The Association of Civil-Military Studies in Israel

Yagil Levy (2021).

The Israeli Journal of Society, Military, and National Security, 1, 9-30.

This article has a conceptual goal: to create a necessary division between the public discourse in Israel, where the army is designated a “people’s army”, and the academic discourse, and to present an appropriate academic conceptualization of the army. This is in essence a citizen army, a conscript army, rather than a “people’s army”, which is the symbolic rather than conceptual signifier of the army. The article will be devoted to clarifying the concept of the “citizen army”, distinguishing it from armies that are not based on mandatory conscription. The citizen army has several main features: the country’s citizens serve in the army as citizens; the boundaries between the military and society are unclear; the army is expected to serve as a “school for the nation”; soldiers are organized by the state rather than by the market; soldiers are disciplined as citizens; the citizen army is controlled by the citizens. With the transition to a volunteer army and elimination of mandatory conscription, these features are changing.

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Asaf Malchi (January 2021).

The Israel Democracy Institute, Policy study no. 156.

In recent years, weighty arguments have been brought against mandatory conscription to the IDF, including the economic inefficiency caused by recruiting unsuitable populations to the service and the harm done to values of liberty and individual freedom. Calls for an essential change in this model are emerging in the context of the continuous drop in the number of men who fall under this mandate and enlist in the IDF in practice.

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Ze’ev Drory & Hillel Nossek (2021).

The Israeli Journal of Society, Military, and National Security, 1, 51-80.

The main issue that the article seeks to examine is whether the media is continuing to mobilize each time a military operation is launched and to postpone its criticism, or is a change evident since the Second Lebanon War in how IDF operations are covered, in the direction of more criticism and less mobilizing in favor of government and army policies. The case of military operations in the Gaza Strip is unique due to their low intensity resulting from the features of the combat forces and the territory they command, on one hand, as well as from the disputes within Israel on the question of whether the solution should be military or political. In order to examine this question, three military operations held in the Gaza Strip in the last decade, were selected: “Cast Lead” (2008), “Pillar of Defense” (2012), and “Protective Edge” (2014), as were five media outlets: Ha’aretz, Yisrael Hayom, Yediot Aharonoth, Ma’ariv, and the Walla website. Three coverage settings were defined in the study, by the type of criticism voiced against government decisions and military operations: the mobilized setting (“poodles”), the confirmatory criticism coverage setting (“barking dogs”), and the fundamental criticism setting (“biting dogs”). The research findings indicate that the pattern of media conduct known from previous wars and operations has persevered. While Yediot Aharonoth, Ma’ariv, and the Walla website retain the well-known practice of mobilizing in support until such time as politicians and military personnel voice criticism, two newspapers deviate from this model – Ha’aretz, which criticizes the military operations as an independent initiative, and Yisrael Hayom, which operates in the classical model of mobilized media throughout the operations.

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Or Barak (2021).

Strategic Assessment – Research Forum, 24(2).

This article traces the relatively late evolution of the Hebrew term “decision” in its military context in Israeli society and examines the ensuing conceptual confusion. It also points out the many original and borrowed meanings that have been attributed to this term over the years in military contexts and elaborates on the dangers inherent in this trend, especially obfuscation of the meaning of “victory”. This conceptual failure is expressed not only in the IDF’s language but also, and more critically, in IDF doctrine. Hence, resolving the confusion created between the term “decision” and the term “victory” can help not only by restoring the meaning of “victory” to its rightful place in the military context, but also by clarifying Israel’s security concept.

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Sam R. Bell, K. Chad Clay, Ghashia Kiyani & Amanda Murdie (2021).

Armed Forces & Society.

Do civil–military relations influence human rights practices? Building on principal–agent theory, we argue that civilian–military relations, instead of having an effect on mean levels of repression, will be associated with the dispersion in human rights practices. States where there is less control of the military or more conflict between civilian and military leadership will see a wider range of human rights practices. We test our hypotheses quantitatively on a global sample of countries, using updated data on civil–military relations and find evidence that civil–military conflict and lack of control increase the variance in human right practices.

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Gadi Zerach, Yossi Levi-Belz, Brandon J. Griffin & Shira Maguen (2021).

Journal of Anxiety Disorders, 79, 102378.

Following exposure to events that transgress moral beliefs and expectations rooted in cultural, organizational, and group-based ethical rules, veterans can experience psychological, social, and spiritual problems referred to as Moral Injury (MI). We examined patterns of exposure to potentially morally injurious events (PMIEs) among Israeli veterans as well as psychological and functional correlates of exposure.

A sample of 381 Israeli veterans volunteered to complete a cross-sectional electronic survey between 2017−2018. Latent Class Analysis (LCA) was used to identify classes characterized by unique patterns of exposure to PMIEs and compare differences in psychological and functional problems.

Three subgroups were identified: Moral Injury (12.1 %), Betrayal-Only (20.8 %), and Minimal Exposure (67.1 %). Whereas those in the betrayal-only class reported more traditional posttraumatic symptoms and those in the moral injury class reported more moral injury symptoms (i.e., guilt-related cognitions), some psychological problems were shared by veterans assigned to the moral injury and betrayal-only classes (e.g., entrapment). Importantly, while both those in the betrayal-only and moral injury classes had lower forgiveness relative to those in the minimal exposure class, those in the betrayal-only class received more familial support than did those in the moral injury class. The study’s findings offer an overview of the complex associations between patterns of exposure to PMIEs and associated outcomes. Clinicians treating veterans coping with combat trauma should be aware of the unique and shared symptoms reported by those with moral injury and betrayal exposures.

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Nitzan Rothem (2021).
Critical Military Studies, 1-20.

This article juxtaposes the procedures and narratives by which US and Israeli political cultures mediate situations of prisoners of war (POWs) during protracted wars. In protracted wars, repatriation is independent of reconciliation processes, with no international contracts governing the ethics of asymmetric prisoner exchange. Empirically, this article examines political cultures by analyzing news reports of Bowe Bergdahl (USA) and Gilad Shalit (Israel), who were imprisoned and repatriated during the US war in Afghanistan, and the Israel/Palestine conflict, respectively. Theoretically, this article (1) Situates POW affairs as highlighting a contradiction between two ideals: casualty aversion and self-sacrifice. (2) Relates POW affairs to scholarship on military-to-civilian transitions, and harnesses van Gennep’s phases of separation, liminality and reintegration, to analyze transitions as experiences of collectives, and not of soldiers. The analysis shows that US media accounts depict both the war in Afghanistan and the three phases of transition as controlled by individuals’ actions. Israeli accounts, by contrast, employ passive terminology when mediating both conflicts and POW affairs. Both political cultures develop temporal pattens to regulate the mutual obligations pertaining to soldiers, publics and states: a lingering military trial in the USA, and a new conceptualization of abduction in Israel. Arguing that temporality and morality are interlinked due to the open duration of current conflicts, this article suggests a definition of protracted wars that highlights this reciprocity between open-endedness, disrupted ceremonies, and moral changes: from rescuing soldiers to questioning the convention of obligatory rescue.

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Aharon (Roni) Kampinski (May 2021).

Ramat Gan: Bar Ilan University Press.

The book “Zevulun Hammer – A political biography” relates the story of Zevulun Hammer, the head of the Mafdal who also served in several ministerial roles in Israeli governments. Through archival and journalistic sources, the reader is exposed to Hammer’s leadership patterns, which were complex and unique, in the context of the sociopolitical circumstances that accompanied and are still accompanying Israeli society in general and religious Zionism in particular. The book discusses various aspects of Hammer’s life, including the many political and military areas such as establishing settlements in Judea and Samaria, the peace agreement with Egypt, the First Lebanon War, the First Intifada, the Oslo Accords, and the assassination of Rabin. This book seeks to analyze the political route taken by Zevulun Hammer (1936-1998), one of the most prominent leaders of the national religious party, Mafdal. Zevulun Hammer’s story is not only the story of the man, rather it is the story of the intermediate generation of religious Zionism: a leadership generation of the national religious movement that rebelled against the previous generation but found itself, two decades later, in the same place as its predecessors. This was a generation that sought to change the normal course of events but was ultimately compelled to make do with preserving the interests of religious Zionism, when it looked like they were being eroded by political power struggles; a generation that tried to raise the banner of Greater Israel but modified its views when the political circumstances allowed a political breakthrough; a generation that sought to fortify strict religious perceptions but in time appeared even more liberal than the previous generation; a generation that strove for leadership but was ultimately compelled to make do with a sectorial party.

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Nissim Leon (2021).

In: Research Anthology on Religious Impacts on Society

This chapter examines the phenomenon of deferments of army enlistment in Israel of haredi (ultra-Orthodox) men studying in yeshivas. The author claims that counter-nationalist argument enables us to understand the progress that the haredi scholar-society has made from a sectorial entity that kept itself removed from the nation-state, and viewed the state as an undesired political fact, to an entity that maintains its own counter-nationalism. This social cultural religious entity regards itself as a symbiotic or active partner in the national endeavor, specifically through the insular haredi ethos. The author employs the term counter-nationalism to describe an approach that takes a critical view of nationalism, but has in effect adapted it to the structure of the discourse, organization, and aims of the hegemonic national ideology. This perspective raises the possibility that the ultra-Orthodox are beginning to view themselves as maintaining a complementary partnership with the Israeli culture, and to a considerable extent have even constructed a similar cultural structure, a sort of mirror-image of the militaristic one. Moreover, this study even suggests that the haredi mainstream seeks recognition for itself as the spiritual elite troops of the State of Israel.

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Ryan Shandler, Michael L. Gross & Daphna Canetti (January 2021).

Contemporary Security Policy, 42.2, 135-162

To what extent does the public support the use of cyber weapons? We propose that public exposure to the destructive potential of cyber-attacks will dispel the clear cross-national preference for cyber strikes. To test this, we conducted two survey experiments (n = 2,585) that examine support for cyber versus conventional military strikes in the United States, United Kingdom, and Israel. In study 1, we exposed respondents to television news reports depicting various forms of terror attacks, and then measured the subsequent support for retaliatory options. Findings indicate that the high public support for deploying cyber weapons dissipated entirely among respondents exposed to lethal cyber-attacks. In study 2, we probed this vanishing support, finding that exposure to destructive cyber-attacks undercuts the perception of cyber as a less lethal domain, therefore diminishing its appeal. We conclude by discussing how the fragile public preference for cyber weapons encourages military escalation in the short-term.

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Yaira Hamama-Raz,  Shaked Shir & Michal Mahat-Shamir (2021).

Death Studies, 45.5, 380-389.

The death of a partner may be stressful for unmarried intimate partners as they lack legal status vis-à-vis the partner, and, thus, lack sufficient cultural support. This qualitative study examined the meaning attributed to the loss by 12 Israeli bereaved intimate partners of fallen soldiers. Through applying a constructivist-narrative methodology, we derived three clusters from interviews with the intimate partners: (a) The relationships never ended – “an unfinished business,” (b) The need to conceal the relationships – “a hidden wound,” and (c) The relationship guides their lives – “a compass.” Practical implications were discussed.

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Dan Porat (2021).
Israel Studies, 26.2, 152-172.

Since the 1990s, a new form of commemoration has emerged in Israel: picture books for young children in which family members honor fallen soldiers and victims of terrorism. The article analyzes nine such books and discusses the reason for the development of this genre. A blurring of lines between battle zone and home front during two Intifadas and two Gulf Wars exposed small children directly to national mourning and the loss of many civilian victims, young and old, Jewish and non-Jewish, whose commemoration was privatized and described in a feminized language more fitting for their tender age. While these commemorative picture books represent victims able to express emotions and feelings, they preserve the traditional view of them as heroes who have sacrificed their lives for their country.

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Dirk C. Wendtorf, (2021).

Journal of Modern Jewish Studies, 20.1, 44-69.

Among the fifty thousand Jewish refugees who escaped from the National Socialists in western and central Europe between 1933 and the beginning of World War II was a group of young and idealistic German-speaking Zionists, mainly from Germany and Austria. In 1942 many of them created and joined the Hapalmach Hagermanit—the German Platoon of the Palmach, the strike force of the Haganah, a Zionist underground paramilitary organization that operated in Palestine. The Deutsche Abteilung (German Platoon) embodied the first “German” clandestine Jewish fighting force in British Mandate Palestine. This article explores the origin and history of this unit and its significance as the first German-Jewish fighting unit in World War II. It also discusses the internal and external challenges its members faced and eventually overcame. This article relies on the few available sources on the German Platoon, including the testimonials of veterans recorded at their reunions, interviews with the last living member of the German Platoon conducted between 2011 and 2016, and documents and photos obtained with the assistance of the Palmach Archive in Ramat Aviv, Israel.

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Christopher Caden & Nir Arieli (January 2021).

War in History, 28.1, 200–222.

British servicemen and policemen who had been stationed in Palestine towards the end of the British Mandate and deserted their units to serve with either Jewish or Arab forces have only received cursory academic attention. This article retraces their story, while drawing parallels and highlighting contrasts between both groups of deserters. It analyses their motivations, wartime roles, and experiences and how they were remembered after the war ended. It also places them within the emerging literature on transnational military service.

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James Pangilinan, Christine Peralta & Wesley Attewell  (Jan 2021).

Amerasia Journal,  46.2, 183-199.

While Filipinas often appear in studies of gendered reproductive care, Filipinos appear commonly as militarized labor extending American hegemony. Both sets of Filipinx labor aspire to attaining citizenship and rights to permanent settlement. This article focuses on Filipinas in the Israeli Defense Forces. Filipina IDF recruits have recently appeared in Israeli media in order to reframe Israeli settler militarism as benevolent. Yet these instrumental portrayals build on longer histories of Philippine-Israeli entanglement. By situating two Filipinas’ stories within transnational contexts of humanitarian and reproductive care, we highlight how legacies of U.S. and Israeli settler militarism tether the Philippines to Israel.

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Gabriel Schwake (2021).

Planning Perspectives, 36.1, 183-194.

In the 1980s, the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) initiated the construction of several suburban communities for the benefit of its personnel. These new settlements offered the opportunity of a better quality of life in a homogeneous and exclusive environment, all in a commuting distance from the main metropolises. The State subsidized the construction of these settlements to support the military, and in the hope that the prestigious image of the IDF would help in developing peripheral areas. Military officers could live their bourgeois dream while taking part in the greater national mission of urban development. Reut is an architype of such a suburban military settlement. It offered young officers the ability to obtain subsidized spacious houses in an exclusive community while forming a steppingstone in the later mass development of the area. Therefore, using selective privatization as a means to encourage the formation of a real estate market and to enable further development.

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Olga Gershenson (Spring 2021).
Shofar: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies, 39.1, 147-175.

Horror films are often understood as a reflection of current cultural anxieties and national concerns. In Israel, where the military plays an outsized role, several horror films are set in the army. This article focuses on the two zombie films: Poisoned (2011) and Cannon Fodder (2013).

Unlike other monsters, zombies don’t come from the outside. They are part and parcel of the society consuming their fellow citizens. In Poisoned, the outbreak stems from an army-distributed vaccine. The infected soldiers turn into zombies and attack their own. In Cannon Fodder, the first zombies are Arabs, the traditional enemy of Israeli film. But later, the Israeli military is revealed as the real source of the deadly virus. As the infection spreads, both IDF soldiers and Israeli civilians turn into zombies. Thus, the army is turning into monsters the very society that it is supposed to protect, ironically, through excessive aggression against the enemy.

Within the horror genre, zombie films specifically take issue with the dominant social structures in a given society. If in the United States context, films about zombie outbreaks reflect popular distrust with Big Government and Big Business, Israeli films reflect a distrust with Big Army. The IDF zombies, then, represent a new symbol on Israeli screens. In contrast to the trope of the heroic “living-dead” (ha-met ha-khai) of earlier Israeli culture—the warrior whose death is sanctified by national agenda—the new undead is a symbol of a society that has turned on itself.

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