My first surprise in interviewing Colonel (Res) Yonatan Branski, who this Thursday will be on the ballot at the Habayit Hayehudi primaries, competing to replace Naftali Bennett as party chairman, came when I asked him about his views on relations between religious and secular Israelis in the IDF.
During his long and illustrious military service Col. Branski, 45, served as Deputy Commander of the IDF Gaza Division; Commander of the Infantry Dept. at the IDF Staff and Command College; Commander of the Negev Brigade; and Commander of the Netzah Yehuda Battalion (which caters to religious soldiers).
He was also Chief of Staff of the Military Rabbinate for two and a half years, and I inquired if he agreed with the view that IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Gadi Eizenkot is attempting to alter the Jewish character of the military, which is why he moved much of the educational function of the military rabbinate to HR and to the secular military education corps. To which Branski responded that, essentially, the military rabbinate could have been more ginger and restrained in promoting Jewish Awareness to secular IDF enlisted men and women.
“I’m not saying that it isn’t important for soldiers to hear contents that have to do with their history, or to take them to the Ir David exhibition in Jerusalem, or discuss of the Bible and study about our ancient military leaders such as Joshua, the conqueror of Canaan. I believe these must be part of the military education in Israel. But there’s a thin line between exploring all of the above and coercing secular soldiers into Torah discussions in which they have no interest. It can create a problem.”
Branski points out that “the episode teaches us something about the concerns of the senior military staff over the influence of the rabbinate on the character of the army, and I believe that some of it is our fault.”
“I am against religious coercion,” he states flatly. “You bring a rabbi to a company of 120 soldiers, 60 percent of whom are secular, and force them to hear a Torah class. It’s mandatory,” Branski explains, recalling, “I used to tell [Chief IDF Rabbi Avichai] Ronsky, we’re overdoing it. It will boomerang on us in the end – and it did.”
BENNETT COURTS DISASTER
I mention that people inside the party are critical of Branski’s plan to join the Likud in a voting block come next election, calling him naive for expecting Prime Minister Netanyahu to be anything but a ruthless shark when it came to his closest allies.
“Tell them that they are naive,” he snaps. “I’m in a campaign, and it doesn’t matter what Netanyahu thinks. It matters what I say.”
So what is the difference between the Likud and Habayit Hayehudi?
“There’s a big difference, which is exactly why I can promote going with Likud in a technical block, but Naftali Bennett cannot say the same thing. Bennett can’t explain what’s the difference between him and the Likud. He has to pick a fight with the prime minister every other day, in an effort to manufacture a distinction between them.”
“I don’t have to do that,” says Branski. “My identity as a person, as a leader and as a party is very clear. I say that we are National Religious, we are part of religious Zionism, these are our values, this is what we’ll fight for.”
“Naftali Bennett, meanwhile, is trying to obscure our identity,” he says.
Branski also says the party central committee has zero power and does not meet at all, and describes Bennett’s leadership as essentially tyrannical. Combine that with the current chairman’s plan to strip Habayit Hayehudi of its religious colors and pull it into the secular center, and the result could be the loss of support from the traditional voters who want the party to represent them. “I think it will be a disaster,” he concludes.
THE KID FROM BUFFALO
Branski spent two years as a child in Buffalo, NY, which he recalls fondly. He picked up his better-than-average English there, between the ages 5 and 7, and believes being exposed to a foreign culture was a positive experience for him.
How does he compare the Israeli and American political systems? Could Israel learn from the American democracy?
“Of course, the answer is yes, because I think that every democratic system is a bit different, and there’s no perfect democratic system in any country, so, clearly, all of us can learn from one another,” Branski says. “But I’m pretty satisfied with our system, its principles are all right.” He points to the more accurate, direct voting in Israeli, versus the electoral college vote in US presidential elections, as something the Americans might wish to emulate.
I point out that the electoral college is part of an overall inclination on the part of the US Constitution to tame legislative zeal, so that the Senate is there to slow down the feistier House. Branski agrees that the Knesset legislative temperament can be mercurial, with another factor contributing to the instability: Israeli governments, though designed by law to last as long as four years, in reality fold much sooner. He also endorses a point made by Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked, of his own party, that there is too much legislation in the Knesset. “Every new law is yet another curtailing of individual freedoms,” he says.
“I prefer the conservative, right-wing approach that we should do as much as we can to preserve individual freedoms,” he says.
TOO MANY GENERALS?
Does he think there are too many ex-army politicians in Israel?
“No, I think that it’s only natural that people who served for years as leaders in the military will look for other fields where they can contribute, and politics is a natural choice,” he responds.
I suggest that when he served as Colonel, he issued a command and it had to be carried out, while civilian politicians must engage in coalition building.
Branski objects strongly. “That’s a myth,” he says. “As senior officer – a Colonel, a General, there’s a lot of politics. You have to convince, you have to influence, you have to build coalitions. You have to fight for your resources. As Colonel I had a lot of give-and-take with the political level. When you’re responsible for an organization in the army, with a very big budget and thousands of people under you, you don’t just give an order and it’s done.”
WOMEN IN COMBAT UNITS
I asked him to comment, as both a former military official and an observant Jew, on the currently hot issue of women in military combat service. Branski is well prepared for this one.
“I think placing women in combat positions is a mistake, for three reasons” he shoots back.
Branski lives in Eli, which is home to a fine Hesder yeshiva (a program combining advanced Talmudic studies with military service), where Rabbi Yigal Levinstein, one of the deans, was responsible for a recent Scandal Du Jour in Israel when he carried a virtual standup act attacking and making fun of female soldiers in combat units. This background is important, because Branski’s principle views on the topic are almost identical to Levinstein’s, but his delivery is reserved and respectful.
Branski’s three-part answer is that, one, women are physiologically unable to compete with men, and so a dangerous equalizing of the sexes takes place in terms of sheer physical standards for combat soldiers, degrading the effectiveness of combat units – and, quite often, causing long-lasting injuries to the women; two, men and women serving in close, not to mention mixed quarters, in stressful situations, tend to have inflated libidos, with unhappy consequences; and, three, serving in such conditions is simply untenable for religious soldiers.
Having commanded thousands of women soldiers during his service, he is obviously not against women serving in the military. “In almost every unit in the army we have men and women together,” he explains. “It causes problems, of course, but we manage it.” But the opportunities for inappropriate behavior and even abuse in military office situations are dwarfed by what is commonplace out in the fields.
“We’ll pay a big price for that,” he warns. “These men and women lie in ambush together, go on patrol together, the are on guard duty at night together, how can there not be sexual tension there?”
THE FUTURE OF HESDER
I quoted a view that the reason the IDF HR is looking to recruit women into combat unit has to do with the fact that Hesder yeshiva soldiers do not serve the full stretch as other male soldiers.
“I will be very happy if Hesder soldiers will serve the full three years, I think it’s a very good idea,” Branski says, which is a complicated answer for someone searching for votes from those same Hesder soldiers. “But it has little to do with the IDF HR needs. There simply aren’t enough soldiers serving on the Hesder tract to solve the problem.”
In 2011 there were 8,500 Hesder soldiers in the IDF, out of about 175,000 enlisted men and women. Hesder service lasts a total of five years, throughout which participants are officially IDF soldiers, but in reality serve only 16 months in actual army service. Men drafted as of July 2015 serve 2 years and 8 months.
“What will solve the problem is for the army to invest the time and money it invests in recruiting women into combat service to recruit Haredi soldiers. The army could easily close the HR gap and solve the problem that way,” Branski says. As to the Hesder tract, he says, “It’s a very good program, but I think that serving three years and learning Torah before and after, or even in the middle, would be better than the current concept.”
His own twin boys who are of military service age, Branski says, received a deferral to complete their advanced religious studies, following which they plan to enlist for the full military service.
Branski’s chances of winning the Habayit Hayehudi chairmanship are low – indeed, if he passes 20 percent it should be cause for celebration for his followers and an ominous note for Bennett. He insists that he is in the race to win it, but is also frank about his taking advantage of the race Thursday to make himself known to the voters, on the way to gaining a high enough placement on the party’s candidate list to make it into the Knesset when the time comes.
