Adjacent photograph: Placard inscription – "Repent, and an army will not be needed" (Photography: Idan Yaron).
The failure of the new "Haredi brigade" lies not in its recruitment process (which has seen moderate success) but in the very rationale for its establishment. Similar to other so-called "Haredi" units, such as the "Nahal Haredi Netzah Yehuda Battalion," the recruits are not genuinely "Haredi" in the full sense of the term and certainly not "yeshiva boys." Instead, they are, as the IDF describes, "working yeshiva students and youth dropouts".
The Netzah Yehuda Battalion was established in the late 1990s, and even then, the recruitment of true "Haredim" was not genuinely successful. To meet recruitment goals, the IDF incorporated numerous non-Orthodox soldiers into the battalion. Over time, the battalion evolved into a haven for radical, extremist right-wing activists, particularly young settlers from the West Bank and hilltop youth who were often not accepted into service in other units. These individuals did not join to integrate into the IDF’s "melting pot" or adopt its values. Instead, they sought to impose their own ideologies through their activities in the field. This was evident in recent incidents involving religious-nationalist soldiers during the Swords of Iron War in the Gaza Strip.
The outcome has been problematic: the battalion's political-ideological composition, its cultural environment, and lax oversight by its command structure have led to numerous cases of documented abuse against Palestinians. These issues escalated to the extent that the Biden administration considered, for the first time in U.S. history, imposing sanctions on an IDF unit over "human rights violations in the West Bank".
The establishment of units with a homogeneous and radical political-ideological foundation must be rejected outright. Recruitment and service in the People's Army should never be based on such divisive criteria.
