Rabbi Oury Cherki of the Brit Olam organization met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu this week to present him with a proposal to update the "Spirit of the IDF," the Israeli military’s official ethical code.
The proposed revision, developed over nine months by a team led by Maj. Gen. (res.) Uzi Dayan and Rabbi Cherki, would make "victory" the first of the document’s ten values and introduce changes concerning Jewish identity, the chain of military authority and the protection of soldiers in combat.
The proposal has also been submitted to IDF Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir and the IDF Chief Education Officer.
The initiative emerged following a conference convened to reexamine the existing Spirit of the IDF, which was formulated in the mid-1990s.
Among those who spoke at the Tuesday conference was Brig. Gen. (res.) Chico Tamir, an experienced IDF commander who played a significant role in planning the ground maneuver during the Swords of Iron war against Hamas in Gaza.
Tamir has argued that restrictions imposed on the military have prevented it from bringing its full force to bear and achieving decisive outcomes. Those behind the initiative argue that the existing Spirit of the IDF reflects a worldview developed during the Oslo era that is no longer suited to the wars Israel currently faces.
The proposed document would not entirely replace the existing code but revise its framing and priorities. One of its central changes would be to define the Spirit of the IDF as a "compass of values" rather than an "ethical code." According to those behind the proposal, military service differs fundamentally from professions governed by voluntary ethical codes because IDF service is both a legal obligation and a mission that can require soldiers to risk their lives.
Dayan described the current document as "cold and universal" in that it could just as easily fit the army of Nicaragua as it does the army of Israel. "There’s nothing Jewish about it. It doesn’t express who we are."
A central element of the proposal is elevating victory to a value in its own right: The current Spirit of the IDF includes victory within the value of "dedication to the mission and striving for victory." Under the proposed revision, victory would become the first of ten values.
"There is nothing more moral than victory," says Rabbi Cherki. "In a war between good and evil, striving for a draw is a moral failure."
Dayan argues that the change would also have operational significance, shifting the military's approach from merely thwarting threats toward eliminating them and achieving a decisive outcome.
At the same time, the proposal would retain principles including "purity of arms" and "human dignity." Its authors argue that defeating an enemy and maintaining soldiers' humanity should not be viewed as contradictory objectives.
The proposal also addresses the use of civilians as human shields, arguing that Israeli soldiers should not be placed at additional risk in order to protect an enemy who deliberately operates from behind civilians. It maintains that responsibility for the use of human shields lies with the party employing them.
Under the proposed approach, soldiers would remain obligated to preserve their humanity and avoid unnecessary cruelty while prioritizing the lives of Israeli troops.
Another proposed change concerns the military's chain of authority.
The existing reference to "the authorities of democratic civilian government" would be replaced with language explicitly stating that the IDF is subordinate to the elected government and acts in accordance with the law.
The proposal's authors argue that this would provide soldiers with greater clarity: Lawful orders must be obeyed, while manifestly unlawful orders must be refused, without requiring soldiers to navigate broader legal disputes while engaged in combat.
The revised text would also reorder the sources from which the IDF draws its values, placing the values and moral tradition of the Jewish people first, followed by the values of the IDF and the civic-national identity of the State of Israel.
Rabbi Cherki explained the distinction between Israel's democratic system and the purpose of the state, saying, "Democracy is the regime and system of government that the people have chosen, but it’s not the reason the state exists. The reason for Israel’s existence is to be a national home for the Jewish people. And from that follows a call for an army that is not a ‘melting pot’ molding civic national identity, but an ‘enabling and unifying space’ in which soldiers from all walks of life and all of Israel’s sociopolitical ‘tribes’ find a home around a unified mission and purpose."
The proposed document also deliberately omits the word "Zionism." According to Dayan and Rabbi Cherki, the decision is intended not as a rejection of Zionism but to make the document accessible to sectors of Israeli society, including the haredi community, that may not identify with the term. The proposal instead uses the phrase "cultural and national identity."
Rabbi Cherki said the broader change reflects the transformation of the Jewish people from a nation in exile to one defending itself as a sovereign state, adding, "When we went into exile two thousand years ago, prophecy promised that we would return to the land and become a moral light from Jerusalem to the rest of the world. In the meantime, far from here, someone coined a saying: They strike you on the right cheek? Offer the left. And so it came to pass that, of all people, it is the Jews who returned from exile who still feel the need to live by that distorted rule, as Tamir noted. A whole nation that takes a blow and all but apologizes for it."
"The time has come for the people of Israel to return to ourselves. And the simple truth is that we already have. We’re in our land, sovereign, fighting for our life and winning. All that remains is to say so, in words, and to define things as they are. The ‘Spirit of the IDF’ is waiting for precisely this upgrade."