In the summer of 2005, I participated as a commander in the IDF, along with tens of thousands of soldiers and policemen, in a mission that for many of us was contrary to the core of our faith - to participate in the mission of destroying and uprooting Jews from their homes.
We carried out the task with an aching heart, but with a sense of duty to preserve the unity of the IDF and the people of Israel. It never occurred to us, nor to the minds of the settler community leadership, to threaten non-compliance with IDF service.
When I told the late Abi Yedaya HaCohen, one of the founders of Gush Emunim, about the task assigned to me, he answered without hesitation: "You have no choice, you must obey." The IDF was the holy of holies for him.
Whoever these days threatens the Israeli government with evasion of military service is shaking the basic conventions that made us obey the State of Israel, its laws and the orders of the IDF during the days of disengagement. Although everything seemed to us to be a decree of destruction and a Zionist disaster, we obeyed in faith. The thought that we could be threatened by refusing an order was beyond us to all horizons of possibilities.
In documentary evidence, I can be found telling the commanding general, Dan Harel, that my obedience is so absolute that I would obey the order of a non-democratic government in this mission.
Those who dare these days to threaten non-appearance for service express a different consciousness, as if they were, as it were, a privileged group that was allowed what for us was at all unthinkable.
Ehud Barak, as well as a spokesman for the reserve fighters of the Special Forces, spoke about a contract that is being violated.
"We have a contract with liberal democracy," Barak stated.
It is worth emphasizing: the State of Israel, which was established by the pioneering workers' parties, really did not intend to be a liberal democracy.
It was definitely a democratic country, but with republican logic.
The Declaration of Independence, even in its call for equality, does not exactly dictate the path to liberal democracy.
The scroll opens with the national aspect: "In Eretz Yisrael the Jewish people arose..." and ends with "security in the fortress of Israel".
The difference between the two approaches is clearly expressed in the story that the state and society tell themselves about the obligation to recruit for military service.
In the liberal story we talk about a contract between the individual and the state.
It is about the benefit equation for the private citizen, and the recruitment is justified by its contribution in the overall account to the benefit of the individual.
In the republican story there is a collective-national element, which places the good of the nation above considerations of the benefit of the individual.
With the encouragement of the Supreme Court, under the leadership of Aharon Barak, Israeli society went through a quiet process without announcement, from a pioneer recruited company to a liberal capitalist society.
Netanyahu also had a role in this transformation - after all, he and his father were never part of the pioneering labor movement.
In the conception of the state in the logic of a liberal democracy, I could not lead my soldiers to realize the decree of destruction.
Under my command was an MP in the Golani Brigade, son of Moshav Gadid, who was forced with his company to evacuate his parents and all his neighbors from their homes. Our obedience in those days of disengagement was based on the concept of the state inspired by the idea of statehood established by Ben-Gurion, and he certainly did not know talk of a contract between the state and her soldiers
Love and loyalty to the IDF are unconditional above any contract. The supremacy of service in the IDF must be preserved beyond any dispute.
We have no existence without it.
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