When Israel's recently designated Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman took a stand in support of the soldier who shot to death an incapacitated attacker in Hebron on March 24, he knew exactly what he was doing. True, he is a quintessential right-winger, but it was not ideology that motivated Liberman in this case. It was the understanding that he was strumming the strings of widespread popular sentiment.

This affair, which pitted supporters of the uniformed shooter against the military establishment that denounced him and dragged the Israel Defense Forces into a growingly radicalized social discourse, provided an opportunity to examine current public attitudes toward IDF soldiers: a warm, supportive, parental approach that puts the soldiers first at the expense of civilians and, as in the latest case, at the expense of democratic values, the IDF code of ethics, open-fire regulations and the authority of the military chain of command. Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon and Chief of Staff Gadi Eizenkot had condemned the act.

The changing Israeli attitudes toward soldiers, from viewing them as heroes whose job is to physically defend the civilians and borders of the state, to treating them like "everybody's children" in need of protection themselves, has been evolving over several decades. It started with public attitudes toward soldiers killed in battle.

"The First Lebanon War was a watershed moment as regards attitudes toward fallen soldiers, when protests were held over the deaths of soldiers there," Yagil Levy, a sociologist studying military-societal relationships at the Open University, tells Al-Monitor.