IDF Military Colleges

The IDF Military Colleges constitute a unified command responsible for officer-training institutions across the Israeli armed forces, providing all-branch and inter-service education for officers from junior to senior levels.[4] A 2017 account listed MABL, PUM, the Tactical Command College, and the military boarding schools among its constituent institutions.[4] A biographical profile of former IDF major general Yaakov Amidror, who commanded the colleges, describes the command as encompassing the National Defense College, the Staff and Command College, and the Tactical Command Academy.[1]

The IDF administers an extensive network of military schools and colleges for enlisted personnel and officers, with training described as a crucial element of Israeli military success.[5] Institutional listings include the Inter-service Command and Staff College (המכללה הבין-זרועית לפיקוד ולמטה) and separately list the National Defense College and its associated Strategic Research and Policy Center.[6][7]

In 2018, the Ministry of Defense issued a consolidated tender selecting the University of Haifa to provide academic programs for officers at the National Security College, PUM, and the Tactical Command College.[3] The ministry described them as flagship programs for training commanders from junior to senior levels and cited goals of continuity in officer education, stronger military research, and improved financial efficiency. The arrangement was estimated at roughly NIS 10 million per year, with expected annual savings of approximately NIS 3.5 million.[3] Studies under the new arrangement were scheduled to begin in July 2018 at the Glilot complex.[3]

The National Defense College traces its founding to an initiative by IDF Chief of Staff Haim Laskov, who believed senior military leaders lacked an institution preparing them for political-strategic responsibilities.[8] His vision called for bringing together high-ranking officers alongside representatives of the Foreign Affairs, Finance, and Defense ministries to cultivate a shared national perspective on security.[8] On July 22, 1962, the government formally authorized the college to help consolidate a comprehensive national defense doctrine and create a common language on national-security matters.[8] The college opened in October 1963 with a curriculum addressing history, policy, society, economics, foreign relations, science, and Israel's security, organized around themes including the Middle East, Israel and Judaism, Israel and the world, and the foundations of the military.[8]

The founding plan called for roughly 25 students, with approximately one-third drawn from the IDF at lieutenant-colonel or colonel rank; students from military, government, and civilian fields were expected to share their professional experience and contribute to joint seminar papers on matters with broad security implications requiring inter-agency coordination.[8] Despite this ambitious mandate, the college's early years were marked by criticism. Chief of Staff Yitzhak Rabin, when asked whether the college contributed to Israel's security strength, replied: "It is not something that I can say that contributes any strengths: these are things that are in the field of general knowledge."[8] On June 27, 1966, the Committee of Ministers empowered the defense minister to appoint a committee examining the college's continued existence amid budget reductions, and Prime Minister Levi Eshkol subsequently brought about its closure.[8]

The college was reestablished following the 1973 Yom Kippur War. About a year after that conflict, Major General Menachem Marom, then head of the Instruction Branch, proposed reopening the institution, arguing that the IDF lacked any body preparing officers beyond Command and Staff level for strategic responsibilities, leaving senior commanders to operate "without any institutional direction whatsoever."[8] His proposed college would teach national-security issues to senior officers and government-ministry figures and guide research on Israel's strategic challenges. A reestablishment proposal was placed before the government on May 23, 1976, and founding terms were submitted in December 1976.[8]

The revived college was brought under the command of the Headquarters of the Military Colleges on September 1, 1991.[8] In 2006, following an initiative by the colleges' then-commander, Major General Eyal Ben-Reuven, the college began admitting students from foreign militaries.[8] By 2022, its curriculum ran for approximately ten months and included a graduate degree in political science from the University of Haifa; the college was also receiving several overseas students each year.[9] A 2022 report noted that a UAE colonel and fighter pilot was expected to attend, describing this as the first time an officer from an Arab state would study there.[9]

A 2009 catalog record describes an essay collection based on lectures given within the National Security Program under the college's direction and broadcast by IDF Radio's "University on the Air." The collection addressed the tension between public access to information and national-security concerns.[10] A separate catalog record identifies a 2007 position paper from the college's Strategic Research and Policy Center as a 40-page Hebrew publication with a bibliography.[11]

The Inter-service Command and Staff College is known by its Hebrew acronym PUM (פו"מ; המכללה הבין זרועית לפיקוד ומטה) and trains senior IDF officers.[6][12] A JNS account attributed to former instructor Hanan Shai the assessment that a command-training program had been established after the 1982 First Lebanon War under the sponsorship of then-Chief of Staff Dan Shomron, in response to a perceived need to strengthen command professionalism.[12]

The college is a significant milestone in the IDF officer career track. A 2010 study reported that orders required officers to complete a Command and Staff College course before promotion to lieutenant colonel and described enforcement of that requirement as being strengthened at the time.[13] An INSS study published in 2009 described a broader professional-development framework under implementation, including academic content intended to create a common professional foundation; it likewise called for officers to complete a command-and-staff course before promotion to lieutenant colonel.[2]

An archival file includes approximately twenty documents concerning lectures by scholar Uriel Tal, among them course materials and student instructions.[6] These materials cover a course on the history of modern antisemitism from its beginnings through the Holocaust—including instructions for students to watch the propaganda film "The Eternal Jew"—as well as courses on the Holocaust and its historical roots and on modern Jewish nationalism and its spiritual and historical roots.[6] The records show that Jewish history, antisemitism, the Holocaust, and Jewish nationalism formed part of at least some PUM coursework.

The college's "Alon" command-and-staff course trains officers headed toward senior command positions, with graduates expected to command battalions, squadrons, and flotillas.[14][15] A 2021 report described exercises simulating the Gaza and Lebanon theaters and assigning participants complementary roles across branches—an intelligence officer might act as a brigade fire-assistance officer, or an air-force officer as a ground battalion commander.[15] Historical battle scenarios were also incorporated: trainees reconsidered the 1967 fighting on the Golan Heights using current capabilities and the IDF's "Victory" concept, which the report described as integrating units from different branches into a shared combat network with coordination across ground, air, sea, and headquarters functions.[15]

At a 2024 graduation ceremony for the Alon course, 50 male trainees and one female trainee completed the program. The course had begun approximately a year earlier but was halted after roughly four months when trainees reported to combat units following the outbreak of the Iron Swords war, serving on land, in the air, and at sea.[14] Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi described the training as founded on integrating the branches in combat.[14]

The Tactical Command College is a Ground Forces officer-development institution and the ground forces' counterpart to the established officer courses of the Navy and Air Force.[16] The college accepts serving officers—generally lieutenants, approximately 22 or 23 years old—drawn from the infantry, armored corps, engineering corps, and artillery corps.[16][17] Unlike a pre-commissioning academy, it does not train civilians or non-officer cadets; all entrants are already officers.[16]

The college's two-year program is the longest qualification program in the Ground Forces.[16] Students are trained in groups of fifteen, each instructed by a battalion commander.[17] The curriculum combines military studies and leadership with analysis of approximately 80 battles from Israel and abroad, spanning roughly 3,000 years of military history.[17] Instruction includes battle recreations, exercises, lectures, and visits both within Israel and overseas—a pre-pandemic trip to Vietnam, for example, was used to study the strategies and doctrines of the Vietnam War.[17] Students also study time management, written expression, crisis and conflict management, mental resilience, command and control, and combat doctrine.[17] The program culminates in a bachelor's degree from the University of Haifa in one of several fields: economics, political science, education, media, or biology.[16][17]

A defining feature of the college's pedagogy is the deliberate use of controlled failure. Officers review their own progress and in some cases document significant training failures, analyze why they occurred, and explain what they learned.[18] The college's commander, Colonel Shahar Back, stated that failures are deliberately created "in a controlled manner in order to study and learn from them, professionally, and in an in-depth manner," with the aim of developing individual command styles, maturity, and decision-making under pressure before officers encounter real command situations.[18][16]

Graduates go on to become company commanders, with the college producing approximately 60 company commanders annually.[16] As reported in 2020, TCC graduates constituted roughly one-third of IDF company commanders and approximately half of battalion and brigade commanders.[16] Eight of the ten ground-forces company commanders who received citations after the 2014 conflict with Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad were college graduates.[17] Attendance requires a commitment to at least four to five additional years of professional IDF service, a factor that limits the share of company commanders who are graduates.[19]

The college maintains an exchange relationship with West Point: the institutions exchanged delegations annually except in 2020 because of coronavirus restrictions, and also exchanged ideas and participated in what the source called a mutual patent-exchange program.[17] The college was founded approximately twenty years before the 2020 article was published, placing its establishment around the turn of the millennium.[17] Following the 2006 Second Lebanon War, the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee examined officer training and called for more officers to attend the college; expansion followed, though an officer interviewed in the report described it as insufficient.[17]

The rationale for a dedicated college has been sharpened by the reduced frequency of major conflicts. An officer interviewed in 2020 contrasted earlier periods of frequent security incidents with the post-2014 period and concluded that "on-the-job training doesn't cut it anymore," framing the college as a means of building intellectual and leadership capabilities before officers face operational command situations.[17]

Alongside the three main colleges, the Ground Forces Command administers several training schools at the tactical level. A 2010 study identified three command schools under the Ground Forces Command: the Lt. Gen. Haim Laskov School for Officers (Training Base 1), the School for Training Commanders of Companies and Battalions, and the College for Tactical Command.[13] The Ground Forces Command, established in 1999 under the IDF 2000 program, was described as responsible for training and exercises, combat doctrine, weapons, manpower, planning, and organization from the individual-soldier level through the corps level.[13]

A separate institution, the Institute for Research on Operational Combat Theory, was founded in 1994 by Brig. Gen. (res.) Shimon Naveh within the framework of the National Security College at Glilot, with Brig. Gen. (res.) Dov Tamari as co-director.[13] The institute worked at the intersection of strategy and tactics, applying systems analysis to examine unit principles, relationships among units, and their cumulative effects on larger systems.[13] An advanced systems course associated with the institute ended in 2002, and the institute was later identified as the Institute for Research on System Theory.[13]

The history of mandatory attendance at the military colleges has been marked by recurring gaps between policy intent and implementation. A State Comptroller review described a senior-officer training framework comprising the National Security College, the Mifneh program for developing the knowledge and skills needed to command large operational systems, and the Advanced Systemic Course (Komam), which taught systemic thinking and the art of operations before closing in 2002.[20] The review found that the framework had not been made mandatory through formal orders before 2002 and that most senior officers had not completed its three components.[20] As of December 2005, the reported share of officers who were not National Security College graduates stood at 82 percent among major generals, 68 percent among brigadier generals, and 76 percent among colonels.[20] The Comptroller warned of a risk that the IDF would lack a shared professional language for commanding large formations, and the audit also found deficiencies in the college's curriculum, instructors, supervision, and administrative procedures.[20]

A 2010 study documented parallel gaps in the "Distant Horizon" development program for officers considered candidates for brigadier general.[13] Around the mid-2000s, 71 lieutenant-colonel-level officers were designated for a program calling for National Security College studies, participation in the "Turning Point" program, and an advanced systems course; for 2003–2006, however, only 28–50 percent studied at the National Security College and 22–44 percent participated in Turning Point.[13] The study attributed weak implementation to limited oversight and insufficiently organized training and noted that the program was eventually discontinued.[13]

An INSS study published in 2009 described efforts to correct these patterns, reporting that a professional-development framework was being implemented with academic content intended to create a common professional foundation across the officer corps.[2] The study also stated that the Command and Staff College and National Defense College had been educating officers not designated for central command or staff positions, while some operational officers and potential future commanders studied at civilian academic institutions instead; reformers were seeking to require operational officers and future commanders to attend one of the two military colleges.[2]

The Israeli Air Force has its own layer of advanced education alongside the IDF-wide colleges. An account of IAF training notes specialized instruction at military and civilian institutions, including an IAF college-level facility at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and courses at the IAF Command and Staff School and the IDF Defense College.[21] An academic research record traces changing IDF understandings of military education from the 1940s through 2004, when a formal military education doctrine was articulated, beginning with the Palmach's educational approaches.[22]

The colleges have been based at the Glilot base near Herzliya, but a long-running governmental commitment calls for relocating them to Jerusalem. Reporting on the relocation's history notes that the government first decided to move the colleges to Jerusalem in 1963; Ariel Sharon revived the plan in 2002, and a 2011 decision placed a proposed campus on Mount Scopus.[23] That Mount Scopus plan was subsequently frozen following American pressure regarding the location beyond the Green Line, and in January 2015 the government shifted the proposed site to western Jerusalem.[23]

In 2017, an architectural competition selected Elikim Architects to design a campus near the Swedish Village in Ein Kerem, Jerusalem.[4] That preliminary plan described a site of approximately 50 dunams and roughly 28,000 square meters of construction, including instructional, shared, and residential facilities accommodating about 270 beds.[4] The architects proposed low-rise buildings, green roofs, and designs following the topography in response to environmental concerns that construction would affect a wooded hill above Ein Kerem.[4]

A 2019 planning decision approved a campus covering 39 dunams in the Kiryat Menachem and Ein Kerem neighborhoods, providing for 76,000 square meters of floor area, eight military training schools, and shared facilities including an auditorium, sports facilities, administrative buildings, and residential accommodation.[24] After objections and two appeals—including concerns about tree removal and nearby residents' quality of life—the appeals subcommittee dismissed the appeals and cited the government's decision to move the colleges to Jerusalem as the basis for proceeding.[24]

In December 2025, the Jerusalem Municipality and the Ministry of Defense signed an agreement including the transfer of the colleges from Glilot to the southwestern outskirts of Jerusalem.[25] The project then entered planning and statutory urban-planning stages, with the Ministry of Defense responsible for advancing a construction permit; construction was expected to begin after several years.[25] A February 2026 report on the "Shoham 4" agreement among the Ministry of Defense, Ministry of Finance, and Israel Land Authority listed the Military Colleges Base at Glilot among eleven bases designated for evacuation and relocation, with Jerusalem as the destination.[26] That agreement covered approximately 2,300 dunams and was associated with plans for roughly 19,000 homes; the colleges' southwestern Glilot area was allocated for approximately 720 homes and 57,000 square meters of commercial and employment space following the relocation.[26] A July 2026 report described the planned campus as a center for IDF commander training, education, and development, coordinated by the Defense Ministry, the IDF Planning Directorate, the municipality, and the Jerusalem Development Authority.[27]

Several aspects of the colleges' history and institutional influence have been subjects of debate. The most significant concerned the Institute for Research on Operational Combat Theory and the broader adoption of systems-based operational thinking within the IDF. A 2010 study argued that the systems approach promoted by the institute became nearly definitive at the expense of both tactics and strategy, with "destructive consequences" for operational performance.[13] After the 2006 Second Lebanon War, the effects-based operational approach was frozen, the Operations Branch's Department for System Design was eliminated, and the IDF returned to balancing firepower and maneuver.[13] The study noted ongoing debate over whether the approach was inherently flawed, insufficiently assimilated, or simply taken too far; it also reported that the Winograd Commission cautioned against sweeping rejection of the underlying ideas.[13]

The National Defense College's subordination to the IDF has also been questioned. A 2006 opinion article described the college as the state's highest educational institution and noted that its student body was then roughly two-thirds IDF officers and one-third civilians; the author argued that national security encompasses political, social, economic, infrastructure, and technology dimensions and questioned whether the college should remain under military authority.[28] The government's original 1962 rationale for placing it under the military was that it viewed the military sphere as central to national security and trusted the military's organizational capacity to sustain the institution.[28]

The relocation to Jerusalem's Ein Kerem neighborhood has been contested on environmental and community grounds. Objections raised during the planning process cited concerns about tree removal, harm to a wooded landscape, and traffic impacts; the planning appeals were dismissed in 2019.[24] A 2011 proposal to site the campus on Mount Scopus in East Jerusalem drew objections regarding land ownership, the Green Line, and the political significance of the location, and the proposed location was subsequently shifted to western Jerusalem following reported American pressure.[23] The reported campus dimensions also differ between design stages—a 2017 preliminary account gave approximately 50 dunams and 28,000 square meters of construction, while the 2019 approved plan specified 39 dunams and 76,000 square meters of floor area—though the available sources do not reconcile the figures.[4][24]

In 2024, two advanced command courses sent delegations totaling approximately 150 officers and career personnel to France and Vietnam for about ten days each, studying the Normandy landings, the Maginot Line, and U.S. military experience in Vietnam as part of the colleges' academic curriculum.[29] The trips, which earned credit toward University of Haifa degrees, drew criticism from some who questioned the appropriateness of officers traveling abroad while colleagues were still engaged in active fighting.[29]