In a Jewish People Policy Institute survey published on 6 June 2022, “three out of four Israeli Jews agree with the claim that the IDF ‘is the most moral army in the world,’ and nearly half feel that this is a ‘highly accurate’ claim (47%),” in the institute’s own words. The phrase asserts a ranking, and the measured record behind it is a record of opinion in one country, scored differently by dimension and by respondent group: the Israel Democracy Institute’s 2017 report card gave the army 4.25 out of 5 for ethical behavior during operational activity among Jewish respondents and 2.53 out of 5 among Arab respondents, and its September 2024 survey put the Jewish sample giving high grades for ethical conduct during the war at 83%, while in the Arab sample “more than two-thirds of respondents awarded low grades.” A ranking needs something to be ranked against. What is published, and what is not?
Key Findings
- 47% of Israeli Jews called the statement that the Israel Defense Forces “is the most moral army in the world” a “highly accurate” claim, and three out of four agreed with it more loosely, in a Jewish People Policy Institute survey published on 6 June 2022 and fielded in May 2022, before the war began.
- The Israel Democracy Institute’s 2017 Peace Index report card scored the army, among Jewish respondents only, 4.25 out of 5 for ethical behavior during operational activity, 3.1 for the treatment of soldiers and 3 for budgetary behavior, three different numbers from one instrument.
- 83% of the Jewish sample gave the army high grades for ethical conduct during the war in the Israel Democracy Institute’s September 2024 survey, while in the Arab sample “more than two-thirds of respondents awarded low grades,” a share the Institute does not publish as a number; the survey states a maximum sampling error of ±3.10% at 95% confidence on a total sample of 1,000.
- The Israel Defense Forces’ published ethical code, “The Spirit of the IDF,” sets six values, including Purity of Arms, and contains no comparison of the army with any other military.
- The Military Advocate General’s Corps reported opening 74 criminal investigations arising from the war in Gaza as at 3 August 2024, the army’s own count of its own processes, alongside its own statement that civilian death or injury “in most cases do not by themselves indicate a reasonable suspicion of criminal conduct.”
What record actually stands behind the phrase?
The most-cited measured basis for the phrase is a survey of opinion rather than a comparison of militaries: in a Jewish People Policy Institute survey published on 6 June 2022, “three out of four Israeli Jews agree with the claim that the IDF ‘is the most moral army in the world.’”
The Institute prints that agreement as a fraction and not as a percentage, and the figure records what one national population said in answer to one question, on the Institute’s own instrument.
The same survey recorded 47% of Israeli Jews describing the statement as highly accurate, the strongest tier of agreement the instrument offered, and the only one the Institute publishes as a number. The gap between the two numbers is itself informative: agreement with the sentence is broader than confidence in it.
The Institute for National Security Studies, in a 2024 analysis published under the title “Is the IDF the Most Moral Military in the World?”, addresses the comparison directly and reports no validated cross-army benchmark against which the ranking could be tested. No international body publishes an index scoring militaries against one another on morality, and no figure of that kind appears in the sources assembled for this report. Armed forces are measured on other things: budgets, personnel, equipment, and, where the records exist, investigations opened and cases prosecuted.
The distinction the numbers force is between two different objects. One is a claim about how a military conducts itself, which is checkable against codes, orders, investigation counts and court records. The other is a claim about its place relative to every other military, which requires a comparison no published source performs.
Is it often said the IDF is the world’s most moral army?
Yes, and the measured form of the claim is Israeli agreement with it: the Jewish People Policy Institute recorded 47% of Israeli Jews in May 2022 calling the statement highly accurate, with three out of four agreeing more loosely. The phrase is not a fringe formulation. Both are the institutes’ own published figures, drawn from their own fieldwork. It is a view held across the population the survey sampled.
The directionally supportive evidence should be stated before anything is added to it. Israeli respondents rate the army’s operational ethics high, repeatedly and across instruments. The Israel Democracy Institute’s September 2024 survey found 83% of its Jewish sample giving the Israel Defense Forces high grades for ethical conduct during the war, with a stated maximum sampling error of ±3.10% at 95% confidence. The Institute’s earlier Peace Index report card, published in 2017, gave the army its highest score on the ethics of operational activity.
What those instruments measure is perception, and the population they sample is defined. The Jewish People Policy Institute surveyed Israeli Jews. The Israel Democracy Institute surveyed the Israeli public and reports its Jewish and Arab respondents separately, because the two groups answer differently. A respondent rating the army highly is stating a view about an institution, not producing a comparison with the armed forces of other states, which no respondent in these surveys was asked to make.
The claim in the question therefore has two halves that travel together and separate cleanly under examination. That most Israeli Jewish respondents rate the army as ethical is a measured finding with a named source, a year and a number. That it stands first among the world’s militaries is a comparison the surveys do not perform, the army’s own code does not assert, and no published index scores.
Does the IDF’s own code make a comparative claim?
The Israel Defense Forces publishes an ethical code, “The Spirit of the IDF,” setting six values, and it contains no ranking of the army against any other military. The values are Purity of Arms, Human Life, Discipline, Professionalism, Camaraderie and a Sense of Mission. The document states obligations, not standings.
Purity of Arms, in the army’s own wording, holds that “an IDF soldier will only exercise their power or use their weapon in order to fulfill their mission and only when necessary,” and that the soldier “will not use their weapon or power to harm uninvolved civilians and prisoners and will do everything in their power to prevent harm to their lives, bodies, dignity and property.” Under Human Life, the soldier “will recognize the critical importance of human life,” and in combat “will put themselves and their fellow soldiers at risk only to the extent required to fulfill their mission.” Under Discipline, the soldier “will ensure they are only giving out legal orders, and do not follow illegal orders.”
This is doctrine, published by a party about itself. It records the standard the army sets for its soldiers and is evidence of that standard. It is not evidence of conduct measured against it, and no figure can be derived from it. Quoting the code establishes what is required, not what occurred in any particular action.
The distance between the code and the slogan is worth stating plainly, because it is a fact about the two texts. The code is written in the language of obligation and constraint: only when necessary, only to the extent required, will not follow illegal orders. The slogan is written in the language of comparative rank. An army can be assessed against the first without any reference to the second, and the first is the document the army itself publishes.
How do Israelis rate the army on its other dimensions?
The Israel Democracy Institute’s 2017 Peace Index report card scored the Israel Defense Forces 4.25 out of 5 for ethical behavior during operational activity among Jewish respondents, its strongest dimension in that column.
The same report card scored the army 3.1 out of 5 for the treatment of soldiers and the handling of their problems, and 3 out of 5 for budgetary behavior, the one dimension on which both respondent columns return the same number.
Three numbers from one instrument, spanning 1.25 points, is the finding. A public that scores an institution 4.25 on one dimension and 3.0 on another is not issuing a single verdict on that institution; it is issuing several, and the dimensions are not interchangeable. Budgetary behavior and the treatment of one’s own soldiers are ethical questions in the ordinary sense of the word, and they score lower than combat conduct in the same survey.
The phrase in the question collapses that structure into one word. The report card holds it open. A reader who wants to know what Israelis think of their army’s ethics has an answer only once the dimension is specified, and the Institute’s own presentation specifies it.
The three scores also mark what these instruments are for. They are report cards on an institution as seen from inside the country that maintains it, published by an Israeli research institute, measuring domestic perception over time. They do not compare the Israel Defense Forces with the armed forces of any other state, and the Institute does not present them as doing so.
Which respondents rate the army’s ethics highly, and which do not?
83% of the Jewish sample gave the Israel Defense Forces high grades for ethical conduct during the war in the Israel Democracy Institute’s September 2024 survey.
The Institute reports the other half of the same question in the opposite direction, and does not publish a matching share. Its words are that “in the Arab sample, more than two-thirds of respondents awarded low grades to the IDF for its ethical conduct during the war.” There is no published figure for the share of Arab respondents giving HIGH grades, so the two groups cannot be set side by side as one number against another, and this report does not construct one.
Where the Institute does break the Arab sample down, it does so by vote rather than by grade: “78% of voters for Arab parties and 73% of those who did not vote think that the ethical conduct of the IDF during the war has been poor or very poor.” Those are shares of a subsample of 200 respondents interviewed in Arabic, inside a total sample of 1,000 with a stated maximum sampling error of ±3.10% at 95% confidence, so a subsample share carries a wider error than the headline figure does.
The one place the record does publish a directly comparable pair is the 2017 report card, where the same dimension is scored by both groups on the same 5-point scale. Jewish respondents scored the army 4.25 for ethical behavior during operational activity; Arab respondents scored the same dimension 2.53.
These are the Institute’s own published figures, and the two halves of the question are published in opposite directions rather than as one comparable pair. This is why the shares in this report always carry the group they describe. A figure quoted without its base becomes a general statement about the army rather than a specific statement about who was asked.
Nothing in either instrument establishes which group’s assessment tracks conduct more closely, and neither was designed to test that. What they record is that within a single state, two population groups asked the same question about the same army answer differently enough that the publisher reports them in opposite directions.
What does the army’s own accountability record contain?
The Military Advocate General’s Corps reported 74 criminal investigations opened in connection with the war in Gaza as at 3 August 2024, in a document published on 24 February 2024 and updated that August. The count is the army’s own count of its own processes, published by a party to the events, and is not independently verified.
The Corps breaks the 74 down: 44 concerning the death of detainees held by the Israel Defense Forces, 8 alleged detainee mistreatment, 13 alleged pillaging or stealing, 6 alleged illegal use of force, and 3 alleged destruction of civilian property without military necessity.
The same document reports over 1,000 incidents identified as requiring factual assessment and referred to the General Staff’s Fact-Finding and Assessment Mechanism, a permanent body created during the 2014 Gaza conflict on a recommendation of the Turkel Commission, with hundreds still under assessment at the time of writing. It states that the Military Advocate General “is subject only to the law on professional matters and operates with full independence,” and that decisions can be challenged before Israel’s Attorney General and the Supreme Court.
The sentence that must travel with the counts is the Corps’ own statement of the threshold that produces them: in armed conflict, “death or injury to a civilian or harm to civilian objects, while tragic and regrettable, in most cases do not by themselves indicate a reasonable suspicion of criminal conduct, as they can be explained as reasonable aftermath of lawful operational activity.” The 74 is a function of that standard. The counts are also of investigations opened, not of findings, indictments or convictions, and cannot be restated as any of those.
Alongside them, the army publishes operational counts of its own: the IDF Spokesperson stated at a briefing on 29 February 2024 that over 13,000 people the army describes as terrorists had been eliminated in Gaza since the war began, a characterisation and a count that are the army’s own.
Do the issued findings rank militaries or name conduct?
None of the external determinations issued about the war produces a ranking of armies; each applies a fixed legal standard to specific incidents. The Independent International Commission of Inquiry established by the United Nations Human Rights Council and Amnesty International have both issued dated findings on the conduct of the war, and the instruments they apply, the Geneva Conventions and the Genocide Convention among them, contain thresholds and elements, not comparative scales.
Israeli institutions have answered those determinations in named publications. The Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs, in a 2025 essay, set a ceiling of at most 41,000 on civilians in Gaza who died of war-related causes, arithmetic the Center performed itself by subtracting estimated natural deaths and Israel’s count of fighters killed from a total reported by the Gaza health ministry. The Center states on the same page that neither of the inputs to that subtraction has been independently confirmed, which makes the 41,000 a stated ceiling rather than a count. The Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies, in a 2025 situation report, carried cumulative Israeli figures of 1,664 killed and 17,809 wounded as at 5 September 2024, including 1,184 killed on 7 October 2023, with no official body credited for the running totals.
What the documentary record on civilian harm holds, and how the legal instruments are structured, are treated at length in the Institute’s reports on what the documentary record shows about civilian harm in Gaza and on the legal record behind war-crimes claims.
The structural point holds across all of them. A finding that particular conduct did or did not meet a legal element is an answer about that conduct. It supports no statement about where an army stands relative to other armies, because no instrument in the field asks that question or supplies a scale on which it could be answered.
Where do analysts disagree about the phrase itself?
Four named published assessments, spanning 2012 to 2024, reach opposite conclusions about the same nine-word phrase, and each is a different kind of document. The Institute for National Security Studies, an Israeli research institute, examined the claim in 2024 and reported that no validated benchmark exists for comparing militaries on morality.
A 2023 article in the peer-reviewed journal Political Studies of Islamic World, hosted by Imam Khomeini International University, assessed the claim against Just War theory and concluded that the justification is unsupported. A 2012 essay in the Journal of Palestine Studies frames the phrase as a myth and rests its argument on the widening ratio of Palestinian to Israeli deaths in the occupied territories through the 2000s, as tallied by the Israeli monitoring organisation B’Tselem, whose counts are that organisation’s own on its own definitions. On the other side, an opinion column published by The Algemeiner in November 2024 argues under the title “Yes, the IDF Is the Moral Army That It Claims To Be” that the claim holds.
The labels matter as much as the conclusions. One is a think-tank analysis of the comparison itself. One is a peer-reviewed application of a normative framework. One is a scholarly essay resting on an advocacy monitor’s tally. One is opinion commentary. They are not four measurements of one quantity, and averaging them would produce nothing, because they do not share a variable.
The disagreement that runs underneath is narrower than it looks. The Institute for National Security Studies and the Journal of Palestine Studies essay agree on one point while disagreeing on almost everything else: that the phrase, taken literally, names a comparison the available evidence does not perform. Where the parties diverge is on what follows from that, and on the conduct record itself, which each reads through different sources and different definitions.
Can a claim of moral superiority itself feed hostility?
Perceived Jewish power is associated with antisemitism through two distinct routes, across six national samples in the United States, Mexico, Australia, the United Kingdom, Germany and Poland, according to Hadar, Halevy, Cohen, Apfelbaum and Chan (2026) in American Psychologist. Among people who support social hierarchy it registers as a threat to ingroup dominance; among people who oppose hierarchy it registers as a threat to egalitarian ideals.
Dong, Shih and Pittinsky (2026), also in American Psychologist, propose that positive stereotypes reinforce antisemitism through othering, social alienation and eroded solidarity, enabling scapegoating and conspiracy narratives. Their article is a mechanism framework and reports no measured figures, which is stated here because it bounds what the argument can support.
Ozer, Obaidi and Bergh (2025), in the International Journal of Intercultural Relations, ran two experiments with British samples of 354 and 490 participants, priming participants with material about the war in Gaza and measuring hostility toward Jews. They report two separate pathways: political orientation associated with anti-Jewish hostility through social dominance orientation, and a distinct identity-based pathway running through out-group identity fusion with the Palestinian people, which conflates attitudes toward Israel with prejudice toward Jews.
None of these studies measured the phrase in the question, and none establishes causation; all three report associations, and their authors state them as such. What they measure is the surrounding terrain: that claims about a group’s standing, including favourable ones, are studied as an input to hostility rather than a shield against it, and that in the British experiments war-related priming moved hostility toward Jews along measurable pathways. Whether a claim of comparative moral standing functions the same way has not been measured by any study in this literature.
Methodology and limitations
This report assembles published records across the Institute’s evidence hierarchy and states what each measures. Surveys are cited to the organisation that published them, and where a different body fielded the poll that body is named: the Jewish People Policy Institute paper of 6 June 2022 reports a survey conducted by TheMadad.com in May 2022 and analyzed by Professor Camil Fuchs, and the Israel Democracy Institute papers of 2017 and 2024 report fieldwork by its own Viterbi Family Center and by the Dialogue Research and Polling Institute respectively. Sampling error is carried into the prose where the publisher states it, and its absence is stated where it does not. Documents published by the Israel Defense Forces, including “The Spirit of the IDF” and the Military Advocate General’s Corps publication of 2024, are attributed as that party’s own doctrine and that party’s own counts of its own processes, not as independently verified figures. Peer-reviewed research is cited by author and year, with sample sizes stated.
Three limits bear on every figure above. First, the survey figures measure perception within defined populations, and the base is named in every sentence that carries a share. Second, the army’s investigation counts are counts of investigations opened as at a stated date, produced under a threshold the Corps itself publishes, and they are not counts of findings, indictments or convictions. Third, no published source ranks the world’s militaries on morality, and the Institute for National Security Studies reached the same conclusion about the absence of a validated benchmark in its 2024 analysis; the absence is recorded here rather than filled with a substitute measure.
Determinations issued by the Independent International Commission of Inquiry and by Amnesty International are named and dated as those bodies’ own positions and are not used as the evidence for any figure in this report. Statements published by the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs and the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies are named as think-tank publications, with the Jerusalem Center’s ceiling reported as arithmetic on unconfirmed inputs, as that Center states.
The subject here is the phrase and the records that bear on it. Conduct in specific incidents is adjudicated by the instruments and bodies named in the seventh section, on standards and evidence they publish themselves.
Conclusion
So what is behind the claim that the Israel Defense Forces is the most moral army in the world? A measured level of Israeli agreement, and a comparison nothing measures. The Jewish People Policy Institute’s May 2022 survey puts agreement at three out of four Israeli Jews, with 47% calling the statement highly accurate. That is a real finding about a real population, and it is the strongest evidentiary footing the phrase has, with the caveat that it was measured before the war the later surveys ask about.
Everything else in the record answers a narrower question than the phrase asks. The Israel Democracy Institute’s 2017 report card returns three numbers, not one: 4.25 out of 5 for operational ethics, 3.1 for the treatment of soldiers, 3.0 for budgetary behavior. Its September 2024 survey returns one published share and one worded finding, 83% giving high grades in the Jewish sample and more than two-thirds giving low grades in the Arab sample. The army’s own code sets six values and ranks the army against nobody, requiring only that force be used when necessary and that illegal orders not be followed. The army’s own accountability publication reports 74 criminal investigations opened by 3 August 2024, over 1,000 incidents referred for factual assessment, and the threshold that governs both. The Institute for National Security Studies looked for a benchmark to compare militaries in 2024 and found none published. The phrase is a superlative; the record is a set of dimensions, populations, thresholds and dates.
That gap is where the research on antisemitism becomes relevant rather than adjacent. Hadar and colleagues found across six national samples that perceived standing attaches to hostility from opposite ideological directions, and Dong, Shih and Pittinsky argue that favourable characterisations of a group can carry the same freight as unfavourable ones. A superlative invites its own inversion; the moment a claim of first place enters an argument, every counter-example becomes an argument about a people rather than about a military operation. Does a slogan that asserts rank make the conduct easier to examine, or harder, and who ends up carrying the answer?
Frequently Asked Questions
Why is there no published ranking of militaries by morality?
The Institute for National Security Studies examined precisely this in its 2024 analysis and reported no validated benchmark for comparing armed forces on morality. Militaries are compared on budgets, personnel and equipment, and are assessed individually against legal standards, but no international body publishes a comparative moral index.
What does an opened criminal investigation record, and what does it not?
The Military Advocate General’s Corps reported 74 criminal investigations opened as at 3 August 2024. That count records cases opened, not findings, indictments or convictions, and the Corps publishes the threshold that generates it: civilian death or injury “in most cases do not by themselves indicate a reasonable suspicion of criminal conduct.”
How large is the sampling error on the Israeli surveys cited here?
The Israel Democracy Institute reports a maximum sampling error of ±3.10% at 95% confidence for its September 2024 survey, on a total sample of 1,000 comprising 800 respondents interviewed in Hebrew and 200 in Arabic; a subsample share carries a wider error than that. Its 2017 Peace Index release states no sampling error at all. The Jewish People Policy Institute’s May 2022 figures are shares of 1,070 weighted questionnaires among Israeli Jews only, with a stated sampling error of 3.1%, and Israeli Arab citizens were excluded from that survey by design. Every one of these instruments measures opinion about the army, never the army’s conduct.
Which Israeli body reviews the Military Advocate General’s decisions?
The Corps states that the Military Advocate General “is subject only to the law on professional matters and operates with full independence,” and that its decisions are subject to civilian oversight and can be challenged before Israel’s Attorney General and before the Israeli Supreme Court.
Does the Israel Defense Forces publish counts of warnings issued or strikes aborted?
No such counts appear in the army’s published materials. The Israel Defense Forces describes telephone calls, text messages, leaflets, roof-knocking and aborted strikes as measures it takes, and publishes numbered evacuation-area maps, but issues no figure for how often any of these occurred.
Why are casualty counts in this conflict not comparable across sources?
The Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs stated in its 2025 essay that neither of the two totals it used, one reported by the Gaza health ministry and one estimated by Israel, has been independently confirmed. Counts published by parties to a conflict rest on different definitions and different collection methods.
How do positive stereotypes figure in antisemitism research?
Dong, Shih and Pittinsky (2026) argue in American Psychologist that positive stereotypes such as high intelligence and financial achievement reinforce antisemitism through othering, social alienation and eroded solidarity. Their article is a conceptual framework and reports no measured findings.
Sources
- Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies, 2025. The Gaza Terror Offensive, situation report covering 1 August to 5 September 2024. besacenter.org. Research institute report.
- Dong, Shih, and Pittinsky, 2026. From Praise to Prejudice: How Positive Stereotypes Reinforce Antisemitism. American Psychologist. DOI 10.1037/amp0001701. Peer-reviewed journal.
- Hadar, Halevy, Cohen, Apfelbaum, and Chan, 2026. The Perils of Perceived Power: The Dual-Threat Model of Antisemitism. American Psychologist. DOI 10.1037/amp0001693. Peer-reviewed journal.
- Institute for National Security Studies, 2024. Is the IDF the Most Moral Military in the World? inss.org.il/publication/morality. Research institute analysis.
- Israel Defense Forces, no date. The Spirit of the IDF: Our Mission, Our Values. idf.il/en/mini-sites/spirit-of-the-idf. Official record, the party’s own published doctrine.
- Israel Defense Forces, Military Advocate General’s Corps, 2024. Addressing Alleged Misconduct in the Context of the War in Gaza, published 24 February 2024, updated 3 August 2024. idf.il. Official record, the party’s own reported counts.
- Israel Defense Forces, 2024. Press Briefing by IDF Spokesperson, Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, 29 February 2024. idf.il. Official record, the party’s own reported counts.
- Israel Democracy Institute, 2017. IDF Report Card, Peace Index. en.idi.org.il/articles/18949. Research institute survey.
- Israel Democracy Institute, 2024. Special Survey on public assessment of the IDF, published 7 October 2024, fieldwork 15 to 19 September 2024 by the Dialogue Research and Polling Institute. en.idi.org.il/articles/56081. Research institute survey.
- Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs, 2025. The Death of Genocide. jcfa.org/the-death-of-genocide. Research institute essay.
- Jewish People Policy Institute, 2022. Rosner, Fuchs and Slepkov, Morals and Interests survey, published 6 June 2022, fielded May 2022 by TheMadad.com. jppi.org.il/en/morals-interests-survey. Research institute survey.
- Journal of Palestine Studies, 2012. The Israeli Military: The Myth of “the Most Moral Army in the World.” palestine-studies.org. Scholarly essay.
- Ozer, Obaidi, and Bergh, 2025. The Impact of Globalized Conflicts: Examining Attitudes Toward Jews Among Britons in the Political Context of the War in Gaza. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, vol. 107. DOI 10.1016/j.ijintrel.2025.102184. Peer-reviewed journal.
- Political Studies of Islamic World (Imam Khomeini International University), 2023. Article assessing the “most moral army” justification against Just War theory. psiw.journals.ikiu.ac.ir. Peer-reviewed journal.
- The Algemeiner, 2024. Yes, the IDF Is the Moral Army That It Claims To Be, 29 November 2024. algemeiner.com. Opinion commentary.