Israeli militarism

Anat Meir and her baby mourn her husband David Meir, an Israeli soldier killed on October 7 at Kibbutz Be'eri, at Mount Herzl Military Cemetery in Jerusalem, November 8, 2023. (Chaim Goldberg/Flash90)
‘Survival of the nation’: Israel’s obsession with dead soldiers’ sperm
Postmortem sperm retrieval has become state policy, with a quarter of all male soldiers killed since October 7 undergoing the procedure. But by creating a pressure valve for grieving families, it only perpetuates war.
By Nathalie Rozanes September 4, 2026
Israeli officers stand by as Palestinian and Jewish activists take part in a rally marking Nakba Day, outside Tel Aviv University, May 14, 2018. (Yossi Zeliger/Flash90)
‘Full cooperation’: How Tel Aviv University serves Israel’s security state
From Shin Bet recruitment to military training programs, Israel’s defense establishment is becoming increasingly embedded in academic life.
By Meron Rapoport and Aharon Porath July 30, 2026
A mural in Tel Aviv shows a young girl embracing an Israeli soldier, July 21, 2025. (Chaim Goldberg/Flash90)
PHOTOS: How hypermilitarism pervades everyday life in Israel
From the sacred to the mundane, military imagery suffuses the Israeli public sphere — shaping our imagination, desires, and collective identity.
By Nissi Peli April 10, 2026
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Sahar Vardi (Courtesy)
PODCAST: How Israel sells militarism at home and abroad
Sahar Vardi discusses the human and political costs of Israel's flourishing arms industry, and the deep societal shifts demilitarization would require.
By +972 Magazine March 27, 2026
Memorial stickers at HaShalom railway station, Tel Aviv, September 2025. (Nissi Peli)
How a sticker campaign fueled Israel’s war machine
From lampposts to café windows, portraits of fallen soldiers have saturated public space, binding personal loss to a drive for ‘total victory’ in Gaza.
By Nissi Peli November 12, 2025
Rosa Luxemburg addressing a crowd during the International Socialist Congress, in Stuttgart, 1907. (Wikimedia Commons)
What a 20th-century revolutionary can teach us about resisting genocide today
Over a century after Rosa Luxemburg was assassinated for opposing German militarism, her spirit lives on through those disrupting Israel’s war machine.
By Dana Mills January 27, 2025
Demonstrators outside the Likud headquarters in Tel Aviv, September 2, 2024. (Itai Ron/Flash90)
To sacrifice or free the hostages? Israeli protesters have chosen a side
Fearing for the remaining captives, the mass rallies that erupted across Israel were essentially demanding an end to the war — and Netanyahu knows it.
By Meron Rapoport September 4, 2024
IDF reserve infantry and Merkava Tank soldiers train in a military exercise in the Golan Heights, October 23, 2023. (Michael Giladi/Flash90)
Enough with the warlords. There is another way
Israel’s addictive militarism has convinced us that the next dose of the drug will be the one that fixes things forever. But an alternative path exists.
By Orly Noy October 23, 2023
Students outside the Faculty of Humanities at Tel Aviv University on the first day of the new academic year, October 10, 2021. (Flash90)
‘It’ll turn campus into an army base’: Tel Aviv University to host soldiers’ program
A collaboration between the Israeli army and TAU has drawn backlash from faculty and Palestinian students decrying the militarization of academia.
By Meron Rapoport October 4, 2023
Itamar Ben Gvir visits the Jewish settlement of Beit Orot near the neighborhood of At-Tur, occupied East Jerusalem, October 13, 2022. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)
The generals are the supremacists of the past. Ben Gvir is the supremacist of now
The Kahanist lawmaker offers a ‘democratized’ version of supremacy: taking power from the old elites and handing it to the marginalized Jewish masses.
By Orly Noy November 3, 2022
Yuli Novak speaks during the annual Israeli-Palestinian Memorial Day Ceremony, Tel Aviv, May 3, 2022. (Avivomer Neuberg/Flash90)
Memorial Day is the time to betray our Israeliness
This day represents how militarism and apartheid are burned deep into our consciousness. Only when we are ready to betray it can we dream about peace.
By Yuli Novak May 4, 2022
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Israel's Defense Minister Ehud Barak change the epaulets of Israeli Chief of Staff Benny Gantz, February 14, 2011. (Abir Sultan/Flash90)
Why are Israeli generals such terrible politicians?
The popular myth that army generals have the skills to excel in politics will continue so long as Israeli society idealizes the military and masculinity.
By Noa Balf December 11, 2020
Police make arrests as Israelis take to the streets to protest against the government's ban on demonstrations, Tel Aviv, October 2, 2020. (Oren Ziv)
To fight its ‘war’ on COVID-19, Israel is turning citizens into enemies
To live with the pandemic, Israel will have to stop transforming civilian issues into matters of national security, says Israeli sociologist Yagil Levy.
By Edo Konrad October 22, 2020
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  1. ‘Lavender’: The AI machine directing Israel’s bombing spree in Gaza
  2. A restored history of Jewish anti-Zionism — and the loss it cannot repair
  3. ‘NAZA’ is forcing Israelis to reflect. But we Palestinians are not your mirror
  4. The 'gray arm' of Israeli annexation
  5. ‘The Gaza Holocaust won't be forgotten’: An Israeli musician screams into the void
  1. ‘NAZA’: Exposing Israel’s killing machine in Gaza
  2. ‘Lavender’: The AI machine directing Israel’s bombing spree in Gaza
  3. ‘Survival of the nation’: Israel’s obsession with dead soldiers’ sperm
  4. The myth of Israel's Arab doctors
  5. A restored history of Jewish anti-Zionism — and the loss it cannot repair