and ideologues. Such strident criticism against Israel’s religious Zionism and its military academies appears unprecedented in Israeli history.

“The religious preparatory programs have produced some of the bravest fighters in combat and I hope they will continue to function, but what is happening today is that the preparatory programs are developing into phalanges,” Liberman argued, astounding his listeners. For many Israelis, the term “phalange” conjures up the trauma of the 1982 Lebanon War when Israeli-allied Christian militias known as the Phalange slaughtered hundreds of Palestinian women, children and men in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps that were under Israeli control.

Horrified reactions followed. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu tweeted, “Graduates of the academies and of religious Zionism include the late Roi Klein, Uriel and Eliraz Peretz, Dror Weinberg and many other fighters and commanders who gave their lives for Israel’s security. Anyone who attacks Israel’s heroes just to pick up a few more votes should be ashamed.”

The chair of the opposition Blue and White Party, former military Chief of Staff Benny Gantz, also criticized Liberman’s attack. “Challenging this important enterprise hurts our best sons and daughters who give their lives for the State of Israel and Israeli society,” he tweeted.