Between Orders and Democracy: The IDF's Educational Dilemma in the 1982 Lebanon War

The 1982 Lebanon War was Israel’s first major military campaign waged without national consensus, creating deep tensions within both society and the army. This state of things placed the IDF in a profound dilemma: How should it act when the government’s policy is politically contested? As a non-partisan institution expected to remain above politics, the IDF sought to avoid taking sides; yet, as an executive arm of the government, it was responsible for implementing a controversial political decision. This presentation examines how the IDF’s educational system confronted this tension and how competing interpretations of mamlakhtiyut (Israeli republicanism) shaped its approach. The lecture traces the shift from efforts to justify the war toward an emphasis on civic responsibility, loyalty to the state, and commitment to democratic procedures as tools for reinforcing discipline without entering the political debate itself. A central set of sources for this analysis comes from the weekly “Guidance Instructions for the Commander,” booklets used to structure current-events discussions with soldiers. Read alongside other materials, these sources reveal how the IDF sought to preserve cohesion under fractured national conditions and what this case can teach about the wider questions of military-government and military-civil society relations in Israel and beyond.

Adi Sherzer is a Senior Lecturer at the Seymour Fox School of Education, Hebrew University of Jerusalem. His research examines mamlakhtiyut as a form of Israeli republicanism and explores its expression in national ceremonies, civil-military relations, and Israel-Diaspora dynamics. He has published extensively on Israeli political culture, state rituals, and military education.