Ben-Gvir, eyeing Defense Ministry, vows to rewrite IDF ethics code

Otzma Yehudit Party leader Itamar Ben-Gvir said on Thursday that as defense minister, he would propose a “dramatic change” to the Israel Defense Forces’ code of ethics and replace the value of “purity of arms” with “righteousness of arms.”

Ben-Gvir is campaigning to become defense minister after the Oct. 27 Knesset election. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Army Radio on Wednesday that the portfolio should stay with his Likud Party.

“IDF soldiers need to go into battle knowing that they are fighting a just war,” Ben-Gvir, who currently serves as the Jewish state’s national security minister, wrote on X in Hebrew.

He said troops’ guiding rule should be the Talmudic teaching of “if someone comes to kill you, rise up and kill him first.”

Ben-Gvir said he would also remove the language limiting the use of force “only to the extent necessary.” He would delete the passage barring harm to noncombatants and prisoners of war, and drop references to “universal moral values.”

Instead, he said, the code would emphasize Jewish morality, the Bible, Jewish law and Jewish tradition.

“The first goal of the IDF is to win the war and decisively defeat the enemies of the State of Israel and the people of Israel,” he wrote.

The IDF’s battle ethic, known as “purity of arms,” traces back to the late 1930s, when the Jewish community took up arms during the Great Arab Revolt.

In the 1990s, it was enshrined in “The Spirit of the IDF.” That code states that soldiers “will not use their weapon or power to harm uninvolved civilians and prisoners.”

It also holds that “every individual is of inherent value, regardless of their ethnicity, religion, nationality, gender or status.”