The Embedded Military: Why did the IDF Perform Effectively in Executing the Disengagement Plan?

In the summer of 2005, the Israeli military evacuated thousands of Jewish settlers from the Gaza Strip and the northern West Bank in the framework of the Disengagement Plan. Not only was the evacuation swift, but the army also maintained the unity of its ranks and avoided massive refusal of the national religious conscripts who identified with the settlers. It is argued that the effective functioning of the Israel Defense Forces can be attributed to the degree to which it has become embedded primarily within the social networks of the national religious groups that serve within it. The army implemented the evacuation by leveraging the interest of those groups to reinforce the army's status as an apolitical and universal "people's army" by which the groups could preserve their mobility within its ranks. Thus, what prevented the groups from initiating massive clashes with the evacuating troops was their assessment that a confrontation could have undermined the army's status and, by extension, that of the resisting groups - both within the IDF and in civilian society.