For  seventy five years, the Israeli army has marketed itself as the ‘most moral army’ in the world, in what is known in Zionist terminology as ‘purity of arms’, which allegedly guarantees ethical conduct even in the fog of war.   Beneath this carefully constructed mythology lies an unpleasant reality:  the army is increasingly relying on foreign fighters and private contractors; what legal experts classify as mercenaries. Reports that a new ‘Foreign Legion’ unit is being contemplated, or even officially created within the Israeli army are currently circulating widely.  

The outsourcing of the army’s operations relies on new American firms like UG Solutions and Safe Reach Solutions, which are deeply linked to the lineage of the notorious Blackwater, (founded in 1996 by Erik Prince  during the Iraq war), before rebranding as Academi and later merging into Constellis.   Today, ex-Blackwater and Constellis executives are back in the Middle East.

The irony here is layered and complex, and it begins much earlier than the establishment of the Jewish state and the army.  In 1915, Revisionist Zionist leader Vladimir Jabotinsky,  (Netanyahu’s spiritual father) with Joseph Trumpeldor, jointly petitioned the British military in Egypt to form a Jewish combat legion to help the British liberate Palestine from the Ottoman Empire. The British refused that Zionists  serve as soldiers, but were permitted to serve only as pack animal handlers on the Galippoli front, hence the name: The  Zion Mule Corps. For the Zionist movement, this was a humiliation well worth enduring. The dream was to prove that Jews could be warriors, not muleteers, and that they could defend themselves, not serve others. In 1917, the Zion Mule Corps was promoted to the Jewish Legion, where Jabotinsky served.  Armed and uniformed, it was the first step toward the Zionist dream. 

A century later, this historical arc has not merely bent, it has collapsed.

Today, Israel pays foreign fighters up to $ 4,000 a week to fight its wars, while a growing segment of its own citizens are exempt from service. 

Today, Israel pays foreign fighters up to $ 4,000 a week to fight its wars, while a growing segment of its own citizens are exempt from service. 

The scale of foreign participation is striking. Over 50,000 soldiers currently serving in the Israeli army hold foreign nationalities, with the largest contingent  from the United States, followed by French, Ukrainian, and according to the latest reports, Spanish mercenaries. The trajectory is no longer hidden. Former senior officials have already drafted blueprints for an official Israeli Foreign Legion – a corporate force of 12,000 mercenaries organised into four brigades, costing upwards of $3 billion........

© Middle East Monitor