ByODED FORER

JULY 17, 2026 13:07

Updated: JULY 17, 2026 15:10

For generations the Israeli Right has invoked Ze'ev Jabotinsky as its guiding thinker. His Iron Wall concept formed the bedrock of national security thinking for over a century, resting on the clear principle that Israel achieves safety only when adversaries recognize they cannot prevail through force.

The Iron Wall was never abstract. It demanded a military force powerful enough and enduring enough that foes would abandon hopes of wearing Israel down by prolonged pressure or threats.

This week the same coalition that brands itself the most right-wing in the country's history struck directly at that foundation.

Through new statutes shielding ultra-Orthodox draft evaders from arrest or trial and by advancing a Basic Law that elevates Torah study to a core national value, the government has taken an extraordinary step. It has embedded unequal military obligations at the very time when Israel needs its largest and most effective fighting force.

The issue reaches far beyond routine exemption rules. It reflects a decisive judgment on how the state will safeguard its future.

Israeli progressives long urged a gradual easing of dependence on armed strength, trusting that talks, foreign assurances and managed tensions could suffice.

The Right rejected that view, seeing the region as it truly operates rather than as hoped. Security, it maintained, begins with self-reliant defense.

That outlook defined Jabotinsky's Iron Wall.

Yet a coalition that calls itself right-wing has now adopted measures whose direct result is a reduced fighting force, heavier loads on existing reserves and diminished national strength.

The inconsistency stands out sharply.

Personnel gaps will create untenable strategic trade-offs

The Israel Defense Forces have stated their case plainly. The Chief of Staff, chosen by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, has stressed the acute shortage of personnel.

After extended operations across several fronts, reservists have spent hundreds of days away from home and work. Standing units are strained, fresh formations are required, and current troops need added support.

These assessments reflect operational facts, not partisan views.

Each exemption granted today leads to another call-up tomorrow.

Each permanent waiver for a young man adds weight to those already serving.

Every coalition bargain eventually extracts its cost from troops in the field.

Israel confronts threats unlike any earlier era. Hamas persists in Gaza. Hezbollah rebuilds in Lebanon. Iran pursues Israel's elimination while widening its proxy network. Syria stays volatile. Attacks in Judea and Samaria require constant deployments.

A truly right-wing administration would recognize that these conditions call for enlarging the IDF rather than narrowing the pool of available personnel.

Instead the country moves the other way.

The outcome will exceed longer reserve tours or greater strain. It will produce a strategic bind.

Should shortages deepen, Israel could face stark decisions. Maintain forces in Judea and Samaria to shield communities? Keep troops in Lebanon? Preserve brigades for Gaza operations? Or concede that the IDF cannot meet every assigned task at once?

These dilemmas should remain avoidable.

They grow more probable because the coalition has placed political deals above defense needs.

Judaism upholds both study and military duty

Backers of the measures claim Torah study itself bolsters security. Jewish tradition has long valued scholarly pursuit, and scholars have sustained Jewish life across centuries.

Our sages grasped the proper balance between learning and fighting. The Talmud, Rambam and other sources established that during obligatory war, which Israel faces daily, even a bride and groom may be summoned from the wedding canopy.

That illustration was chosen to show the scale of necessity and the urgency of the hour.

The misfortune is that this legislation, advanced by those presenting themselves as Orthodox, does more than weaken the military. It alters Jewish legal tradition.

It also recasts the identity of the national camp.

For more than a century the Right viewed military power as the essential base for all other national goals.

Settlement, sovereignty, deterrence and negotiation all rest on an army able to protect them.

Without adequate soldiers no effective presence can be kept in Judea and Samaria. Without enough combat units deterrence fades. Without deterrence the Iron Wall itself weakens.

Jabotinsky grasped this more clearly than most.

The paradox is plain. Those who most loudly claim to guard Jabotinsky's heritage have become the first government to enact rules that deliberately shrink military capacity in wartime.

History will assess this period critically.

Not for another political bargain or another Basic Law, but because at a decisive hour for national security the coalition set aside the core tenet that guided the Zionist Right for generations: that any government's foremost duty is to guarantee an army strong enough to protect every citizen on every frontier against every danger.

That was Jabotinsky's Iron Wall.

This coalition has not reinforced it.

It has fractured it.

The writer is a Member of Knesset and Yisrael Beytenu Knesset Faction Chairman.