Judges, ministers, now army chief: Settlers rise in Israel

For the first time, a settler will serve as chief of staff of Israel’s military, becoming the enforcer of Israel’s open-ended occupation of the West Bank, now in its 56th year.

Maj. Gen. Herzi Halevi’s nomination was approved on Sunday and he is expected to begin his three-year term on Jan. 17.

Halevi’s rise caps the decades-long transformation of the settler movement from a small group of religious ideologues to a diverse and influential force at the heart of the Israeli mainstream whose members have reached the highest ranks of government and other key institutions.

Critics say the settlers’ outsized political influence imperils any hope for the creation of an independent Palestinian state and endangers the country’s future as a democracy. They say Halevi’s appointment lays bare just how interconnected settlers and the military truly are.

“It isn’t surprising that we’ve come to a point where the chief of staff is a settler too,” said Shabtay Bendet of the anti-settlement watchdog group Peace Now.

Others say Halevi, currently deputy chief of staff, has had a distinguished military career and his place of residence won’t affect his decision-making. He served as head of the elite Sayeret Matkal unit, as well as military intelligence and led the Southern Command, from where he oversaw operations in the Gaza Strip.

Defense Minister Benny Gantz praised Halevi as an ethical officer. “I have no doubt that he is the right man to head the military,” Gantz said upon nominating him.

The military declined to make Halevi available for an interview.

Born just months after the 1967 Mideast war, when Israel captured the West Bank, and raised in Jerusalem, Halevi is a descendant of a rabbi seen as the father of the modern settler movement.

Halevi lives in Kfar HaOranim, a settlement that abuts the invisible line between Israel and the West Bank.

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