The National Bureau for Land Defense and Settlement Resistance warned of the repercussions of the settlers and their rabbis strengthening their positions in the occupation army and their policy agents in the West Bank.

He pointed out in this regard that, in an unusual precedent, the former deputy head of the Mossad and the former commander of the Northern Command of the occupation army, Major General Amiram Levin, said in a press statement that the Israeli army is an accomplice in war crimes through profound transformations taking place in its ranks that are reminiscent of transformations It took place in Nazi Germany. Levin meant by this the increasing numbers of settlers in the Israeli army and the transformation of their leaders into central ministers in the current government.

These statements of Amiram Levin opened the doors to the position that the settlers have come to occupy in the occupation army, especially after the events witnessed in particular by the towns of Huwwara, Turmus Ayya, Umm Safa and Burqa in the Nablus and Ramallah-Al-Bireh governorates in the past few weeks, from acts of bullying. And the burning of property and the seizure of the lands of Palestinian citizens through the deployment of settlement outposts and so-called pastoral settlements and the displacement of Bedouin communities from their areas. These events have come to indicate the nature of the relationship between these settlers and the occupation army, as it has become clear that the army is functionally subordinate to the General Staff and the so-called Central Region Command. However, in the practical implementation of its tasks, it is subject, according to many Israeli estimates, to the settlers and their rabbis due to the enrollment of large numbers of settlers in the occupation army and their increasing influence in security services that are no longer subject to the army’s command, as before. On the one hand, there is the regular army and the Central Region Command, which reports directly to the General Staff, and on the other hand, there is the so-called “police army,” which consists of several security agencies that operate in parallel, individually and integrated at the same time within the West Bank, and includes the police, border guards, and security forces. Responsible protection for the perimeter of the settlements. These are forces present at the level of the settlement, or the settlement council, and are not directly affiliated with the army, but rather to the settlement council.

However, the most dangerous formations operating in the West Bank are the “Judea and Samaria” Division, which was established in 1988 to suppress the Stone Intifada, which began at the end of 1987, and the “Kfir Brigade,” which was founded in 2005. Their number reaches 13 battalions and works with other reserve battalions. In the West Bank with dual missions, brutal suppression of Palestinians and protection of settlers. The Judea and Samaria Division, led by Brigadier General Avi Plaut, is the division that directs most of the military activities in the West Bank. This band, according to specialized Israeli estimates, is slowly turning into a band of settlers, who describe Balut as one of their group. How could he not, when he grew up in the “Neve Tzuf” settlement, north of Ramallah, and was educated at the “Eli” religious school, south of Nablus. The Philistines here are the Amalekites of the myths of the books of the Torah.

The Kfir Brigade, which is also very close to the settlers, is an army brigade that includes six battalions in its ranks, distributed throughout the various governorates of the West Bank. In theory, this brigade is subordinate to the army command and staff, but in practice matters are more complicated due to the overlapping relationships between the brigade and the settlers, such that the influence of the settlers is much greater than the influence of the general staff, especially since most of the brigade’s bases are spread either within the settlements or in their vicinity, and thus the soldiers and officers carry out daily interaction. With the settlers, they spend the night with them and celebrate their occasions, as confirmed by wide Israeli circles. Elor Azaria, who in 2016 shot Palestinian citizen Abdel Fattah Al-Sharif while he was wounded and lying on the ground, is a member of this brigade.

Paramilitary formations

Paramilitary formations (militias) affiliated with the settlers overlap with the Kfir Brigade, as is the case with the so-called “settlement readiness row,” which is a military group made up of residents of each settlement, whose function is to build semi-regular military cells that undertake army work in the period of time that It takes place between the occurrence of a security incident in the vicinity of the settlement and the arrival of the regular army forces to the place. In addition, most of the soldiers and officers of the Kfir Brigade working in the West Bank are graduates of preparatory military colleges operating in the settlements, or they joined the army after recruitment campaigns carried out by the settlements to supplement the army with soldiers from the settler community. Indeed, under the guidance of the settler community and their rabbis, settlers are increasingly seeking to join the army. Of every five towns that had the highest rates of recruitment into combat units, three were in the West Bank. Beit El's first base was in the Ramallah and Al-Bireh Governorate, where 86% of men born in 1991 served in combat units. Third place went to Ephrata in Gush Etzion in the Bethlehem Governorate, where 81% of men born in 1991 joined combat units. The fourth place went to the Regional Council of Mount Hebron, with a rate of 78.4%. Ariel in Salfit Governorate, which is considered a secular settlement with questionable Jewish residents, was one of four cities in which the percentage of recruits exceeded 90%.

Political and spiritual references

These settlers have political references led by religious Zionist leaders who are imbued with an extremist biblical ideological spirit, such as Bezalel Smotrich, Itamar Ben Gvir, and other members of the government and the Knesset, who constitute about 12 percent of its total members, which number 120 members. In addition to political references, there are also spiritual references, with quite a few rabbinic leaders, most notably Rabbi Haim Druckman, one of the most prominent religious and spiritual authorities (he died in December 2022), and Rabbi Dov Lior, the chief rabbi of the Kiryat Arba settlement, who was granted by the Regional Council of Settlements in In the south of the Hebron Governorate, a certificate of appreciation for his extremist positions and Rabbi Isaac Geisenberg, who runs the “Od Yosef Chai” school in the “Yitzhar” settlement, and Rabbi Zalman Melamed - one of the most senior rabbis of religious Zionism - who incited his students in the “Kernei Shomron” settlement to steal the olive crop from the Palestinians. He issued a fatwa permitting the poisoning of wells from which Palestinians drink, and other rabbis, such as Eliezer Rabinovich, Shlomo Aviner, and the Chief Rabbi of Samaria, Elyakim Levanon, who permit the terrorist “Hill Youth” and “Price Tag” hooligans to violate the sanctity of the Sabbath, occupy crossroads, engage in orgies, and attack Palestinian citizens. .

The influence of these rabbis is clear. A study prepared by the Department of Social Sciences at the Israeli Bar-Ilan University, known for its religious orientations, revealed the extent to which religious recruits obey the orders of the rabbis, as more than 90% of those who describe themselves as religious believe that if the steps taken by the Israeli government contradict the opinion of Rabbis, the first is to apply the opinion of the rabbis, and more than 95% of religious soldiers confirmed that they cannot obey military orders issued to them, without being consistent with religious fatwas issued by rabbis and religious authorities.