The killing of a Palestinian terrorist by an Israeli soldier in Hebron on March 24 sparked a volatile and emotional debate inside Israel’s political leadership and within public opinion. In the Israeli ethos, the soldier is always in the right and the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) is the people’s army, as military service is mandatory and virtually every Jewish citizen sees or will see his/her children serving in the army. Indeed, a public opinion poll by Israeli TV Channel 2 on March 27 showed a strong majority in favor of the soldier’s claim that he acted out of self-defense; 57% of the public believed that he should not have been arrested.

The response of the IDF was surprisingly stern. The soldier was denounced for not obeying IDF moral code. Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Gadi Eizenkot issued on March 30 a special letter to all the soldiers, ordering them to uphold both operational and moral standards of the army. He emphasized this point by quoting Israel's first Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion, who said that Israel’s security depends both on its strength and its morality. Eizenkot also committed the IDF to remaining the people’s army in a democratic and Jewish state.

This is a rare case where Israel’s head of the military stood up for Israel’s democratic values.

Eizenkot's stance was strongly denounced and defamed by right-wing politicians and public opinion, but supported by Minister of Defense Moshe Ya’alon. This is quite reminiscent of the Turkish model — especially the stance taken by the Turkish army in 2002 when the Islamic Justice and Development Party first won the elections. At the outset of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s rule, the army stood out to protect the stability of the democracy, out of concern for the religious, Islamic nature of the new regime.