IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi wrote a letter on Monday addressed to the soldiers and commanders of Israel’s military, discussing the current anarchy that has seized the streets of the country.
The chief of staff made it crystal clear that each soldier is expected to show up for his task and to give his all to the mission, regardless of personal feelings about the political situation.
Protests, said Halevi, “have no place in the IDF.”
The text of his letter follows:
“We have not known such days of coalescing threats from outside with a storm at home.
This is a time for responsibility.
The place for expressions of protest is in the public arena. They have no place in the IDF, because here they constitute mortal wounds.
Each of you has a personal responsibility to show up for the mission and to carry it out without any extraneous consideration.
“The IDF has always acted according to the values of the IDF and the spirit of the IDF, a 75-year-old compass by the light of which we marched even in the darkest of hours and in the darkest of days.
This will be the case in the future as well.
I, along with the commanders, along the entire length of the avenue of command, lead the IDF and you also in these difficult days.
I am responsible for the fact that any task entrusted to you will be a task of protecting the security of the State of Israel and its citizens and will uphold the values of the IDF — aAnd you, each on his watch, are responsible for fulfilling his part in the task, knowing that he has no replacement.”
