How IDF chief shapes Israeli military
The decision by IDF Chief of Staff Gadi Eizenkot not to promote Brig. Gen. Ofer Winter has sparked fury within the national religious stream.
Brig. Gen. Ofer Winter is the darling of Religious Zionists in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). A combat officer, he has made his way up the IDF ladder in the toughest units, on the hottest military fronts and through the IDF’s most dangerous operations in the last decade. In recent years, Winter has become a symbol of the Zionist religious stream that has taken the military by storm in every branch — i.e., land, air and sea.
The number of Religious Zionists in the army’s elite units, infantry and armored units is much greater than their percentage of the population. According to Israel’s Bureau of Statistics, 11% of Israeli Jews aged 20 and above self-identify as “religious.” About 40% of the soldiers who had completed the IDF’s officer training course as of 2017 were from the Zionist religious population. Even in the upper echelons, such as the infantry divisions, many of the commanding officers belong to this stream. There are not, however, brigadier generals from the Religious Zionist sector on the next highest rung of the IDF ladder, such as commanders of infantry divisions, the most prestigious commanding roles in the army. This statistic infuriates the national-religious Jews.
Some believe that the army’s highest echelons are blocking their youth from the highest levels for political reasons. Religious Zionists are known as right-wing ideologists. Prior to the disengagement from Gaza in 2005, there was concern that some of them would refuse to follow military orders and instead obey their rabbis. They are part of Naftali Bennett’s HaBayit HaYehudi electoral pool. Despite the fact that they have, to date, passed all the “military versus religious tests,” they still bear an automatic burden of proof. The round of IDF appointments announced June 11 transformed Religious Zionist infuriation into a real uproar.
Despite expectations, and after Winter’s promotion had been frozen in the past, the IDF chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Gadi Eizenkot, did not promote him to division commander. Instead, Winter remains in the lackluster division to which he was appointed after he concluded his stint as brigade commander of Givati. This can mean only one thing: The chief of staff is showing Winter the door. Thus, one of the bravest and most creative officers in the army, the man who was supposed to be the next religious general and potential leader, will evidently not become a member of the IDF’s prestigious chief of staff forum. Thus, Eizenkot has branded himself as the person out to get the Zionist religious sector in the IDF.
