The serious report was issued by the ‘Lavi’ organization. Members of extreme left-wing groups give educational courses to commanders at the rank of major and above.
By Tuvia Ariel, Hakol Hayehudi
The serious report was issued by the ‘Lavi’ organization. Members of extreme left-wing groups give educational courses to commanders at the rank of major and above.
The Lavi organization publicized a report that detailed the organizations that run obligatory educational courses for senior IDF commanders. The report reveals that many of these organizations are supported by the extreme left-wing New Israel Fund, which has also funded the BDS movement at times.
The obligatory courses are called ‘Purpose and Uniqueness’ and are taught every year to around 2000 commanders in the IDF. Receiving the rank of major is conditional upon completing the course. Soldiers of rank captain and major generally attend the courses through the Bina organization and more senior commanders, such as colonels and generals, attend the course through the Hartman Institute.
In the report, it is noted that though the materials for the course contain many different values, the ones particularly highlighted in the programs through the Hartman Institute and Bina organization specifically state, “Jewish identity, morality, respect for man, purity of arms, responsibility- these are the values that are the focus of the seminar and that are discussed during the dialog.”
Lavi has blasted the monopoly of left-wing groups on teaching the courses as an attempt to ‘reeducate’ IDF commanders. They note that both the Hartman Institute and the Bina organization are supported by the New Israel Fund and that many of the lecturers at the courses are associated with other extreme left-wing groups that are far outside the Israeli consensus.
The report also quotes Daniel Hartman, head of the Hartman Institute, in a recent interview in the newspaper Yediot Achronot. There Hartman says as follows, “If only the problem was just Netanyahu. So yes, Bibi is living in Germany of 1938, but the challenge is one of education- to deal with the distorted roots in the society.” Later in the same interview, Hartman called upon Jews to also celebrate Islamic holidays and declared it time for a “culture war.”
Another individual involved in giving lectures to commanders is Professor Avi Sagi, who called for an investigation against IDF commanders involved in the Cast Lead operation. “If the IDF and the authorities fail to have an investigation, then we the citizens, must demand it of them. If they continue to refuse then we must find people who will investigate,” said Sagi in an article in Haaretz.
The Bina organization is also connected to an extreme left-wing ideology. Among the teachers in the organization is Lior Tal who was previously on the executive committee of the radical left-wing Meretz party and also served as a youth director for Meretz. In an article on Ynet news, he wrote, “Placing individuals under the authority of a Rabbi orposek is dangerous and forbidden… The lesson I have learned from world atrocities is that a person cannot place himself fully under any authority be it G-d, man, or state. There is no holy authority.”
Nir Broyda, the head of the ‘Secular Yeshiva’ and deputy head of the Bina organization has also been outspoken in his views. In an article on Ynet he blamed Religious Zionism and Rabbis for Rabin’s murder. “The Rabin murder was not perpetrated by Yigal Amir alone. Rabin was murdered by an entire population of Rabbis, community leaders, teachers, and educators who placed themselves outside of the rules of democracy. They laid the foundation for the belief that Halacha and religion (in the mistaken way they view it) is above Israeli democracy and the values represented by Rabin and the Zionist forefathers… We are still waiting for this population to place its leaders on trial and cleanse their hands of the blood spilled. Until then, we will not forget and we will not forgive!”
Another teacher in the Bina organization is Leah Shakdiel from the radical left-wing group Nashot Watch (Women’s Watch). Lavi also emphasized that a large number of the lecturers in the Hartman Institute and the Bina organization are overlapping.
According to public records, the connection between the army and these left-wing groups came as a result of a public tender, but Lavi noted that there would seem to be a conflict of interest as Yaakov Kastel, who is the head of the program in the Hartman Institute is also the personal advisor to the head educator in the IDF. This fact raises a serious concern of a conflict of interest and that the choosing of the Hartman Institute to run the courses was not unbiased. It is noteworthy that through the contract the Hartman Institute received around $500,000 from the Defense Ministry in 2013 and presumably a similar amount each year after.
Kastel has also made statements that support a radical left-wing ideology. Among his statements he suggested that soldiers should not say Psalms before going to battle. In an interview with the ‘Faithful to Torah and Work’ Movement, Kastel noted, “If you have soldiers say a prayer or psalms that describe the war as total in nature, how can you expect them to then follow the rules of ‘Purity of Arms’”?
Lawyer Doron Nir Tzvi, from the Lavi organization stated, “It would seem that the tentacles of the New Israel Fund and the organizations it funds have crept their way into educating IDF commanders. In these courses soldiers are taught that the Jewish people are no better than other nations and that Israel is not a Jewish state, but instead a state of all its citizens. It is shocking that as ‘Jewish identity’ courses are removed from the IDF, radical left-wing groups associated with Meretz and others are teaching commanders what to think. There is a very limited range of ideologies that the commanders are exposed to in these courses and all of these ideologies are post-zionist and radically leftist.”
I have never heard of prosecutors and defense ministers trying cases in the public media. How can such prosecutors, investigators and judges taking Yaalons orders be trusted? the onus is not on a soldier when he kills a terrorist…. his perception of being under threat is what governs legally.
yaalons stooge making yaalons case and showing how they used the soldier to make a political point.
proof that the case is about the BB yaalon war on zionists, nationalists, settlers and dissenters….. convicting the soldier is important to them to justify all their other crimes which are based on a false narrative of values and morals. it is they upon whom the onus rests to defend the crimes which they have commited.
a soldier is not safe under a command which uses them and betrays them.
You are absolutely correct Bert. I have been saying for some time that the IDF and Israeli intelligence services have been infiltrated and severely compromised by Obama’s “unprecedented military cooperation at the highest levels.”
The records of these officers’ participation and performance in the various propaganda sessions/courses are readily accessible. The officers need to be interviewed and reevaluated in light of the new mission of winning wars and not just appeasing the various anti-Israel organizations and bodies.
Stripping them of their citizenship and sending them back to Obama might be tempting but unlikely and improbable. A better remedy would be reassignment to jobs where they cannot harm the country like an internal exile in the Negev working on construction or agriculture.
Leftist brainwashers talk of fascism but had no problem supporting Yaalons fascism of subverting the justice system to incarcerate jews without evidence in order to support his red herring lying canard of a dangerous jewish conspiracy to crown the king. These are the same lying leftist brainwashers teaching the IDF, instead they should be given the comforts of administrative detention. Too bad the right is not fascist as they now have an opportunistic law to lock up the deserving leftist traitors funded by the euro enemies.
where is Mandebilt.. why is he not commencing the investigation on Yaalon who is a serial criminal who used his office to pursue vendettas and to propagate his political myths and agenda. Is mandebilt still adding up the travel shekels…. come on mandebilt… your mouth moves to utter trivialities but when a DM ruins the lives of others using his office illegally…. you say and do nothing. where is mandebilt? LoL, looks like all the moralists have gone AWOL.
Look how much time and energy yaalon and BB have the jews commiserating over the fate of a dead jew killer… they should be out killing potential jew killers themselves.
one more attempt by the gov to throw in red herrings. a third party kicking over a knife after the shooting has no bearing on the prior shooting or whether the shooter perceived a threat. the shooter did a great deed in preventing yaalon and bb from freeing another terrorist in a future deal that would kill more jews.
this is what should be taught: that terrorists have no prisoner of war benefit or privilege to live or be kept… unless there is a need to torture the terrorist and get info he should be killed on the spot. since the gov tells us that all these are lone terror killings then there is no need to preserve his life for “vigorous questioning” only a need to prevent the gov from freeing him to kill more jews. the soldier cannot get a fair trial since yaalon bullied his military subordinates(investigators, prosecutors and judges) to find the nationalist soldier guilty… he should be freed and given a medal. The left has already proven to all what their morals result in: more dead jews.
the article does not state who authorized and hired these leftists to brainwash the IdF… was it Yaalon or BB…. both seem intent on brainwashing leftist values…… sacrificing your children to protect the enemy, giving away the jewish homeland for meaningless words, Jewish settlement is illegal and illegitimate, the land belongs to the muslims lets help them build, go to jail if you killl terrorists… etc etc etc adiminisrartive detention is the right place for traitors.
who initiated the program and gave the leftists the job of brainwashing?
It seems that we Jews have in our midst fanatic leftists who are cunning and dedicated to undermining the security of the entire Jewish people. I wish there were a way to identify all of these “Jewish” enemies and deport them. They are unfit to reside in a Jewish state.