The 1973 Yom Kippur War and the Reshaping of Israeli Civil–Military Relations 9781498513722, 9781498513715

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The 1973 Yom Kippur War and the Reshaping of Israeli Civil–Military Relations

The 1973 Yom Kippur War and the Reshaping of Israeli Civil–Military Relations Edited by Udi Lebel and Eyal Lewin

LEXINGTON BOOKS Lanham • Boulder • New York • London

Published by Lexington Books An imprint of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. 4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706 www.rowman.com Unit A, Whitacre Mews, 26-34 Stannary Street, London SE11 4AB Copyright © 2015 by Lexington Books All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data The 1973 Yom Kippur War and the reshaping of Israeli civil-military relations / edited by Udi Lebel and Eyal Lewin. pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-4985-1371-5 (cloth : alk. paper) -- ISBN 978-1-4985-1372-2 (electronic) 1. Israel-Arab War, 1973--Influence 2. War--Social aspects--Israel. 3. War--Political aspects--Israel. 4. Civil-military relation--Israel. I. Lebel, Udi, editor. II. Levin, Eyal, editor. DS128.185.A16 2015 956.04'81095694--dc23 2015003292 TM The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.

Printed in the United States of America

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Introduction Udi Lebel and Eyal Lewin The Combatants’ Protest after the Yom Kippur War and the Transformation of the Protest Culture in Israel Eithan Orkibi The Significance of the Yom Kippur War as a Turning Point in the Religious-Zionist Society Nissim Leon From Domination to Competition: The Yom Kippur War (1973) and the Formation of a New Grief Community Udi Lebel Not Just Intermediaries: The Mediatization of Security Affairs in Israel since 1973 Rafi Mann The 1973 War and the Formation of Israeli POW Policy: A Watershed Line? Alexander Bligh The 1973 War as a Stimulator in the Reshaping of Israeli National Ethos Eyal Lewin

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ONE Introduction Udi Lebel and Eyal Lewin

AN UN-EXPECTED WAR: A NEW CULTURAL TRAUMA On October 6, 1973, at exactly 2:00 PM, a sudden and long rising and falling alarm siren acknowledged citizens all over Israel that war broke out along the country’s borders. The sharp, keening wail of that warning signal remains ever since, for a generation of Israelis, the vocal symbol of a crisis that perhaps has never really ended. There are moments in history that, when frozen into the framework of a picture, capture the very essence of social change in motion. Eugène Delacroix’s romantic painting of the bare breasted woman leading the Parisians who stormed the Bastille on July 14, 1789, with her clenched hands, hoisted flag and rifle, trampling the revolution’s fallen enemies. The silent engine rattling of the formation of Japanese aircraft on their way to Pearl Harbor on the dawn of Sunday, December 7, 1941. The massive flood of Wehrmacht armored vehicles raiding the eastern steppes of Ukraine on June 22, 1941. The anxious American marines holding their guns tightly minutes before they would leap into the cold water and run into fire on the shores of Normandy on D-day, June 6, 1944. For better or worse, these pictures depict the exact historical moment when nations reached a turning point; they symbolize the instant, the split of a second, when the social watershed occurred. The two-minutes chilling alarm of October 1973 is of such nature; after the siren, nothing in Israel would ever be the same as before. Israeli society would experience total alteration in every sense, far beyond the military results of the battles on the state’s borderlines. New social agents 1

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would immediately penetrate each and every domain of life, totally revolutionizing Israeli collectivism. Unknown phenomena, such as protesters in military uniform, some of them still at arms in distant frontiers, became a common expression of the Israeli public’s dissent. Dormant social actors, for example—the national religious young leaders, entered the front stage of politics with a new Zionist renaissance. Journalism, particularly the military one, that had used to be the hallmark of the formation of national pride, surprisingly took a new stance, led by critical new approaches. Latent skeptics who until now had doubtfully whispered their thoughts, questioning whether a soldier should struggle to the last bullet, could all of a sudden speak loudly and claim that a soldier may quit fighting and lay down his weapon if by doing so he saves his livelihood. Even bereavement, once the fertile ground for the growth of national consensus, turned swiftly into an arena where competing narratives now clearly struggled to shape different comprehensions of what Jewish history was all about. With a resemblance to previous rounds of war against the Arab states that surround Israel, at the end of the day total victory ensured Israeli control over the whole country. Strategic buffer zones were established in the north and in the south, highly akin to the pre-war conditions. Yet beneath the surface nothing was sacred anymore. Israeli society was left torn apart and fragmented. The new agents were there not only to make the changes but also to sustain them from now onwards. On first sight, one cannot be surprised from the tremendous impact that the 1973 War had on Israeli society. It was, after all, as close as Israel had ever been to losing a war and facing total defeat. Egypt launched its surprise attack in the Sinai Peninsula, in the middle of the most solemn and strictly observed holy day in the Jewish calendar; this assault was coordinated with a simultaneous one by Syrian forces in the Golan Heights. Because of the shocking effect that characterized this attack, Israel failed to mobilize its army in time; as a result, its defenses were fragile and inadequate. The Egyptian army successfully crossed the Suez Canal, easily overrunning the 450 Israeli soldiers who manned the fortified waterline. The Egyptian invasion, deployed by 100,000 soldiers, 1,400 tanks, and 2,000 heavy mortars was met by a vastly outnumbered defense; in all of Sinai the Israeli army counted no more than 290 tanks; just about a third of them were close to the canal when war broke out, and the rest were stated some fifty kilometers to the east. During the first few days any Israeli attempt to halt the Egyptian forces or to counter-attack would end with total failure; masses of Egyptian soldiers carrying portable anti-tank missiles formed an overwhelming military formation that was not known to the Israeli strategists until then. As early as twenty-four hours after the initial attack, two thirds of the Israeli tanks had been lost and the remaining ninety tanks had to cope

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with hundreds of Egyptian tanks that had already managed to cross the canal. The Israeli fortified points along the Suez Canal had been easily bypassed; the soldiers in each small fortification were now under siege. Within a few days some of them would surrender, out of whom several would be immediately executed by victorious Egyptian forces who by now had regained the canal line. The Israeli air force’s superiority that had proved so important for Israel’s victory six years earlier was now eliminated by Soviet surface-toair missile batteries that the Egyptians had posted on the western bank of the Suez Canal. Within a day’s fighting, over forty Israeli airplanes had already been shot down. In the northern front things were not any better for Israel. The Syrians invaded the Golan Heights and were virtually threatening the whole northern part of the country. The Syrian army counted 45,000 soldiers, 1,600 tanks, and 950 heavy mortars, enormously outnumbering the Israeli defenses that counted 4,000 soldiers, 177 tanks, and 44 cannons. Beyond its numerical huge disadvantage, Israel was caught totally unprepared for this war, none of its units was properly equipped and the reserve forces, the spinal cord of the IDF, had been called into action far too late. During the first few days of fighting, for the first time since its war of independence, Israel was under the real threat of being destroyed by its Arab neighbors. Had the campaign continued the way it had started, the route from northern Sinai to Tel Aviv would have stretched open for Egyptian forces to roll in and the lost Golan Heights would enable a Syrian invasion that would endanger the entire population of the Galilee at best (Ezov, 2011; Herzog, [1975] 2003; Safran, 1977). Tragic opening conditions and other components which were well researched, framed this war as an Israeli National Trauma. When the war eventually ended, 2,800 Israeli soldiers were dead, 9,000 wounded, and 293 imprisoned POWs (Gawrych, 2000). While from the objective point of view, there was no reason why the 1973 War should be looked upon as an Israeli failure (in fact, once again the Arab protagonist in the Middle Eastern theater lost his case politically and militarily), many researchers, journalists, and politicians hold different narratives and legacies from this war. Indeed, it is the democratization of the “national story”. THE WAR AFTER Unlike other researches of the 1973 War, this book’s chapters are not about historical chronology or the exact motion of forces; nor are they about the political decisions. Rather, our route to understand the effects that war had on society and the influence of society on the way the war

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was handled resides in the sphere of ethos, identities, images, memories, and the social agents who participate in shaping them. We are dealing with “the war after”: the reshaping of civil-military relations, the evaluation of new agents and players which are “the new designers” of security policy and military doctrine. It is under this fundamental concept of social agents as a key to understanding the deep changes, that in chapter 2: The Combatant’s Protest after the Yom Kippur War and the Transformation of the Protest Culture, Eitan Orkibi deals with the political protesters, a new non-parliamentary actor. Led by reserves soldiers and officers, this prominent social agent shaped a cultural alteration of dissent within Israeli society. Breaking the taboo, the demonstrators cast doubt on the moral authority of some of the IDF’s highly ranked heroes and were willing to break some of the army’s fundamental myths. Yet the ramifications of this protest went far beyond military reforms and for the first time in Israeli history it dictated what would later on become a political metamorphosis: the fulfillment of symbolic demands such as the resignation of Defense Minister Dayan, as well as the formation of new parties and, eventually, the termination of the decades-long left-wing hegemony. Orkibi analyzes how the sociological profile of the 1973 post-war demonstrators, emerging rather from the new generation of the traditional elites, enabled them to become the social force that diminished the legitimacy of the republican ethos in Israeli society; thus, they were in practice the ones who laid the grounds for a democratic discourse of criticism. Counting the most influential national groups, the protesters introduced a new terminology into the Israeli political agenda, making public opinion and accountability indispensable. This, in turn, led to an anti-militaristic trend that in due course was manifested through the peace movements, and in the long run—through peace agreements and territorial concessions. Orkibi’s detailed examination of the forty-year-old social watershed leads to the unavoidable conclusion that after 1973 any strategic decision taken by Israeli leaders is bound to abide under the shadow of constant public judgment. In chapter 3: The Significance of the Yom Kippur War as a Turning Point in the Religious-Zionist Society, Nisim Leon focuses on a rising new social agent within Israeli politics: the religious national group. For this social actor the war was almost a revolution in loyalties and identities. The basic political stand of the religious Zionist group switched from maintaining a hierarchic partnership that subordinated itself to the Labor government and governmental policies into an active partnership of equals, where arguments with the leading regime concerning security goals were now just as legitimate. Leon follows the revolutionary changeover that this new agent experienced as a result of the war, through four effects—

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1. The political effect: Religious Zionism was practically transformed from an entity with a symbiotic relationship with the regime, to an entity with a critical and adversarial perspective that served to leverage the formation of a mass movement. 2. The diplomatic effect: Hawkish trends in the religious Zionist leadership were transformed from marginal elements to an inseparable part of this group’s political center, with former dovish positions now becoming minor. The war in 1973 heralded the beginnings of a leadership changeover in which hawkish leaders with an intransigent diplomatic approach and activist security attitude would replace the dovish and pragmatic veteran leadership. 3. The theological effect: While the 1967 War was perceived as an event in which God actively intervened, in reality, the 1973 War was perceived rather as an event in which human responsibility and leadership had a great impact on reality. The result was the development of the worldview we call “messianic realism.” 4. The generational effect: The war had a prominent role as a formative experience for a whole generation of religious Zionist leaders, political as well as spiritual ones. These leaders viewed the war not only as a collective event, but as an event with great personal significance. The war led to changes in their personal identities, changes that were transformed into educational morals and values. According to Leon, these four effects transformed the “security” concept in religious Zionism to a subject of dual meaning. On the one hand, security was viewed as an issue with pedagogical-faith implications; on the other, it represented the constant striving for fulfillment as a Zionist value. The question of the boundaries between “faith” and “Zionism” was to become, in this context, one of the basic elements in the identity of the contemporary religious Zionist settler. In chapter 4: From Domination to Competition—The Yom Kippur War (1973) and the Formation of a New Grief Community, Udi Lebel examines the emergence of the bereaved families as a new social agent who, ever since 1973, have acquired a dominant public presence by virtue of which they head social movements, influence public opinion and generally express resentment over, and in opposition to, consensual public policy. Lebel adopts a politico-historical phenomenological methodology, exposing readers to beliefs, meaning, feelings, and motives that underline the actions and behavior of members of the bereaved families, and their influence on civil-military dynamics. Lebel’s major thesis is that following the 1973 War, a new political bereavement model was formed, later to be shaped by the 1982 War and the occupation of Lebanon. Lebel first reviews how since the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948 the matter of bereavement has constituted a central plank in the shaping of relations between civil society and the defense and political

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establishments. Bereaved parents’ forgiving attitude to the establishment, and especially their faith in it, provided psycho-political legitimization of the first order to the policies shaped by the country’s prime ministers. After the 1973 War, however, bereaved parents, widows, and bereaved families began for the first time to speak out against the political leadership which in their eyes bore the responsibility and guilt for their loved ones’ deaths. In fact, it was at this time that one finds the beginnings of what can be termed “bargaining” over the Israeli model of bereavement, involving the “Hegemonic Bereavement Model” and the “Political Bereavement Model.” This involved political behavior on the part of bereaved parents, who became leading political actors and opinion leaders, demanding reforms, taking steps to influence policy, and even bringing about a change of regime and a removal of leaders from the political stage. The major influence of those parents is the re-shaping the military warfare doctrine as being more and more sensitive to casualties and to a constant legitimacy of the soldiers’ families. In chapter 5: Not just Intermediaries—The Mediatization of Security Affairs in Israel since 1973, Rafi Mann describes and discusses the changes in the role played by the Israeli media since 1973 in the national discourse of a wide range of military and security issues. These shifts encompassed various aspects, among them the way military issues have been covered and the level of critical reporting on subjects that were “off limit” earlier. But more considerably: the process in which the media developed into an active player, whose voices are heard on security issues, which prior to 1973 have been discussed almost exclusively by generals and politicians. The professional soul-searching of Israeli journalists following the 1973 War brought in later years a change in the tone of the coverage of military affairs. Unlike the previous decades, more critical elements were injected into the press, radio, and television reports. However, Mann points out that the change gradually became more profound, as the media, for the first time since 1948, found it part of its role to express opinions that challenged in some cases the military establishment positions— including on strategic and tactical usage of force. Mann goes on to survey instances of this sort also throughout the 1980s and 1990s, showing the large spectrum of issues that have become, ever since the 1973 War, almost the bread-and-butter of Israeli media: the Israeli presence in Lebanon until 2000, the military activities in the West Bank and Gaza, the military budget, high level appointments in the army, as well as a close scrutiny of mistreatment of soldiers, sexual abuse, and medical negligence. Since the media have not been a totally independent and autonomous agent of changes, Mann discusses the shifts in the media performance in the context of various parallel developments in the Israeli society and politics, as well as changes in the media map in the country and globally.

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In chapter 6: The 1973 War and the Formation of Israeli POW Policy— A Watershed Line? Alexander Bligh inquires how different social agents, particularly new and emerging ones, tackled the issue of POWs. According to Bligh, the 1973 War marked a watershed line in that from that moment on the issue of POWs has been put on the national agenda in a rather distinct way, even though no Israeli cabinet has ever formulated a binding policy regarding the terms for negotiating the release of POWs or kidnapped hostages. Bligh deals with the major fundamentals of the issue: the domestic and foreign policy processes after the 1973 War that contributed to its centrality compared with its relatively low priority before the war. In order to do so he analyzes the effect of a row of different social agents on the Israeli policy toward the release of POWs— 1. Domestic actors: the victims’ families, parts of the media, and political and civil society bodies. 2. Actors within the external dimension: the foreign relations of Israel, including: US-Israeli relations, the already sensitive relations with Germany that took upon itself time and again some mediation efforts, and obviously—international organizations, led by the Red Cross. Bligh concludes by suggesting some lessons that should be drawn from the 1973 POW experience. The lack of that element in the strategic thinking of the Israeli decision making has led them in his opinion into repeating some POW related policy mistakes. In chapter 7: The 1973 War as a Stimulator in the Reshaping of Israeli National Ethos, Eyal Lewin examined the 1973 War as a watershed line in the reshaping of a national ethos. The ethos of a nation holds one of the most important keys for a people’s ability to unite into a cohesive society, and has been proved in former studies as a dominant factor of national resilience during war. Thus, one unsolved puzzle is how national ethos shaped the way Israelis behaved during the war, how the war shaped the national ethos, and what the ramifications for present and future challenges might be. Within Israeli society, as in other societies, an ongoing arm-wrestling match takes place, where a national ethos of conflict and a national peace ethos are constantly competing in an effort to affect the ideals of the nation. Since researches have analyzed how peace ethos and formations of post-heroic societies are endangering countries’ abilities to survive wars and violent conflicts, it is the prevailing national ethos that will eventually dictate, as in other nations throughout history, whether Israel triumphs and survives or whether it crumbles and falls apart. This final chapter therefore closely follows the contest between the two forms of ethos, observing the dispute between the rival perceptions within the psychological repertoire of issues that dominate Israeli nation-

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al identities. The 1973 War is then identified as a critical turning point, where the balance of forces between the ethos of conflict and peace ethos was altered in Israeli society. Relying on testimonies of war veterans as well as other primary sources, a shift in the Israeli creed is almost obvious. However, the scope of this research goes far beyond the historical moment of 1973 and proves how throughout the decades a national peace ethos evolved and eventually dominated even the images with which Israelis refer to war. In all, then, the chapters of this book combine an exceptional point of view for a thorough comprehension of the way society changes. Scholars of different disciplines have gathered here their researches in order to illuminate the manner in which a variety of new social agents finds opportunities to step in and take control over national agenda. Ours is a book about a case study where new social actors rose from within and created, in practice, a totally different nation. REFERENCES Asher, D. (2009). The Egyptian strategy for the Yom Kippur War. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co., Inc. Ezov, A. (2011). Crossing. Or Yehuda, Israel: Kinneret, Zmora-Bitan-Dvir. Gawrych, G. W. (2000). The albatross of decisive victory: War and policy between Egypt and Israel in the 1967 and 1973 Arab-Israeli Wars. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. Greengold, Z. (2008). Zvika Force. Ben Shemen, Israel: Modan. Herzog, C. ([1975] 2003). The war of atonement: The inside story of the Yom Kippur War. London: Greenhill Books. Johnson, N. and J. Mueller (2002). Updating the accounts: Global mortality of the 1918–1920 “Spanish” influenza pandemic. Bulletin of the History of Medicine, 76, (1), 105–115. Kahalani, A. The Yom Kippur War—fighters’ stories. Jerusalem, Israel: Keter. Safran, N. (1977). Trial by ordeal: The Yom Kippur War, October 1973. International Security, 2, 133–170.

TWO The Combatants’ Protest after the Yom Kippur War and the Transformation of the Protest Culture in Israel 1

Eithan Orkibi

THE COMBATANTS’ PROTEST AS A TURNING POINT The concept of “war aftermath” (or “sortie de guerre”) was introduced by contemporary French historians in order to draw attention to the social, cultural, and political processes affiliated with the immediate after-war period, such as the demobilization and integration of combatants within society, political unrest, economic recovery, and cultural representations (Cabanes and Piketty, 2007). Indeed, one of the most fascinating aspects in the history of the Yom Kippur War lies in the war’s aftermath, namely in the Israeli society’s initial reactions to the war and its consequences, as well as in the war’s immediate effects on social, political, and cultural affairs (Hattis-Rolef, 1999; Liebman, 1993, Sheffer, 1999; Drori, 2008; Lebel, 2008; Feige, 2008). This paper will focus on one of these effects: the emergence of social unrest and the formation of a protest movement in the months following the war. The Yom Kippur War substantially precipitated the emergence of two political-ideological movements, which were relatively dispersed, and accelerated their development into operational and functional social movements that have clear objectives. Immediately after the war, the Movement for a Greater Israel expressed itself in the form of “Gush Emunim,” while leftist groups—the radical left and those who resisted the occupation—gradually developed into the “Peace Now” 9

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movement, formally established in 1978 (Newman and Hermann, 1992). More closely related to the conduct of the war and its results, two protest movements also left their historic mark: the movement established by parents of captive and missing soldiers, who during the post-ceasefire negotiations of November and December, effectively placed the issue of war prisoners on the public agenda and successfully generated public pressure and media support (Lebel and Rochlin, 2012). Another protest, which left an equally important impression, was the public campaign waged against the political leadership by demobilized reservist soldiers, and which led, or at least contributed, to the government’s resignation in April 1974. The protest of the combatants began with the massive release of soldiers in late February and early March 1974, and ended with the resignation of the government during a mass demonstration on April 11, 1974. It started with one soldier’s strike, Major Motti Ashkenazi, who immediately upon his release stationed himself in front of the Prime Minister’s Office with signs and demanded Moshe Dayan’s resignation as Minister of Defense for his ministerial responsibility for the failures of the war. Gradually, Ashkenazi was joined by other groups of combatants, with whom he coordinated lectures and meetings with students, youth, and kibbutz members from around the country. They also organized conferences, large demonstrations in Jerusalem, and at one point they even coordinated the merging of various groups into an organized movement: Israel Shelanu (Our Israel). The intensity of their activity and their moderate and organized character, alongside the government’s resignation in April 1974, constituted a new experience in Israeli society: for the first time, society’s future elite took part in a systematic and organized protest movement that achieved a decisive influence on both public opinion and the shaping of the country’s political leadership. The importance of this protest is also evident in the collective memory: the protest movement’s leader, Motti Ashkenazi, became a mythological icon seen by the media and in public discourse as someone who toppled an Israeli government, and the combatants’ protest which he instigated, is seen as a turning point in the history of protest movements in Israel (Lehman-Wilzig, 1990: 37). From a perspective that examines the structure of political opportunities, Hermann (2004) focuses on the modalities by which the political climate after the traumatic experience of the Yom Kippur War created the appropriate conditions for the development and consolidation of the combatants’ protest. Herman lists several factors as changes in the structure of political opportunities: the indirect influence of global youth uprising and student protests in the West; the political decline of the Mapai founders generation and inter-generational tensions within the ruling party; the government’s inability to repress the demonstrators, many of whom were considered as the future successors of the ruling elite (Her-

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mann, 2004: 71); and the declining status of the IDF and the security system as a result of the war. These conditions allowed for the organized protest to exhaust its actions and thus leave a significant mark on what Hermann defines as the repertoire of legitimate contention (Hermann, 2004: 74): [. . .] The recognition that one is permitted to protest with regard to affairs positioned at the top of the hierarchy of political priorities [. . .] and the symbolic removal of decision maker’s immunity from civil criticism that had been previously been granted to them.

Following Herman’s analysis, this article examines the combatants’ protest from an instrumental perspective in order to identify how the movement generated symbolic and structural changes in the Israeli repertoire of contention. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK: REPERTOIRES OF CONTENTION In the sociology of social movements, the concept of “Repertoires of Contention” refers to the reservoir of actions and tactics available to various types of groups, from interest groups to protest movements, engaged in collective action and mobilized in favor, or against, the promotion of social change. In a broad sense, the term refers to the sum of tactics known to social activists in a given historical-cultural context (Tilly, 1986; 1995). For this reason, the repertoire is defined primarily as a dynamic and modular repository which contains the available protest tactics that can be used simultaneously by diverse groups and organizations, promoting different or even contradictory goals. In the narrow sense (often referred to as tactical toolkit), the term indicates a set of tactics chosen by a specific group in relation to a distinct claim or in the context of a specific campaign (Taylor, 1996). This duality is also reflected in the explanations given to such phenomena, as the innovation and modification of protest repertoires over time. On the one hand, following Charles Tilly’s historical perspective, trends and changes in the formation of repertoires are examined within broader socio-historical contexts, such as the emergence of nation-states, the creation of political parties, the formation of trade unions, the expansion of mass media, and the configuration of social networks (Tarrow, 1998: 43–53). On the other hand, the innovation process is also examined, as a specific group’s selection and adoption of repertoires of contention, with respect to internal dynamics within a specific movement. Various researchers have examined movements’ selection of a repertoire as it relates to its cycles and patterns of protest activity (Tarrow, 1993), or with respect to activists’ level of experience, skills, and degree of competence as political or social agents (Crossley, 2002). Collective action repertoires

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are also studied with respect to the movement’s propensity to external factors, such as the activities of other movements (Meyer and Whittier, 1994); its position in multi-player protest arenas (Bearman and Everett, 1993); and the outcome of activists’ interaction or confrontation with the establishment (della Porta and Diani, 1999). Repertoires of tactics could be classified under three categories. The first category distinguishes between instrumental tactics, strategically oriented, adopted and operated to advance the protest’s goals (such as a warning strike), as opposed to expressive tactics, aimed at achieving goals within the movement itself, such as identity formation, empowerment, and fostering expressive means (such as drafting a petition) (see Taylor and Van Dyke, 2004: 266–267). The second category distinguishes between “Insider Tactics” or institutional, in which the movement operates against the establishment through standard, formal or semi-formal channels (such as signing petitions, appealing to court or holding press conferences); as opposed to “Outsider Tactics” or non-institutional, which openly challenge conventional political processes and confront the establishment (such as blocking roads, occupying land, or civil disobedience) (Soule, McAdam, McCarthy, and Su, 1999; see also Tarrow, 1998: 96–104). Finally, a third category classifies the various protest tactics according to their constitutive logic. Della Porta and Diani (1999) discuss three configurations of “Logics and forms of Protest” and distinguish between tactics designed to illustrate the size, scope, and extent of the protest (Logic of numbers), such as holding mass rallies; tactics designed to illustrate the protest’s force—and the extent of damage that the protester’s ire may create (logic of damage), such as clashes with the police or vandalism; and tactics designed to illustrate the activists’ degree of determination, by publicizing the personal price the activists or their representatives are willing to pay for their struggle (logic of bearing witness); such as a willingness to be hurt or arrested by the police or even cases of self-immolation (della Porta and Diani, 1999: 168–178). Social movement leaders and activists thus refer to a multi-dimensional system of considerations and constraints when choosing protest tactics from the collective action repertoire. A protest movement may refer to a set of socially accepted protest tactics, which has proven efficient in previous campaigns, in order to express a symbolic bond with other movements (della Porta, 1995), or to appropriate the cultural meanings associated with past movements (Whittier, 2004: 538-541). Furthermore, the protest organizers should match protest tactics to the movement profile as a social group, and mostly to the target audience’s cultural expectations, especially when it comes to new protest tactics unknown to the public or never employed by the movement. The degree of legitimacy or support the protest will receive from external sources of power or significant groups is largely dependent on the selected action tactics, and their ability to evoke empathy (or antagonism) from various target

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groups (McAdam, Tarrow, and Tilly, 2001: 145–158). In sum, studying changes in the protest repertoire within a particular society requires an analysis of social movements employment of strategies and tactics with respect to pre-established social expectations and shared meanings regarding protest and political participation. Within the scope of analyzing the combatants’ protest after the Yom Kippur War as a transformative chapter in the history of the Israeli repertoire of contention, the present study refers to two distinct periods: the first period—which begins immediately after ceasefire, in late October, and ends with the general legislative elections held on December 31, 1973—is characterized by a political and media discourse that expresses the political elite’s profound concern regarding social unrest following the war. This discourse reflects and uncovers social expectations and culturally shared meanings that relate to concepts such as social unrest, social conflict, controversy and political protest, as they were perceived, at least by the Israeli mainstream, in the early 1970s. The second period begins after the 1973 elections and follows the emergence of unrest among soldiers on the front lines, the beginning of the protest movement and its main activities, through to the public and media reactions to the combatants’ protest and up to the resignation of the government on April 11, 1974. The analysis shows that the protest activities, led by Motti Ashkenazi, were adapted to the early concerns and expectations and were systematically implemented in response. It will be argued here that the modification of the Israeli repertoire of contention is in part the result of a successful planning and implementation of a protest movement strategically designed to deal with the unique constraints, both cognitive and operational, imposed on collective action in Israel. Thus, the combatants’ movement dramatically transformed the social conceptions of “protests,” “social movement,” and “contentious politics,” which were now seen as legitimate modes of expression and political participation in Israeli political culture. FEARS OF UNREST AND THE DEFENSIVE DISCOURSE First Signs of Unrest The first period, which stretches from the end of October 1973 into early 1974, was marked by profound fear that public unrest would flare into protest. This concern, which was widely covered by the ruling party’s supporting newspaper Davar, arose following a series of incidents perceived as having the potential to destabilize the political system and inflame public hostility toward the government. The first instance was a provocative call made by Justice Minister Yaakov Shimshon Shapira for the dismissal of Defense Minister Moshe Dayan just after the Yom Kip-

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pur War. On October 25, 1973, Ma'ariv reported about the argument that developed during a meeting held by the management of the Labor Party faction in the Knesset. They were discussing the proposal to postpone the elections. Shapira fervently supported deferring the elections by a year, in order to allow the public to internalize the meaning of recent events and make an informed decision regarding the nature of worthy leadership in Israel (Hattis-Rolef, 1999: 180–182). During the meeting the Justice Minister announced his intention to resign from the government if those “responsible for the failures” continued to sit in it. Shapira made some serious allegations against the Defense Minister and demanded his immediate resignation (Meisels, October 25, 1973). His words were strongly condemned by the leaders of the Labor Party (Ha’avoda): Prime Minister Golda Meir declared that Moshe Dayan “has my full confidence in his capacity as Minister of Defense” (Patir, October 26, 1973), and party leaders called for the dismissal of the Justice Minister due to his “unspeakable words and their timing” (“Increased pressure,” October 28, 1973). As the condemnation against him increased (“Union of the Kvutzot,” October 29, 1973; “For and against,” November 4, 1973), Shapira resigned from his position and was replaced in early November by Haim Yosef Zadok (Patir, October 29, 1973). The Shapira affair may have ended quickly, but the rowdy Knesset discussions during this period and the lack of confidence expressed by the opposition with regard to the post-ceasefire negotiations, strengthened the concern that the tension within the coalition and the criticism against the government would inflame general unrest. In different political trends, especially in the extreme right, such unrest became visible by the end of October. The Movement for the Greater Israel, for example, defined the ceasefire agreements in its bulletin Zot Ha’aretz [This is the Land] and in ads published in the Ma'ariv daily as “diplomatic defeat” (October 28, 1973). Similarly, ad-hoc movements such as the “Movement for Political Boldness” (October 31, 1973; November 4, 1973) or “Citizens Against Surrender” (November 7, 1973), published statements in Ma'ariv, picketed in front of the Prime Minister’s Office in Jerusalem and organized road blocks in Tel Aviv, demanding to stipulate the ceasefire on the release of prisoners and the establishment of a national emergency government. Another factor which stirred concerns about unrest was the protest activity by families of POWs (Prisoners of War) and MIAs (soldiers Missing in Action), who began to organize protests, rallies, and petitions in late October, and later set up an activity coordination committee. The first demonstrations were held in front of the U.S. Embassy and the Red Cross offices in Tel Aviv, and aimed at increasing international pressure on public opinion and foreign governments (“Two demonstrations,” November 1, 1973). Soon after, the calls turned against the Israeli government and the IDF (Haelion, November 9, 1973). This organized protest,

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which contributed a great deal to reshape the relationship between the military establishment and the families of the soldiers in Israel (Lebel and Rochlin, 2012), also generated much tension among the political leadership—to the extent that they feared losing public confidence in the Prime Minister and her government (Lebel and Rochlin, 2012: 112). Fears of Unrest in the Institutional Discourse Against the backdrop of these activities, concern regarding public unrest became a focal point in both the official leadership discourse and in the argumentative discourse that arose from the institutional intellectual milieu, as particularly voiced in the Labor Party newspaper, Davar. This discourse expressed an understanding regarding the public uproar while calling for preservation of the political cohesion among the party’s ranks at this time of crisis. Upon her return from the United States in early November 1973, Prime Minister Golda Meir formulated the official approach (Segev, November 5, 1973): “True, the Israeli public is raising many questions about the war, but [. . .] these questions should be clarified in due time and appropriately.” This statement largely reflected the government’s defensive discourse, which came into play from the end of October until early January, especially with respect to the emergence of the concept of “Mechdal” (oversight or massive failure), which was already rampant in the media and in public discourse. The discourse focused on denying legitimacy from publicly voicing criticism. Instead, it demanded restraint, officialdom, and identified institutional-professional stages as the exclusive arena to examine the facts and draw the necessary conclusions about the war. Explicit criticism and public unrest were defined as “a Jewish War,” a “Lynch,” and “Public Trials”; unruly public behavior was labeled “irrational,” “moody,” “vengeful”; and the public opinion shapers’ ultimate goal was seen as an historical mission to prevent the emergence of “street democracy,” so that the official and undeniably important investigation would be assigned to the appropriate authorities and would be handled in a reasonable manner. Opinion pieces in the newspaper Davar published on October 26, 1973, were devoted almost entirely to “calming the spirits,” with the paper’s editor Hanna Zemer lead (Zemer, October 26, 1973): The moment the war broke with the Arabs, it was clear that a civil war among Jews would follow. [. . .] such a war among Jews could wear us out more than the hardest and cruelest war Israel faces against the Arab powers combined [. . .] Not that there aren’t small and large questions that may be asked [. . .] a reckoning must take place. [. . .] But it would be a terrible mistake on the part of all parties, if we turn the inquiry into an internal war, as all the parties are clearly vulnerable in this kind of war [. . .]. A Jewish war that would expose our least attrac-

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While Zemer characterizes the war as a moment of crisis that could open a channel, as long as the restraint is kept, for a constructive discussion about “a political plan for the future,” other writers in the newspaper refer to the possible dangers of taking hurried steps. At this early stage there were already expressions of turmoil, and the columnists understood the perceived atmosphere of urgency and crisis, and even used the word “mechdal,” yet they still called for restraint (Eshed, 1973, October 26): The people of Israel have no choice but to conduct an internal inquiry and at the same time make crucial decisions about policy and military initiatives. [. . .] The need for a thorough investigation is urgent [. . .] the many defects in Israeli lifestyle and in its methods of administration will need thorough, systematic and extended repair rather than a unilateral beheading or shattering. [. . .] It is possible that the investigation may require a reshuffle at all levels of personnel. But the order must be preserved and we should not jump the gun.

Or, better yet, as another columnist put it (Bloch, October 26, 1973): There has undoubtedly been an error of judgment and evaluation, and possibly oversight. This needs to be thoroughly examined and investigated. But, at least at this stage, not publicly, not in press releases or demagoguery speeches. [. . .] It is therefore advisable that at times like these, we will hold such inquiries in closed forums—among the General Staff, the government and the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee.

The paper and its writers used harsh language against the critical discourse that characterized public opinion, especially the “obsessive preoccupation with the oversight,” which Writer Yoram Kaniuk called "the country’s national multi-gloom sport” (Kaniuk, November 23, 1973). The public demand for an inquiry commission, which was supported by many journalists, was also justified by the need to appease public opinion. Ruth Bondy, in a semi-ironic article, delineated this line of reasoning (Bondi, November 9, 1973): Public opinion could be regarded the same as Sir Robert Peel, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom in the 19th century, defined it—“a compound of folly, weakness, prejudice, wrong feeling, right feeling, obstinacy, and newspaper paragraphs”: one can see the great deal of irrationality, ingratitude and fickleness therein. [. . .] There are times when public opinion seems like a very insubstantial thing. Very obscure. Other days it is very tangible, very thick. You can almost touch it. [. . .] Just as a primitive tribe, we need a ceremony to please the spirits, in contemporary language this could be called an inquiry commission. The sooner, the better.

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The fear of public unrest made its way into the discourse surrounding the elections, particularly in Ma’arach’s campaign (Labor Alignment Party), which coined “Nevertheless—Ma’arach” as its leading slogan. On the eve of the elections, leading intellectuals initiated and hosted a public conference in support of Ma’arach, in which took part, among others, historian Samuel Ettinger, philosopher Yirmiyahu Yovel, economist Eitan Berglas, jurist David Mashovits, and Major General (res.) Matti Peled. The main speeches given at the conference, which was entitled “Nevertheless— Ma’arach,” were published as a full-page advertisement in Davar on Deceber 23, 1973. Terms such as “Protest voting” and “Punishing voter” were featured in ads in an effort to point out the futility of an “emotional response” (Ma’arach, December 20, 1973), and to distinguish it from a “rational decision” (Ma’arach, December 24, 1973): No one can blame you if you place a vote of anger, of protest, of disappointment. Only you will be able to tell yourself one day that anger was a bad counsellor, and protest—failed us. But what’s done cannot be undone.

This position was also voiced in opinion columns, which right from the beginning of the campaign called for abstention from protest voting (Modest and practical elections, December 11, 1973): There is a public tendency to a protest vote, but it must be clarified and emphasized that protest voting is not a democratic solution. The voters must decide between different solutions to current problems.

The institutional-intellectual milieu framed the elections not only as a duel between “Likud” and “Ma’arach,” but mainly as a choice between “avoidance” and “decisiveness,” and attempted to assess the extent to which the Israeli voter will “punish” the political leadership (Avneri, December 28, 1973): In two days we will know the extent to which the reasonable consideration prevailed, or whether voter’s vented their disappointment and dejection. Adventurers from the right and the faithless from the left will be built from these evil spirits. Hopefully the people will not disappoint.

The election discourse expressed the institutional perceived dichotomy between, on the one hand, public unrest and protest-voting which were seen as venting disappointment and dejection, anger, irrationality, passion, vengefulness, public decapitation and hysteria; and on the other hand, a structured, responsible and prudent process of learning the facts and drawing conclusion which should be conducted by the appropriate authorities, without the public’s direct involvement. Thus, when a group of young journalist published in early 1974 a landmark book composed of extremely critical essays under the title of The Oversight, the institution-

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al-intellectual milieu defined it as an expression of a ceremonious discharge of emotions (Avneri, January 11, 1974): After painful blows, heavy losses and anxieties, we should offer the people a scapegoat, or what was acceptable in tyrannical regimes—to pass the victim through a row of people, let each get their turn to kick him and beat him and spit on him. And that is what the authors of the book did—to the reader’s delight (at least that’s what they meant).

The “fear of unrest” discourse warned in general terms against instability that may arise as a result of venting the impulse to define the war in terms of an “oversight” and those “responsible” for it. In fact, it shed light on one possible result of the growing public unrest: political exploitation of public frustration by opponents of the ruling party, and protestvoting in the form of refraining from voting or voting for a different party as a “punishment.” These terms enabled the framing of any expression of protest as playing into the hands of cynical political forces or as nonconstructive action that should be avoided. Largely, this discourse managed to frame public unrest as a politically undesirable behavior, at least until the elections at the end of December 1973, and defined a protest movement as a distinctive option. Such an option may not have seemed available or conceivable in the post-war climate, but it is reasonable to assume that the option of organized protest was deliberately removed from the political discourse, in a “silent manipulative” practice, to use Thomas Huckin’s term (Huckin, 2002). Such silence may have helped to remove the possibility of organized protest from the public agenda by refraining from elevating the semantic field to incorporate the term “protest,” as it was understood in the historical-cultural context of the early 1970s. Given the above-mentioned organized activity of some protest groups immediately after the war, which by their very existence embodied the option of organized protest, the sweeping avoidance of explicit reference to the protest reflected the profound concern within the political elite. The panic from public unrest was based on various meanings in the minds of the Israeli public and leadership, regarding the concept of “protest,” associated thus far with distinct groups and activities. On the socio-economic level, protest was associated with demonstrations with a strong ethnic-socio-economic orientation; namely with the demonstrations held by the Israeli Black Panther movement, which was framed in the official discourse as a threat to society’s morality, labeled as “perverse,” “subversive,” and “criminal” (Lahav and Shenhav, 2010). Among students, even the relatively moderate activities performed by student organizations at universities were attributed with the alarming potential to bring the “ugly global wave of student protests” into Israel (Cohen and Orkibi, 2008). On the political level, an organized protest outside the party system was identified as an option reserved for extreme voices that

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were far from the consensus, such as “Matzpen” or the “Movement for Peace and Security,” whose protests were characterized by few participants or by clashes with opposing right wing parties (Wigoder and Wigoder, 1999). In general, civilian demonstrations targeting security policy and strategic affairs were uncommon outside of these circles and were seen as marginal. For instance, the public and media reactions to the women's demonstrations in demand to appoint Moshe Dayan as the Minister of Defense on the eve of the 1967 War (Lachover, 2008: 53–54). Thus, in the context of the public unrest after the Yom Kippur War, the term “protest” carried negative meanings relating to the scope and repertoires of collective action. A rigid system of cognitive and symbolic constraints was imposed on any attempt to lead an organized protest as an expression of public unrest after the war. This occurred within a cultural context that coupled social agitation with extremist or marginal groups and tended to avoid protests against security, military, and strategic affairs. JANUARY-APRIL 1974: THE EMERGENCE AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE COMBATANTS’ PROTEST The Combatants’ Frustration in the Public Discourse The Israeli government ordered the setup of a national inquiry commission into the Yom Kippur War in November 1973. The commission, chaired by Israeli Supreme Court Chief Justice Shimon Agranat, was perceived a response of the political leadership to the public unrest by way of postponing any personal decision until the results of the formal investigation are made public (Etzioni-Halevy and Livne, 1977: 289). The activities of the National Commission of Inquiry into the Yom Kippur War (the Agranat Commission) served as pacifying signals, and indeed in the general elections that took place on December 31, 1973, Ma’arach maintained its position as the ruling party. Yet the general support for the Ma’arach diminished, and most of Davar reporters agreed with the Party’s General Secretary, MK Aharon Yadlin, who said that “the protest-voting undoubtedly eroded the strength of Ha’Avoda [Labor Party]” (Patir, January 9, 1974). Either way, there was broad agreement that despite the increase in the Likud Party’s power, the ruling party still has reasonable leeway and was able to maintain its status. The election was seen as a final chapter, or as journalist Hillel Danzig put it (Danzig, 1974, January 11): The voting in these elections was considered an act of ‘sealing,’ designed to guarantee an extended Yom Kippur, from broader and more complex considerations than the balance of the war. At the moment of this “signing,” the anger depreciated and doubts about the choice between emotions and logic surfaced.

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The expression of self-confidence continued even when the right wing unrest was rekindled following the disengagement agreements signed that month. On January 18, 1974, Ma'ariv published an open letter by high school students soon to become soldiers (“Shministim Letter”), in which they addressed the Prime Minister stating: “what is the point of joining the army if we know that all our military triumphs will be wasted on political defeat and surrender?” (Shministim, January 18, 1974). The Likud also began to organize protests against the “surrender and unilateral withdrawal” and organized a rally in central Tel Aviv (Likud, January 20, 1974). In an editorial published in Davar the following day, the Likud leaders were rebuked (Davar editorial, January 21, 1974): [The Likud activists] found the streets an appropriate gallery for their play. However, what alleviates our concern [. . .] is the presence of a few hundred people who came to listen to the claims upon which they base such an undermining of the foundations of parliamentary democracy.

The term “Oversight” was still on the public agenda and ads for the third edition of the book Hamechdal (The Oversight) written by seven young and leading journalists, spread across pages of the daily newspapers. However, two new sources of contention simmered to the surface during this month. The overall price increases and the government’s intention to abolish subsidies generated tension, peaking in late January when two demonstrations were organized in Tel Aviv. Both demonstrations were led by the Israeli Black Panthers after their party failed to pass the threshold in the previous elections. During the demonstrations, protesters blocked roads and intersections and clashed with the police. The police eventually charged the Panther’s Secretary General, Shalom Cohen, with organizing illegal demonstrations (Elkan and Rotem, January 29, 1974; Rotem, January 31, 1974; Elkan, February 4, 1974). The newspapers stirred another arena for unrest, this time coming from combatants serving on the front. The distinction between the “Rear” and the “Front,” between “Israel” and “The Land of Goshen” (the soldier's slang for the Israeli foothold on the Egyptian west bank of the Suez Canal), was highlighted in the press and increased the sense of alienation among the combatants serving at the front, relative to the renewed daily routine on the Rear. As one reporter put it (Mendelsohn, January 20, 1974): The issue is repeating itself: Us and them. One soldier said to me: Why don’t you sit down to write one piece about the Rear and let them have it? I read in the weekend papers pieces from Africa, Egypt, the Land of Goshen, from way out there, and find in them the fashionable words: gap, identification, substitution, fair distribution of the burden, key figures, fuck-ups, new class, universities, they don’t give a damn about you, back to normal, forget fast, redundant, Dizengoff street, the good

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guys, war profits and of course—oversight. [. . .] And yours truly is also wandering the streets of Jerusalem during a vacation and wants to kick and curse and shout: I’m tired. It would be silly to ignore the fact that there is a gap between the Front and Rear. Anyone whose ears don’t pick up on the sound of indignation and anger in both places, either has impaired hearing or chooses for it to be so.

Even the temporary provision to the “Demobilized Soldiers Act,” adopted in December 1973, failed to alleviate the sense of alienation. In fact, much akin to the Agranat Commission, the provisions in favor of the demobilized soldiers were perceived as an effort by the government to appease the unrest (Etzioni-Halevy and Livne, 1977: 289). The sense of alienation was coupled with the unrest regarding the election, particularly in relation to the coalition negotiations that took place afterwards. Besides issues of allocating ministers, the negotiations revolved around the question “who is a Jew,” following the stipulation the National Religious Party required during the coalition talks for reforms in conversion to Judaism (Bloch, January 22). This is the background for Davar reporter Ruth Bondi's impressions of the discourse of the combatants who were still at the front (Bondi, February 1, 1974): It’s hard to understand: Now is the time to argue about who is a Jew and who it is forbidden to marry and insist on seats, departments and paid deputies in the municipality?

To a large extent, this column translated the combatants’ feelings that the establishment of the new government was delayed due to “minor problems that are detached from reality” while they still “man the front lines and are cut off from their families” (Livne, 1977: 39). The Emergence and Expansion of the Protest Movement And indeed, with the massive release of combatant forces in late January and early February 1974, the unrest over the “oversight” went beyond verbal criticism. The movement began with the single protest by reserve officer, Major Motti Ashkenazi, which took place in the parking lot in front of the government offices in Jerusalem. Ashkenazi’s one-man protest focused solely on his demand for the resignation of Defense Minister Moshe Dayan, claiming that Dayan should take ministerial responsibility for the war. Ashkenazi held his demonstration on Sundays and Mondays during the month of February, and with the support of some positive media coverage, he devoted the rest of the week to meetings with audiences throughout the country, especially in universities and Kibbutzim. Within two weeks, Ashkenazi and a small group of activists that supported him, collected some 5,600 signatures in a petition to depose Dayan. The signatories of the petition expressed agreement with the following statement (Ashkenazi, February 20, 1974): “I demand the real-

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ization of the democratic principle of ministerial responsibility to failures and oversights as a basic principle in a democratic society.” On February 17, 1974, they held the first demonstration, in which several thousand protesters marched from the government building toward the Knesset building. Protesting opposite them was a small group of demonstrators led by Dov Goldstein, who would later continue to lead a few more demonstrations in support of Dayan and against “soldiers and civilians deciding spontaneously who should run the country and who should not” (Demonstrations in Jerusalem against and in support of Dayan. Davar, February 18, 1974). The protest was also condemned by Labor Secretary General MK Aharon Yadlin, who stated that “assembling a government and positioning its ministers is not somemthing that is done through boos and banters in the street,” as well as by the Ben-Gurion Ideological Circle which accused Ashkenazi of concealing his ties with leftist politicians and activists, and of “taking advantage of his status and misleading the public” (Motti Ashkenazi announces a campaign to collect 101 thousands signatures to depose Dayan. Ma'ariv, February 18, 1974). Toward the end of February, the Parachute Brigade veterans joined the protest and held a silent protest vigil in front of the Knesset under the slogan “We are here!” The demonstration, which called for “the collective resignation of all those responsible for strategic failure,” demanded to improve the implementation of the Demobilized Soldiers Act. Upon his release from military service, Assa Kadmony, who was awarded the Medal of Valor, the highest Israeli military decoration, for his part in the Sarapeum Battle on October 17, 1973, joined Motti Ashkenazi in the protest (Nevo and Ashkenazi, 2006). The protests were also attended by MKs Meir Pa’il (Moked), Ariel Sharon, and Avraham Yoffe (Likud) (Demobilized soldiers demonstrated in front of the Knesset and called for a collective resignation of those responsible for the oversight. Ma'ariv, February 28, 1974). The paratroopers effectively organized advocacy activities and in early March they even held a press conference in which they committed to launch a public debate on administration and political culture in Israel (Rotem, March 3, 1974; March 6, 1974). In the scope of coordinating the various initiatives, the combatants established on March 12, 1974, a new movement for political reform, focusing, at the current stage, on the call for internal elections in the major parties (Demobilized soldiers to establish a movement for reform. Davar, March 13, 1974). That evening, Motti Ashkenazi announced that following the Prime Minister’s intention to appoint Moshe Dayan the Defense Minister in her new government, he and his colleagues decided to include her in their demand for ministerial responsibility and declared the organization of a mass demonstration demanding her resignation and new elections (Motti Ashkenazi demands PM Meir resignation and calls for new elections. Ma'ariv, March 13, 1974). Later that week, a group of soldiers from ar-

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mored units joined the protesters to demonstrate in front of the Knesset with a similar demand to dismiss those responsible for the oversight and to hold new elections (Res. combatants from armored units demonstrated in front of the Knessent in demand for collective resignation. Ma'ariv, March 15, 1974). The following week, the various combatant protests merged into the newly established Reform Initiative (HaYozma LeTmura), inviting the public to join their activities (Tmura, March 18, 1974). Under the leadership of Motti Ashkenazi, who continued to appear before diverse audiences across the country, the affiliates of the Reform Initiative organized a mass demonstration on March 24, 1974, which was announced as the “day of public responsibility.” Over 6,000 people attended the demonstration in Jerusalem, which was described by the media as “one of the largest demonstrations held in the city in recent years” (Mendelson, March 25, 1974). Meanwhile, the protest movement expanded and started showing signs of institutionalization. The founding conference of a new movement, “Shinui—for social and political change” was held in Tel Aviv; a student conference at Tel Aviv University called for a change in the electoral system and demanded new elections (Meisels, March 27, 1974), and later in the week, representatives from all movements and organizations met to coordinate their activities and set up a joint headquarters for increased cooperation (Dagan, March 28, 1974). During this meeting the various combatants protest groups officially merged and announced the establishment of Our Israel—the Movement for Reform (Goldstein, March 29, 1974). In early April, the Agranat Commission published an interim report and in response the protest movement announced its intention to intensify the protest, demanding that the government take ministerial responsibility for the exposed military failures (Motti Ashkenazi resumes the activities. Davar, April 4, 1974). Against the backdrop of the calls for Moshe Dayan’s resignation, coming from the political system—the coalition and opposition alike—and in the media, the members of “Our Israel” announced a mass protest demanding the resignation of all ministers serving since 1968 (Tmura to hold a protest rally calling for the resignation of all ministers serving since 1968. Davar, April 9, 1974). Golda Meir’s resignation announcement surprised the protest leaders, but the planned mass rally took place in Jerusalem regardless on April 11, 1974. Even though the movement continued to organize activities across the country (Mazori, April 14, 1974), the movement slowly disintegrated after the resignation of the government, until it finally faded during the summer.

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BETWEEN CRITICISM AND IDEALISM: INSTITUTIONAL RESPONSES AND MEDIA REACTION TO THE PROTEST From its early stages, the combatants’ protest received large media coverage, and journalists expressed interest, if not sympathy, toward the nature of the protest and toward its leader, Motti Ashkenazi, thus offering him a central stage from which to convey his messages across (Tomer, February 6, 1974). In Ma'ariv, Moshe Dor offered to “shake Motti Ashkenazi’s hand” (Dor, February 5, 1974): This impractical, lonely person, protesting innocently and to his heart’s content, by virtue of what he went through, against that which all men, in fact, the wise, realistic, career building and nurturing men walk by. In the eyes of these practical people, dear Motti, we are all negligible. But you, all alone, and your kind, you are the hope for the Jewish state.

Yedioth Ahronoth published an open letter to Ashkenazi, entitled “Motti , don’t let them!” which expressed overwhelming support for the protest (Shoham, February 8, 1974): You know what Motti, you’re right! [. . .] You are our last hope, the hope that your actions will cause a chain reaction of increasing civil disobedience, an unruly mass that will demand law and order. Ecce Homo, Motti Ashkenazi, commander of the coastal outpost, be strong and courageous!

During the very first weekend of his one-man demonstration, Ashkenazi became the object of broad media coverage. Ma'ariv devoted to him the weekly interview, expounding at length both his experiences as a commander stationed in the war and the goals of his struggle (Goldstien, February 8, 1974): I swore that if I escaped that hell I will fight those responsible for what happened. [. . .] I demand Moshe Dayan’s resignation because he is responsible for the short-sightedness before the war. During this period no one would say: “Anyway, I have no power to change!” This country is ours, all of us, and its public image depends on us all. [. . .] This is an attempt to break the Israeli bureaucratic wall and make a small crack in the self-defense tactics that characterize the Israeli leadership.

In the newspaper Davar, Haim Izak lashed out against the “waves of sympathy” that Ashkenazi enjoyed and accused him of exploiting his status as a combatant (“will not us be silenced with fear and awe before such an heroic authority?”), explaining why his messages are political rather than ideological, as they were presented (Izak, February 12, 1974). The next day, however, the same newspaper printed a piece in support of Ashkenazi (Geva, February 13, 1974): “Hopefully, Motti Ashkenazi’s strike heralds a new era—the era in which people care and express it in

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public.” Among Ashkenazi’s critics, author and publicist Moshe Shamir expressed a firm position (Shamir, February 15, 1974): The sympathy toward Motti Ashkenazi is natural: A combatant, wounded, a decent man, an exemplary man, a man of conscience, a thinker and an activist, talented speaker, and brave. Nevertheless, [one should condemn . . .] the attempt to force a mindset on the committee [Agranat Commission], and the protest’s targeting of the Defense Minister, which would end up tarnishing the names not only of one man, heading the defense system—but all the levels that were much closer to the battle-field. [. . .] The decision to bow the head and absorb the first blow, led to the collapse of the first line during the first days of the war. No army in the world could face such a situation more successfully, and no army could escape from it as quickly as the IDF did. The blame does not fall on the IDF nor on the security system—but on the entire government. Moshe Dayan should bear the brunt, as should the entire government, as one of the main decision makers—but by no means should he take the blame as the Defense Minister responsible for the army. The only legitimate demand is thus the resignation of the entire government and to replace the leadership. But the sympathetic Motti Ashkenazi is not dealing with this in his protest!

However, despite the criticism across the political board, Ashkenazi’s protest mainly sparked sympathy, which required a response, including one from Moshe Dayan. After announcing at a press conference that the “only authority that could determine whether he should resign due to his parliamentary responsibility is not Motti Ashkenazi, not the Minister of Justice nor the Kibbutz Haartzi, but the Prime Minister” (Dayan: I will only serve in the government if asked by the Prime Minister. Davar, February 13, 1974). Dayan showed up for an appointment with Motti Ashkenazi at Professor Nathan Rottenstreich’s house where he listened to his claims (Tomer, February 17, 1974; Ashkenazi, 2003: 169–173). Ashkenazi’s centrality, especially after meeting with Dayan and the demonstration on February 17, marked the two types of reactions to the protest: on the one hand, visible support and sympathy; on the other hand, criticism of the haste to single out responsible parties and fanning the flames that could disrupt the work of the Agranat Commission (Avneri, February 21, 1974; Eshed, February 24, 1974), as well as—to a lesser extent—Ashkenazi’s “hidden agenda,” in an attempt to undermine his innocent image or the spontaneous image of the protest by exposing his political activity prior to the war in the Movement for Peace and Security (Erlich, February 21, 1974). Noteworthy, the Movement for Peace and Security was founded in 1969 and was among the first Israeli political movements which openly opposed the military occupation after The 1967 Six Day War and supported the Palestinian national aspirations. Ashkenazi was one of the movement’s founders and activists.

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Despite this criticism, the expansion of the protest movement and particularly, the accession of other combatant groups to the widening circle around Motti Ashkenazi, gave rise to public discourse which was largely favorable of the protest. By March, the demand for Moshe Dayan’s dismissal, which just two months earlier was perceived as an “undesirable provocation,” became a legitimate claim, both in the public and political discourse, and many Labor Party Knesset representatives visited Ashkenazi in his protest and expressed their public support (Bloch, February 13, 1974; Sarid: my visit of Motti Ashkenazi—not a coincidence, Davar, February 14, 1974). The expansion of the movement enabled the immediate rejection of any individual claim against Ashkenazi and demonstrated the collective and heterogeneous character of the protest (Avnery, March 22, 1974; People who care: a symposium with six representatives of the different movements. Yedioth Ahronoth, April 5, 1974). The combatants protest activity energized the public debate on issues such as political participation and protest in Israel (Beilin, March 1, 1974; Peled, April 12, 1974; Rottenstreich, April 12, 1974) and produced a positive perception of civic engagement regarding public issues in general and security issues in particular. Toward the end of March 1974, a Davar editorial warned against the danger of radicalization of the protest, but simultaneously stated (Avenues for the protest movements. Davar, March 25, 1974): The discharged combatants’ protest movements, such as those who demonstrated yesterday with Motti Ashkenazi outside the PM’s office in Jerusalem on the eve of the five month ceasefire, are a new phenomenon on the social-political landscape [. . .] The politicization of thousands of citizens-soldiers-reservists, including many young people, who have never been involved in political activity, is in itself a positive phenomenon, and of course their emphasis on the demands to bring about changes in the social and political climate in Israel. [. . .] Hopefully, the democratization of the internal electoral system, the elimination of outdated divisions, extra-openness and a change in the electoral system illustrating the relationship between voters and elected officials—will enable the parties to eventually absorb many of the energetic youth now seeking to enter political life.

The transformation of the perception of the protest was reflected in the discourse of the institutional-intellectual milieu, which viewed the combatants’ movement as a constructive step toward renewing the political culture in identifying the protestors as an emerging new political generation (Bloch, March 26,1974; Bartov, March 29, 1974) which would restore the position of the Labor Party as an important, relevant, and up-to-date political movement (Gotholf, April 12, 1974; Dor, April 8, 1974; Eilam, April 14, 1974). This shift also penetrated the political leadership discourse. At the annual Board of Governors meeting at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Golda Meir was quoted noting (Golda Meir: Why hold

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demonstrations if you wish to change the electoral system? Ma'ariv, March 28, 1974): There is no doubt that Israel underwent serious trauma by the Yom Kippur War. The young people returning from military service are asking many questions and looking for answers. [. . . Notice] the proof of their love of the country, as reflected in their awakened involvement. [All parties should] let them join their ranks. [I] wonder about the effectiveness of demonstrating as a means to change the electoral system; [. . .] demonstrations against the old woman who heads the government are very tempting. I would have willingly joined them.

Shaping the Combatants’ Protest: The Laundering of “Street Democracy” In her statement to the Knesset on April 11, 1974, Golda Meir mentioned the public unrest as one of the reasons that led her to submit her resignation as Prime Minister: “This protest, which may be natural, and surely legitimate, has expressed itself in many ways,” she said, adding that “I came to the realization that we would do best if the public received a new opportunity to select its representatives, re-examine and decide on the establishment of a new strong government” (Mendelson, April 12, 1974). This may have been the realization of the scenario that the intellectual and political elite feared and warned against: “street democracy,” favoring “punitive measures” under public pressure, instead of, or even opposing, the professional decisions made by competent and legitimate authorities. Contrary to earlier estimates and in sharp contrast with the Ma’arach’s official position articulated by Dayan himself—“Even a thousand Motti Ashkenazi’s won’t convince me to resign”—the public pressure was indeed a significant factor in the government’s fall. However, the profound change that occurred between the period of time when “fear of public unrest” was common until the end of the combatants’ protests broke the boundaries of the political landscape. It concerned the general transformation in the social perception of “street democracy,” that is, the reconfiguration of the semantic field emerging from the term “protest.” The reasons behind this change, in which “street democracy” became a positive phenomenon, stem from the systematic and rigorous shaping of the movement’s mise-en-scène: namely, the staging of participants, movements, and activities within the public and media spheres, while consciously considering constraints, image, and operational factors pertaining to collective protest actions in the early 1970s in Israel. Motti Ashkenazi brought his experience and skills from his past activities in the Movement for Peace and Security, and later on with the Israeli Black Panthers. This know-how capital generated a series of strategic decisions which helped to design a protest movement whose positive public image is a primary condition for its ability to expand and mobilize public support.

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Method of Action The first consideration in planning the protest related to the first selected pattern of action, namely Motti Ashkenazi’s solo demonstration. Ashkenazi chose to launch a solo demonstration on Sunday morning for two main reasons: the first reason is operative: a solo demonstration does not require any license from the police; therefore there is no need to inform the authorities of the intention to hold a demonstration. This enabled Ashkenazi to launch his autonomous protest independently and without coordination, and thus to surprise both the passers-by near the entrance to the Prime Minister’s office, as well as and the media (Motti Ashkenazi, personal communication, October 10, 2013). However, symbolically, the solo demonstration managed to produce a news item with the potential to grow. The one-man protest, which eventually turned into a hunger strike, ensured an ongoing public interest. Naturally, a sit-in protest, and a hunger strike to an even greater extent, generates interest due to the striker’s persistence, anticipating future developments resulting from the dramatic tension inherent in the individual man’s struggle against a powerful mechanism. In addition, a solo demonstration which can be expected to expand by attracting more activists ensures a continuous narrative of growth and expansion, thus becoming potentially more appealing. To a large extent, these aspects were indeed expressed in the media reports, which were sympathetic to the fact that Ashkenazi was alone and anticipated the protest would grow. Thus, Ashkenazi reduced the potential for opposition from the public, media and the establishment alike, by conveying a story of a single demonstrator who enters the public domain, rather than a cohesive group of agitated activists who threaten to wreak havoc in the streets (Motti Ashkenazi, personal communication, October 10, 2013). Protest Location and the Rhetoric of Place Ashkenazi demonstrated from the parking lot in front of the government offices. He selected this location for two basic reasons: the first was to ensure visibility in the public sphere, especially media visibility. Originally, Ashkenazi intended to protest from a location farther away, but one of the journalists who first saw him recommended that he move to a more central point, and in effect, his selected position forced all guests entering the PMO compound to pass him by, thus producing media worthy moments every time a senior official stopped to talk to him, or, contrarily, ignored him (see, for example, Tomer, February 11, 1974). Ashkenazi’s second and equally important consideration was the proximity to the main entrance of the Givat Ram campus of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Ashkenazi estimated that the traffic of students and teachers will improve the potential for recruiting sympathizers and

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supporters to join his protest movement, assuming that a large portion of the student body was comprised of demobilized combatants who were, like himself, taking their first steps in the normal daily routine after a lengthy military service (Ashkenazi, October 10, 2013). Finally and symbolically, the location branded the protest as an event taking place at the heart of the “official quarter,” amid the transit routes between the Knesset, government compounds, and other state institutions, rather than at the city center or other main streets in Jerusalem. Unlike demonstrations in central public spaces in the city, Ashkenazi sought to physically and symbolically locate his protest within the political establishment, and thus to avoid producing the conventional visual distinction between the “bastions of power” and “the street.” Order and Moderation From the moment the protest began to expand, Ashkenazi made sure to maintain direct contact with the authorities. Through the entire movement, he communicated constantly with the police commanders in Jerusalem in order to ensure the protests were conducted in a peaceful and calm manner. Ashkenazi coordinated and planned with the police force the demonstrators’ transit routes, the positions of barriers, and the exact locations where the protesters would be allowed to settle. Furthermore, in coordination with the police, Ashkenazi instructed his partners in organizing demonstrations to order the protesters to show up unarmed, should some of the combatants have not yet returned their battle equipment upon discharge (Ashkenazi, October 10, 2013). The demonstrations were characterized by restraint and order, while avoiding a militant atmosphere that might have led attempts to break the police barriers, to block roads, or clash with the police. Largely, Ashkenazi aimed to organize demonstrations that were essentially the exact opposite of the “unruliness,” clashes with the police and physical conflict which characterized the Israeli Black Panthers demonstrations in Jerusalem. A Mobilizing Non-Partisan Message One of the prominent characteristics of the combatants’ protest was avoiding any partisan message. Ashkenazi focused on ministerial responsibility, which later evolved into a more extensive discussion on the political culture and the desire to change the “system,” but which could not be identified with any political party. Ashkenazi and the other protesters willingly and publicly conversed with representatives of various political parties, but systematically rejected any formal or covert collaboration with a political party; with one exception: Ashkenazi delivered a speech at a conference organized by the Ideological Circle for Social and Political Problems (Meisels, March 17, 1974), which was in fact an oppositional fraction within the Labor Party. In addition, Ashkenazi and his

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colleagues rejected all public endorsements from political figures and publicly repudiated any attempt to conduct political activism as part of the protest. Activists of political organizations or parties which distributed information materials of their own during the demonstrations were publicly condemned by the organizers (Mendelson, March 25, 1974). Thus, the non-partisan nature of the protests was preserved and the demonstrations were not marked as political advocacy activist recruitment events. In addition to the non-partisan nature, the movement focused on one core demand: the resignation of those responsible for the “oversight,” especially Moshe Dayan. Targeting Dayan was somewhat contradictory to the general state of mind reflected in the public discourse, which expressed antagonism toward obscure concepts such as “the oversight,” “the conception,” or “the system.” Focusing the struggle against one key individual (Moshe Dayan) and central issue (ministerial responsibility) had a mobilizing appeal, which permitted the solidification of the movement members around a concrete target and achievable goal, as opposed to a long-term ideological struggle against the “establishment” or the “system” (Bowers, Ochs, and Jensen, 1993: 34–36). Demonstrators’ Profile One of the important challenges Ashkenazi faced was to raise broad public support and to steadily and intensively expand the circle of active protest. However, no attempts were made to begin mass mobilization. On a public level and contrary to any logical considerations of a movement aspiring to grow significantly, the movement’s rhetoric addressed two distinct audiences. Sympathizers, i.e. the general public, called to express support by signing petitions or making donations (Ashkenazi, February 20, 1974), and potential movement members, i.e., demobilized combatants. In newspaper ads, Ashkenazi addressed discharged soldiers in a direct and unmediated style: “I call you, you who carried the burden of war, to join me at the demonstration” (Ashkenazi, February 22, 1974). Such distinction helped labeling the protests as a combatants’ movement from the get go, who thus have the moral legitimacy to express their frustration. However, the movement’s methods of actions, location, order, and moderation, as well as the non-partisan message provided the infrastructure necessary to mobilize active members. The attribution of roles and other characteristics of the protest, as designed by Ashkenazi, reduced public opposition, and, in fact, transformed the protest into a relevant option for many demobilized combatants who were reluctant to join a protest movement. The protesters’ profile was accurately defined by Tammar Hermann (Hermann, 2004: 69): Those who did not come from the political periphery, but belonged on a socio-demographic level to the central groups [. . .] They were not

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Mizrahi, Arabs, religious or women; these were Ashkenazi Jewish men, relatively educated and secular.

This social group did not only contribute to the protest’s moderate nature, but was in many ways a direct result of considerations that guided Ashkenazi and his colleagues, who consciously sought to recruit to the protest the “the finest of our sons.” From a sociological perspective, we can determine that along the continuum between an instrumental and non-institutional protest repertoire and an expressive and institutional protest repertoire, the combatants’ protest tended to the moderate side. Anti-institutional messages, which challenged the consensual ethos of Israeli society, were rejected. Confrontational or coercive protest tactics, such as mass strikes, clashes with police, occupation of facilities, or noncompliance, were discarded as well. In fact, the protest tactics employed by combatants symbolically reflected the organizers’ aspiration to break the barrier between the “establishment” and the “street”; between the “elite” and the “deprived,” and to open up a channel for political participation which would not be seen as essentially subversive, but rather as constructive and consensual. To the extent that this movement established a social distinction between protests about military and strategic affairs and protests related to economic and social issues (Hermann, 2004 74), it also formed the distinction between an institutional model of protest, associated with groups that belong to the political mainstream but can stipulate their fidelity to the political elite through protests and social movements, and a non-institutional model of protest, which challenges the political elite or the core values of the Israeli society. The combatants’ protest thus transformed a series of collective action tactics, such as demonstrations, vigils, or media events, into available means of political participation, and legitimated the usage of these tactics for those who avoided them so far due to their strong association with subversive political activism or socio-economic issues. Motti Ashkenazi successfully managed to initiate and lead an effective protest spectacle, which distinctively and systematically sought to launder the term “street politics.” The combatants’ protest was strategically designed as a counter-argument, as a systematic refutation of the fears and ideas which were constituted during the period of “fear of unrest” in particular, and the general perception of protests in the cultural-political climate in Israel of the early 1970s. The government’s resignation contributed to yet another precedent: not only did the combatants’ movement reshape the Israeli repertoire of collective action, it furthermore demonstrated how protests can be effective. For the first time, public pressure created by a social movement inflamed the political climate and eventually led to resignation of a strong government. While the protest movement should not be seen as the sole cause for the government’s resignation, as it was also the result of internal divisions and

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tensions within the Labor Party, the social belief that a civil protest can indeed bring about dramatic changes in the political system became a dominant factor in the Israeli protest landscape. CONCLUSION: THE FORMATIVE DIMENSION OF THE COMBATANTS’ PROTEST In the history of protests in Israel, or at least within the Israeli collective memory, the combatants’ protest is perceived as the first public protest that was not part of a “Jewish War” (that is—a deep internal disagreement such as the 1952 dispute over the Israeli acceptance of reparations from Germany) or the riots perpetrated by the Black Panthers. Rather, it was a campaign led by the normative mainstream, whose protest was seen as legitimate and even constructive. In a final analysis, the combatants’ protest not only created the two precedents that turned protesting into a legitimate and effective channel for political participation, but also opened security affairs and strategic policy to public debate. In fact, it was the ultimate breaking of the taboo that prevailed in the political culture in Israel, namely the social attitude toward the IDF senior command and the security system, which were until then perceived, especially after the 1967 War, as an unchallengeable authority whose ideological and strategic conceptions were unquestioned by all but the minor radical left (such as the Movement for Peace and Security or Matzpen). The combatants’ protest constituted a turning point, not only for expressing the evident disappointment with the political leadership and the strategic elite, but also because its most prominent members and leaders belonged to the mainstream social categories that carried the military weight: officers and soldiers. Despite the fact that the protesters did not challenge the national security ethos, the Yom Kippur protest is seen as a crucial phase in the evolution of the peace movement in Israel, as well as the emergence of a critical discourse concerning Israel’s militaristic culture (Feige, 1998). The primacy of the protest against the “oversight” which led to the Yom Kippur War and its historical importance as a key moment in the democratization of the Israeli public debate on security and strategic affairs stems from its ability to reshape the informal charter between the Israeli society and the strategic-military elite. Historically, the Yom Kippur War and the protests that followed created the conditions which formed the cultural transformation through which active public involvement in shaping security policy became legitimate. The public demand for accountability regarding the leadership’s judgments, decisions, and actions first expressed a lack of confidence in the competence of those who were seen as responsible for the failures, and later heralded the emergence of a new relationship model; it was a model where a constant

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and concrete potential for a crisis of confidence between the security establishment and the Israeli society loomed. The transformation of the “conclusions drawing” process after the war from an internal military discourse to an open public hearing forced policymakers to take the new players seriously: reservists, public opinion shapers, intellectuals and scholars, protest movements, and new groups who found a channel for expression and influence in this arena. Defining mistakes as oversights, demands for formal investigations, and calls for the dismissal of those held responsible became referential norms following wars and military operations in Israel. Ever since 1973, the influence of this movement gradually grew and it is today expressed in a wide range of organizations which hold vigorous and energetic discussions on strategic planning (such as the Council for Peace and Security), ethical monitoring of IDF operations (such as B’Tselem and Checkpoint watch, the institutionalization of the public demand for investigating “failures” and “oversights” (such as the National Inquiry Committees established after the First and Second Lebanon Wars), and constant media criticism of the security forces’ ongoing routine activities. Forty years after the Yom Kippur War, it is almost impossible to imagine strategic operation or military actions where planning, conduct, and results do not stand for public critical debate, and are not subjected to opinion making dynamics and attitude formation processes, from the political elite to the street demonstrators. NOTES 1. The author wishes to thank Michal Vanchotzker from Ariel University for her assistance in gathering the primary sources for this study.

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Bloch, D. (1973). Legitimate criticism and inappropriate dispute. Davar, October 26, 1973. Bloch, D. (1974). “Who is a Jew?”—the principle obstacle in the Ma’arach-NRP negotiation. Davar, January 22, 1974. Bloch, D. (1974). Verbal confrontation in the Ma’arch faction regarding MKs visiting M. Ashkenazi. Davar, February 13, 1974. Bloch, D. (1974). The protest groups: an expression of a profound unrest. Davar, March 26, 1974. Bondi, R. (1973). A shared sorrow in search of comfort. Davar, November 9, 1973. Bondi, R. (1974). The buffer between the Rear and the Front. Davar, February 1, 1974. Bowers, J. W., D. J. Ochs, and R. J. Jensen (1993). The rhetoric of agitation and control. Long Grove, IL: Waveland Cabanes B. and G. Piketty (2007). Sortir de la guerre: jalons pour une histoire en chantier. Histoire@Politique. Politique, culture, société, 3. http://www.histoirepolitique.fr/index.php?numero=03andrub=dossieranditem=22 Cohen, U. and E. Orkibi (2008). Faculty and students in the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 1967–1972. Cathedra Quarterly, 129, 137–164. Crossley, N. (2002). Repertoires of contention and tactical diversity in the UK Psychiatric Survivors Movement: The question of appropriation. Social Movement Studies, 1, (1), 47–71. Dagan, D. (1974). Representatives of the various “protest movements” will examine cooperation. Ma'ariv, March 28, 1974. Danzig, H. (1974). Facing fundamental problems. Davar, January 11, 1974. Dayan, M. (1974). I will only serve in the government if asked by the Prime Minister. Davar, February 13, 1974. della Porta, D. (1995). Social movements, political violence and the state. New York: Cambridge University Press della Porta, D. and M. Diani (1999). Social movements: An introduction. New York: Blackwell. Dor, M. (1974). It’s cold in Africa as well. Ma'arive, January 11, 1974. Dor, M. (1974). A handshake to Motti Ashkenazi. Ma'ariv, February 5, 1974. Dor, M. (1974). The protest movements’ finest hour. Ma'ariv, April 8, 1974. Drori, Z. (2008). A crack in Mars’s armor: The decline of the IDF’s status. In Shemesh, M. and Z. Dror eds., National Trauma. The Yom Kippur War: a retrospective of thirty years and another year. Sde Boker, Israel: The Ben-Gurion Research Institute for the Study of Israel and Zionism, 307–232. Eilam, I. (1974). The Ma’arach must put forward a new leadership—the demand for political renewal gained priority. Davar, April 14, 1974. Eldor, R. (1973). G. Meir: the ceasefire and the begnings of a direct negotiation could become an historical turn towards peace. Ma'ariv, October 24, 1973. Elkan, M. (1974). Shalom Cohen charged with organizing illegal demonstration and incitement. Ma'ariv, February 2, 1974. Elkan, M. and A. Rotem, (1974). The “Panthers” held an energetic demonstration in Tel Aviv against the abolishment of subsides. Ma'ariv, January 29, 1974. Erlich, H. (1974). “Do not send any more planes”—on the liberty and responsibility of Motti Ashkenazi. Davar, February 21, 1974. Eshed, H. (1973). Deep breath and balanced approach before an internal inquiry and a political initiative. Davar, October 26, 1973. Eshed, H. (1974, February 15a). Dayan met with Motti Ashkenazi. Davar, p. 1. Eshed, H. (1974). Motti Ashkenazi and Moshe Dayan. Davar, February 15, 1974. Eshed, H. (1974). Dismissal of Dayan—sabotaging Agranat. Davar, February 24, 1974. Etzioni-Halevy, E. and M. Livne (1977). The response of the Israeli establishment to the Yom Kippur War protest. Middle East Journal, 31, (3), 281–296. Feige, M. (1998). Peace Now and the legitimating crisis of “Civil Militarism.” Israel Studies, 3, (1), 85–111.

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Mendelson, T. (1974). G. Meir informed the government and the President of her resignation. Davar, April 12, 1974. Meyer, D. S. and N. Whittier (1994). Social movements spillover. Social Problems, 41, (2), 277–298. Newman, D. and T. Hermann (1992). A comparative study of Gush Emunim and Peace Now. Middle Eastern Studies, 28, (3), 509–530. Nevo, B. and N. Ashkenazi (2006). The return from Sarapeum: Assa Kadmony—The story of a hero. Tel Aviv, Israel: Sifriat Ma'ariv. Patir, D. (1973). Criticism over Shapira’s statements against Dayan. Davar, October 26, 1973. Patir, D. (1973). Justice Minister resigns. Davar, October 29, 1973. Patir, D. (1974). Sapir will lead the coalition negotiations committee of Ma’arach. Davar, January 9, 1974. Peled, M. (1974). Against political ambiguity. Ma'ariv, April 12, 1974. Rotem, A. (1974). 12 policemen and officers wounded during the demonstration of the “Panthers” in Tel Aviv. Ma'ariv, January 31, 1974. Rotem, A. (1974). “We share the confusion”—said organized demobilized soldiers. Ma'ariv, March 3, 1974. Rottenstreich, N. (1974). Thanks to the lack of political program. Ma'ariv, April 12, 1974. Segev, S. (1973). “If I had good news, I would gladly deliver them” said Golda. Ma'arive, November 5, 1973. Shamir, M. (1974). Motti Ashkenazi is wrong. Ma'ariv, February 15, 1974. Sheffer, G. (1999). From crisis to change: The Israeli political elites and the 1973 War. Israel Affairs, 6, (1), 153–176. Shoham, S. (1974). Motti, don’t let them! Yedioth Ahronoth, February 8, 1974. Soule, S. A., D. McAdam, J. McCarthy, and Y. Su (1999). Protest events: Cause or consequence of state action? The U.S. Women’s Movement and federal congressional activities, 1956–1979. Mobilization, 4, (2), 239–255. Tarrow, S. (1998). Power in movement: social movements and contentious politics. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. Tarrow, S. (1993). Cycles of collective action: Between movements of madness and the repertoire of contention. Social Science History, 17, (2), 281–307. Taylor, V. (1996). Rock-a-by Baby: Feminism, self-help, and postpartum depression. New York: Routledge. Taylor, V. and N. Van Dyke (2004). “Get up, Stand up!”: Tactical repertoires of social movements. In D. A. Snow, S. A. Soule, and H. Kriesi eds., The Blackwell companion to social movements. Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishing, 262–293. Tilly, C. (1986). The contentious French. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, Belknap Press. Tilly, C. (1995) Contentious Repertoires in Great Britain, 1758–1834. In M. Traugott ed., Repertoires and Cycles of Collective Action. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 15–42. Tomer, I. (1974). The commander of the stronghold which did not fall: This is my “j’accuse.” Yedioth Ahronoth, February 6, 1974. Tomer, I. (1974). The Ministers passed by the commander of the outpost which did not fall, and continued on their way. Yedioth Ahronoth, February 11, 1974. Tomer, I. (1974). Motti Ashkeanazi: Dayan did not convince me, he did not even try. Yedioth Ahronoth, February 17, 1974. Whittier, N. (2004). The consequences of social movements for each other. In D. A. Snow, S. A. Soule, and H. Kriesi eds., The Blackwell companion to social movements. Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishing, 531–551. Wigoder, S. and M. Wigoder (1999). The Matzpen movement. In A. Ophir ed., Fifty to forty-eight: Critical moments in the history of the State of Israel. Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, Israel: The Van Leer Jerusalem Institute and Hakibbutz Hameuchad, 199–204. Zemer, H. (1973). The Jewish War. Davar, October 26, 1973.

THREE The Significance of the Yom Kippur War as a Turning Point in the Religious-Zionist Society Nissim Leon

INTRODUCTION Wars have great impact on the societies involved. The consequences of war include: the mobilization of the human and economic capital needed to wage war (Overy, 1994), the symbolic processing of wars (Winter, 1995), the physical deficits accompanying wars (Dorona and Lebel, 2004), the account of the social, civil, and political consequences of wars (Bar-On and Chazan, 2010)—all these assume a prominent place in the shaping of every society facing war. This is all the more so for a society given to continuous eruptions of war, such as Israeli society, and Israel is a Middle Eastern state accustomed to wars. The ongoing Zionist-Arab conflict has led to numerous violent eruptions (Morris, 2011), many of which were bona-fide wars with state backing. In general, the wars ended with ceasefire agreements or other arrangements with international support. But echoes of past wars, and preparations for future wars, continue to affect Israeli society. Wars have turned Israel into a security- and defense-oriented nation. In other words, the institutional expressions of defense (the army) and conceptual expressions of security (diplomatic conservatism) have assumed a prominent place in the society’s order. The quest for security dominates Israel, from its draft law that is an important component of the army’s permanent structure to the very “substance” of the Israeli republic. The country’s defense-needs affect decisions touching upon economic 37

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and civil priorities, mandates decisions regarding national memorial ceremonies, and shapes the country’s various sectors whose ideology and cultural experience were affected by the wars and their results (Levy, 1997). One of these salient sectors is the religious Zionist society. The religious Zionist society is distinctive in its institutions and lifestyle. It is organized around a shared religious lifestyle of Orthodox observance of commandments. The large majority of its members view the Zionist enterprise with great favor and approval. Of course, there are numerous variants and interpretations regarding the objectives of the Zionist enterprise and the way it should be run. However, in contrast to the ultra-Orthodox (Haredi) society, the religious Zionists want a priori, active integration in the country’s modern lifestyle and milieu (Fischer, 2007). The religious Zionist public is generally organized in the form of networks clustered around formal educational institutions such as state religious schools, high school yeshivot (for boys) or ulpanot (for girls), and informal educational institutions with an emphasis on youth movements that complement the religious Zionist lifestyle and educate toward it (Bar-Lev, 1977; Gad-El Nassi, 2005; Gross, 2002). I note here that educational institutions have an important role in regulating religious Zionist society, and that the rabbinical-educational elite enjoys a prominent place in these institutions (Leon, 2010). Two wars had direct, significant impacts on religious Zionist society. The first is the 1967 Six Day War; the second is the 1973 Yom Kippur War. Research of Israeli society has tended to emphasize the influence of the Six Day War on the religious Zionist society; this chapter, in contrast, attempts to describe the effect of the Yom Kippur War on this sector. The chapter focuses on two significant effects of the war: political and ideological. The war caused two main political processes that are discussed in the first part of this chapter. One is the transition from political moderation to defense-related hawkishness. For many years, this changeover has had a large share in determining the political temperament and face of religious Zionist leadership, and has also affected the entire country’s diplomatic and defense agenda (Hadari, 2002: 202). The second process was the reorganization of religious Zionism’s political field: dissolution of the historical alliance with the Labor party; the appearance of a new player in the form of the Gush Emunim protest and settlement movement; and the transformation of the national religious party’s youth wing into a significant force. The second part of this chapter deals with the changes caused by the Yom Kippur War on religious Zionist ideology. The members of this sector dealt with the trauma caused by the war, and tried to understand it in relation to the previous war, the Six Day War. The result was their demand for a more complex, nuanced, restrained perspective of the historical process presented by the religious Zionist rabbinical elite after the

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Six Day War. In light of that earlier war, they had viewed the historical process as unequivocally redemptive and even messianic. THE POLITICAL EFFECT: FROM MODERATION TO HAWKISHNESS From the days of the early Zionist congresses, the religious Zionist movement and its leaders had been active partners in the Zionist enterprise, though this partnership was not infrequently accompanied by criticism and conflict. The conflicts related mainly to religious issues in modern secular nationalism, such as whether HaMizrachi should be elected as delegates to official Zionist forums. In general, however, the religious Zionist movement was very supportive of the Zionist enterprise and the forces leading it in policy, settlement, and defense. A United Religious Front was set up when the pre-state Eretz Israel yishuv made the transition from a voluntary political community to a sovereign political entity, with the establishment of the State of Israel. This United Religious Front contained the major religious parties: the religious Zionist Mizrachi and Hapoel Mizrachi parties, and the ultraOrthodox, non-Zionist Agudath Israel and Poalei Agudath Israel parties. Its function was described by one prominent religious Zionist leader of the time, Rabbi Meir Bar Ilan, with the following words, “There are people in charge of all the other issues; we are the ones to take care of religious matters.” (Weitz, 2010). The United Religious Front lasted for only a relatively short period of time before it fell apart. By contrast, a political alliance that formed between the religious Zionist movement and the Labor movement headed by Mapai lasted far longer, for many decades. Religious Zionism wrestled with the complex theological and practical religious issues that were brought to the fore by the establishment of the state. These issues emanated from the conflict between religious thought or religious rabbinical rulings, and practical demands that stemmed from the reality of modern national democratic life (Cohen, 1996). The diverse issues included such sensitive subjects as: religious education and the question of the new olim (immigrants); the status of the rabbinate; drafting women into the army; the “who is a Jew” conundrum; the status of the Jewish Sabbath and festivals. Each of these issues had its roots in the pre-state yishuv days (Hacohen, 2011), but the very transition from a voluntary framework to a sovereign state instilled great historical weight and import into the decisions made after the emergence of the state. These sensitive issues and problems occasionally caused large political crises that threatened to overturn governments or even succeeded in overturning them. In general, however, the religious Zionist parties that united to form the Mafdal (National Religious Party, or NRP) continued to be an active partner in the political

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center, an integral part of the ruling coalition headed by the Mapai (Land of Israel Workers’ Party, forerunner of the Labor party). Generally, the Mafdal party focused on religion-related issues connected to the sector it represented, and also made attempts to enlarge its constituency by co-opting the religious olim from the East (Mizrachim or Sephardim). Its representatives also focused on issues connected to the relationship between religion and state. This is evident in the types of ministerial portfolios that the Mafdal attempted to attain due to its position in the ruling coalition. One example is the Ministry of Religion that it held for many long years. The Mafdal’s permanent place in the governmental coalition assisted in establishing and enlarging institutions of the religious Zionist sector such as synagogues, educational institutions and institutions of higher education such as Bar Ilan, yeshiva institutions and the combined Hesder yeshiva-army program for young men. The Mafdal also dealt with regulating state-religion relations, such as the “who is a Jew” issue and ensuring religious services (such as rabbinical-certified kosher food) for the wider public. An interesting point we recently revealed in the research is the involvement of the dominant Religious Ministry Director-General, Rabbi Dr. Samuel Zanvil Kahane, in developing the “holy geography” of Eretz Israel (Bar, 2007: 37). Kahane was active in locating and uncovering ancient burial sites and turning them into pilgrimage spots for the veteran as well as new-immigrant populations, with an emphasis on the Mizrachi Jews. This enterprise served to partially compensate for the fact that after the War of Independence, large sections of land connected to the Jewish myth lay in enemy territory. Thus such sacred sites as the Western Wall in East Jerusalem, Rachel’s Tomb in Bethlehem, the Cave of Machpelah in Hebron, and Joseph’s tomb in Shechem (Nablus) were all under Jordanian rule. This is an important point because it shows that the “land sanctification project”—in which specific tracts and burial spots were officially recognized as antiquity sites—had already begun in the first two decades of the state. This enterprise continued after the Six Day War and its attendant conquest of West Bank territories by Israel, but but was led by relatively new players. Although Mafdal ministers mainly focused on the country’s internal order, they also took part in policy and defense decisions. A salient example of this is the moderate diplomatic approach adopted by Haim-Moshe Shapira, a high-level Hapoel HaMizrachi personage in the faction (DonYehiya, 2004). His moderate approach had been evident even during the British mandate period when he opposed the activities of the Etzel and Lehi underground movements. His approach generally corresponded to that of Mapai’s defense leadership approach. Thus, for example, Shapira joined those who opposed the Altalena weapons ship brought to the prestate yishuv by the Etzel underground movement. He, like Ben Gurion, viewed that as possibly threatening the state’s exclusive authority over

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defense. But unlike Ben Gurion, Shapira opposed the military operation of sinking the ship. He viewed that as a dangerous act that could lead to civil war. This approach continued after the establishment of the State of Israel and the formation of Israel’s defense institutions, headed by the army (IDF). As aforesaid, the Mafdal was part of Israel’s governments from the very inception of the state. Under Shapira, the party’s ministerial portfolios had little to do with government policy regarding defense and foreign affairs. Yet Shapira himself did express his opinion in defense policy issues when he sat around the government table. Mafdal ministers usually adopted a cautious, compromising approach. Thus, for example, Shapira expressed his strong opposition to Israel being the side to declare war in June 1967. During the course of the Six Day War he opposed conquering the Golan, fearing that it would embroil Israel unnecessarily and complicate Israel’s position. His close associate in the party and the government, Zerach Warhaftig, wrote in his memoirs that Shapira proposed delaying military attack to let the Egyptians strike first (Warhaftig, 1998: 179–180). Even after the Six Day War and its successful conclusion, Shapira adopted a moderate position regarding religious Zionist involvement in attempts to settle the West Bank. He felt that Israel should hold on to the West Bank, Gaza, and the Golan Heights, but only so long as the Arab states refused to engage in peace negotiations. The cautious diplomatic positions of the Mafdal leadership were not in sync with those of its electors. The religious Zionist public actually supported more hawkish security positions. The Mafdal leaders had come under criticism by their constituents in the years before the Six Day War, and even more so in the years after. This was especially true among the younger Mafdal voters, called “the youth faction.” These presented themselves as backers of a new religious Zionist politics that was more independent, more activist, more hawkish. This activist approach was popular among students of the Mercaz Harav yeshiva in Jerusalem, under the leadership of Harav Zvi Yehuda Kook. Thus the Six Day War contributed to the clash between Mafdal’s veteran leadership and the new activist, hawkish forces. This latter group wanted to enlarge holy geography politics: instead of searching for holy gravesites to visit, they wanted to locate important historical sites on which to found modern settlements, in territories conquered during the war. A sign or portent of dissatisfaction with the Mafdal leadership was expressed by the large presence of young religious Zionists at the convention arranged by right-wing leader Menachem Begin in Jerusalem’s Old City immediately after the war. Begin’s hawkish speech aroused great sympathy among the youth. A meeting held in 1968 between the students of the Mercaz Harav yeshiva and Shapira, turned into an overt confrontation. The participants openly expressed their dissatisfaction at what they viewed as the Maf-

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dal’s compromising position regarding the status of the territories that had been conquered. Shapira rejected the criticism and explained that possession of these territories would be likely to distance Israel’s few friends in the world. Nevertheless, the criticism against Shapira and his party colleagues did not morph into a mass movement. Thus after the Six Day War, the activist approach was confined to a limited political and rabbinical elite. Most telling of all is the fact that the Mafdal maintained its political strength in the general Knesset elections in 1969. Thus, it was the Yom Kippur War that signaled an important turning point. That war turned the Mafdal’s activist-hawkish elements into a political force to be reckoned with. This was a group that rejected making compromises with the Arabs and, most important of all, believed in the “Greater Israel” concept—of one Jewish state between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. Two political expressions of the new trend became immediately identifiable. First, results of the elections postponed from October 1973 to January 1974, showed that the Mafdal had dropped from twelve seats to ten. Although this decline has never been formally researched, it may show that some Mafdal voters considered their party’s leadership to be an integral part of the war’s failure (lack of preparedness, mechdal). After the war, opposition head Menachem Begin put out feelers to the Mafdal in the hopes of wooing them to his side; although he was initially unsuccessful, this was a harbinger of things to come (See: Cohen and Leon, 2011). Begin viewed the results of the 1974 election campaign as an opportunity to wean the Mafdal away from its historical alliance with the Labor movement, and join a partnership with the Likud instead. Begin felt that the day would come when the Likud would head a government, and he would then need to assemble as wide a coalition as possible. In fact, this was not the first time that Begin attempted to blaze a trail into the ranks of the national religious population. After half a year before the Yom Kippur War, Begin and the Likud faction attempted to drive a wedge in the Mafdal-Labor alliance, by proposing the kipa-wearing religious Zionist Professor Ephraim Elimelech Urbach as a candidate for the distinguished position of state president. In addition, Begin tried to tempt the Mafdal and the religious Zionists into the ranks of the Likud (before the war) by arguing that the two factions shared an important common denominator: the desire to preserve Greater Israel. But he was unsuccessful even then. After the Yom Kippur War and the subsequent election results in which the Likud gathered strength, Begin reached out to the nationalreligious camp again: this time, via a direct dialogue with the hawkish Mafdal youths who were in close contact with the new rising force of the Gush Emunim movement. Begin and the entire Herut party felt that this was a most opportune moment, because the Mafdal had taken a firm decision not to join any government other than a national emergency

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government—and that this government could be headed by a Likud member. However, Mafdal’s “firm decision” under the veteran leadership lasted only four months, after which it joined Rabin’s government. Another important expression of the political changeover after the war was the emergence of Gush Emunim, the settlement protest movement. This was established about half a year after the Yom Kippur War and called itself a movement for the renewal of Zionist fulfilment (Feige, 2008). Its leaders set themselves the practical goal of settling the West Bank territories, the Golan Heights, and the Gaza Strip. This movement was part of a wider protest movement of youths after the war. Many of them had fought as soldiers in the war and they, and their family members, searched for a way to become politically involved. The normative channel for political activism—the traditional parties—seemed too constricted to them. Instead, they organized mass protests and took direct political action. Gush Emunim took action by establishing new settlements in the West Bank territories, often involving point-blank confrontation with the government and the army. It seems that the trauma of the long war, and the intelligence failure (mechdal) leading to the military unpreparedness that preceded the war, caused religious Zionist youths to discharge activist energies in one fell swoop in their accelerated liberation from the clutches of politics and politicians. Instead of being a critical entity from the sidelines, they became a leading vanguard in their society. Radical faith united with the radical post-war protest movement and morphed into a pragmatic agenda. The protest-movement energy of the ex-soldiers and their families was channeled into an extensive settlement movement that emptied out entire urban neighborhoods from their young religious Zionist families. The new-old borders of the State of Israel became a pressing issue. The settlement activities of Gush Emunim constituted a political demonstration that connected the new political and rabbinical elites to the wide public that aspired to a new political and social order after the Yom Kippur War. Gush Emunim offered a new ethos with new players; players who presented themselves as alternates to the veteran Mafdal leadership, and as an alternate political hub to lead the government. This process led to three results that had great impact on the political deployment of religious Zionist society, from the Yom Kippur War to this very day. One immediate political outcome was already evident in the 1977 political upheaval, when Ben Gurion’s Mapai ruling party was replaced by Begin’s Likud. The historic alliance between the Mafdal and the Labor movement was replaced by a new partnership. The Mafdal did not hesitate to accede to Menachem Begin’s invitation to switch sides, thus helping facilitate the formation of the Likud government under Begin’s leadership. This became a new historic alliance spanning many years. The coalition partnership between the Mafdal and the Likud emerged as a

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natural, genuine alliance of two parties with shared goals and worldviews. The second outcome was connected to the religious Zionist sectoral agenda. The Yom Kippur War contributed to the transformation of religious Zionism from a sectoral political entity focused on internal religionstate relations to a party of “higher politics” involved in questions of policy and security connected to the country’s borders and settlement possibilities. Political religious Zionism changed the Mafdal from a party sharing a symbiotic relationship with the regime. Instead, it became an entity with a critical and oppositional perspective that did not refrain from confronting the government on setting defense-related objectives. The third outcome involved making inroads into centrist politics. A social-protest movement assumed its place next to the party; the movement’s boundaries crossed traditional party lines. In addition, new religious Zionist parties were to emerge over time; these parties viewed themselves as partially or fully representing the concept of Greater Israel. Some examples are: the HaTechiya movement (1978), Matzad-Morasha (1984), and the Ichud HaLeumi (National Union. 1996). THE EFFECT ON RELIGIOUS ZIONIST IDEOLOGY: FROM CLEARCUT VIEW TO A REFLEXIVE VIEW After the Six Day War, the miraculous-redemption myth formerly held by members of a limited national religious rabbinical group became the popular, widely held national-religious perspective within the sector. It began to be expressed not only in rabbinical lectures, homilies and books, but in everyday discourse in synagogues, schools, and around family tables on Sabbaths and holidays. The national-messianic conception associated with the philosophy of Rabbi Avraham Yitzhak Hacohen Kook and his son Rabbi Zvi Yehuda Kook assumed a dominant place (Aran, 1986). In the world of action, the religious Zionist settlement movement assumed an important place in the territories of the West Bank and the Golan Heights, immediately after the war. The Yom Kippur War, on the other hand, was perceived by the general as well as the religious Zionist society as a rupture in the redemption myth. One prominent example is the stance of Israel’s chief rabbi at the time, Rabbi Shlomo Goren. Rav Goren, who blew the shofar (ram’s horn) in front of the newly liberated Western Wall during the Six Day War, became one of the symbols of that war. Goren viewed Israel’s achievements on the battlefields as tangible expression of the ongoing religious process of redemption on which the State of Israel is founded (in his opinion). While the Six Day War spurred the Orthodox Rav Goren into making changes in traditional prayers and religious rituals, the letdown

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of the Yom Kippur War led him to say that “I don’t see a reason to change existing [religious prayers or practices]” (Mescheloff, 2012). While the Six Day War encouraged the religious Zionists to portray belief in redemption as a clear-cut linear process, the Yom Kippur War encouraged many to demand a more nuanced, complex interpretation. These latter voices found their place in a very influential sphere of religious Zionist society—the educational sphere. As noted in the introductory chapter, the religious Zionist educational systems in our time occupy a very important place. In effect, a large portion of those considered to be spiritual leaders are connected to the educational elite or to educational initiatives. In the following chapter, I focus on three perspectives of rabbis-educators whose educational philosophy encompasses a crisis element connected to the Yom Kippur War. The voices of these three resonate in the public and community discourse of the religious Zionist society—in the past, and the present as well. I would first like to address one of the most prominent, influential treatises of religious Zionist society in the 1970s and 1980s: Rabbi Yaakov Filber’s book, Ayelet HaShachar [The Morning Star, heralding the sun] (Filber, 1968). RABBI YAAKOV FILBER Rabbi Filber, born in 1936, was among the outstanding disciples of Rabbi Moshe Zvi Neria and Rabbi Zvi Yehuda Kook. In 1964, Filber founded one of the prominent educational institutions for the more deeply religious circles of religious Zionism: the Yeshiva High School of Mercaz HaRav, next to the Mercaz Harav yeshiva (for post-high school students). This yeshiva high school was one of the signs of realization of a religious Zionist educational approach that was more devout; this approach was coined “Torani” (denoting religious scholarship). This educational track increased the study-time allotted to traditional religious subjects, at the expense of the secular subjects that were reduced to the bare minimum. Filber also became well-known for his lucid explanations of the religious Zionist redemption doctrine. His writings were aimed at the wide religious Zionist public, including young students of the high school educational system and older students of the post-high school yeshivot. One of his more prominent treatises in this context is his book Ayelet HaShachar. The book Ayelet HaShachar was first published in 1968, about a year after the Six Day War. Since then, it has been re-published in several editions. In the 1980s, it was a familiar text in the typical religious Zionist bookcase. It was very popular and was disseminated among the male and female students in the religious Zionist educational system, and was one of the popular gifts given to adolescents in religious Zionist society.

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The book’s power lay in the fact that it translated the concept of collective redemption, originally espoused in the study house of the Kook rabbis, to the educational language of activism directed at the individual. Filber viewed the Six Day War as a turning point in the redemption revolution that had been formulated by Rabbi Avraham Yitzhak Hacohen Kook. According to Rabbi Kook’s formulation, the first stages of redemption were led by secular forces that would be eroded over time; Rabbi Filber taught that the erosion process reached its heights on the eve of the Six Day War (Filber, 1968: 228). The next stage in redemption needed new energy and new forces (Filber, 1968: 21): Who are those who will create this upheaval. . . . Not the public that distances itself from Torah, but also not the public that estranges itself from the renewal of Israel on its land. Only the public that unites Torah . . . the public that is faithful to the Torah of Israel and its commandments and also views the revival of Israel on its land, despite all its ailments, as the beginning of the fulfillment of the visions of Israel’s prophets on the redemption of Israel in its land.

Filber writes in his books that the “nation’s leaders prevent the realization of generations-long yearning [for Eretz Israel and redemption] with rationales of longing for peace and preserving the option of abandoning territory in exchange for peace” (Filber, 1968: 235). Filber wanted the religious Zionist community to produce a new leadership that would cling to the Zionist revolutionary energy, but also possess historical forbearance emanating from religious depth. And the group to lead the new redemption-stage was not the “old,” pragmatic, moderate, and integrated religious Zionist leadership, but a “wide seedgroup of Torah scholars, Torah giants and prominent, exemplary figures who love the Jewish people and its land. These leaders view life under the statesmanlike and majestic government of the State of Israel as a commandment from the Torah, and take on themselves the Torani and educational functions needed in the state” (Filber, 1968: 22). Filber also dedicated some of his book to his view of war, as a component of the language used by God to speak to His people, Israel. While the Six Day War was an event in which God forced His people to advance in the redemption master plan, then the Yom Kippur War requires a clarification that is not yet clear (Filber, 1968: 237): Time will tell what Divine Providence wants to tell us by this war, whether it is a punishment for former actions we were guilty of [. . .] or that this was a case of ‘God hiding His face’ [. . .]. One way or another, this war has awakened among many of us, deeper thoughts regarding the essence of the Jewish people and exemplified its special fate in the history of the nations.

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According to Filber, this fate is the memory of the attempt to erase the formative values of the Jewish people. During the Diaspora period, these were attempts to destroy the Jewish people spiritually or physically; during the redemption period and return of the Jewish nation to Eretz Israel, it is the attempt to confiscate its land (Filber, 1968, 240–241). The Yom Kippur War reminds us again, this time in the form of a rupture of what distinguishes the destiny of the Jewish nation at this point in time—the return to Eretz Israel and its uncompromising hold over the land. Filber’s book is unique not only due to the concepts it demonstrates. These concepts had floated around the religious Zionist stratosphere even more prominently after the Six Day War. But Filber’s treatise had two additional aspects. Firstly, he appeals directly to the individual by translating the complex doctrine of redemption espoused by the Kook rabbis into simpler, popular language formulated as a quasi-educational manifest. Secondly, Filber responds directly to historical events and explicates them each time he updates the editions of his book. This has kept the book current. RABBI YEHUDA AMITAL (1924–2010) The second voice emerging from the educational response to the Yom Kippur War was that of Rabbi Yehuda Amital (1924–2010). Rav Amital served, during the war and afterwards, as the head of one of the prominent Hesder yeshivot in religious Zionist society: the Har Etzion yeshiva in Gush Etzion. Rabbi Amital was born in Hungary. He acquired his religious education in an ultra-Orthodox yeshivot, endured the Nazi conquest as a young man, and in 1944 he succeeded to escape to Eretz Israel where he made his home. Once in Eretz Israel, he continued to study and teach in the ultra-Orthodox world, but he was attracted to rabbinical figures from the religious Zionist world. After the Six Day War he agreed to head the new Hesder yeshiva that had been established in Gush Etzion. When the Yom Kippur War erupted, Rav Amital’s yeshiva was in its sixth year, populated by 200 young men, who integrated Torah study and army service in the Hesder program. When the war broke out, the yeshiva emptied out; many of the young men were called up to the army in combat units. By the end of the war, the yeshiva had lost eight students in war battles and many more were wounded. Rabbi Amital was greatly shaken by the Yom Kippur War. He found himself consoling the families of the slain soldiers, attending to the wounded ones, and visiting yeshiva students on the front lines. His disciple Rabbi Shlomo Brin recalled (Brin, 2010): Rabbi Amital assembled us in his apartment in Alon Shvut, during the ten penitential days between the New Year and the Day of Atonement

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Nissim Leon in [October] 1974, a year after the Yom Kippur War. The rabbi told us about a Yom Kippur he experienced in the Holocaust, during the war period in Hungary, the hunger and the fears. He talked about the Yom Kippur War, and how he became the address for widows and orphans whom he tried to encourage and strengthen. We were young yeshiva students, a bit shamefaced to see our rabbi erupt in tears and reveal his heart to us, his disciples whom he viewed as sons.

At first it appeared that Rav Amital’s redemptive viewpoint had not changed due to the Yom Kippur War. He, like other religious Zionist rabbis, continued to view Zionism and the post-Six Day War period as an integral part of the redemption process. At first he portrayed the Yom Kippur War itself as one with a clear messianic facet, if only because it erupted on Yom Kippur itself, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar. This messianic approach was prominently expressed in a slim volume entitled Ha-ma’alot mi-Ma’amakim (The Ascents from the Depths), published by Rabbi Amital’s yeshiva after the war (Amital, 1974). However, unlike Filber’s approach, Amital did not want his students to understand the Yom Kippur War as something akin to the tribulations visited on the Jewish nation during the Diaspora period (Ibid: 113). He felt that one should view the war with the religious Zionist eyeglasses of redemption; among other reasons, because of the special day on which the war began: the Yom Kippur fast day, regarded in Judaism as a holy, special day. He wrote an article entitled “The significance of the Yom Kippur War,” in which Rabbi Amital wrestled with the outlook that was apparently prevalent at the time, that the war was evidence of God’s withdrawal from viewing the State of Israel as the “dawn of redemption” (Ibid: 105–121). His answer was that the war should not be viewed as an event contradicting the redemption process, but as evidence of God’s desire for our cries, prayers, and repentance (Ibid: 107). It is interesting that Amital did not put the blame for the war on the diplomatic, military, and security echelons. Instead, he put the blame for the war on the spiritual leadership, whom he felt had to undergo repentance and soul-searching. Amital rejected the view that the war was the result of the sin of being lax in holding on to Eretz Israel. He situated the “laxity” in another dimension—the social dimension. Amital wrote, “the purpose of the suffering is not only punishment . . . it has a didactic perspective that may be very distant from those sins which brought on the tribulations” (Ibid: 109). In a memorial service for the yeshiva students, held about half a year after the war, Amital described the war as having great educational lessons; first, because it made us focus not only on the “storm of redemption,” but also on the human being within that storm—the individual, his family, his environment and community. In addition, it leads us to setting new goals for religious Zionism; not only activism connected to redeeming the land, but also involvement in social justice.

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Thus, there was great surprise in religious Zionist activist circles when Amital refused to take part in the Gush Emunim leadership. It seems that the Yom Kippur War was, in fact, a catalyst causing him to change his political opinions. Amital gradually shifted from support for the hawkish, activist camp in the pre-Yom Kippur War era, to the more dovish camp, close to the Israeli Left. This became evident during the 1982 Peace for Galilee War, which he opposed. In the mid-1980s, Amital became active in the Left-wing religious Zionist Meimad movement. RABBI HAIM SABATO Three decades after the war, Rabbi Haim Sabato wrote a semi-autobiographical book, Adjusting Sights, about the Yom Kippur War (Sabato, 2005). The book was disseminated widely and made waves in the religious Zionist society. This reflective and intellectual work of prose provided a more reflexive, nuanced interpretation to the war, and addressed the war’s effects in the human realm. Haim Sabato was born in Cairo in 1952 to a Mizrahi family with roots in Aleppo, Syria. He went on aliya with his family to Israel in the 1950s, and they lived in a poor immigrant neighborhood in Jerusalem. Sabato attended religious Zionist schools and studied in the Netiv Meir yeshiva high school. As an adolescent in the late 1960s, the euphoric days after the Six Day War, Sabato joined the new Hakotel Hesder yeshiva in Jerusalem’s Old City. At the time, Zionist and ultra-Orthodox rabbis found a common language in that yeshiva. As a soldier in the religious Zionist Hesder program that combined Torah study with army service, Sabato joined the armored corps. After the war he became one of the founders of a new Hesder yeshiva in Maale Adumim (in 1977), and served as teacher and counselor of the first year students. Today he is co-Rosh Yeshiva (head of the yeshiva) in Maale Adumim. Sabato’s earlier mentioned semi-autobiographical book transformed him into a famous Israeli author, and a much-esteemed personality in the religious Zionist society. In his book, Sabato describes the days of the Yom Kippur War as he experienced it, as a soldier in tank battles in the Golan Heights. The book follows him from the first day of the war when he was forced to leave his synagogue, until his discharge about half a year later. The book describes the war’s hardships, the view of the wounded and slain soldiers, the shell shock (PTSD) that befell an entire platoon—a platoon that became withdrawn and did not emerge from its tent during the respite periods between battles. In this way, the young Sabato’s theological, faith-based experience is revealed to the reader: his passion for Torah study, the important place of prayer in the storm of battle, the memories of everyday life including religious everyday life. Later on, Rabbi Sabato commented (Segal, 2009):

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Nissim Leon Not a day or night went by when I didn’t dream about the war or see it in my mind’s eye, and writing it down helped me very much. I felt that I had processed and comprehended the events. And I think that that is what others feel, when they read it. I still receive letters and phone calls to this very day, from trauma victims of that war who tell me how much the book helped them. And I think that what brings solace here is the encounter with faith. The illumination of faith radiates some measure of consolation.

It appears that the war becomes a kind of framework, not for faith per se but for the daily religious routine and lifestyle: frequenting the synagogue every day, prayer in a stable framework, organized Torah study. Everything that had been taken for granted is now in danger of disintegrating in the war. The war is not only an event of physical or theological survivability. The war is also an event of the survivability of routine religious life. This treatise written by Sabato, like his other works, presents a very different faith experience than the ones described in the educational philosophical discourse of Filber or Amital. Sabato’s work does not wrestle with great theological or ideological questions. Instead it deals with daily life and religious practices, and the fact that these can serve as a source for great reinforcement and encouragement. Prayer is not only an authentic source for the plea to survive the war. Prayer is also the mind’s way to remember what ultimately we most yearn for—our normal routine and daily life. The call for a more nuanced perspective on the redemption process in the wake of the Yom Kippur War did not remain on paper. It became a source for a new institutional agenda with a new goal and objective: to look outside to the wider society. The demand for a new religious Zionist Torani leadership, that would bind together the sovereign majestic state and the yeshiva, was expressed (for example) in the expansion of the Hesder yeshiva network, from which the IDF benefited as well. The Hesder yeshivas became quasi melting pots of the new educational and political leadership of religious Zionist society. Within the walls of the yeshivas, a firm foundation was laid for the development of the religious Zionist Torani elite (Filber had also called for this too). This leadership took up more and more space in its regulating of religious Zionist society, and assumed a prominent place in educational institutions and initiatives. Ironically, some of these initiatives even veered off the path of the traditional Hesder yeshivas, as in the case of the pre-army Mechinot (premilitary preparatory courses with religious study) that sprouted in the late 1980s. Another project undertaken by the religious Zionist movement was the expansion of Torani seed-groups (garinim) that settled in the country’s periphery. A Torani seed-group is a group of young families and sometimes singles as well, members of the religious Zionist public, who organize to live together in an area with a sparse Jewish or religious

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population, usually with a weak socio-economic population. Their goal is to strengthen their new community and its connection to Judaism, to create integration, and to leverage social change. These seed-groups are generally based on educational institutions. The first example was when Rabbi Zefanya Drori settled in Kiryat Shmona in 1968, while bringing with him a number of families. A Hesder yeshiva was established around the seed-group in the town, and that yeshiva became one of the prominent, long-standing Hesder institutions in the country. After the Yom Kippur War, the Torani seed-group settlement movement gained momentum, such as the group in Maalot that also developed into a prominent community around the Hesder yeshiva founded there. Another initiative that developed after the Yom Kippur War was the establishment of the Machon Meir yeshiva in Jerusalem in 1974. Machon Meir was founded as a beit medrash (study house) and center for Torani (religious) studies in the religious Zionist spirit of Rabbi Avraham Yitzhak Hacohen Kook, and mainly directed at chozrim b’tshuva (non-religious Jews returning to Judaism), both Israelis and Jews from abroad. The institute was named after Eliezer Meir Lifshitz, a reserve soldier in the parachute brigade who fell in the Yom Kippur War. Rabbi Dov Begin has headed Machon Meir ever since its inception. The institute is considered a long-standing component of the teshuva (return to Judaism) movement in religious Zionism. SUMMARY The Yom Kippur War was a watershed in religious Zionist society. As far as politics is concerned, the war re-drew the boundaries between hawks and doves, and between activists and compromising politicians in religious Zionist society. The war was the event that activated a generational turnover in the political leadership. The activist forces that had long served as opposition to religious Zionism’s moderate centrist leadership became now the ones to set the tone and divvy up the resources. Although the leadership changeover did not take place all at once, it was clear that the pragmatic forces would be sidelined from now on, while the activist forces would assume center stage. The war also paved the way for a new political axis—with the Likud, headed by the Herut party and Menachem Begin. A harbinger of the new political line was evident about three years after the war, when the Mafdal joined Menachem Begin’s first government. One expression of the independent and hawkish ideology was Mafdal’s opposition to the peace treaty with Egypt, an agreement brokered by the Mafdal’s new ally, Menachem Begin. It is doubtful if such an objection would have been heard under the leadership of Moshe Haim Shapira.

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The war also signaled an innovation in the political organization itself. Now there were two players on the religious Zionist political playing field: not only the party, the Mafdal; but the movement, Gush Emunim. A new power-center grew and developed alongside the Mafdal and, to a large extent, determined the political and organizational agenda. Throughout the decade following the war the settlement movement under Gush Emunim turned into the central enterprise of religious Zionist society. New leaders would sprout from within, and would determine their own ideological perspectives relative to those of the new movement. Yet the Yom Kippur War also revealed another facet. First, it exposed new moderate forces in the religious Zionist camp. These forces were not necessarily adherents of territorial compromise. They were mainly those who searched for a more sophisticated view of the educational and also political religious reality. It seems that the war seemed to expand the outlines of moderation and transferred it from the hands of the religious kibbutz circles to additional circles that were closer to the doctrine of Greater Israel. In addition, the war revealed a new axis of educational activity: turning the religious Zionist face to the general public. The first practical heralds of this approach are engraved in the response to the Yom Kippur War, but they became significant elements only in the second half of the 1990s, and in response to another trauma faced by religious Zionism—the diplomatic agreements with the Palestinians, the Oslo Agreements. From here we segue to the next conclusion: a widespread theory in academic research and public discourse in Israel views the Six Day War as the event that radically rejuvenated the religious-Zionist myth. This argument says that the miraculous interpretation attributed to the short war, and the long-term mobilization for Jewish settlement activity in the territories of the West Bank and the Golan Heights that were conquered during the war, transformed religious Zionist society from one that fulfilled itself through the secular-Zionist myth, to one that did so through the redemptive-Jewish one. This myth, with its religious Zionist interpretation, views the Zionist enterprise and the state as an advanced chapter in the Jewish nation’s stages of redemption. The Six Day War was grasped as an event in which God intervened in the political reality and granted us the opportunity to enlarge the borders of the Land. Therefore, there are those who viewed the Six Day War as an event that signaled the distancing of religious Zionist society from the general society. Ironically, however, this estrangement would be emphasized precisely out of the religious Zionist desire to “connect,” and inspire a large-scale outreach campaign in order to “settle in the hearts” of the general public. On the other hand, I propose to view the Yom Kippur War as an event that moderated the distancing trend. In effect, the long view of the effect of the Yom Kippur War on religious Zionist society teaches us that this society was, and remains, an integral part of the general society. The

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responses to the war that are described here, took place in the general society as well. It was testimony to the broad trend of popular protest that permanently changed the political leadership as well as the political organization from then on. It also had ramifications on the generational changes in the composition of the political leadership. It certainly dictated a more complex, sober view of Israeli society and its future, a more reflexive perspective that turned inward and found expression in written texts and public discourse. Anyone who attempts to view the Yom Kippur War as a watershed in the breakaway process of religious Zionist society from the general society—should take a closer look. What is true is that it was the Yom Kippur War, and not the Six Day War, that provided religious Zionism with a more independent voice that was amplified by the shrill sirens of the war. REFERENCES Amital, Y. (1974). Ha-ma’alot mi-ma’amakim [The ascents from the depths]. Jerusalem, Israel: Har-Etzion Yeshiva. Aran, G. (1986). From religious Zionism to Zionist religion: The roots of Gush Emunim. Studies in contemporary Jewry, 2: 116–143. Bar, D. (2007). Sanctifying a land: The Jewish holy places in the State of Israel 1948–1968. Jerusalem, Israel: Yad Ben-Zvi Institution. Bar-Lev, M. (1977). The graduates of high-School yeshivas in Israel between tradition and innovation. A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at Bar Ilan University. Ramat Gan, Israel: Bar Ilan University. Bar-on, M. and M. Chazan eds. (2010). Citizens at war: Studies on the civilian society during the Israeli War of Independence. Jerusalem, Israel: Yad Ben-Zvi Institute. Brin, S. (2010). Rav Amital entered politics for the sake of encouraging Jewish studies. Channel 7, July 14, 2010. http://www.inn.co.il/News/News.aspx/206857 Cohen, A. (1998). The talit and the flag: Religious Zionism and the concept of a Torah State 1947–1953. Jerusalem, Israel: Yad Ben-Zvi Institution. Cohen, U. and N. Leon (2011). The Herut Movement’s central committee and the Mizrhaim, 1965–1977: From patronizing partnership to competitive partnership. Jerusalem, Israel: The Israel Democracy Institute. Don-Yehiya, E. (2004). Moshe Haim Shapira. The Mafdal and the Six Day War. In A. Cohen, ed., The Religious Zionism: An era of changes. Jerusalem, Israel: The Bialik Institiute, 135–170. Doron, G. and U. Lebel. (2004). Penetrating the shields of institutional immunity: The political dynamics of bereavement in Israel. Mediterranean Politics, 9, (2), 201–220. Feige, M. (2008). Settling in the hearts: Jewish fundamentalism in the occupied territories. Detroit, MI: Wayne State University Press. Filber, Y. (1968). Ayelet Ha-Shachar [The Morning Star, heralding the sun]. Jerusalem, Israel: Haskel. Fischer, S. (2007). Self-expression and democracy in religious Zionist ideology. A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the Hebrew University. Jerusalem, Israel: The Hebrew University. Gad-El, N. (2005). Belief and post-modernism in religious Zionist education. Tel Aviv, Israel: Machshavot Magen. Gross, Z. (2002). The world of religious Zionist women: Between charisma and rationalism. Ramat Gan, Israel: Institute for the Study and Advancement of Religious Education, Bar-Ilan University.

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Hacohen, D. (2011). The children of the time: Youth Aliyah 1933–1948. Jerusalem, Israel: Yad Ben-Zvi. Hadari, Y. (2002). Messiha rides a tank: Public thought between the Sinai Campaign and the Yom Kipur War 1955–1975. Jerusalem, Israel: Shalom Hartman Institute. Leon, N. (2010). The transformation of Israel’s religious-Zionist middle class. The Journal of Israeli History: Politics, Society, Culture, 29, (1), 61–78. Levy, Y. (1997). Trial and error: Israel’s route from war to de-escalation. New York: SUNY Press. Liberman, I. (2004). Religious Zionism—on the way to segregation? A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at Bar Ilan University. Ramat Gan, Israel: Bar Ilan University. Mescheloff, S. (2012). Rabbi Shlomo Goren’s Zionist views. Israel—Studies in Zionism and The State of Israel, 20, 81–106. Morris, B. (2011). Righteous victims: A history of the Zionist-Arab conflict, 1881–1998. New York, NY: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. Overy, R. J. (1994). War and economy in the Third Reich. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. Sabato, H. (2005). Adjusting sights. Tel-Aviv, Israel: Yediot Ahronoth. Segal, E. (2009). A conversation with Haim Sabato. Second Opinion, June 12, 2009. http:/ /2nd-ops.com/esty/?p=57373 Warhaftig, Z. (1998). Fifty years, from year to year—memories. Tel Aviv, Israel: YadShapira. Weitz, Y. (2010). 1948 as a turning point in the Israeli political arena. In M. Bar-on M. Chazan eds. Citizens at war: Studies on the civilian society during the Israeli War of Independence. Jerusalem, Israel: Yad Ben-Zvi Institute, 524-548. Winter, J. (1995). Sites of memory, sites of mourning: The Great War in European cultural history. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press.

FOUR From Domination to Competition The Yom Kippur War (1973) and the Formation of a New Grief Community Udi Lebel

INTRODUCTION Janoff-Bolman’s distinction between a “settled culture” and an “unsettled culture” has become a common place in the field of cultural research. While in the former the behavior of the cultural agents corresponds to the social-institutional expectations of them, in the latter—the exclusivity of truth is opened to competition as the behavioral repertoire expands: modes of thought, processing, behavior, and new expressions penetrate the cultural sphere. These behavioral repertoires disseminate what could turn into either a momentary relapse from the norm or a legitimate cultural alternative (Janoff-Bolman, 1992). This mainly takes place in groups that have directly suffered from trauma, whether unemployment, exile, injury, or loss as a result of war (Wilkinson, 1971). PWC (Post War Culture) genera has been diagnosed as a signifier for a subculture, and is found in cultural manifestations such as poetry, literature, film, or architecture (Richard and Lipsitz, 1990) to psycho-political contexts such as processing loss, decisions related to relationships, family planning and sexual identity, fashioning political and ideological positions, and lifestyle (Hill and O’Connor, 1996). It is no accident that war, as Fackenheim defined it, is a definitive event with the greatest potential to influence the length and breadth of society, from personal to collective identity. Sewell conceptualized war as a “historical event that leads to the transformation 55

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of structures,” and specifically the structure of military-social relations (Sewell, 1996). This chapter will outline the repercussions of the Yom Kippur War (1973) in its relations to the modes of processing the military loss by the grieving families. The chapter will explore the manner in which war has led grieving family, and mainly the families belonging to the Israeli social elite, to deviate from the hegemonic behavioral modes of grief [what will be called the “National Grief Regime”], toward alternative modes, which constituted the beginning of a new subculture that later became a central legitimate and available alternative to the hegemonic norm. Moreover, this subculture dramatically influenced even the social-military relations in Israel, as it articulated policy constraints, which the decision makers were forced to adopt. As this article will demonstrate, to this day, epistemic loss communities exist side by side and compete and negotiate amongst themselves over the modes of representing military grief in the public sphere. RESEARCH CLAIMS In all that is related to the behavior and expression of the grieving families, the Yom Kippur War is the beginning of abandoning the national grief regime, of an oppositional decoding in the language Stuart Hall, which led to the formation of a new subculture of loss and a new epistemic grief community. The term “new” is deliberately used here in the same sense that the new social movement school uses it, as a challenge to the social order (Muller-Rommel, 1985: 41–54): “the military victimological community” (which victimizes grief) or alternatively “the political grief community” (which politicizes grief). With time, the new subculture of loss transferred from the margins to the center and was incorporated as a legitimate and normative community. This community constitutes an alternative to the hegemonic “grief family,” which proposes a processing trajectory with substantial psychopolitical implications. Since the Yom Kippur War to these days, there has been constant negotiation between the advocates of the hegemonic grief community’s pro-institutional discourse and behavioral patterns, and the advocates and members of the new loss community. This negotiation enfolds within itself different positions regarding issues of citizenship, identity, mass culture, and a strategic culture. Thus, corresponding with the familiar rifts: conservatism vs. postmodernism, as well as republicanism versus neoliberalism. These two communities of loss implicate the chosen security policy. While the hegemonic community provides a “green light” to the decision makers to operate the army without rigid civil surveillance even in the

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face of suffering casualties, the latter, the one on which this research focuses has lead to what is called in the literature casualty phobia, casualty panic, or casualty aversion (Lebel, 2010), dramatically affected the war doctrine and its goals. Both communities of loss, the hegemonic and the political one, which began to form after the Yom Kippur War, hinge on a republican logic and cultural militarism, while also preserving within the Israeli discourse the unique status of the families of the soldiers in general and the families of the fallen soldiers in particular. The new grief community performs this while employing what I will call a victimological militaristic discourse, whereas its predecessor performs this while employing a heroic militarism. METHODOLOGY The chapter is based on the analysis of community behaviors and common discourse in order to study the formation of groups and new subcultures—in the business, academic, cultural, or political space (Alan, 1995). It follows the expressions and actions taken by the key figures who were publically accepted to act as the representatives of the grief community identified with them. Figures, which can be grasped as what discourse researcher Wellman calls “As If,” represent all the participants of this discursive community (Wellman, 1988: 19). In phenomenological terms, they are the founders of the “discourse community,” who work to transfer their views and interpretation of reality to the public discourse, who are conceived as the “authentic representative voice” of the community (Fraser, 1990), in this case, the military grief community. These values, expectations, positions, and behavior alongside their community’s cultural (literature, poetry, etc.) and military (strategies to promote positions, political initiative, etc.) repertoire will be employed in order to learn about the psycho-political and socio-political conditions of the analyzed bereavement communities, as customary in the research of the discourse of new social movements (Benfod and Snow, 2000). THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK: EPISTEMIC COMMUNITIES AND SUBCULTURE Unlike the researchers of public policy or urban behavior, who focus on activism for social change, Hass and his peers, who founded the school for the research of epistemic communities, focused on the question that was raised even before by March and Olson: “Where do expectations come from?” (March and Olsen, 1984), since expectation precede actions and behaviors. The existence of epistemic communities in various fields produces conceptualizations. These conceptualizations are rooted into

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society as activities promoting them take place around them. Thus, the community is turned into a source for social changes, as “expectations and values injected by epistemic communities into the policy process” (Emanuel and Haas, 1992). In the language of Foucault, an epistemic community is a formalization territory for the “regime of truth” that promotes collective meaning (Weir, 2008). Adler, demonstrated, in Hass’ footsteps, how these communities are the source for what will later become the institutionalization of these expectations and their penetration into the political game (Adler, 1992). We may claim that this conceptualization is a certain way of answering Putnam’s uncertainty, who after writing that “our access to the world is through discourse and the role that discourse plays in our lives,” stated that the source for this discourse is nothing other than a “mysterious act” (Putnam, 1990: 121). It is possible that without knowing, the pioneer of epistemic communities was none other than Thomas Kuhn, who showed how a scientific community exists around the concept of the paradigm. This community, Kuhn states, has the power to form a “scientific regime”: it is clear that from the moment researchers entering the scientific arena wish to examine certain issues, they must adopt certain axioms, existing methodologies, and draw from necessary linguistic bodies (Kuhn, 1962). When a “crisis” occurs, what Kuhn calls a paradigmatic shift, it accelerates the formation of alternative scientific communities, who, from the margins of the scientific community, from the non-legitimacy, the pseudo-scientific, will begin to pose an alternative body of knowledge and will inject into the scientific arena the legitimization to examine these issues from an alternative position, while abandoning dominant axioms and adopting behaviors that seemingly transgress what the hegemonic community defines as “scientific.” Kuhn did not examine the behavior of scientists in everyday life, but rather the sources of these behaviors, which he nominated “paradigms.” The epistemic community is the designer of behavioral and discursive paradigms in the fields of culture and security, and as this article will demonstrate—in the psychosocial and psycho-political realms as well. Naturally, this outline may clarify to the reader that, in this essay, I adopt the political psychological conceptualization that our behaviors, even the ones conceived as intimate, individual, and spontaneous, are influenced and mediated by institutions, what Jameson called a society’s “political unconscious” (Jameson, 1982). In the context of cultural analysis, Stuart Hall, himself a member of the epistemic community (Birmingham school) adopted these conceptualizations and has chosen to focus on the source of the formation of the modes and manners of cultural behavior. Hall coined the phrase “subculture,” while distinguishing three ways in which decoding processes manifest in society (Hall, 1973).

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Dominant Hegemonic Decoding—An Interpretation According to the Dominant Position Items belonging to this possibility receive, whether consciously or unconsciously, the hegemonic ideological message and turn, de facto, into cultural agents in service of the cultural hegemony. In Foucault’s terms we can say that the elements belonging to the hegemonic decoding possibility testify to the effectively of the institution’s governmentality (Taylor, 1985). Negotiated Decoding—a decoding that holds a primal nucleolus of criticism, but in such a way that it would not cancel or undermine the hegemonic option. I would like to mark that, in my view, locating this kind of decoding is usually restricted to the research of rhetoric and discourse. Since the moment doubt exists the private space, and seeps over beyond the publicists’ pages (in the form of political behavior), it already becomes a decoding, which consciously resists and undermines the hegemony (see the next section). Oppositional Decoding—This Is the Option of Resistance This form of decoding undermines the hegemonic definition of reality and acts to promote an alternative, a reading of the situation and behavior, which are not dictated by the institution. This essay will examine the occurrence of this possibility in the Israeli grief arena. This possibility is in fact what was later called a culture of differentiation (Luhmann, 1982) or of recognition (Martineau, Nasar, and Thompson, 2012) which, as was stated, is usually accelerated by historical, and even more so, traumatic events. In his time Ben-Eliezer articulated an accurate definition to this possibility; he regarded groups in a civil society that uphold an alternative to the behaviors expected by the institution and defined them as “an attempt to save civic life from the state’s administrative and regulative invasions” (Ben-Eliezer, 1999: 88). As the thinkers of the Birmingham school have shown in their various studies in the collection Resistance Through Rituals (Hall and Jefferson, 1993)—which mostly refers to subcultures in post-war Britain, the subculture of resistance to hegemonic decoding is enacted through communities that emphasize public behavior and popular culture: dress, music, language, and an assortment of components that lead to life patterns, fashions, habits, and responses to political events. It is precisely in these behaviors, that is, in the sociology of the every day, that there is a strategic, symbolic resistance to the subservience to the mechanisms of the state (Hebdige, 1979: 167). This is not only a disturbance or deviation from the social order, it is not a momentary “noise,” but rather a phenomenon that should be examined as an ideological subversion involving individuals who are forming rituals, dress codes, a language, pastime

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sites, a communication, and a legitimization to withdraw from the hegemony. This is in fact one of the most significant insights made by the Birmingham school—the claim that the subculture, the same community that decided to withdraw from the institution’s expectations and adopt an alternative view of reality, may at first lead many agents, who will consider it as a destruction of the moral and social order, to a moral panic against its existence, but with time—incorporation mechanisms will be activated that will lead to its inclusion as a legitimate option in the cultural repertoire. Thus, in the field of punk and rock, and thus, as this will show, in the field of reference to a private loss on a national backdrop. It is what Hermoni and Lebel identified as a constant mechanism of internalizing subversive representations by the hegemony, which would, on the one hand, weaken the hegemonic conception, but, on the other hand, we add—lead the cooperation option to these subversive magnitudes (Hermoni and Lebel, 2012). The Bereaved Family—The Hegemonic Grief Community After the War of Independence (1948), an epistemic grief community began to form in Israel. This community even received a unique name (“the bereaved family”) and a formal status as a political category with an ethical and moral dimension. The salient position of this community and its dominance in all that is related to fashioning the Israeli grief culture has brought about the existence of clear expectations from the new members of the Israeli grief arena. They learned that in order gain respect for their fallen family member, they themselves should be conceived as “governmental.” In order for their loved ones to be granted a public commemoration they must take part in the “hegemonic grief regime.” This regime enfolded within itself a constant regulation of emotions and an engineering of culture, whose main purpose was to keep the grieving families as close as possible, in all things related to their performance in the public sphere, to the discourse and behavior of restraint and a repression of emotions; legitimizing the death of the son and marking his death as productive and meaningful; depoliticizing the grief and the loss. It is a de-victimization of grief and bearing it in a heroic fashion, not as victims but as the heroes of the national episteme (Lebel, 2013). A variety of persons even became the leaders of the community since they befitted the “typecast” of the ideal bereaved parent and carried out the demands of the role impeccably. For example, Rivka Guber, whose two sons were killed in the War of Independence. After their deaths she continued promote national interests, mainly by hers and her husband’s contribution to the assimilation of new immigrants (“Olim,” New Arrivals) and education. Ben-Gurion called her “the mother of sons” and she became a public-educative figure, an ideal type for the grieving Israeli mother. Her books were defined as educative poems and won her many

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awards; she herself received the Israel Prize and for many years functioned as the head of the representative commemoration organization “Yad La Banim” (a memorial for the sons). She was close to the leaders of the institutions—prime ministers and presidents, and regularly attended the myriad decision rooms in which the contents of the commemorations and memorials, immigration and assimilation, education and culture were fashioned. Rivka Guber was trusted with the heroic grief discourse—which never doubts the necessity of the sons’ deaths, encourages many to follow in their footsteps, and does not raise any doubts regarding the decision makers’ judgment. Guber and her peers’ position as role models who fashion an epistemic community of bereaved families constituted a meaningful resource for the institution. The place they occupied reproduced the militarist-republican civic hierarchy and guaranteed a free range of action in the security and foreign affairs with the blessing of the bereaved families, who provided legitimization for the various decisions, including those whose price was blood (Lebel, 2014 (b)). THE YOM KIPPUR WAR AND THE BEGINNING OF THE OPPOSITIONAL DECODING OF LOSS UP TO THE FORMATION OF THE POLITICAL GRIEF COMMUNITY Within the history of Israel, the Yom Kippur War, as Carmel notes, is the “fault line” (Carmel, 2001: 676). During this war 2,569 soldiers were killed, 7,500 were injured, and 301 were captured by enemy forces (Ibid). The war broke out during a political stalemate and due to a severe intelligence failure, Israel was surprised and caught off-guard after blindly trusting erroneous conceptions. The war led to a breach of faith in the political and military leadership, damaged the public morale, and kickstarted a political culture of awareness and criticism regarding the captains, both civic and military. In relation to the processing the public loss, cultural agents, mainly bereaved parents but also widows and brothers, began to deviate from the behavioral and discursive expectations of the “bereaved family” and began to formalize a new subculture of loss, which constituted, in its entirety, an opposition to the hegemonic grief culture. In the following sections I will demonstrate these nonstandard expressions. MAKING GRIEF PRESENT The Israeli leadership has always sought to minimize the public’s exposure to the “price” of the victory celebrations as early as the copious debates regarding the existence of the day of remembrance for the fallen soldiers of Israel in which the parents wished to make this day official. David Ben-Gurion agreed only on the condition that this day will not

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overshadow the Independence Day celebrations, and that it will be a day of memory and not of loss; that is—a day marking the legacy of the fallen and not focusing on the trauma of the bereaved families. Paradoxically, the bereaved families were expected to contribute to remove the grief from the discourse (Lebel, 2013). Without any relation to the designers of culture, the Yom Kippur War connected every citizen to the grief. Hundreds of soldiers were killed on its very first days, and thousands were later buried. As the chairman of “Yad La Banim” testified: “in a period spanning over six weeks, these people have stood . . . in daily funerals . . . over a hundred funerals a day” (Yahel, 1974). It was no longer possible to ignore death in its real concrete significance of loss, especially in those elite communities with more representation among the fighting forces. Thus, for example, a bereaved father wrote about the Kibbutzim movement: “if the kibbutz society usually ignored and turned its back to the problem of grief, the circumstances of the damage inflicted upon us by this war have changed things . . . the settlement of the Kibbutz was injured five times more than the rest of the population in the state” (Dimenstein, 1974: 31). Another Kibbutz member wrote: “we did not know these phenomena until then . . . there was Rivka Guber, the ‘mother of sons’ from the War of Independence. But Here? With us?” (Lebel, 2014 (b), 75). To demonstrate the impossibility to negate the scope of the loss— we will mark that when it was published, the Yom Kippur tract of fallen and missing became a bestseller. More than twenty thousand copies of it were circulated and it was later updated and reprinted in a number of editions. AN INVITATION TO CRY—OPPOSITION TO RESTRAINED EMOTIONS Since the War of Independence the members of the “bereaved families” were directed to remain “enfolded in their grief” and leave it in the public sphere. The hurt, the pain, the depression, and the weakness had no place in time and space—neither in the formal ceremonies (the memorial days) nor the formal sights (the military cemeteries). But this emotional management seemed to have collapsed in one single stroke after the Yom Kippur War. Only the Yad La Banim journal, which came out after the war, began to contain deviations from this motif: “I will write my songs with a baited tear, choking my throat with grief—the vast lament within me is etched with no way out—in grief,” as a bereaved father wrote. A bereaved mother, under the title “sadness,” testified to the difficulty to remain loyal to the motif and publicly confesses that her behavior is nothing but pretense and is not authentic, while also demonstrating what takes place backstage: “pretending to the whole world that I am a strong heroic mother . . . but the heart will not obey me, it is

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tearing into pieces deep within. . . . I am crying with a burning heart like a wounded animal in the desert, alone with no help in the world, fading into its own pain till the end of her days.” For the first time they speak of the pain, of the difficulty to cope with it, of the emotions. No more restrained heroes. Even in the Kibbutzim, the birthplace of the hegemonic grief behavior, the changes began to leave their marks. Ora Sphengental, a widow who lost her husband in the Six Day War, remembers the grief pattern that preceded the Yom Kippur War in Kibbutz Mizra and the changes the Yom Kippur War created: “We did not cry, did not shout, nothing. On Yom Kippur people cried. . . . Yom Kippur broke through this entire thing.” She also testifies about herself that after the Yom Kippur War she unleashed her emotions and began to “lose my senses [. . .] when they buried the soldiers here it was actually the first time I broke into tears [. . .] do you know what it is like to cry in public? You cry in your bed. Into the pillow [. . .] now there is no problem to cry in public [. . .] on Yom Kippur it was one of the only times that people in the Kibbutz cried.” The text that enfolds within itself most of the changes in relation to the Kibbutzim’s culture of restraint and emotion management is “An Invitation to Weeping.” The text was written by Arnon Lapid, a member of kibbutz Givat Haim Meuhad, and even led to a public debate (upon which I will later elaborate) regarding the legitimization to weep in public: “I want to send you an invitation to weep. The day and the hour are not important, but the evening plan, I promise, will be rich: weeping. We will weep for hours. I will weep over my dead: Avraham’le, Ilan, Amiti, Dodo, Ozer, Yair, and my son—and you will weep over yours. And together we will weep for the dreams we have awoken from. For the gods that have let us down. We will weep for the new bereaved. Oh, how much we will weep, a wailing weep we will weep. A hear breaking weep. A huge weep. A psychedelic weep. We will weep full benches. . . . We will weep rivers. We will weep oceans. But always—in a month, in two months, in a year—you are welcome to come again. The door is open. The invitation stands, from here on onwards, in my place, you can always weep” (Lapid, 1974). “FATHER WAS KILLED—WHY?” OPPOSITION TO THE PRODUCTIVITY IN GRIEF Two weeks after Motti Ashkenazi’s solo demonstration, which took place on February 17, 1974, and jumpstarted the mass public protest (see, in this book, chapter 2: The Combatants’ Protest after the Yom Kippur War and the Transformation of the Protest Culture in Israel by Eithan Orkibi). The first demonstration of the protest movement took place in front of the cabinet meeting. Between the myriad signs lifted there, two children

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were holding a sign stating: “father was killed—why?” (Ashkenazi, 2004: 177), as if marking the crisis in signification for the families of the fallen, who could no longer find solace in the death of their sons and teach about its legitimization. For the first time, hundreds of bereaved families embarked on a journey to search and endow meaning to the trauma that was imposed to them. They searched for a meaning that would not be a common place (“in their death they commanded life”), but that must be actively fashioned so that the names of their sons could actually generate a dramatic change in the life of the nation. “Someplace the thought appears—might we have sacrificed for nothing? Were they not the same sons who fell dumb to give their life in vain?” wrote a bereaved father (Ma’ariv, September 14, 1975). And another bereaved father explained to President Ephraim Katzir that “the special bitterness, which characterizes the feelings of the parents of the soldiers who have fallen in the Yom Kippur War, must be understood [. . .] they are haunted by the horrific suspicion that the sacrifice was not inevitable. This suspicion expands into vast dimensions given the accounts about the devastating oversight” (Shmuel, 1974). The lack of meaning only augmented the anger, which the bereaved families no longer wished to suppress at any account. This anger remained the central characteristic of their relationship with the state, and found its expression in the copious demonstrations and media reports: “this week marks three years to the Yom Kippur War [. . .] Which exposed an entire system in which the lack of morality and integrity reign high [. . .] we are recently witnessing a planned campaign, in which the individuals responsible for the oversights of this horrible war are attempting to expunge their part and their responsibility of the situation [. . .] Moshe Dayan rewrites history, in the media and in his book, for his own comfort and justification. He blames others and distorts facts [. . .] On the eve of Yom Kippur, Shmuel Gonen is invited to speak on television and participates in a debate about concepts of ‘crime and punishment’, is this not blatant mockery? Major Zeira [. . .] was sent for training in the United-States. This situation indicated the continuation of a moral atrophy that we will be unable to uproot unless the individuals responsible for the war’s devastating oversights will completely step down from the public stage. We, the bereaved families, will not forget and will not forget. For the future of the state of Israel we demand a trial of justice.” In the name of 120 bereaved families whose names are kept in confidence by the newspaper (Ma’ariv, October 6, 1976), a bereaved brother from the Yom Kippur War writes: I swear from above this paper page in the blood of my dear brother [. . .] and in the blood of all the dear IDF soldiers, who are lying still in their fresh graves, to carry their hideous screams and the heartbreaks of the mothers and fathers who have lost their dear children [. . .] I take

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this heavy burden upon myself [. . .] the results of October 73 that have rained a horrible holocaust upon us. . . . To bring this to every Jewish citizen wherever he may be, so that they will witness and know for generations to come!!!”

The brother testifies that he has toiled on publishing a book that will describe the chain of events in the war (Donevitz, 1974). “THE MINISTER OF DEFENSE IS A MURDERER”—OPPOSITION TO DE-POLITICIZATION AND DE-VICTIMAZATION OF THE GRIEF Motti Ashkenazi, a reserve captain who returned from the war and began his single protest, carried alone, carried a sign that wrote: “Grandmother, failing Defense Minister = 3,000 dead grandchildren.” It is possible that this sealed the number 3,000 in public consciousness (Lorde, 2013: 272). This number marks not only the number of the fallen but also but those who have fallen in vain, those whose deaths could have been prevented. On October 18, a few days after her son Yosef was killed, Tikva Sarid from Kibbutz Beit Hashita demanded the resignation of minister of defense Moshe Dayan. Under the title “Dayan must go,” she claimed: “The IDF was not prepared and ready on the arrival of the judgment day. The Defense Minister is responsible for not informing the government about the severity of the situation. [He] is responsible for the most severe oversights” (Ma’ariv, November 29, 1973). Eleven official protest movements, led by the bereaved parents, began to operate after the Yom Kippur War. They demanded a governmental system “that will be under constant inspection. That will not let stagnation set, that will constantly scrutinize itself, which will examine each question a thousand times over” (Ha’aretz, October 4, 1974). The identity of the victim, such as the identity of the bereaved families, requires by definition the location of the identity of an aggressor, someone responsible for the condition of the victim, and after the war, most of the anger was directed toward Dayan and Meir, who were seen as those aggressors responsible for the death of the boys. A planned act of protest, which received widespread media coverage, as it clearly intended, took place during Defense Minister Moshe Dayan’s lecture at Bar Ilan University. The lecture was originally planned for 18:00, but a few minutes earlier, a large group of bereaved parents stormed into the auditorium to prevent it from taking place. They were armed with posters: “Shame on you, you are here to listen to a killer.” Earlier that year, protesters called Golda Meir a “killer” during protests on the day marking one year to the end of the war (Ma’ariv, December 19, 1974). This event was just one of many: a conference attended by 100 bereaved families, who also formed as a protest group, was held in Tel Aviv. In order to officiate the activity, they selected a representative to

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approach the Defense Minister and ask him to remove General Shmuel Gonen from his military duties in order “to restore the feeling that there is fundamental reward and punishment underlying our lives.” The families even decided to serve the public by “preventing those individuals and organizations from expressing their non-objective opinions, as they do not have the authority and the right to express them publicly and to interpret the Agranat Commission’s clear conclusions” (Ma’ariv, December 2, 1975). Another course of action was carried out by mothers of fallen soldiers, who expressed their objection to the possibility that Golda Meir win the Israel Prize, due to her part in the oversight. They wrote to the prime minister a petition signed by the bereaved families of the Yom Kippur War, saying that (Ma’ariv, March 28, 1975): We were shocked to hear that the jury intends to give you the Israel Prize 1974 for your contribution to society and the state. The feeling shared by many families bereaved by the Yom Kippur War leads us to contact you asking that you refrain from accepting the prize offered to you. As someone who headed the government in the period preceding the terrible oversight [. . .] you cannot ignore your responsibility [. . .] it is time that all those responsible for the failure recognize their responsibility, be more modest and disappear from the public spotlight. Unfortunately these people tend to behave as though nothing has happened in Israel. We see the Judges’ decision to award you the prize as part of the negative phenomenon of attempting to overlook and obscure the personal responsibility of those who led the country toward the failures of the Yom Kippur War.

The bereaved families’ anger toward the establishment felt was also expressed during funerals at military cemeteries. In Kibbutz Beit Hashita, from which twelve soldiers were killed during the war, the national television filmed a funeral during which angry words were spoken in a tirade against the government and the country’s leaders. After the first anniversary to the war (1974), parents left the cemeteries in an organized procession of cars toward Moshe Dayan’s home “to remind him of his responsibility for the failure [. . .] and the death of our children.” The parents even decided that this demonstration would become an annual protest taking place every year on the anniversary of the war (Ma’ariv, October 7, 1976). On the third anniversary, the entire country was filled with public demonstrations organized by the bereaved families, and outside every cemetery the protesters stood with petitions supporting a vote of no confidence in the government (Ma’ariv, October 6, 1976). The anger directed at Moshe Dayan and the commitment to demand delegitimizing his public legitimacy to take part in the government did not yield even after Meir’s government was replaced. For example, during the Rabin government, eighty-four bereaved families whose children were killed during the Yom Kippur War, wrote to Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Foreign Minister Yigal Alon demanding to return MKs Moshe

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Dayan and Abba Eban from their U.S. diplomatic trip. The petitioners contended that sending them was a “direct attempt to certify their good character and rehabilitate a group of people who brought disaster on to Israel [. . .] an attempt to blur and wipe from memory something that was on the public agenda, as if nothing had happened” (Ma’ariv, April 7, 1975). They were increasing outraged about Menachem Begin’s decision to appoint Moshe Dayan a minister in his government. Their ire is hard to describe. For the first time in history, Beit Yad Labanim in Tel Aviv became a site for political protest. The bereaved families of the Yom Kippur War gathered there carrying signed petitions against Dayan’s appointment. The signatories emphasized that they did not have a political agenda but that they rather wished that someone responsible for the “oversight” would not be among the ministers of the new government. After the public was exposed to the intentions to appoint Dayan, spontaneous demonstrations of bereaved parents occurred sporadically outside Moshe Dayan’s home in northern Tel Aviv (Ma’ariv, May 29, 1977). Posters were plastered on the walls at Beit Yad Labanim in Tel Aviv saying: “Begin, you’ve betrayed us, you chose an oversight minister,” and “Dayan—the people are tired of you and you are tired of the people. Go sit at home.” The families held a protest outside of Yad Labanim. At that time, some of them joined another demonstration in front of Metzudat Ze’ev (the Likud headquarters in Tel Aviv): “We, the bereaved families, will never forget Dayan’s skill to bring upon the people of Israel the failure of the Yom Kippur War. No committee can obscure his responsibility for what happened,” the chairman of Yad Labanim, Yoseph Lotberg called out during the protest. After this demonstration, the bereaved families headed to Begin’s home (Ma’ariv, May 30, 1977). “We will not allow our children’s’ murderer to be a minister in the Israeli cabinet,” read the signs. The anger raged and several parents suffered from hysterical fits. Menachem Begin met with three bereaved parents who had official positions in the bereavement protests: the chairman of Yad Labanim in Tel Aviv, the director of Beit Halochem (house of the combatant) and another bereaved mother (Ma’ariv, May 30, 1977). Parents protested and demanded another meeting with the prime minister. Eventually, they got what they wanted. “We made it clear to Mr. Begin that we will not accept Dayan’s appointment as a government minister and stated that we will continue to fight against the appointment in every possible way.” The families also initiated a petition against Dayan’s appointment: “Dayan cannot serve in Public Office [...] [Dayan] will create many unnecessary victims” (Yedioth Aharonot, June 5, 1977).

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IMPLEMENTING THE SUBCULTURE OF POLITICAL VICTIMIZATION: FROM SUBCULTURE TO POLICY CONSTRAINTS— TO THE ESTABLISHMENT OF A GRIEF COMMUNITY VICTIMOLOGY A host of precedents in the new behavior of the bereaved Yom Kippur War families did not remain extraordinary events that remain in the margins of the discourse of loss and the Israeli collective memory. The “acceptance” of these behaviors, especially among the elites and the shapers of political, media and cultural agendas, seemed to grant them normative status and legitimacy. The new Grief Community created holds on mainly two fronts: Cultural: In terms of the work of mourning and the public performance of bereavement—as this was a community in which resistance to the hegemonic bereavement culture was rife, and which favored alternative rituals. Political: With regards to the community’s effect on policy—as this was a Grief Community that clarifies to statesmen and military leaders that military related bereavement will be a “social problem” pointing at the failures of those who did not act to prevent it and will therefore deny legitimacy from the adopted policy.

It seems that the first, psycho-cultural element, can be demonstrated by focusing on Manuela Dviri, who, since her son Jonathan fell while serving in Lebanon (on February 26, 1998), gained extensive media and public attention. She, who after the fall of her son, was invited to join an antiestablishment Grief Community without it being considered a transgression or deviation. Quite on the contrary, the elites expected her to do precisely that, as, at the time, the mainstream media discourse opposed holding on to the Security Zone. In fact, it was considered odd to advocate for holding the security zone. In her writing, Dviri concretized loss and resisted any romanticization that was widespread during the construction of the Israeli nation, as well as keeping its difficult components in the private sphere (Dviri, 2000: 9–10): Pain is not romantic or noble. Pain is waking up in the morning with bleary, crazy eyes, with severe nausea and diarrhea, 365 days a year. Pain is a hard and uninterrupted bleeding from the uterus [. . .] when the agents sent from the town major came to tell me that my son Jonathan was killed in Lebanon, a darkness from hell settled upon me. At once I fell into the world of the dead; a ghost land from hell [. . .] my womb began to bleed. I felt like a slaughtered sheep. I looked at myself, and I was a stranger to myself: the face—a grim and twisted mask, sore eyes, graying skin, sunken cheeks, and shaggy hair. A terrible nausea filled me. Every cell in my body screamed and burned. I was raw

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meat—skinless, unprotected. At those moments I felt that a veil had dropped over my old life and I am the living-dead.

Dviri even rejected the fixing of the figure of the “bereaved mother,” at least in the way she was expected to lead her life in the context of loss, memory and her “public role.” As another bereaved mother, Raya Harnick put it (Livne, 1998): As a bereaved mother, I am supposed to walk around with blackened shoulders and a bowed head and everyone is supposed to constantly check up on the tear that is supposed to be always hidden in the corner of my eye [. . .] a bereaved mother’s life should be conducted around the grave. And I, since the Shloshim [thirty days of mourning], never went to the grave, even on Memorial Day. I cannot stand memorial days [. . .] what do I have to do in a cemetery? What is there for me to look for under the headstone? Yoni? What is the connection between the rotting pile of bones and Yoni who lived with me and through me and he smiles and says, “my mother hasn’t changed a bit,” and he’s glad she is that way, as are his brothers.

Regarding the second component, by which the Yom Kippur War was seen as the war that sowed the seeds from which grew a political Grief Community operating to shape policy, we should mention Raya Harnik. Harnik, mother of Goni Harnik who fell in the battle at the Fort Beaufort (June 6, 1982) during Operation Peace for Galilee (the Lebanon War), became one of the most dominant of all bereaved mothers who operated to end the war and deny its leaders the legitimacy to take part in public life. Harnik’s activity was made culturally possible due to, inter alia, the seeds of preparation sowed by bereaved families after the Yom Kippur War, which created the infrastructure and the primary cultural legitimacy for her behavior. There were, of course, other components, mainly political ones, which are not the concern of this essay (Lebel, 2014 (a)). “I will not sacrifice my firstborn,” Harnik said during the protest against the war, and in her spirit, other mothers to soldiers explained that “we are becoming ‘tiger’ mothers, protect the pups” (Laisha magazine, May 30, 1983). Harnik belonged to a community that was branded by the media as “The Beaufort family,” and with her, the rest of the parents of the battle’s victims clarified that Menachem Begin, Ariel Sharon, and Rafael Eitan are the “murderers of our children” (Ibid, 42). Following their lead, bereavement became present in the discourse of political protest, while, on a daily basis bereaved parents stood in front of Prime Minister Menachem Begin’s office with posters on which it was printed: “Sharon—600 ideal victims for your ideal war” (Posters hoisted by bereaved parents as described in Koteret Rashit, August 10, 1987); “the perpetrators of atrocities are comfortable in their armchairs” (an ad published by the bereaved father Jacob Grutman, Personal archive); “what did my son die for?” and “Sharon the killer,” “Sharon the child killer”

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(Yedioth Ahronot, April 3, 1992). Harnik even compared the government to a “gang of murderers” and claimed that she would shoot the defense minister dead (Barzilay, 1992: 210). The model presented by the Grief Community led by Harnik, Dviri and their colleagues, seen as ideal types, generated a new parenting model, not only relevant for parents of soldiers who fell in the war or parents of soldiers, but also for the parents of future recruits. For example, a mother of a soldier serving at the time that the IDF was still in southern Lebanon, said that when she learned that her son was called to serve in Lebanon, she quit her job as a teacher and went to demonstrate in front of the president’s and the prime minister’s homes (Ha’aretz, March 15, 2002): I said I couldn’t bear the thought that he would kill or be killed and I kept writing letters to the Defense Ministry and the military [. . .] I will act before my son gets killed. Not after. If my son is killed it will be as if I killed him with my own hands [. . .] I pleaded to him live (on a show on Channel 1) from beyond the television screen and asked: What words do you want written on your tombstone? Should it say “here lies a son who told his mother don’t tell me what to do”?

She explained that she was influenced by the movement of “Four Mothers”—a brand that specifies differentiation from the hegemonic bereaved family—which gave her momentum and legitimized her actions: “When my son was in Lebanon I felt like an innocent man was condemned to death [. . .] my experience of loss was so harsh [. . .] as if that the loss actually occurred [. . .] [but] he wasn’t dead. I need to fight for his life!?” (Ibid). Already after the Yom Kippur War, there were those who noticed that Israeli society was developing sensitivity to casualties (Safrai, 2000: 28): An Israeli told the Ambassador of Finland that thousands of casualties are a national trauma, because Israel is a nation of three million. The ambassador of Finland answered: “Did you hear about the Winter Campaign in Finland? We aren’t three million, we are four million. We had 150,000 fatalities and half a million casualties [. . .] but we are happy, we have Finland. We maintained our independence. This is for the generations to come [. . .] so do we walk around depressed? [. . .] The U.S. representative joined the conversation and told the Israeli General: “I was shocked to see what the Yom Kippur War did to you. If, due to 2,500 fatalities, you got to where you are—get out of this business.” “What business?” the Israeli asked and the American replied: “The Business of making war.”

Indeed, the period Israel spent in Lebanon stirred among the public in general and among the ranks of decision makers in particular, what I coined “casualty panic,” with dramatic consequences on the shaping of the doctrine of military operations and on the security policy (Lebel, 2010). Undoubtedly, the sense of panic was created as a response to the

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establishment’s observation of the bereaved families’ extensive public activity, which consolidated as an epistemic Grief Community with rituals, expectations and role models, such as Raya Harnik or Manuela Dviri, with media coverage and representations in film and theater. A Grief Community that focuses on the parent’s trauma and not only on the memory of its sons; which exposes the mind, emotion and does not incarcerate pain and suffering in the private sphere; a victimized community that locates those guilty-responsible for the death of its sons; a community that has a range of activities with psychological and political meanings such as the return of war calls and condolence letters to leaders, participating in demonstrations and calls for the establishment of inquiry commissions; activities calling to rename operations and wars and struggles over the designs of the graves and the inscriptions on the tombstones. Particularly—political activity in the name of loss calling to cease military activities as well as immediate implications on military activation policy. A community that first consolidated after the Yom Kippur War, and ever since, its actions have slowly become more mainstream and turned into actions expected of bereaved families—part of a subculture identified with the secular-peace seeking camp, i.e., the Israeli elite. A subculture that functioned as a policy maker, as Bruriah Sharon, one of the leaders of “Four Mothers” testified. In her opinion, casualty panic stemmed from the fact that “During the first week [of the Second Lebanon War] the IDF tried to fight an aerial war because they knew that we were not able to handle dead soldiers and in a sense, we, the Four Mothers, have some part in that” (Shavit, 2006). COMMUNITIES BARGAINING: THE ONGOING CONFLICT BETWEEN VALORIZATION AND VICTIMIZATION OF GRIEF AND MEMORY After the Yom Kippur War, many bereaved parents spoke out against the blunt “deviations” among the new bereaved families. The community leaders in the “Bereaved Family,” alongside essayists and novelists, led the opposition to what was perceived as the secularization of loss and memory. For example, the writer Yemima Avidar Tchernowitz addressed the new bereaved parents, asking them to stop their activities: “Stop this talk which can be interpreted by bereaved mothers whose sons went out to war and never returned that he sacrificed his life in vain” (Hadari, 2002: 217). A mother who lost two sons in the War of Independence, wrote in an article titled “To the families of victims of the Yom Kippur War” (Israelit, 1974):

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Some bereaved parents even came to ask Motti Ashkenazi to halt his operations. They claimed (Ashkenazi, 2004, 167): [. . .] Your actions are offensive to our sons’ memory [. . .] you are telling the people of Israel that our sons [. . .] died as fools; that their death in battle was unnecessary, useless and meaningless. [. . .] you have no right [. . .] to call them victims of a terrible oversight; [. . .] unnecessary victims of the oversight. Please cease your protest!

Arnon Lapid, who wrote the “Invitation to Cry,” which I previously discussed, received many responses to his piece. For example, a member of his Kibbuts, Lotte Aharon, who lost two sons, responded: No Arnon, I disagree with you. You know the “Order of the Fallen” by Haim Hefer—there they say, “Sorry, but we had to” [. . .]. When Israel fell, his uncle yelled at me—mother are not allowed to cry! Paratroopers don’t cry. In his last postcard, Dudu wrote to me “not to embarrass the firm”

One of the women called upon to defend the hegemonic bereavement model was Naomi Zoreah, whose two sons were killed in the Golan Heights—one in the Six Day War and the second in the Yom Kippur War. In late October 1973, after her son was killed, she published an open letter in response to a consolation letter she received from her friend (Yedioth Aharonot, September 23, 1973): What is all the spilled blood for? [. . .] It is unequivocal. We didn’t and won’t have another choice. The terrible price was worth it [. . .] a Jewish village educates its sons to be heroes and moral people. When a man rises to kill you with a knife [. . .] you need to pull out a knife and protect yourself [. . .]. It is better that their mothers cry than we cry!

The “mother of sons” Rivka Guber was also called upon to protect the bereavement model that was breaking down. She also spoke out against the bereaved parents’ new behavior (Ma’ariv, December 24, 1974): I have no choice, as one of the oldest members of the bereavement family, but to turn to the bereaved parents in the newspaper and say that it would be better if we talked among ourselves [. . .] the man Moshe Dayan was born in this country and reached the heights of power from standing behind the plow in Nahalal. His personal fulfillment and his service to the country are well known to the Jewish people [. . .] the vast and terrifying camp of bereaved parents, widows and orphans [. . .] will be considered an echelon that everyone with a spirit

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will take into account. We still have a need [. . .] not for “spontaneous performances” to the delight of our enemies, not to search for scapegoats for our many oversights, but for support of each other and being together.

The debate on modes of representation of the processing of grief remained in the social consciousness from the Yom Kippur War to this day, carries over the years by various entrepreneurs and groups. For example, after the Second Lebanon War (2006) and especially following the tenyear anniversary to the IDF withdrawal from southern Lebanon, began a media and social debate that revolved around, among other things, marking the mothers of IDF soldiers and bereaved mothers belonging to a political community as responsible for the various constraints that prevented the IDF from defeating Hamas and Hezbollah. For example, former deputy defense minister, Gen. (ret.) Efraim Sneh, wrote (Sneh, 2010): The public opinion, that the sense of mutual responsibility has been lost, was shaped by the “Four Mothers.” This movement placed the concern for the son’s safety, the most fundamental of human feelings, above all national security considerations, which has become an almost a despised concept [. . .].

Ron Ben-Yishai, a senior military analyst joined Sneh and commented (Ynet, May 25, 2010): “I still cringe with shame when I remember that night in May 2000. I can’t forget the soldier from the Armored Corpse who shouted into his mobile phone: ‘Mom, I’m out.’“ When Major General (res.) Elazar Stern, the former head of the IDF Human Resources Branch and current member of Knesset, was asked about Gilad Shalit, then held captive by Hezbollah, he said: “If we hadn’t behaved hysterically during recent years in response to the pressure from mothers, and I don’t want to say harsher words, Gilad Shalit would be with us today, he would have already been released” (Channel 7, July 4, 2010). Similarly, even after the first Lebanon War there were those who accused the mothers for Israel’s failure in war, as they did not heed the prime minister’s plea “not to undercut the morale.” For example, MK Aryeh Nehamkin stated that at the end of the war, the government responded to “mothers whose feelings are understandable, but they cannot be the basis upon which political decisions are made” (Lebel, 2011: 373). WAR AND REMEMBRANCE Even the perception of the war, despite or because of the fatalities, began a longstanding conflict regarding the way the Israeli public relates to its wars, whether as a heroic or victimized national history. Already after the Yom Kippur War, Chief of Staff David Elazar complained (Safrai, 2010):

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More than thirty years after the war, this conflict remains; as if it embodies the Israeli identity politics, and especially the gap between the social elite that hold neoliberal and global beliefs and those who advocate a Republican ethos (Lewin, 2013). It is therefore no coincidence that the main complaints about the victimization of the Yom Kippur War memory was carried out by religious Zionist groups and the Israeli settlements, and most of those who expressed opinions about the issue, i.e. media outlets, belonged, for the most part, to religious Zionism factions and catered to the settlers. For example, Boaz Haetzni, son of Elyakim Haetzni, one of the founders of the Jewish settlement in Hebron, believed that “this loser’s dialogue is succeeding to silence and marginalize the best possible scenario for the Yom Kippur War—an overwhelming victory” (Haezni, 2009). Furthermore, a senior officer known in the mainstream Israeli discourse as the man who complained about the excessive panic regarding fatalities among the Israeli leadership, wrote (Makor Rishon, August 30, 2013): There is no historical example in which a country was surprisingly attacked on two fronts simultaneously by huge armies, compared to its army, and was as successful as in defending itself as Israel [. . .] after forty years, we should remember the pain of the Yom Kippur War— but more so, we should be proud. Israelis deserve that.

Israel Harel, former chairman of the Yesha Council, also lamented (Makor Rishon, August 30, 2013): [. . .] In the history of wars there was no other war that began as a complete surprise and ended eighteen days later in a complete and unequivocal victory in favor of the surprised party. In such cases, normal nations are happy and celebrate the victory. But in practice, the Egyptians held the victory celebrations, though we completely destroyed their army.

Forty years after the war, the Israeli conservative wing complained that the war was remembered for its fallen and not for its achievements. This claim is critical of the entire Israeli memorial culture, as Israeli memorial days, as opposed to their instigators’ initial intention, David Ben Gurion included, are no longer days of battle heritage but rather days intended to expose the public to the bereaved families’ pain; they are not (heroic) memorial days, but days of grief (victimology). For example, a lieutenant colonel (res.), who served as a company commander in the Yom Kippur War in the southern area, said that he regretted that the Yom Kippur War

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was etched in the public consciousness as a blunder (Channel 7, October 2, 2013): [. . .] The war ended and we sat on the land of Egypt, surrounding thirty-thousand troops of the Third Army, by sea, air and land. No army in the world over the past century has ever ended a war in such a way [. . .] we must stop wrapping this war with the veil of political failure, we fought valiantly, our people sacrificed themselves and some of them are to still wounded in body and soul. These are my friends, and they deserve to be decorated for their service.

Another lieutenant colonel heads an organization for victims of terrorism and acts as a counterforce to the pressure from the left exerted on decision makers by bereaved families of fallen soldiers to advance deals for the release of terrorists in exchange for hostages or for territorial withdrawals. On the fortieth anniversary to the war, he organized social evenings commemorating the heroes that were meant to serve as “counterweight to the media wave designed to weaken the public spirit by implementing the perception that the war was a failure and ended with loss.” These evenings hosted officers and soldiers, including the chairman of Yesha Council (Channel 7, September 17, 2013). SUMMARY Around the Yom Kippur War, as this chapter has tried to show, appeared first signs of splintering in the “Central Israeli Community”—the JewishZionist faction—into many communities that began functioning as competing subcultures using strategies to promote concepts and define identities that have become part of the civil activism repertoire in Israel. In the ideological-political sense, this was a war that led to the formation of the social movements Peace Now and Gush Emunim. (Feige, 2009). After years in which many different public arenas and social agents “rallied around the flag” (Chowanietz, 2007), and cooperated with the security-political complex (Lebel, 2002), Israeli society started to witness processes of differentiation, resignation, analysis, and recognition. This essay illustrates these processes as they relate to the changes among the bereaved Israeli military families, after years of a stable hegemonic loss regimen, which clarified the social expectations of “newcomers” in the epistemic Grief Community. Among the members of the “bereavement family,” many grieving parents ceased to participate in this micromanagement of emotions and cultural engineering, and unconsciously led to the establishment of bereavement and loss subcultures that would later generate a new alternative, legitimate, dominant and normative Grief Community among the social elites and public opinion shapers, relating to both the political and cultural agendas. Out of this “bereavement family” sprouted new groups such as “The Beaufort family” and “Four Moth-

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ers.” Each one of these groups had a social leadership that served as a role model and was represented in the literature, film and cultural artifacts, public disclosure and moral standings. Across the board, from the margins to the center, “political grief” became a part of the Israeli bereavement culture. Accordingly, the more time that passes from the Yom Kippur War, the more difficult and perhaps impossible it becomes to agree on a consensual version of military remembrance and official commemoration. Different communities advocate different narratives and rituals, and there is no way to consolidate them (Lebel and Drory, 2009). except for the use of the symbolic capital that loss provides. Contrary to this phenomenon, new groups sought to adopt the hegemonic model and serve as an alternative to the bereavement communities, as a Grief Community is not only, as discussed, a cultural community, but rather a group which affects the shaping of security policy, the military doctrine, and political leaders’ freedom of action. This essay tracked the community which shifted from a position which rejected institutionalization: bereaved parents who promote dovish policy, prefer diplomacy over military action and in fact behave as is expected of elite communities in Western countries in the post-modern era; known in the context of security issues as the civil-military gap (Cohen, 2000). However, as I wrote about in great detail elsewhere, religious Zionism in the current millennium has grabbed the reigns of the “conservative camp” and bargained about cultural-strategical issues with the new community, which, since the Yom Kippur War, gradually became institutionalized. Thus, we now have yet another “nostalgic” Grief Community (Lebel, 2013), a community which, beyond its cultural effects, operated as an epistemic community that injected the political game in Israel with certain expectations that were promoted by institutionalized or semi-institutionalized political actors (Borch, 2005). I wish to further note that the families of soldiers who were killed in the Yom Kippur War, and those who later followed, did not seek to secularize military bereavement or to civilianize the society. Promoting liberal, dovish, and postmodern values became possible only because they reproduced the cultural militarism that provides the parent’s and soldiers with a unique moral status within the social discourse. While this is not a heroic, but rather a victimized Grief Community, it refers to what I coined “militarism-victimology”: a victim’s discourse that does not deconstruct social militaristic logos. The “others” whose loved ones were killed while not wearing uniform simply wanted to infiltrate the commemoration pantheon and national bereavement—and the speakers of the political Grief Community, who promoted the victimized bereavement discourse, at once highlighted the moral differences between the sons who fell in uniform and those who died as citizens, who were not “brave” and were killed in cafes in the cities (Lebel, 2013). This is also apparently the Yom Kippur War’s contribution, which can be seen

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FIVE Not Just Intermediaries The Mediatization of Security Affairs in Israel since 1973 Rafi Mann

In early 1974, as the Israeli society agonized over the Yom Kippur War, Daniel Bloch, a senior writer for Davar daily, called on his colleagues in the Israeli media 1 to conduct a painstaking self-examination (Israeli Press Council, 1974: 111): We must do Heshbon Nefesh [soul-searching] as to whether we had fulfilled our duty in the pre-war time. Did the press fulfill its responsibility in exposing problems, distortions, shortcomings, mishaps in the security domain, or we just shared the notion that within the security establishment and the army all was fine and well, unlike what’s happening in the civil sector? It seems that too often we stood in attention whenever the word ‘security’ was heard. The press has treated security as a ‘sacred cow’. . . . The principal responsibility of the press is to provide accurate information, to expose the truth, to alert and to criticize.

Bloch was not alone in admitting that the media’s mystification of the glorification of the IDF (Israel Defense Forces) and the limited and docile coverage of national security affairs prior to the Yom Kippur War had been erroneous and dangerous. The 1973 War is widely regarded as the threshold of a gradual and continuous process in which the media turned from a rather passive mediator into an active social agent in regard to security affairs (Peri, 1999: 362). The purpose of this essay, which is based on historical review of media’s texts as well as various relevant documents of the last four decades, 81

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is threefold: first, to identify and analyze the significant phases in this dynamic development; second, to place the conduct of the Israeli media in each phase in the context of social, political, economic, technological, and cultural developments in Israel and in the western world; third, to identify the long range implications of those developments on societymilitary relations in Israel. The development of the media as a social agent discussed in this paper is of relevance in three issues. First, the public discourse of security policies and security issues; second, the media coverage of the security establishment, i.e. the IDF, the Defense Ministry, the Israeli Security Agency (ISA or Shabak in Hebrew), the Mossad, the defense industries and the Israeli nuclear project; third, the public attitude toward the IDF as a central symbol of Israel sovereignty and the fulfillment of the Zionist’s dream and ideology. THE COPERNICAN REVOLUTION: THE AGE OF MEDIATIZATION Globally, the last decades have been characterized by a new understanding, by practitioners and researchers alike, of the central role of the media in all fields of life. Traditionally, the media’s social function was seen as an intermediating channel facilitating communication among political and economic elites, public institutions and citizens (Caspi and Limor, 1999: 1–16). Though a mediator is neither essentially passive nor a consequential player, such definition has underestimated the eminence of the media and its influence. In the last decades it has been recognized that the media have emerged as an independent institution with logic of its own, which other social institutions have to accommodate to. It has also been integrated into the very fabric of social and cultural life (Stig, 2008 (a): 105–134). The term “mediatization,” which encompasses this process, was first coined in 1968 by Jean Baudrillard (Merrin, 2006: 21). Its wide range of meaning for society was further developed by Kent Asp (Asp, 1986) and became widely used in later decades. In politics, one of the fields in which mediatization has been widely studied, it has often been described as a process in which political institutions are increasingly dependent on and shaped by mass media (Mazzoleni and Schulz, 1999: 247). The revelation of the media’s wide-ranging impact on politics was portrayed by Italian scholar Mazzoleni in 1995 as the “Copernican revolution of political communication.” According to his observation “yesterday everything circled around the parties; today everything circles around, and in the space of, media” (Mazzoleni, 1995: 308). Such characterizations, with different levels of impact, were adopted in other fields, from justice and law (Peleg and Bogoch, 2012), to tourism (Jansson, 2002), and religion (Stig, 2008 (b): 9–26), as part of the twenty-first century’s mediatized civilization.

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National security has not been excluded from the process of mediatization. For military and other security organizations the adaption to the growing media’s intervention has been much slower and problematic. National security affairs had been traditionally concealed under veils of secrecy (Lebel, 2005: 30). Many societies had developed mechanisms like censorship in order to control and curtail the flow of information about national security. The coverage of the Vietnam War, especially on American television, is considered the turning point in the process in which the government’s and military’s institutional control over the dissemination of information and views related to security, even at times of war, diminished, while the media power and influence grew. The “mediatization of war” has been extensively studied, much of it in the last decade in the context of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars (Horten, 2011; McQuail, 2006). In the second decade of the twenty-first century legacy media and new media deny governments and non-state actors any semblance of isolation from domestic, regional, and broader international scrutiny (Glenn, 2012: 30–31). In non-combat situations, the military engagement with the media is based on the recognition that the media is of strategic importance to the attainment of institutional goals of the military. Interactions with various audiences take place through and via the media in a manner that submits to, and is dependent on, the media and its logic (Maltby, 2012: 256, 265). MOBILIZED MEDIA: 1948–1973 The gradual emergence of the Israeli media as an active social agent since the Yom Kippur War should be studied on the background of the media’s rather passive conduct during the first twenty-five years of Israel. Bloch’s mae culpa, quoted above, was just one of many voices heard following the war, condemning the media for submitting itself to the military and not fulfilling its role whenever national security issues were discussed. Political scientist Shlomo Avinery found a sharp contradiction between the media’s professional paradigm in regard to civilian public affairs, which was “suitable for a democratic society” and the coverage of security affairs. In dealing with such issues, he claimed in 1974, the conduct of the Israeli press seemed more like the media under totalitarian regimes (Israeli Press Council, 1974: 113). Scholars widely agree over portrayal of the military affairs’ coverage as “mobilized” to the service of the state and the military (Caspi and Limor, 1999: 173). During the period between 1948 and 1973 most of the media’s coverage of the security establishment and the military affairs was mostly positive and supportive, and the tone of most newspapers sounded more like a cheerleading squad’s cheers rather than a watchdog’s barks.

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Four factors contributed to the performance of the media: first, the media conduct was well tuned with the Zeitgeist, termed “civilian militarism” by Kimmerling. In such environment military considerations, as well as matters defined as national security issues, almost always received higher priority than political, economic, and ideological problems (Kimmerling, 2001: 214–215). Most Jewish Israeli journalists shared the widespread sense of constant danger to the security and even to the existence of the state. The siege mentality and the trauma of the Holocaust have been important factors of the Israeli experience (Bar-Tal and Antebi, 1992). Such perceptions were not alleviated following the 1948 War of Independence. They placed the military as the sole defender of the newly formed state, a crucial and vital organization whose mission was considered almost sacred. According to Peri, the model that most aptly describes Israeli media-security relations in this period was that of a Hallin’s “total war culture,” in which the entire social system is mobilized (Peri, 1999: 325). This atmosphere was further cultivated by Israel’s first Prime Minster David Ben-Gurion. “The danger of war is still hanging over our heads,” he warned in 1950, as the Arabs and other world powers have not accepted the existence of an independent Hebrew nation (Ben-Gurion, 1951: 10). Such alarming strategic analysis had political advantages as well: an extended security threat justifies strengthening the government’s authority, calls for rallying around the leadership and helps to reduce a dissenting discourse. Second, since Israel’s infancy years the IDF’s status has been nourished not only as the state’s defense force, but also as the ultimate symbol of the renewed Jewish sovereignty. In the highly divided society it was portrayed as a unique non-political institution. As such it was used by the government as the principal tool in the process of nation building. It was designated to be the main furnace under the “melting pot,” aimed at creating a nation out of immigrants who arrived from more than one hundred different countries and cultures (Drory, 2000). Those ideas were shared by most of the journalists, who therefore were not inclined to be critical of an organization which played such a pivotal role in the fulfillment of the Zionist dream. Third, the British Mandate’s laws, most notably the 1945 Defense (Emergency) Regulations, which were adopted by the Israeli government in 1948, provided the government and the army with a wide range of powers to control the scope and content of the reports about security issues (Nossek and Limor, 2001; Hofnung, 1994). The Regulations allowed military censorship not only to prohibit publication of information on security issues and the public’s morale, but to impose penalties on those who disobeyed the censor’s decisions. These penalties included, in some cases, closing newspapers for a few days. The British heritage also entrusted in the hands of the government another significant tool to control the media and public opinion—full and direct control of the only

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electronic channel which existed at the time in Israel, the national radio, Kol Israel (“The Voice of Israel”). When a second radio station was launched in 1950 it was the military radio station Galey Tzahal (the IDF channel). Four, in addition to its considerable legal authorities, the government was able to develop cooperation mechanisms with the editors of Israel’s daily newspapers. The collaboration was mainly through the “Editors’ Committee,” and was used not only to brief the editors of the country’s dailies about various issues, but to suppress undesirable reports, first and foremost on security affairs and immigration of Jews to Israel from certain countries. Much of the information was given to the editors under an agreement that it would not be published. Prime Minster Ben-Gurion characterized the usage of this institutional off the record agreement with the committee as a trick, and in one case said: “I’ll take the thief and make him a guardman” of the secrets. Such “seduction by proximity” (Schudson, 2003: 142) worked, and even editors who had some reservations about the arrangement kept participating in such meetings. They preferred to be members of the elite’s inner circle of secret insiders rather than to be accused as damaging national security. Years later the committee was described by Negbi as “the big castrator of the press” in Israel, a definition which was no doubt accurate to the coverage of military affairs (Negbi, 1992: 123). The Editor’s Committee has been also a side to the “Censorship Agreement” with the Ministry of Defense. The agreement constituted a parallel track to the legal enforcement of censorship. This arrangement was described by Nossek and Limor as “a marriage of convenience” between the state and the media (Nussek and Limor, 2001: 1). Furthermore, the coverage was done almost exclusively by correspondents who were granted the IDF’s accreditation, which could be canceled at any time (Schiff, 1990: 12). News reports were based mainly on information provided by the IDF spokespersons or other senior officials. Practically, the media’s coverage of security affairs was subordinated to the military. All those factors contributed to the almost mystical image of the military. Under such circumstances and at a time when security affairs were sanctified, the Israeli media was not an independent social agent, which could compete with the government or the military in setting the national agenda on defense issues or the conduct of the army. While such overall portrayals of mobilized or muted media in regard to military and security affairs are accurate, the government was never able to suppress every single disapproving story from being published. Security issues were reported and discussed from a critical point of view, mainly when they were in the context of political disagreements within the cabinet or in the Knesset. One of the examples of such criticism was a column-poem by Nathan Alterman published in Davar in October 1953, following the killings of dozens of Palestinian civilians in the IDF’s “re-

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prisal operation” in the village of Qibya (Alterman, 1953). Due to military censorship constrains Alterman could not mention the village name and the exact nature of the operation, but the timing and content left no doubt as to the sharp condemnation of the killings. The continuous policy disagreements between Prime Minster David Ben-Gurion and Foreign Minister Moshe Sharet around the use of military force in reprisal operations were reported and discussed in the press at the time (Kuperman, 2001; Tal, 1996; Shlaim, 1983; Bar-Siman-Tov, 1988). Haaretz daily published in 1954 an editorial challenging this strategy by asking “who might dare say that aggressive reprisal operations have strengthened the security in the border area?” (Haaretz, July 4, 1954: 2). Haolam Haze weekly, as a studious critic of the government’s policies, detailed the damages of this policy in an article which headline was “Stupidity named Reprisal” (Haolam Haze, April 12, 1955: 5). Such articles, though, were exceptional. Most of the coverage of military issues was favorable, even idolizing. There were almost no deliberate attempts to challenge the security policy, to critically examine the conduct and management of the military, or to expose failures or misconduct of senior officials in the army or other branches of the security establishment. The mystification of the IDF did not diminish in the 1960s but rather was strengthened due to the Israeli military victory in the 1967 War, which elevated the status of the army and its commanders to unprecedented heights. As for the press, it lessened furthermore the appetite to scrutinize such successful army. It was best exemplified during the 1967 war when Maariv, then the highest circulation daily, headlined a story from the Old City of Jerusalem “The Messiah rides a tank racing to the Temple Mount” (Tzifrony, 1967). It also enhances the power of the military censorship, which kept crossing out reports about internal debates within the army or investigations about improper conduct of officers (Schiff, 1990: 14). LOSS OF TRUST: THE 1973 WAR The surprise Egyptian-Syrian attack on Israel in October 1973, and the loss of 2,693 Israeli soldiers (Haber and Schiff, 2003: 12), has been enshrined in Israel’s collective memory as an earthquake (Schiff, 1974) and a national trauma (Shemesh and Drory, 2008). It led to a severe crisis of confidence between the public and the political and military leadership (Ben-Porat et al, 1973: 68). After a quarter century in which the military had been glorified in the media and popular culture, the first days of the war were a shocking experience to soldiers and journalists alike. In the eyes of Nachman Shai, who was in 1973 as the military correspondent of the Israeli Television (and years later served as the IDF spokesperson and

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later a member of the Knesset), journalists were “furious” at the army. “We all had sang in the same choir from 1967 till 1973, but it never crossed our mind that the IDF will not be able to defeat the Egyptians and the Syrians in a very short time . . . the anger towards the political and military establishment has fueled the media ever since 1973.” The aftershock effects of the war have had various far-reaching effects on Israeli society, including the weakening of the status of the military elite and the strengthening of the media elite and the legal elite (Drory, 2008: 307). Some of the first manifestations of the change of media’s tone were apparent shortly after the war. One of them was the publication of the book The Mishap (“HaMechdal”), written by seven leading journalists who chronicled the failures of the politicians which led to the war (Ben-Porat et al, 1973). Some of us, they wrote, published texts that had contributed “to the complacency, the disdain of the enemy, the excessive self-confidence, the ignoring of the reality and all the other elements which joined together in what was called now The Mishap.” This experience led them to the recognition that they can no longer “hide the ugly truth” or “deprive soldiers and citizens their fundamental right—to know what happened” (Ben-Porat et al, 1973: 2). The self-examination continued within the Israeli Press Council, which in early 1974 conducted lengthy discussions on the relation with the military. Yediot Acharonot’s publisher Noach Mozes confirmed that the “press was a too comfortable partner of the establishment.” Haaretz publisher Gershom Schocken called for the abolition of the military censorship (Schocken, 1974). The council called on the Editors Committee and the Journalists Association to draft proposals for creating conditions which would “enable journalists to fulfill their duty to the public on subjects related to security” (Israeli Press Council, 1974: 108). THE GLOBALIZATION OF THE SECURITY DISCOURSE: THE GENERALS’ WARS There were few additional new factors which were introduced in 1973 to the media-military relations. One of them was the globalization of the Israeli security discourse, in order to bypass the military censorship and IDF’s regulations by senior generals. Shortly after the war, in November 1973, General Ariel Sharon, granted interviews to the New York Times and Los Angeles Times, criticizing the conduct of other generals in the IDF headquarters and in the Sinai front (Benziman, 1985: 170–171). His claims were soon answered by those officers and developed into exchange of accusations dubbed as “The Generals’ Wars.” The publications of such disagreements within the higher echelon of security organizations were traditionally forbidden by the Israeli censorship, but once they appeared abroad they were quoted by the Israeli press. The global outlet and off-

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shore information flow weakened the establishment’s control over the dissemination of news and views, and strengthened the media’s ability to set the agendas of the public discourse. The “Generals’ Wars” were not just personal or professional disagreements. They heated on the background of the political rift between Sharon, who had just launched his political career in the right-center Gachal party (later Likud) and most of the other commanders who were directly or indirectly linked to the Labor party. The public pointed verbal duels both reflected and accelerated the continuous process of the politicization of the security discourse. In pre-1973 there were cases in which security issues were at the heart of political confrontations, but Ben-Gurion and other leaders made strenuous efforts to preset the state’s security as a national, non-political issue. In the aftermath of the Yom Kippur War it became evident that war and peace decisions were made by politicians and couldn’t be separated from ideologies, power struggles, and other attributes of the political life. Such recognition started to crack the untouched consensual façade of the security establishment and opened the door for a much more active involvement of the media. Despite the calls for a new role for the media following the 1973 War, the terms of reference for most of the journalists were still within the realm of the “social responsibly” model of communication (Nerone, 2002: 183–193). This was expressed in the words of Maariv’s veteran columnist and editor Moshe Zack (Israeli Press Council, 1974: 111): The first role of the media is revealing the truth, but this is not its sole duty. Intentionally or unintentionally, the press has a role in educating of the people, in uniting and solidifying the society, and therefore the press has to restrain itself for the wellbeing of the society.

In this context, other journalists shared the government’s warning that the over emphasis on fault finding in the months following the war might have adverse impact on the public’s morale. Such calls reflected the fact that at least some senior journalists still were not ready for a new definition of the press’s role regarding security affairs. The Yom Kippur War was thus a turning point, but still just a first phase in the development of the media as a social agent, whose main purpose was to inform and conduct open discussions on the crucial matters of national security. PUBLIC “PRAYER” AGAINST A WAR: THE 1982 LEBANON WAR The press’s lessons from the Yom Kippur War were first apparent at the end of 1981, as military correspondents learned about defense minister Ariel Sharon’s plans for the Lebanon War. As Palestinian rocket attacks on Israeli civilian population along the country’s northern border intensified, it was clear that the launching of a military operation in Lebanon

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was just a matter of time. But Sharon’s strategic “grand plan” “Oranim” was not limited to hitting the PLO strongholds from south Lebanon. It called for a major military operation in order to reshape the political landscape of Lebanon. This was planned to be achieved by assisting the Lebanese Christians to take control of Beirut as Israeli land forces reached for the first time an Arab capital city (Schiff and Yaari, 1984: 37). Unlike previous events, in which military correspondents traditionally have mostly identified with the armed forces’ point of view, this time most of them adopted an opposite position altogether. While Sharon was trying to conceal his plans, the journalists attempted to warn the public that the imminent military operation was going to develop into a dangerous and ambitious war, with a large number of casualties. Getting through the veil of the military censorship, which as always prohibited any reports about future military operational plans, the press had to deliver the message about the looming war through hints and metaphors. As part of this effort the military correspondent of Yediot Acharonot Eytan Haber published in February 1982 a short poem titled “Prayer” where he allegedly prayed for blizzards, thunder, and heavy rains. In fact, the real reference was the possibility of war; Israel was going through severe winter at the time, and it was clear that war would not start until the rainy season ended (Haber, 1982). In Maariv, military affairs correspondent Yaakov Erez wrote a weekly column named “Legends for the natives” (AgadotLayelidim) in which he transformed some of the events to a remote island. The common readers couldn’t always decipher the codes, but it was a valuable message to the political and military elites. Though unsuccessful, those attempts to draw public attention to the coming war’s pitfalls have illuminated the new role of the media as active and relatively independent contributor within the national discourse on military and defense issues. In June 1982, as the war broke, attempts were made to silence the political and media opposition to the operation. “Quiet, gunfire,” was the headline of Yediot Acharonot columnist Amiram Nir, who called for a cessation of the public debate over the war (Nir, 1982). The call was answered by most politicians and by the press, but only for the first few days. Within a week the deliberations about the war’s aims and scope were renewed mostly in a critical tone. As the opposition in Israel to the prolonged presence of the IDF in Lebanon widened, there was another unprecedented act of the media: Israel’s state-run TV channel broadcasted in December 1982 a video showing reserve soldiers in Lebanon chanting a protest song against the war and Sharon. In a takeoff on a known nursery rhyme they sang: “Get here, airplane/ take us to Lebanon/ we’ll fight for Sharon / and return in a coffin” (Yavin, 2010: 283). This broadcast, as well as critical remarks aired even on IDF Radio, demonstrated the substantial change in the media discourse that took place following 1973. In the 1950s and 1960s such

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pictures or texts were not seen and heard, not only due to military censorship’s constrains. Most journalists could not imagine the possibility of criticizing the government or the army in the midst of a military operation. But the Yom Kippur War experience led many journalists to redefine their social role as critical observers and to expand it to security affairs as well. This was the case in regard to the Israeli television performance as the war in Lebanon lingered beyond a limited military operation when it became clear that Sharon’s controversial “Grand Plan” was executed. The Broadcasting Authority director general, who serves as the chief editor of TV and radio, was at that time the veteran journalist Yossef (Tommy) Lapid. He had been nominated in 1979 by Begin’s government based not only on his professional experience but on his right wing political positions. At first he fulfilled the task in line with the government’s expectations, clashing with senior TV journalists, who were too adversarial toward the government, but later, Lapid supported and backed editorial decisions made by senior news editors and correspondents. In September 1982, following the Sabra and Shatila massacre in Beirut, Lapid ordered the TV’s senior editors and correspondents to “hit hard” at the government for its conduct before and during the killing of hundreds of civilian Palestinians by the Christian phalanges (Yavin, 2010: 282). Besides 1973’s professional lessons for the media, a few other factors contributed to this unprecedented event in the annals of the Israeli media, in which senior journalists were trying to mobilize public opinion in order to hinder a war in advance and to amplify critical voices during the war. First, in 1982 the press acted on the background of tense, even hostile, relations between defense minister Sharon and most of the military correspondents (Schiff and Yaari, 1984: 35). Thus, being freed from the traditional mutual embrace with the higher echelons of security establishment, the military correspondents could fulfill their role in a much more independent manner than before. The adversarial relations with the planned war’s architect empowered the press and enabled it to become an active social agent rather than a mouthpiece of the security establishment. Second, the pre-war deliberations were held by journalists who were aware, following the Yom Kippur War, that not every war is unavoidable. The terms “no choice wars” and “wars of choice” were introduced into the security discourse, as well as the awareness that a decision to launch a major military operation is taken by politicians with various interests and goals which better be scrutinized before a war and not after. Such conduct of the media as a balancing force to the political and military establishments was needed in 1982 more than ever before. As Schiff and Yaari noted, the 1982 Begin’s government lacked the delicate checks and balances, which had characterized earlier governments. All the mem-

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bers of the political and military decision-making inner circle were hardliners, and there was no one to provide a different point of view into their discussions (Schiff and Yaari, 1984: 32). Schiff, who was at the time one of the most respected military affairs analysts and commentators in the Israeli media, wrote two years later: “To a large degree, the Israeli press was the main deterrent to the war left after Sharon was able to neutralize, one way or another, all the other deterrents” (Schiff and Yaari, 1984: 35). Third, the Lebanon War was never a “consensus war” but rather a controversial operation even before it started. One of the reasons was the fact that the war was the first to be fought following the 1977 political Upheaval (The “Mahapach”), in which the Labor party lost the leadership role it held since 1948 to the Likud. Traditionally, the hawkish Begin’s Herut and later Likud opposition parties almost automatically supported Mapay’s and Labor’s wars in 1956, 1967, and 1973. But in 1982 Labor was in the opposition, and many of party politicians and supporters disapproved Sharon’s “grand plan” in Lebanon and made their opinion public. In the midst of such heated political debate, and as many journalists sided with Labor, it was unrealistic to expect that the media would close ranks with the government. It both reflected the discontent with the war and strengthened it. Four, the lessons of the 1973 war were learned not only by journalists, but by military officials as well. Senior IDF officers, who disagreed with Sharon’s war plan, shared secret information with journalists. This was another crack in the traditional wall which was aimed to enable the security establishment to draw its plans as far as possible from civilian insight. In retrospect it was clear that the 1982 Lebanon War was a significant stage in the media’s maturation as a social agent. It followed those who opposed the war, civilians as well as officers and soldiers, and provided them with prime positive coverage. The media played a substantial role in subjecting war, which traditionally had been at the heart of the nation’s consensus, to critical examination. By doing so, it helped in releasing major national issues as security and the usage of military force from the realm of “sacred cows” to the proper field of rational public discussion. THE POWER OF THE OUTSIDERS: THE PRESS VERSUS THE ISA AND THE MOSSAD Few other events during the 1980s have further changed the balance of power between the military establishment and the media. They strengthened the professional ethos of journalists and enhanced the media status as an effective social agent.

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One of those events was the “Bus 300 Affair” named also the ISA (Israel Security Agency) Affair, in which Hadashot daily disclosed that a secret panel was investigating the killing of two Palestinian terrorists shortly after they were caught alive following the hijacking of line 300 bus. Hadashot was punished by the defense minister for ignoring the instructions of the censorship and was ordered to cease its publication for three days. Further investigations exposed that ISA workers who killed the Palestinians had lied to the investigation panel. Later it revealed that perjuries had been a deep-rooted tradition in the organizational culture, which allowed ISA workers to lie in courts whenever they were called to testify. The affair ended with the resignations of the ISA head and several senior officials. From the media’s point of view it served as a reminder that under the veil of secrecy illegal operations can be left unnoticed. Hadashot’s public image was damaged due to the supposedly “unpatriotic” disobedience of the censorship instructions. But later its role in exposing the affair was recognized by journalists and scholars as an important step in the strengthening of the press in the power struggle with the security establishment and in invigorating the role of media as social agent. Three year later, based on the lesson of the ISA Affair, the Tel Aviv weekly Hair appealed to the Supreme Court after the censorship banned the publication of an article about the Mossad, Israel’s external intelligence and special operations organization. The court’s precedential ruling sharply limited the authority of the military censor to ban publication of information. It ruled that just to cases in which there is “near certainty of substantial harm” of the security of the state (Schmidt, 2008: 438–439; Slater, 2012). The wording of the court’s ruling had a special significance: it emphasized that “security” was not an end by itself, but rather the means to achieve the aim—a democratic regime. According to the ruling “everything must be done, therefore, to minimize the possibility that security considerations will restrict freedom of expression, which is one of the principal values which security is supposed to protect” (High Court of Justice, Schnitzer vs. Chief Military Censor: 34). Thus the judges enshrined furthermore the importance of freedom of expression and limited the ability of the security establishment to hide under the cover of “security” to prevent the publication of any embarrassing or critical story. There is significance in the fact that both Hadashot and Hair were the newspapers which challenged the historic arrangements between the media and the security establishment. The editors of the two publications were not members of the Editor Committee, and therefore felt freer to act out of the old club’s traditions and customs. This was just a prelude to a new phase which would considerably change the rules of engagement between the media and the military: more and more new mass communication organizations, Israeli and foreign, old media and new media

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would soon be able to disseminate both news and views. In this new phase the Editors Committee would be left rather obsolete. The third event was the eruption of the first Intifada in December 1987. The Palestinian demonstrations and disturbances, which turned into bloody clashes between the Israeli military and Palestinians, introduced a new kind of warfare—asymmetric and prolonged. This was a new kind of conflict, unfamiliar both to the military and the media. The media’s role in the Intifada was much larger than in previous wars. From the Palestinian side, much of the struggle was aimed at the media, in order to present the world their narrative as people under occupation fighting with stones for its liberation against a well-equipped modern army. Since most of the clashes between the Israeli army and the Palestinians occurred mostly in the cities and villages of the West Bank and Gaza and not on a secluded traditional battlefield the media was able to report about the event. The IDF consistently tried to prevent the entry of reporters, photographers, and television crews to areas of conflict, but foreign TV networks had begun to provide Palestinian residents camcorders to record events. Within Israel the Intifada’s coverage reflected the deep disagreements about Israel’s policy regarding the territories occupied in 1967 and the desired solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Thus it was the second armed conflict in which there was no consensus on both its justification and the way it should be conducted. Furthermore, unlike previous wars, this time the Israeli media not only denounced decision makers, such as Dayan after the Yom Kippur War and Sharon on the First Lebanon War. It exposed and reproached officers and soldiers in cases of inhuman treatment of Palestinian civilians. According to Nachman Shai, unlike their coverage in previous wars, the Israeli press provided objective, balanced coverage of the Intifada (Shai, 1998: 7). The increasing commercialization and growing competition among news organizations in the 1980s affected the coverage as well, as exposures of security affairs became an integral part of the competition (Shai, 1998: 8). The 1980s were also the years in which the international media organizations, first and foremost CNN, almost obliterated the traditional dividing line between the Israeli and foreign media. In a process that would accelerate furthermore in the coming decades with the introduction of the Web, information could easily be both sent out to the world and received in Israel. The new global media environment, the state’s old barriers like censorship, lost effectivity.

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UNIFIED OFFICIAL VOICE: THE HOME-FRONT WAR, 1991 The Gulf War was fought in 1991 by an international coalition on the territories of Kuwait and Iraq, but its repercussions on Israel were farreaching. Iraqi president Saddam Hussein retaliated on the US led attack by launching long-range missiles on Israel. Dozens of Scud missiles hit the Tel Aviv and Haifa regions in the first war in Israel’s history which took place exclusively on the home front. Under such circumstances there was need for immediate and reliable information in order to prevent widespread panic and the spreading of rumors. This crucial role was fulfilled by radio and television who worked closely with the military. The two radio stations, the Voice of Israel and IDF Radio, united their programs during the war. IDF’s spokesperson Nachman Shai, as the official voice of the military, updated the public through radio and television whenever a missile hit a civilian area. He played a major role in calming down the public (“drink water” was a regular advice) and was nicknamed by the press “the national tranquilizer.” Professional advice was given by psychologists who were interviewed regularly in the media (Solomon, 1994: 220). There were some discussions in the media about the decision of many inhabitants of Tel Aviv to leave the city during the war to safer locations, among them Jerusalem and the southern sea resort Eilat. Others who could afford it found temporary refuge abroad. The public debate about this phenomenon was heated after the city mayor Shlomo Lahat denounced those people who left Tel Aviv as “deserters” (Snajder, 1995). Lahat, an ex-general and a veteran of Israel’s wars since 1948, was calling to emulate IDF’s traditional battlefield values which condemned soldiers who wish to leave a position even when the situation looks hopeless. But the public and the media were not convinced that these values were applicable to a civilian population in the age of individualism. Unlike the adversarial relations between the media and the security establishment during the 1982 Lebanon War, the Gulf War was characterized by cooperation. In the terms of Wolfsfeld’s “political Contest” model, the media functioned in this case mostly as “faithful servants,” by emphasizing official frames and ignoring or discrediting challengers (Wolfsfeld, 1997). There was also strong support in the media to the government’s decision not to retaliate by attacking Iraq. Shortly after the war the atmosphere changed, when Haaretz’s Zeev Schiff reported that hundreds of thousands of gas masks distributed by the IDF to the public were defective or outdated. Schiff acknowledged that he had been aware of the situation much earlier but had refrained from publicizing it in order not to create panic (Shai, 1998: 14). The decision to postpone the publication of this information indicates that strengthening of the media as a social agent does not necessarily mean a departure from the “social responsibility” media model at crisis time. Critics of this approach

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claimed that the unification of the electronic media prevented the development of debates on vital issues such as the wisdom of the decision of the security authorities to send the public to “sealed rooms” rather than to conventional shelters (Barzilai, 1991: 30). The most significant event in the 1990s was the signing of the Oslo Accords between Israel and the PLO in September 1993. The accords included a mutual recognition of Israel and the Palestinian Liberation Organization and the establishment of an interim self-governing Palestinian Authority on the West Bank and Gaza, accompanied by a commitment to reach an agreement within five years on the permanent status of the territories occupied by Israel in 1967. It seemed at first as the opening of a new era in the history of Israel, especially as it was followed a year later by the signing of the peace treaty with Jordan. During the first few weeks following the announcement of the agreements, most of the Israeli media adopted the government position and the tone of the reports was highly positive, even euphoric. The signings of the agreements were celebrated by the media as a major breakthrough on the road to a peaceful future, in which Israel might overcome its siege mentality (Wolfsfeld, 1997). The proponents of the Oslo Accords portrayed it as a dawn of a new era, in which the threats to the state’s security significantly diminished, enabling Israel to turn its budget and energy to social and economic issues. Such a normalization period did not materialize. The pictures in the media turned from ceremonies on the White House lawn to the horrible scenes of bloodshed. According to Wolfsfeld during the months of terrorist attacks, 59 percent of all news stories were negative toward the peace process, and only 16 percent were positive (Wolfsfeld, 1997). The coverage reflected the internal dispute which was greatly exacerbated in 1995 and led the political and ideological conflict to an unprecedented low— the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. REDEFINITION OF THE MILITARY COVERAGE—NEW SOURCES: CARMELLA MENASHE Alongside the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which intensified rather than cooled down following the Oslo Accords, Israel was involved in the 1990s in another front in south Lebanon. The IDF’s continuous presence there since 1982 became a subject to a heated public debate. In both fronts the army faced lengthy conflicts, with no sign of a decisive victory, and the fighting was going on without consensus in Israel. The debates regarding Israeli policies divided Israeli society, and eroded furthermore the separation between the political and the military spheres. The continuous public discourse about such disputed issues was accompanied in the 1990s with a redefinition of the scope of the military

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coverage areas, as well as the working methods of the military correspondents and their sources of information. The Israeli media has widened the issues that were covered to training and operational accidents, as well as abuse and improper treatment of soldiers and sexual harassment. Until that period, the military was able to shield most of such events from the public eye, while journalists rarely demanded to get information about them. The most significant contributor to those changes has been Carmela Menashe, who has served since 1988 as the military affair correspondent of Voice of Israel. Unlike most of her colleagues, most of the men with a military experience, she has exposed cases of mistreatment by officers, hazing by fellow recruits, humiliation, sexual abuse, medical negligence, and various other personal issues that have made life in the army insufferable for many soldiers (Cashman, 2010). Through the years she became the “unofficial ombudsman of the IDF” (Peri, 2007: 96), and even offered by defense minister Ehud Barak to take over that position officially, which she declined (Harel, 2013 (a): 202). While some officers and army veterans criticized Menashe for “dealing with nonsense,” the expansion of the coverage to such issues was significant. It was an important contribution to the process of narrowing the wide gap between the coverage of the military and that of civilian institutions like education or health systems. The change was apparent not only by the new issues covered, but also in the diversification of the information sources. While the traditional coverage was based almost exclusively on official military sources in various positions and ranks, Menashe has turned to unofficial sources as well. These included family members of soldiers, ex-servicepersons, and citizens’ NGOs which monitored military activities. Years of service in Lebanon, the West Bank, and Gaza created among many soldiers and their families a need and desire to express themselves and to try to bring changes through the media. By listening to them and using the information they were ready to provide, the voice of the military establishment was balanced, for the first time, by that of the ordinary soldiers-citizens. Those changes developed in the background of a much wider process that the Israeli society went through during those years. During the 1990s there was much discussion of the “Americanization of Israel”—the introduction of consumerist behavior and values, leisure activities, and entertainment patterns and lifestyles into Israeli culture (Azaryahu, 2000: 49). The country’s president at the time, Ezer Weitzman, decried in 1995 the “Americanization of Israel” and its obsession with “the three M’s”— McDonald’s, Madonna and Michael Jackson” (Morello, 1995). Another element of such a process was the turning away from the values of commitment to the state and society toward individualism. This was the atmosphere in which the media started to review the military not only from national and strategic perspectives, but no less

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from the point of view of the soldier as a human being and a citizen. The media exposed to the public the substantive transitions in the relations between families of fallen soldiers and the military establishment. Since 1948, as part of the “hegemonic bereavement model” the death of soldiers was portrayed as the highest symbol of devotion to the state and society. Under such legitimacy for their deaths, there was no room for public inquiries into the circumstances that led to the tragic outcome or to the examining of the security policy (Lebel, 2006). In the 1990s, parents of fallen soldiers demanded, in many cases through the media, full disclosure of internal investigations that the army had conducted into the death of their children. THE VIEWER AS A CONSUMER: FAREWELL TO THE TRIBAL CAMPFIRE The changes in the Israeli media landscape as well as in communication technology played a significant role in this process. In 1993 the state-run television monopoly ended, with the introduction of Channel 2, the first commercial channel. Its news company challenged Channel 1 news department into a competition on stories, including on security affairs. Although careful not to deviate from consensual positions in an effort to achieve high ratings, Channel 2 news adopted a much less official approach that Channel 1. With the new channel, alongside cable television, which had been introduced in 1990, Israel ceased to be a one-channel country and lost its unifying tribal campfire. Channel 2 rating-oriented spearheaded the Americanization and consumerism process, which according to Sznaider, at least within the secular Jewish population led to the strengthening of the “citizen shopper” over the “citizen warriors” (Sznaider, 2000). Since 1995 a similar process took place on the radio as well, with the introduction of commercial local radio stations, which brought to end the state duopoly of the Voice of Israel and Galey Tzahal. The diminishing control of the government of the public sphere, and the redirection of the media and the society from the state and the collective to the citizen and his or her individual needs was apparent in 1997 in a report by a government in committee for the expansion and reorganization of the television and radio broadcast system. The committee, headed by reserve General Yossi Peled, recommended an “open skies broadcasting policy,” since “In a heterogeneous, pluralistic and democratic society—the media should serve the consumer as an individual, by free choice.” This was a clear departure from the previous official position, which had seen the broadcasting system mainly as an educational unifying tool, whose main mission was to facilitate the process of “national

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and social integration, according to the metaphorical image of tribal campfire.” PENETRATING THE CAMP FENCES: THE CELL PHONE, THE FAMILY, AND THE MEDIA As for technology, similar to the developments in other countries, the cellular phones transformed substantially the nature of the communication between servicepersons and the civilian world, including the media (Geser, 2006). The widespread usage of cell phones by soldiers, and the transfer of information through those devices to the outside world, significantly cracked the wall which had been erected for centuries between the military and the public. The wall had enabled the army to supervise the flow of information from the military to the civilians, as well as to the media. Now the cell phones have granted civilians in general, and specifically journalists, unprecedented access occurrences behind the fences of military installations. The fact that ordinary soldiers and officers can, directly or indirectly, provide information to the media greatly reduced the journalists’ dependence on official military sources. In previous decades, the communication between a soldier and his family was done by sending letters or postcards, or rare conversations through public phones. Since the 1990s the cell phones have enabled soldiers to be in touch with their families and friends on a daily basis, or even a few times a day. Thus families at home have become updated about the wellbeing of the soldiers, and in many cases learned about the nature of his or her service conditions and even their operational missions. Complaints of soldiers regarding mistreatment or mishaps have been transferred by phone, almost immediately, to parents and through them to Carmella Menashe and other correspondents that followed her in reporting on such subjects. Describing the changes in attitudes and involvement in their children’s service, Menashe claimed that her parents’ generation “cherished security and consecrated the army and everything related to it”. But now parents “want to make sure their son is fine. . . . Once a soldier stands helpless against his commander’s abuse, he cannot handle it alone. . . . The parents help us to tear the veil of concealment of the army” (Rozner, 2011). Cell phones were utilized as well by correspondents to reach their sources, among them high level military officers, eliminating the involvement of third party like secretaries and assistants. In an effort to curtail the leakage of information by military officers, the IDF obtained in 1996 a court order which enabled the military police to get the list of cell phone calls made by Voice of Israel correspondents who covered the West Bank (Levin and Hanoch, 1996). A decade later, following the Second Lebanon

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War, an investigation by the IDF’s Information Security department disclosed that 460 officers, from the rank of major and higher, communicated with journalists by their cell phones during the fighting days (Harel, 2013: 446–447). Menashe later was involved in one of the significant civilian efforts to put pressure on the government in order to end Israel’s military presence in Lebanon. Together with Shelly Yechimovitz, then her colleague in Kol Israel (and later member of the Knesset and the Labor party leader), she provided wide and supportive coverage to the activities of “Four Mothers,” a women’s organization which demanded a full withdrawal from Lebanon (Lieberfeld, 2009). Another Kol Israel senior news editor, Chanan Nave, who also shared their support for the withdrawal, talked about it publically years later (Fendel, 2007): Three broadcasters—Carmela Menashe, Shelly Yechimovich and me— pushed in every way possible the withdrawal from Lebanon towards 2000. In our newsroom, three of the editors had sons in Lebanon, and we took it upon ourselves as a mission—possibly not stated—to get the IDF out of Lebanon. . . . I have no doubt that we promoted an agenda of withdrawal that was a matter of public dispute.

As the public and media pressure intensified, one of the main 1999 election’s promises of Ehud Barak was a withdrawal from Lebanon. In early 2000, while the IDF was still waiting to the fulfillment of Barak’s commitment, Carmella Menashe and Yediot Acharonot columnist Nachum Barnea talked to soldiers on their way to IDF’s posts in Lebanon. The soldiers emphasized the need to hasten the withdrawal in order to prevent more casualties in that pointless War of Attrition. In a rear reflection of an Israeli journalist’s dilemma regarding the publication of such word and exposing the way “social responsibility” should be implemented, Barnea later wrote (Barnea, 2000): They were talking. The things said were clear and painful: there is no benefit in our presence in Lebanon. We do not defend the country, only expose ourselves. Why there will be more deaths. You are journalists. Do something to get us out of there. Menashe recorded. I wrote. The question was whether to publish it, and if so, how. There were some good arguments against publication: the soldiers were captured during anxiety. In other circumstances they might speak differently; publishing it will harm other soldiers’ morale of and will contribute to the psychological warfare of the Hezbollah; it will affect the decision-making in the political system in a distorted way. Some good arguments backed the publication: the soldiers wanted their words to be published. They gave an authentic expression of prevalentviews in the combat units, perhaps even the consensus there; there was something new in their words and it was a matter of great public interest; a journalist is a messenger, not a proprietor: he is get-

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Rafi Mann ting the words of the interviewees as a deposit. He has no right to keep them to himself. If there was in Israel in 2000 an ethical code for the coverage of lost wars, no doubt it would have called for publication of such words. The days when the Israelis were considered to be old enough to be killed in battle, but not old enough to know the truth about this fight are over. It must be published. The question is how. The answer is difficult. It requires journalists to do something they hate to do: to restrain themselves. Not to exaggerate things beyond what they are. The soldiers said what they said, and after a few hours went on their way to Lebanon. They did not refuse the order, did not flee or avoided their mission. Not even in a word. And the main thing, with all the understanding of the soldiers’ arguments, perhaps agreement with them, with all sympathy for their frustrations, the emotional distress cannot be a decisive factor in the debate over the withdrawal from Lebanon. The fighters are not kids, and the media covering them cannot emulate the National Council for the Child. It’s true always, and even more in the growing debate on the date of withdrawal from Lebanon. Carmella Menashe broadcasted in this case the soldiers’ words as they sound. Well done.

Barnea’s text reflected the prevalent twofold approach of many Israeli journalists toward the military in the turn of the century. As detailed above, since 1973 journalists have widened and deepened the coverage of the military and security issues. But at the same time the concept of social responsibility regarding the army had not diminished. This was apparent during the 1990s, for example, when the army admitted that since the 1980s the motivation of veteran, secular middle class groups to serve in the military had plummeted, a decline that is deeply rooted in social and cultural changes in Israeli society (Levy, 2009: 155). The media was blamed, not without reason, for contributing to this “motivation crisis,” as the conduit of individualist sentiments and criticism of the military. Josef (Tommy) Lapid was referring to the media contribution in an editorial in Maariv (Lapid, 1996: 3): The status of the IDF was hurt by the damage to its image during the Intifada, the sense of security that Israel is not under existential threat and spreading of selfish hedonism, which sees nothing but the stock exchange. To this sense of alienation from the army . . . contributed as well the media, which fostered the arrogant candor of draft-dodgers who are not ashamed of it.

The editorial was published following a speech by the IDF chief-of-staff General Amnon Shachak, in which he lamented the deterioration of the status of the army in Israeli society. According to Shachak, “the polarization, hedonism, sectarianism, indifference, opportunism and manipulations steered themselves into the consensus” and found the IDF as their punching bag. Those remarks received wide coverage in the Israeli me-

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dia, and the leading dailies published the full text, as well as various reactions of politicians, reserve army officers, educators, and others. Yediot Acharonot’s headline of the speech was “The pain scream of the Chief-of-staff,” accompanied by a column titled “A Brave Speech” (Yediot Acharonot, 24 Hours section, October 29, 1996: 1). PATRIOTISM AND DISSENT: THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY Three major events, in which both the IDF and the media played major roles, shadowed the first decade of the new century: the Second Intifada (“El Aqsa Intifada”), the Second Lebanon War, and Israel’s withdrawal from the Gaza Strip. The media played an important role in all those events, as the process of mediatization of security affairs has immensely accelerated with the growing usage of new media. The Second Intifada, in which 1,084 Israelis were killed in 6,264 Palestinian terrorist attacks from 2000 till 2005, created a deep sense of insecurity on the home front. News organizations, especially the popular press, were empowering a sense of victimhood within the Jewish public in Israel and mostly adhered to a patriotic line, like tabloids in other countries (Godard et al., 2008). Most of the coverage reflected the ways journalists act in cases of exceptional terrorist attacks by abandoning their usual normative professional frame and assuming a national-patriotic coverage frame. According to Nossek, the media give the attacked country and society a message of solidarity, partnership, and stubborn endurance against the terrorist threat (Nossek, 2008). Based on a study of the headlines of the Israeli popular newspapers in October 2000, Dor concluded that the media discourse was affected by the surge of fear and anger as well as by the “massive propaganda campaign led by the government and the military establishment” (Dor, 2004: 4). On March 29, 2002, as Israeli forces were sent into the major Palestinian cities on the West Bank following a terrorist attack in Netanya in which 30 Israelis were killed and 160 wounded, Maariv’s headline was militant: “In strong hand and the outstretched arm” (Maariv, March 29, 2002: 1). A study of the news programs on the Voice of Israel and IDF Radio in April 2002 concluded that both stations emphasized unity, served as the tribal campfire function, and limited the scope of the public discourse (Livio, 2002: 19). As part of this atmosphere, almost all attacks against Palestinian strongholds, particularly the targeted killing of terrorists, had won great support of the majority of the Israeli media (Stahl, 2010). At least on one issue the media played a role in putting pressure on the government during the Second Intifada: columnists played an important role in the public campaign to start the erection of a wall mostly along the green line to foil the infiltration of Palestinian suicide bombers

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into Israel. While Sharon originally opposed such a wall, newspapers published polls which indicated that the large majority of Israelis favored its construction (Druker and Shelah, 2005: 260–261). The new media challenged the government and the army’s ability to control the flow of information as never before. The public became not only the edgy consumer of news in a time of a violent conflict but rather the producer and disseminator of information and misinformation. In one case, in April 2002, while the IDF units were in the midst of a fierce battle in the Palestinian refugee camp in Jenin, the “Scoops forum” of popular Rotter site and other sites were flooded by rumors. Among the unsubstantiated “Scoops” there were reports about the death of the IDF deputy chief-of-staff, the abduction of the bodies of fallen soldiers, the crashes of Air Force helicopters, and the death of the son of “a senior official” (Dror, 2002). The phenomenon of widespread rumors, during times of tension has been known for ages, but in the twenty-first century the web enables the rapid worldwide dissemination of unfounded claims. The army spokesperson had difficulties in coping with those rumors while the fighting in Jenin wasn’t over, and so did the military censorship. Some of those phenomena characterized the coverage of the Second Lebanon War in the summer of 2006, which lasted 34 days of fighting in Lebanon as well as continuous Hezbollah missiles and rockets on Israeli cities and villages, with the loss of 44 Israeli civilians and 119 IDF soldiers. The internet, cellular phones, and live Israeli television and radio broadcasts, as well as foreign stations, provided the Israeli public information around the clock. In an overview, the coverage was characterized by a twofold media performance. Strategic and tactical decisions about the use of force in Lebanon, disagreements with the IDF command, and failures and mistreatment of the Israeli civilian population in areas which were hit by rockets and missiles fired from Lebanon were subjects of open discourse and criticism in the media. But on the micro level, in stories about the fighting units and soldiers, the coverage was highly supportive and positive. The growing awareness of the media’s role in this war was reflected in the large number of studies conducted both in Israel and abroad about news organizations’ performance and influence during the fighting weeks. Their findings as to the overriding line of the Israeli media were not unanimous. A study by Keshev, based on about 9,000 news items published and broadcasted during the war, concluded that except for a few exceptional instances “all of Israel’s main media covered the war in an almost entirely mobilized manner” (Keshev, 2008: 4). This coverage was, at least partly, a result of a considerable effort by the IDF spokesperson “to aggrandize the power of the IDF in order to bolster the national resilience and improving the image of the IDF,” as the State Comptroller wrote after the war (The State Comptroller, 2007: 453). Such messages

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were easily accepted by journalists at the first stages of the war. Arrogant and bellicose headlines such as “To Crush Hezbollah,” “The goal: Nasrallah” reflected a lust for war instead of questioning and inquiring about the purpose of the war or more attention to the dangers from Hezbollah’s arsenal of rockets (Harel, 2013: 289). But in a study of the public opinion in Israel during the war, Yehuda Ben Meir claimed that the Israeli media coverage of this war was all pervasive and unprecedented in extent, with a special emphasize on the casualties, mostly among soldiers. “Especially when the number of casualties was high, at least by Israeli standards, coverage of the casualties overshadowed that of the actual events on the battlefield. The particular media coverage in Israel had a major effect on the development of public opinion surrounding the Second Lebanon War,” wrote Ben Meir (Ben Meir, 2007: 87). The overriding concern in Israeli society about military casualties was enhanced by the central place given in the media to the personal stories of fallen soldiers and the grief of their families. Israeli high level officers, who discussed that issue with a Rand researcher, noted that the “death of eight civilians in Haifa due to rocket attack had less impact on the media and population than the eight soldier deaths in fighting in southern Lebanon.” Due to that attitude, another officer claimed, the IDF’s main vulnerability in military operations is that casualties among soldiers are more significant than those among civilians (Glenn, 2012: 30–31). The public’s sentiment, judged by complaints to various news organizations, reflected the dissatisfaction of many citizens with the media performance. Television viewers claimed that the continuous live broadcasts from the Israeli-Lebanese border and from areas hit by Hezbollah’s rockets were “irresponsible” and caused damage to Israel’s security and to the public’s morale. In a survey conducted during the war 92 percent preferred that the media would take part in the nation’s war efforts and keep the public’s morale (according to a survey of the public’s views on the media coverage of the events in the north, July 2006). The public’s complaints led to the establishment of a special committee by Israel’s Press Council in order to draft an ethic code for wartime media coverage. In its report, the committee rejected calls to limit the press freedom during war. According to the committee members (Israel Press council, 2007: 10): The approach “Quiet, gunfire” and the demand for a mobilized media, which is closing its eyes to what is happening for patriotic reasons and avoids any criticism can no longer be accepted. . . . Mobilized media presents to the public a distorted reality, harms our democratic system. It also leaves the stage to the global media, which delivers the information that our media refrained from publishing, through a detached perspective. The media is required, even in an emergency period, to keep the basic concepts and principles of a free press, and subject to the

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The active role of the media as a social agent, which injects its own contributions to the public discourse, was clear as well by the frequent public opinion polls, which were conducted as the fighting was going on and their findings were published during the war. No previous war in Israel was accompanied by such extensive number of polls, which led to a situation in which more than by objective criteria, the course that the war took was determined to a large degree by the perceptions of the public (Ben-Meir, 2007: 87). The post-war discussion on the media’s influence on the decision makers during the fighting focused on Ari Shavit’s article “Olmert must go.” The article appeared on August 11, 2006, published on top of the front page of Haaretz. Shavit claimed that if Olmert agreed to end the war at that stage, by accepting a UN Security Council resolution, he should immediately resign. “One thing should be clear,” Shavit wrote, “If Olmert runs away now from the war he initiated, he will not be able to remain prime minister for even one more day. Chutzpah has its limits. You cannot lead an entire nation to war promising victory, produce humiliating defeat and remain in power” (Shavit, 2006: 1). The term “runs away” echoed the title and the content of an article which had been published a day earlier by Yediot Acharonot’s Nachum Barnea, calling on the prime minister to “back out” from Lebanon with no further delays. Barnea’s article was written after the writer had spent a few days with a reserve unit in Lebanon and realized that the fighting was leading nowhere. Other journalists had warned against withdrawal from Lebanon without striking a significant blow to Hezbollah (Ben-Ari, 2007), but Shavit’s text was the most pointed and personal. It was published on a crucial day, while Olmert was scrutinizing the two options: accepting the UN resolution and cease the fighting or order the IDF to launch a last land offensive in south Lebanon. There is no way to weigh precisely the effect of Shavit’s article on Olmert, but it is known that a day earlier the prime minister had sounded as opposing the IDF demand to strike a significant blow to Hezbollah before the war ended. And then, just a few hours after Shavit’s article was published, he gave the military the green light to carry out the controversial attack, which cost the lives of thirty-three soldiers. According to books written about the war, the prime minister’s political advisers and Olmert’s public opinion consultant were present at his office during that morning (Shelah and Limor, 2007: 348; Harel and Issacharoff, 2008: 405–407). Prior to the war, the IDF played a major role in the implementation of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s disengagement plan from the Gaza Strip and north of Samaria (Tenenboim-Weinblatt, 2008: 495–513). The with-

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drawal of the IDF units from those areas, and especially the evacuation of all the Jewish settlements were highly controversial. There was some criticism about the decision to use the army for evacuating civilians, but the media discourse was mostly focused on the government decisions, rather than the military role and conduct. In a wider look over the media performance regarding the withdrawal, it was noted that most of the major news organizations adopted a very positive attitude toward the move. Even more significant was the dramatic transformation of the media’s attitude toward Sharon, who almost overnight was turned from an unrestrained adventurous military man and a politician who was suspected of criminal offenses into a determined and responsible leader. A senior Israeli journalist, Amnon Abramovich, called on his colleagues to be lenient on Sharon regarding a major corruption scandal, so he would be able to implement the disengagement. Such posture inhabited the media from conducting a much more profound examination of the pros and cons of the unilateral withdrawal. A few months prior to the Gaza disengagement, Sharon nominated General Dan Halutz as the IDF’s chief of staff. Halutz was replacing General Moshe Yeelon, who had made known his reservations about the disengagement plan. Halutz’s support of the plan, coupled with being the first Air Force pilot to serve in that position, the media built around him a small scale cult of personality as far as “reminiscing the forgotten days prior to the Yom Kippur War” (Harel and Issacharoff, 2008: 126). The media’s duality has been expressed in a variety of issues, among them the subject of compulsory enlistment to the IDF. In 2001 Yediot Acharonot devoted a few pages in the Independence Day special supplement to interviews with young Israelis who chose not to serve. The subtitle to this magazine feature was (Hofstein, 2001): In the past those who did not serve in the army were ashamed to be seen on the street. Today the decision not to enlist has become almost a phenomenon. Three who areready to report to the recruiting office, and two who proudly refuse to do so to talk about a sense of suckers (‘Frayers’ in the Hebrew slang) in contrary to the sense of mission, the pressure from parents and friends, the issue of fallen soldiers, the demands of those who don’t serve to equal benefits, and the question what contributes more to the country—paying taxes from waiters’ jobs or running in uniform on the hills.

Similar to the subtitle, the article itself was written without any value judgment on the decision not to serve. Such a position was taken only in the box accompanying the article under the headline “shirkers will be hunted down,” in which a senior military officer declared that the army will take measures against draft dodgers. It would be a mistake to conclude that Israel’s popular media totally backed off from its traditional mobilized posture regarding the army and

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military service. In the twenty-first century Yediot Acharonot began to publicize annual reports, issued by the army, in which cities and high schools around the country were ranked according to the percentage of graduates who serve in the army. It also included the percentage of graduates who volunteered to special units and fighting corps. The published reports were not just reflecting the attitudes of young Israelis toward the military service, but honored those municipalities and schools which showed a high level of patriotism. In a similar journalistic practice, most secular Israeli newspapers often publish demographic information about the graduates of the pilot’s courses. This information is supplied by the air force as well as by schools around the country, competing on being recognized as schools with the highest number of graduate pilots. Criticizing the special tribute to pilots, columnist (later a member of Knesset and cabinet minister) Uri Orbach wrote (Orbach, 2002): All these figures are perhaps significant for those who believe that pilots’ course is the pinnacle of the achievements of Israeli society . . . with all due respect to pilot training, I am actually interested in other data: the demographics of those who graduated the last course of Magen David Adom’s [Israel’s medical emergency, blood and disaster services] volunteers or work in Israel’s charity organization, or where those who daily assist disabled children have grown.

However, such views are rarely published, while the tributes to the pilots’ course graduates, their families and teachers, have been prominently played twice a year. In 2010, following a violent confrontation at sea with the extremists Turks who were aboard the Gaza aid and protest “Mavi Marmara,” the dual pattern emerged again, mainly in the popular media. The headlines expressed criticism of the decision makers at the political level, and at the same time were glorifying the naval commandos. There was almost no criticism of the tactical preparation of the commandos’ action. As pilots, the naval commandos are among the Israeli military elite, and generally enjoy enthusiastic support as well and immunity from criticism. DEALING WITH THE NEW SOCIAL AGENT: THE SECURITY ESTABLISHMENT ADAPTATION The evolving status of the media as a social agent and its growing influence forced the army, as well as other security organizations, to adapt themselves to the new environment. Some of the changes were aimed at the foreign media, as part of Israel’s public diplomacy efforts to cope with the deterioration of the state’s image abroad (Medzini, 2012). This, for example, was in June 1988 the purpose of the production of a film titled The Camera Sees Everything, which was shown to Israeli soldiers

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who were sent to the West Bank and Gaza during the First Intifada. The film contained video clips which had been seen by television viewers around the world in the previous months: Israeli troops beating young Palestinian men and children, vandalizing Arab property and using captured Palestinians as shields to ward off stone-throwing demonstrators. “The viewer is not used to such things and such pictures,” the narrator of the film explained, “and is shocked by them and feels sympathy for the victim. . . . Don’t give the camera the opportunity to catch you in an extreme act. Brutality is illegal, and the military censor cannot delete such scenes” (New York Times, June 16, 1988). Minimizing the ability of foreign audiences to watch such scenes was the main goal of the film, but the army and the government were aware that the pictures had no less negative effects on the Israelis. The IDF realized that even at home measures were needed in order to maintain the public’s trust in its armed forces. Such trust has been crucial in order to maintain the motivation to serve in the army and to support the security policies in the territories and elsewhere. Public support was highly required as well as for securing the allocation of substantial fractions of the national budget to the military (Arian, 2002). The production and the usage of The Camera Sees Everything reflected the understanding that the media has become a strategic force internationally, and an influential factor at home. But it was a preventive move, which could be seen as an attempt to preserve the logic of censorship, in drawing a curtain between security events and the public. Over time it became clear that in the era of open communication this was not feasible neither effective, and there was a need to adopt more active strategies. As part of this adaptation, the IDF spokesperson unit established in the early 1990s a new branch for “Strategic Planning and Initiative.” Its main mission was to generate positive news items and magazine features about the military. This was a significant new approach for the army spokesperson office, whose traditional conduct has been rather passive in reporting about military activities and reacting to media’s inquiries. The head of the new branch, Lieutenant-Colonel Miri Regev (later the IDF spokesperson and Likud MK) provided the media with mainly positive “human stories” about servicepersons and projects. In the words of a senior newspaper executive (Elazar, 2004): She built the notion that the IDF spokesman role is to make sure that a paratrooper appears on the front page and not Aviv Geffen [a wellknown singer who had not served in the military] [. . .] She understood that the top goal of the IDF Spokesperson is to turn soldiers and officers into cultural hero.

Another pivotal element of the IDF’s public relations operation was the exposure of “special units,” mainly commandos and undercover forces. The army’s aim in presenting those units to the public was twofold: first,

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it was part of an attempt to counter the “motivation crisis.”—serving in a “Special unit” fitted well into the motives of young Israelis for self-fulfillment, uniqueness, and professionalism (Lebel, 2005: 25–26). Second, it was aimed at improving the IDF’s image following the First Intifada, in presenting the army as a dynamic organization, able to renew itself in changing conditions. Another stage was taken by the IDF in 2001, in an effort to provide both international and local audiences pro-Israeli footage. The army started conducting an “operational documentation course,” whose participants studied how to document on video events in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The purpose of such video documentation was “to reflect the reality in an objective manner” and to provide newsworthy visual content, which would serve the IDF spokesperson’s mission in presenting the Israeli position (IDF spokesperson, 2001). In 2006, as one of the lessons drawn from the Second Lebanon War, the IDF institutionalized its media relations training with the establishment of the Military School for Communications. Officers in various ranks have been taught there the media’s practices and the ways to convey massages to the public through traditional and new media. Among its activities, the school had published a pocket booklet with “instructions to the commander in the Media’s Arena” (IDF Spokesperson, press release, November 1, 2001). The booklet’s purpose is to assist officers in the sensitive interface with the media as part of their military mission. Its text illustrates how the military has absorbed the significance of the media and the complexities of military-media relations: Public opinion and the public’s trust are substantive factors in the modern battleground. The media, which are an undivided element of the operational arena, have become an influential factor of decisive importance. We are required to study the field of communication, to enable us to justify actions to the public.

The importance of the public’s trust and resilience of the civilian population have become even more crucial as the nature of the war has changed. Even since 1991, but significantly increasing following the missiles and rockets attacks on Israel from Lebanon in 2006, as well as from Gaza in 2004, 2006, 2008, 2009, and 2012, the focus turned from the borders of the country to its heartland. Through the media, the military has been trying to call the attention of the public to the foreseen nature of future conflicts, as “every citizen will have to understand that he will become a soldier in the campaign” (Harel, 2013 (b)). In a paper devoted to the challenges of such war, Avi Benayahu, who served as the IDF spokesperson, highlighted that the media’s reflection of home front’s bearings will have a crucial importance. “The camera and not any other factor” would be a substantial component that would restrain Israel’s ability to project it power, he asserted (Benayahu, 2011: 15).

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Understanding that communication is an integral part of the security arena, and that the old mechanisms of censorship were not sufficient in the new media environment, began to permeate to other security organizations as well. This was particularly evident for the ISA, the Israel Security Agency, whose covertness is enshrined in its motto “unseen shield.” In the mid-1990s an internal working document called for adoption of a communication strategy, including a continuous working relationship with Israeli and foreign media organizations (Shai, 2013). Such strategy was needed, among other reasons, due to the growing interest of the media in struggles between the ISA and other official organizations, including the army and the police, in case of failures—such as Rabin’s murder—or receiving credit for achievements in the war on terror. Most of the recommendations were accepted by the ISA heads, including the creation of a media department. But the new openness policy of the ISA was described in 2006 as limited, proactive, well planned but mostly distant from transparency (Binyaminy, 2006). Unlike the ISA, the Mossad is still lagging behind, partly because of the contrast between the super-secret culture of such intelligence and special clandestine organizations and the media limelight. In 2013, the Australian television channel ABC exposed the fact that the Mossad operative Ben Zygier was the mysterious “Mister X”, who had committed suicide in Israeli prison a year and a half earlier. According to press reports, Mossad director Tamir Pardo admitted to an inquiry panel of the Subcommittee for Intelligence of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee that the Mossad’s handling of the media was wrong. Panel members advised Pardo of the Mossad to seriously consider appointing a spokesperson for the organization (Ravid, 2013). CONCLUSION: THE NEW PARADIGM AND ITS CONSEQUENCES TO THE ISRAELI SOCIETY The essence of the process chronicled in the previous pages is the gradual decline of the special status which the security establishment had enjoyed since Israel’s independence. Previously, as part of its unique stature, the military has had not only unparalleled priority in the allocation of the nation’s physical resources like budget, land, and manpower (Schiff, 1999; Soffer and Minghi, 1986) but also the ability to control public discourse on security issues. This special status had not been based solely on organizational or operational considerations, but also reflected the central role of the IDF as a symbol of sovereignty and national unity. BenGurion’s nation-building strategies, as well the widespread sense of insecurity following years of persecution culminated by the Holocaust, had mystified the IDF as the savior, unifier, and educator of the nation.

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This was a process in which the media, alongside the legal system and the civil society through various NGOs acquired a voice on security issues and eroded the almost total autonomy that the army had enjoyed (Peri, 1999: 338–341). The result was a gradual and partial demystification of the IDF, as well as other national security organizations, and the civilianization, to some degree, of the security discourse. Cohen identified “Israel’s increasingly invasive media to subject IDF activities to detailed inspection” as undoubtedly the most blatant expression of the IDF’s shift “from a dominant to a subordinate status” (Cohen, 2006: 778). The demystification and civilianization of the army and security issues are not just unavoidable consequences of the age of mediatization in which all fields of life are exposed to the public’s eye more than ever before. From the point of view of a democratic society this should be regarded as a highly positive development: the national security is of utmost importance to the society, and could not be dealt as a sacred domain, hiding behind thick veils of secrecy. Public scrutiny by the media and other agents is crucial in order to ensure the proper functioning of security organizations. The proliferation of public discussions on the size of the defense budget or its composition can contribute to the national discourse on the proper distribution of the nation’s resources to various areas such as education, health services, infrastructure, and others. Similar to other issues, information about national security and defense policies, as well as a better knowledge of the linkage between political ideologies and power struggles to defense issues is highly needed for a citizen who wishes to serve as an educated voter at election time. The media’s portrayal of the IDF prior to the Yom Kippur War as a sacred omnipotent organization, free from all the flaws and weaknesses of civilian institutions, serves as a resounding lesson to the dangers of the mystification of security affairs. The national trauma of 1973 was coupled with a professional crisis among journalists, which turned to a slow but steady construction of a new paradigm of military coverage. Forty years after the Yom Kippur War the width and depth of the media’s discussion of various security affairs can be seen in news stories which scrutinize issues from the pension plans to servicepersons (Rolnik, 2013) to the effectiveness of the Iron Dome missile defense system and criticize the conduct of the security establishment on those matters (Pedahzur, 2013). In order to understand the logic behind such inquisitive reports, I would like to outline some of the components of the current professional paradigm of security affairs coverage, which has been developed in the last four decades. This was not taken from any single document, but compiled from elements which were put forward, explicitly or inexplicably, by different media people through the years since the Yom Kippur War.

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In accordance with the principle of “the public’s right to know” security related issues are not only legitimate coverage subjects, but due to the importance of national security affairs to the wellbeing and even to the existence of the State of Israel, the coverage should be done in inquisitive manner. The fact that the IDF is still considered by many as “the people’s army” and the personal links of journalists with people who serve in the IDF should not discourage the media from exposing the IDF’s failures or pitfalls. On the contrary, the fact that so many Israelis serve in the IDF justifies the exposure of any wrongdoing, mishap, or blunder in order to encourage the military command to ensure proper conduct in the future. The media coverage is not limited to operational issues but includes all fields of activities, including the service conditions of soldiers and their supplies, mistreatment of soldiers, sexual harassment, military courts, internal investigations, operational accidents, budgetary aspects, and more. The military command is responsible for the life and wellbeing of “our children,” the soldiers, who are entrusted by their parents to the hands of the army’s commanders. The media is not, in any way, subordinated to the military, and the relations of journalists with the army are similar to those which exist with other institutions. In the coverage of security issues journalists should implement the same practices used in any other field. Every effort should be made to substantiate reports on a variety of sources, as official sources are just one channel for obtaining information. The interdependence of journalists and their sources regarding security affairs is not different from any other field. As the IDF is a an important element in Israeli society the public is interested to be informed about the successes and the achievements of the military, and the media’s role is to report about such developments. The only unique element of military affairs coverage is the journalists agreement to submit their reports to pre-publication inspection by the military censorship. This is done in the spirit of the Supreme Court decision that limited the censor’s authority to ban publication of information only in cases in which there is “near certainty of substantial harm” of the security of the state. Any text which was not banned by the censor should clear the journalist and the publication from any accusation about causing damages to the state’s security. The coverage of security issues is done in the historical context of the continuous failure of the Israeli media to properly cover the military prior to the Yom Kippur War and the turning of a blind eye to the ISA and the Mossad until the 1980s. It should be noted, though, that with the diversity and volume of Israel’s media, not all the news organizations apply all of the elements of the unwritten paradigm. The elite newspaper Haartez is more likely to adhere to a spirit of inquisitive-critical coverage,

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while tabloids try to balance between popular-patriotic coverage and the exposure of wrongdoing in the military. On television the leading commercial Channel 2 has kept a less adversarial position to the IDF in comparison with Channel 10. Some veteran journalists don’t accept all the components of the paradigm. Ron Ben-Yishai, a military affairs correspondent and commentator, blamed the media for criticizing the army’s conduct in south Lebanon while the soldiers were still fighting there.” He also said that the cabinet ministers were “weak” during the Second Lebanon War, since “they conducted the war according to the media’s whims” (Verthaim, 2008). The new media environment challenges the security establishment more than ever before. One aspect of the media’s change has been the adoption of a “culture of critical discourse,” which stimulated the media to make more room for voices of dissent in society at the expense of official attitudes which dominated in the past (Peri, 1999: 335). Such reports might adversely affect the motivation of young Israelis to serve in fighting units or even discourage them from being part of any military service. It might have as well an adverse effect on the IDF image and the morale of servicepersons. It should be noted, though, that according to the annual democracy index the army has maintained all throughout the twenty-first century its place as the most trusted public institution in Israel (Herman et al, 2012). The media’s effects on security decision making and operational aspects are more considerable. This refers to both Israeli and global media, especially in the new media era, in which “national borders aren’t even speed bumps on the information superhighway” (May, 2011). Numerous studies conducted since the 1980s on the “CNN Effect” found, inter alia, that the media shortens decision-making response time, constitutes a threat to operational security, offers potential security-intelligence risks, and by providing an emotional, grisly coverage may undermine morale (Livingston, 1997: 2). In the case of Israel, reports and especially pictures can erode the international legitimacy for the use of force, and harm the country’s relations with foreign countries, including moderate Arab states (Benayahu, 2011). Just as the political landscape has been transformed due to mediatization, even to the degree, as Meyer and Hinchman claimed of “colonized politics” (Meyer and Hinchman, 2002), defense official and military officers have to adapt themselves to the new terrain, and familiarize themselves with the media logic. “The battlefield isn’t necessarily a field anymore,” said former US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen in 2010. “It’s in the minds of the people. It’s what they believe to be true that matters” (Mullen, March 3, 2010). In another remark, quoted by former IDF spokesperson Benayahu, Mullen observed half laughingly that while in the past military units would be assigned to a mission with an operations order accompanied by media appendix,

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now they are provided with a media order and operation appendix (Benayahu, 2011: 9). Can the strengthening of media reduce the government’s options to carry out military operations? As Mullen and other senior military officials have indicated, the task of decision makers and troops on the ground has become increasingly more complicated under such circumstances. One of the lessons learned from at least two wars, the 1982 first Lebanon War and the 2006 second Lebanon War, has been that the media and the public support of wars is limited in time: in the first few days most of the media adopts a patriotic-popular line, hailing the military operation and even demands the harshest possible actions against the enemy. But as the fighting lingers without an instant decisive blow to the enemy, and reports about Israeli casualties are published, the support dwindles. The IDF, as seen in the Gaza “Pillar of Cloud” operation in late 2012, is already concentrating on shortening the length of the fighting, mainly by usage of extreme firepower in the early stages on the attack (Benayahu, 2011: 16). While the inclusion of the media and public opinion factor in the overall considerations may limit the margin of freedom, but it does not rule out the possibility of carrying out military operations. As Le Balme indicated, the opinion-policy nexus is more interactive and reciprocal than unidirectional (La Balme, 2000: 276). The government and the military can and should play a major role in the information’s dissemination process in order to convey messages to the public. They have to realize that they have lost their almost monopoly on the public discourse on security affairs. Their messages which were previously, in the era of the mystified army, taken and published without any questions attached need now to compete with news and views which are provided by reporters and commentators, members of NGO organizations, activists, and citizens. As the IDF cannot expect anymore that the media would fulfill the cheerleading role, it has to adopt proactive strategies in order to enlist the public’s support. “It is no longer sufficient to remain passive in the face of news media scrutiny,” wrote Ricks in an internal US army document following the Gulf War, “the age of activist journalism places special demands on the time and resources of the commander” (Ricks, 1993: 33). Active and sophisticated involvement of the military in the media arena is highly needed, but requires coping with some complications. First, when military affairs are intervened with political issues, as is the case in regard to the IDF’s activities in the West Bank, a highly controversial issue. Serving as the defense minister during the First Intifada, Yitzchak Rabin limited the IDF’s chief-of-staff and other senior officers’ media appearances in order to prevent military officials from answering unavoidable political questions (Dromi, 2002: 47). A much more complicated situation could have risen in 2005 when the IDF was assigned by

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the Sharon government to carry out the evacuation of thousands of Israeli settlers from the Gaza Strip and northern Samaria as part of the Disengagement Plan. While many in the Israeli right criticized the mobilization of the army for what they saw as a civilian-political mission, the media’s wide support of the evacuation curtailed similar criticism. Second, even in a trans-national media environment there is in some cases an acute dissimilarity or even contrast between the national and the foreign-international media’s positions and demands. Such was the case during the Second Intifada, the confrontations with Hamas in Gaza and clashes in Lebanon: the Israeli popular media hailed almost any attacks on enemy strongholds, but most of the foreign media emphasized the suffering of innocent Palestinian civilians. While the Israeli media and public often demanded much stronger military measures, such onslaughts were denounced by foreign media as “unproportionate.” Third, these contradictions placed the IDF in a delicate position in the war for hearts and minds locally and globally. While Israel traditionally attempted to gain world sympathy as a David who was forced to fight Goliath, its massive firepower in the asymmetrical war with the Palestinians portrayed it as the giant Philistine warrior. The self-portrayal of Israelis as the victims in the Mideast conflict, which has been a central theme of the state’s Hasbara (Public Diplomacy) has been constantly challenged, mostly by the foreign media but also in some Israeli media outlets (Dromi, 2002: 52–53). It should be noted, though, that the process the Israeli media went through since 1973 hasn’t completely transformed its conduct on security affairs. The new paradigm outlined here does not apply to a major element in Israel security policy—the country’s nuclear program. Israel has adopted an “ambiguity policy” (amimut) in regard to its nuclear capacity, which has been widely reported by international media. If the army was “a sacred cow” until 1973, the nuclear project has been, in the words of Avner Cohen, “holiest of holies”—and still is (Cohen, 2010: 121). According to Cohen, “On this issue the Israeli media ignore their new image as democracy’s watchdog, and they have no interest in transparency and openness, the nuclear issue has remained the embodiment of kdushat habitachon (‘security holiness’)” (Cohen, 2010: 47). His explanation for this blatant deviation from the new paradigm is that the Israeli public sees the bomb as the only weapon to ensure that another Holocaust would not be possible (Cohen, 2010: 121). Even in other security issues, one can detect clear traces of the previous era. In the Israeli public discourse the army is still considered as the highest symbol of the nation. Military service is seen as the ultimate test of citizenry, as was clearly reflected in the political and legal efforts to force ultra-religious young Israelis to serve in the army (Lis, 2013). Israel’s tabloids traditionally provide their readers with a poster carrying the official photo of a new chief-of-staff, once a general is nominated to

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this post. Beside the chief-of-staff, only a new president and prime minister are entitled to such a gesture. Holiday supplements in the national newspapers always include articles about previous wars or personal stories of senior IDF officers. But since the Yom Kippur War many of those holiday stories are not devoted to a glorified heroism but rather to delayed exposures and investigative reports about mishaps and tragedies during military operations. The priming and volume of military related articles reflects the centrality of national security in Israeli society. The changing content and tone of the texts manifests the new professional paradigm and the current status of the media as an independent social agent. NOTES 1. In this paper the term media is used as a singular reference to the group of Israel’s mass-communication organizations. Despite the fact that media in Latin is the plural of medium, both The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (4th ed.) and Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary (11th ed.) inter alia recognize that “media” can be treated as either singular or plural.

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SIX The 1973 War and the Formation of Israeli POW Policy A Watershed Line? Alexander Bligh

Pictures of seized enemy soldiers are always featured in the news media. An enemy soldier taken prisoner, let alone dozens or hundreds of them, is universally seen as a humiliation of the party sending these troops to the battlefield. Whereas taking prisoners of war (POWs) indicates strength and deterrence, their release results from the asymmetry in diplomatic power between the winning and losing parties. Consequently, the issue of POWs raises at least two questions: What should be the criteria for taking POWs during military clashes as opposed to disarming them and sending them off, and what should be the mechanism employed and the prices paid to secure their release? These matters have major implications for national morale during and after conflict. Another closely related topic is the intelligence value of POWs and their degree of exposure once they are repatriated and can assist their army in damage control and the rebuilding of systems different from the ones they have compromised. All these considerations are further compounded by strong pressures from POWs’ families and, in democratic societies, from the news media as well. Thus, any study of POW-related issues is complicated and highly sensitive. Questions arising from any such study would include military tactics and strategy, ad hoc and long-range diplomatic considerations, a possible price scale for any exchange, and, above all, moral and humanitarian concerns. This intricacy has forestalled any academic study of the 121

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subject’s political dimension as opposed to the psychological effects of captivity. Therefore, the author aims to contribute to this field by analyzing one dimension of the issue, namely: the evolving Israeli policy regarding its own troops captured by the Egyptian and Syrian armies during the October 1973 War, including the long-range repercussions for Israeli policy. In retrospect, the 1973 Yom Kippur War has evolved into a series of watershed lines indicating a change in Israel’s strategic thinking. One major dimension of this change concerns securing the release of Israeli POWs. The 1973 War put the matter distinctly on the national agenda. A series of issues arose: not only ways to retrieve the POWs, but also the question if it was possible and desirable to do so at any cost. Domestic protagonists included the victims’ families, parts of the media, and civil society bodies. The topic also involved foreign policy, including relations with the US and with international organizations, led by the Red Cross. The POW issue in the 1973 context is significant in four intertwined ways: The immense shock caused by the surprise attack shattered the popular belief in the military establishment, and sparked popular participation in the POW exchange process that would become a lasting component of Israeli civil society. For the first time since 1948 Israel lost hundreds of POWs/MIAs, many of them on active reserve duty. That led to the current Israeli attitude that there is no significant difference between a soldier and a civilian and hence the price paid for both should be similar. Since Israel was caught unprepared, it had no clear policy on the ground rules for a relatively beneficial exchange. The Israeli confusion and panic combined with this lack of policy led to a “land for prisoners” exchange with the Syrians, creating a lasting precedent. The concern lest more soldiers be captured led Israel to abandon its old policy of not negotiating with hostage takers and instead moving militarily to free the prisoners. The war saw the demise of that policy, with a few exceptions (Entebbe rescue operation, 1976–successful; Nahshon Waxman, 1994–failure). Today, several years after the unsuccessful Second Lebanon War with its casus belli of the kidnapping of Israeli troops from its sovereign territory, it appears that at least for the time being Israel will not consider military operations to free its prisoners. That leaves only diplomacy, which does not distinguish between regular enemy armies and sub-national actors like Hezbollah, Hamas, the Palestinian Authority, al-Qaida, and others. Consequently, this chapter deals with these fundamental aspects of the issue: • The significance of the 1973 POW legacy compared to past wars and skirmishes.

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• What domestic and foreign policy processes before and after the 1973 War contributed to the issue’s newfound centrality. • Whether Israel’s general POW policy since the war represents a break with the past or rather the fruition of pre-1973 decisions and diplomatic moves. The chapter concludes by suggesting some lessons that should be drawn from the 1973 POW experience. The lack of that element in the Israeli decision-makers’ strategic thinking has led them into repeating certain POW-related policy mistakes. DEFINITIONS: THE INTERNATIONAL LEVEL In the past several decades prisoners of war have become more and more important during conflicts, both symmetrical and asymmetrical, for several reasons. Prisoner treatment and the exchange processes for situations of symmetrical warfare have been established either by the 1949 Geneva Convention or by the two recognized nation-states before, or just after the end of such a conflict. For the purpose of this chapter, the term “exchange process” includes the decision-making process from the instant a combatant is taken prisoner until the moment they or their remains are released. Typically, one result of any military confrontation is that each side takes POWs. Usually, each side both loses and takes some POWs. Later, conflicts are concluded by an international instrument that includes clauses on the exchange of POWs. However, with the exception of full and comprehensive treaties, which are rare at the conclusion of a conflict, no other form of agreement would exclude the possibility of further troops being taken prisoner. Consequently, any understanding short of full and genuine peace might be used as a precedent for future cases of POW exchange. Those precedents not only have humanitarian significance but may also establish part of a mutual recognition process. Even though the issue of status is central, no one has formulated a full, clear definition of the status of captured enemies whether through an armed conflict or terrorist attack. The only internationally recognized definition is found in the Geneva Convention, but the change in the nature of warfare in the early twentyfirst century may have rendered it null and void. Understanding the methodology and decision-making process surrounding prisoner exchange requires first addressing the issue of terminology. A prisoner of war can only be a combatant taken prisoner in a conflict between definitive nation-states or powers as according to the official version of “Treaties and states parties to such treaties,” Convention (III) relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War, Geneva, August 12, 1949:

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Alexander Bligh Art 4. A. Prisoners of war, in the sense of the present Convention, are persons belonging to one of the following categories, who have fallen into the power of the enemy: (1) Members of the armed forces of a Party to the conflict, as well as members of militias or volunteer corps forming part of such armed forces. (2) Members of other militias and members of other volunteer corps, including those of organized resistance movements, belonging to a Party to the conflict and operating in or outside their own territory, even if this territory is occupied, provided that such militias or volunteer corps, including such organized resistance movements, fulfill the following conditions: (a) that of being commanded by a person responsible for his subordinates; (b) that of having a fixed distinctive sign recognizable at a distance; (c) that of carrying arms openly; (d) that of conducting their operations in accordance with the laws and customs of war. (3) Members of regular armed forces who profess allegiance to a government or an authority not recognized by the Detaining Power. (4) Persons who accompany the armed forces without actually being members thereof, such as civilian members of military aircraft crews, war correspondents, supply contractors, members of labour units or of services responsible for the welfare of the armed forces, provided that they have received authorization, from the armed forces which they accompany, who shall provide them for that purpose with an identity card similar to the annexed model. (5) Members of crews, including masters, pilots and apprentices, of the merchant marine and the crews of civil aircraft of the Parties to the conflict, who do not benefit by more favourable treatment under any other provisions of international law. (6) Inhabitants of a non-occupied territory, who on the approach of the enemy spontaneously take up arms to resist the invading forces, without having had time to form themselves into regular armed units, provided they carry arms openly and respect the laws and customs of war. B. The following shall likewise be treated as prisoners of war under the present Convention: (1) Persons belonging, or having belonged, to the armed forces of the occupied country, if the occupying Power considers it necessary by reason of such allegiance to intern them, even though it has originally liberated them while hostilities were going on outside the territory it occupies, in particular where such persons have made an unsuccessful attempt to rejoin the armed forces to which they belong and which are engaged in combat, or where they fail to comply with a summons made to them with a view to internment. (2) The persons belonging to one of the categories enumerated in the present Article, who have been received by neutral or non-belligerent Powers on their territory and whom these Powers are required to intern under international law, without prejudice to any more favour-

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able treatment which these Powers may choose to give and with the exception of Articles 8, 10, 15, 30, fifth paragraph, 58-67, 92, 126 and, where diplomatic relations exist between the Parties to the conflict and the neutral or non-belligerent Power concerned, those Articles concerning the Protecting Power. Where such diplomatic relations exist, the Parties to a conflict on whom these persons depend shall be allowed to perform towards them the functions of a Protecting Power as provided in the present Convention, without prejudice to the functions which these Parties normally exercise in conformity with diplomatic and consular usage and treaties. C. This Article shall in no way affect the status of medical personnel and chaplains as provided for in Article 33 of the present Convention. Art 5. The present Convention shall apply to the persons referred to in Article 4 from the time they fall into the power of the enemy and until their final release and repatriation. Should any doubt arise as to whether persons, having committed a belligerent act and having fallen into the hands of the enemy, belong to any of the categories enumerated in Article 4, such persons shall enjoy the protection of the present Convention until such time as their status has been determined by a competent tribunal.

For much of history, when similar-status actors fought one another, the policy governing the exchange of POWs remained largely constant, with the norms agreed upon by warring states and formalized in treaties such as the Geneva Convention. However, the evolving nature of warfare today, where the lines between combatant and noncombatant, POW and criminal, and war and peace have blurred, has called the applicability of historical norms into question. Even the basic questions of who can be exchanged, when, and where they can be sent have become difficult to answer. That difficulty stems to some extent from the outcome of 1973. The taking of POWs during an active conflict is governed by the Third Geneva Convention. Four articles in particular relate to the exchange of prisoners. First, Article 122 asserts that a warring state must identify without delay all prisoners it holds. However, the next two articles add important caveats. Article 117 forbids repatriated prisoners from returning to active military service, and Article 119 allows for an exception to Article 118: [POWs] against whom criminal proceedings for an indictable offence are pending may be detained until the end of such proceedings, and, if necessary, until the completion of the punishment. The same shall apply to prisoners of war already convicted for an indictable offence.

These articles will prove important in this study’s analysis. On the whole, the Geneva Convention seems to view POWs as passive, neutral observers whom warring states are obliged to care for and cannot exploit for strategic gain, a view that conflicts directly with today’s perception of POWs as a potential source of intelligence and with the need of govern-

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ments—especially of small countries like Israel—to return ex-POWs to full military duty as soon as possible. Noteworthy, most Israeli captured pilots reported back to duty after their release. PLAYERS AND PRECEDENTS ON THE EVE OF OCTOBER 6, 1973: THE INTERNATIONAL AND REGIONAL LEVELS The Israeli ethos of bringing back all POWs prevailed for Israeli decision makers until 1973. But in needing the mediation efforts of the US, Israel subjected itself to the US norms in that context. In mediation efforts throughout the years, the US like other mediators tried to devise compromises among the protagonists while having its own set of convictions on POW questions. In 1973 the almost inevitable result was a compromise between the US, not the Israeli position, and the Arab positions. The US tradition of insisting on full implementation of the Geneva Convention was shaped by the Cold War and the interest of preventing minor Soviet violations from leading to superpower confrontation. More closely associated with the 1973 Israeli experience was probably the double need to follow Vietnam precedents and to establish that the US-Vietnam April 1973 peace agreement, including its POW clauses, was indeed a perfect instrument. The body of US precedents in the POW context was at best spotty. The Korean War provides the earliest cases. For example, secret telegrams between Joseph Stalin, Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai, and Kim Il-Sung reveal that China had wanted to hold 20 percent of all US POWs indefinitely. Perhaps an even more striking example concerns the 800 to 1,200 US POWs sent to the Soviet Union by China and North Korea. These were never repatriated and the US never pressed for their release, even though the Eisenhower administration was aware of their continued captivity (Liu, 1992: 49). Based on all official Israeli pronouncements, there is no reason to suspect that any of this has happened to any of the twelve Israeli MIAs from the 1973 War. Violations of the Geneva Convention on POWs continued during the Vietnam War. True, the official US line has always been that all 591 US POWs publicly declared by North Vietnam were repatriated in 1973. However, later evidence suggests that possibly hundreds of US POWs remained in captivity even after the US final withdrawal in 1975. Even more perplexing is the evidence that the US had reason to suspect the North Vietnamese POW list was incomplete. In 1992, an investigation by the Senate Select Committee on POW/MIA Affairs concluded that the Defense Department was aware that US POWs remained in captivity in Southeast Asia (Sammon, 1992; Liu, 1992: 48; Morris, 1993: 19; Walter, 1994: 50–55).

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The author is in no position to confirm the truth of the information on which this is based. Nevertheless, even if part of it is true, it was probably known to those dealing with the postwar Israel-Arab negotiations that encompassed the POW issue. If a nation could perhaps accept such reality, Israel, a much smaller, close-knit society, could not. Did the Vietnam legacy affect the POW negotiations in the Middle East? They may have, especially since in both cases the main US actor was Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. THE PROS AND CONS OF PRISONER DEALS: THE REGIONAL DIMENSION One major concern of democratic and nondemocratic societies alike is whether the decision process on whether or not to exchange prisoners is rational, with tactical or strategic goals in mind. A decision that is merely desirable may not be welcome to one or more parties involved. In any case, POWs are not neutral, passive observers on the sidelines. Decisions on retrieving POWs can either positively or negatively affect both sides of a conflict, and states must take contextual factors into account. The precedents set during the Korean and especially Vietnam wars have greatly complicated the issue, making it difficult for states to determine their own policies based on their own national interest. Anti-Israeli terrorism between the 1967 and 1973 wars blurred the lines between war and peace and combatant and noncombatant. Israeli decision makers were unsure how to apply even the most basic laws on POW exchanges to prisoners taken in fighting terrorism. That confusion enabled the Arab side to secure the release of non-soldiers in their deals with Israel. The Arab players had their own concerns. They feared that freed Israeli prisoners would not comply with Article 117 of the Geneva Convention, which forbids repatriated prisoners from returning to active military service. On the other hand, Israel had to take into account threats to repatriated Arab prisoners. Such detainees, whether full-fledged POWs or convicted terrorists, come from states with poor human rights records where they will likely face imprisonment, torture, or death. These considerations could also decrease Israel’s enemies’ desire to take back their POWs lest their torture be made public and harm their image. The attitude toward POWs upon their capture and especially after their release marks another asymmetry between Israel and its Arab enemies. Whereas Israel is concerned with its POWs from the moment of capture, the Arab side acts in line with foreign policy realism. That means the value of prisoners must be evaluated in light of strategic and tactical considerations. In a rational decision-making process, only when the greatest advantages and fewest possible disadvantages are attainable is a

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trade reasonable. Hence, the most valuable prisoners are not just those of highest rank, but those who are available at an opportune time. Moreover, the value assigned to certain individuals will vary between different organizations involved. For Israel, “[t]he principle of returning POWS, MIAs, kidnapped and fallen IDF personnel has been sacrosanct since the IDF’s inception in 1948” (Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 2004). Rationally speaking, there is no reason for a larger power to engage in prisoner exchange negotiations unless there is an at least equal proportion of exchange. The strikingly disproportionate values assigned by Israel and perhaps other Judeo-Christian nations to their soldier, allows enemies who do not share those values to make long-term gains. Ultimately, for the larger power, Israel in the 1973 case, prisoner exchanges harm deterrence, encourage future kidnappings, endanger the lives of those who may be taken hostage by a terrorist group, and encourage additional support, recruitment, and donations to enemy armies and organizations. Under a rational and correctly proportional decision-making process, the strategic value of taking prisoners would be nearly negligible. The political value associated with prisoners also affects their exchange value. During the modern age of media attention, Israeli soldiers appear to have a higher political value in general. The constraints placed on the nation-state regarding prisoner treatment, such as the Geneva Convention, cannot be applied to countries that are signatory to the Convention but ignore it when it suits their needs. Popular concern about captured soldiers is yet another factor leading to irrational policies. The influence and interaction of civil society organizations and the media further augments the political value placed on captured combatants or the remains of such combatants. An exchange can help political leaders regain popularity, especially with an election imminent as was partly the case in 1973 (even though Prime Minister Meir empathically denied it, as can be seen in her testimony before the Agranat Commission of Inquiry, on February 2, 1974). Why would any nation continue to secretly hold POWs after hostilities have ended, and why would any nation ignore the fact that some of its POWs have not been repatriated? The reasons are intelligence-related and politics-related. In the intelligence-related category, states decide to hold POWs illegally because so as to gain intelligence benefit from them. This includes not only information gained from interrogations, but, as is suspected in the case of the Korean War POWs sent to the Soviet Union, a state can use information about POWs’ lives as cover stories for its intelligence agents (Liu, 1992: 50). Similarly, a state may choose to ignore the fact that an adversary holds members of its military if acknowledging those POWs would jeopardize intelligence operations.

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In the politics-related category, states may illegally hold POWs to gain some political, diplomatic, and/or strategic advantage vis-à-vis their opponent. Variations include withholding the names of POWs and, after a long delay, asking for a political quid pro quo, and later delaying or altogether avoiding medical assistance to POWs. The aim is to extract diplomatic gains in postwar negotiations or, in the case of not releasing POWs at all, to deny the enemy high-ranking, well-trained officers or just inflict morale damage. Thus the Egyptians briefly delayed releasing the names of the Israeli 1973 POWs, and the Syrians took much longer to do so. That tactic has subsequently developed to the point that Israel is sometimes forced into a deal totally while ignorant about the returned POWs’ condition—dead or alive. This Syrian and Egyptian behavior in 1973 continued historical precedents of other countries that had learned the behavior from the Soviet Union. Likewise, states may decide against demanding that POWs be returned if they feel the political, diplomatic, and/or strategic cost is too high. In the case of the Korean War POWs, the US felt the political costs of a confrontation with China and the Soviet Union outweighed the chance that the Soviet Union would return the POWs (Liu, 1992: 50). Strategically the advantage remains with the power prepared to violate international instruments. Their policy of prisoner capture is not changed by their rational approach, only their prisoner exchange policy. In sum, to maximize advantage a nation-state must ignore the extra political pressure and the affinity felt for its combatants and strive for a rational approach that precludes emotional evaluation of a prisoner’s value. The sub-state actor should take advantage of the disproportionate exchange rate whenever possible. THE INTERSTATE CONFLICT AND THE DIPLOMATIC AND MILITARY LEGACY UNTIL 1973: THE REGIONAL FACTORS The 1973 War involved two asymmetrical players. Egypt, Syria, and other Arab actors sought to cause maximum damage to the Jewish state at any price, including disregard for international documents. That side was helped by the Soviet Union, which sought to bolster its regional position after its partial estrangement from Egypt and the expulsion of its military experts in the summer of 1972. Soviet support for the Arab side was complete and unconditional. On the other hand, Secretary Kissinger hoped to bring the Arab actors into the US sphere of influence and score a major diplomatic victory after the Vietnam fiasco. Moreover, the US administration, then at the crescendo of the Watergate scandal, saw the war as an opportunity to divert world attention to an international success.

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Kissinger was then perhaps the only one in the administration dealing with global strategy and acted accordingly. HOW ISRAEL’S PROBLEMATIC LEGACY OF THE WAR OF ATTRITION CONTRIBUTED TO ITS WEAK POSITION ON OCTOBER 6, 1973 Israel was not only on the losing side, militarily and diplomatically, from day one of the 1973 conflict. It also had to grapple with its problematic legacy of POW policy from the War of Attrition. Israel suffered a relatively large number of casualties and prisoners in that conflict, leaving it too weak and exhausted to retaliate for Egypt’s violation of the August 8, 1970, ceasefire. Israel wanted to bring the boys back at any price. The media and some opinion shapers added to the emerging picture of an unnecessary war. Thus in the three to four years after the 1967 War of survival, Israel’s resilience eroded. On the Arab side, it became clear that POWs were Israel’s Achilles’ heel and could be used as pawns. Those years also saw terrorist attacks fully supported by the Arab countries. The distinctly different, regular, and irregular military activities were united on one point: securing a Geneva-based POW status for the terrorists. Israel, for its part, demonstrated full adherence to the Geneva Convention whereas Arab violations continued unpunished by the international community. At the end of June 1967, Israel entered a period of euphoria. All went according to plan, including POW exchange. Israel even managed to retrieve its agents captured in Egypt in the early 1950s. All who were captured in the armed conflict were returned, without distinction between officers and soldiers, people in sensitive positions and regular troops. The Arab armies’ defeat led to a relatively short negotiation process involving 15 Israeli POWs and 6700 Egyptian, Syrian, Jordanian, and other Arab uniformed personnel and citizens. The last POWs were returned in January 1968 (IDF official website: POWs exchange, 1948–1998). Prime Minister Levi Eshkol died in February 1969 and was replaced in March, and in October Golda Meir was elected to form a new coalition government. Meanwhile, in March that year Egypt and later Jordan launched the War of Attrition. It came to an end with a US ill-brokered deal that Egypt violated one day after it came into effect on August 9, 1970. In the late 1960s terror attacks on Israel also intensified. The number of Israeli POWs in the 1973 War was unprecedented since the 1948–1949 War of Independence. In the 1973 War Israel lost 242 POWs to Egypt, 68 to Syria, and 4 to Lebanon. About 90 POWs were killed during captivity by the Egyptians and Syrians (IDF official website: POWs exchange, 1948–1998).

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From the attrition period to the 1973 War, all POW-related decisions were made by PM Meir, with the participation of Defense Minister Moshe Dayan and an important minister without portfolio, Yisrael Galili. Meir’s twofold position was that all information available to the capturing party would be shared with its enemy, and that the previous guidelines for POW exchange would remain in force. The former was not usually followed by the Arab side, whether Egyptian or Syrian (Cf. ISA/ HZ3902/4/317, from: Jerusalem, to: Israeli intelligence, November 3, 1969; from: Jerusalem, to: Geneva, November 3, 1969). The latter was eventually abandoned by Meir. According to those guidelines, each side would return all POWs that it held, and no party would distinguish between POWs according to military profession, significance to any of the players, or any other consideration (Cf. for example: ISA/HZ3902/4/317, from: Jerusalem, to: Geneva, October 31, 1969). The clear-cut Israeli position of POWs for POWs was complicated by a Red Cross suggestion that Syria be involved in a deal as well (ISA/ HZ3902/4/317, from: Geneva, to: Jerusalem, November 5, 1969). This came in response to Arab leadership considerations of Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser (Cf. the language in US ambassador telegram 4196 to State on November 6, 1969: “. . . new Egyptian proposal approved at quote highest level. . . .” USNA/YR POL27-7 ARAB-ISR). Egypt’s public diplomacy during the summer and autumn of 1969 revealed a wide range of considerations. In the context of the War of Attrition, Israel had captured Syrian POWs; in August 1969, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine had hijacked a TWA plane and two of its passengers, Israeli citizens, were still in a Syrian prison. Thus Egypt suggested a “package deal” where all parties would exchange all of their “prisoners.” The benefits for Egypt were clear: it would again prove that it spoke for all Arab players and that Nasser was indeed the “leader of the Arab world.” For Israel, such a deal posed a negative precedent of blurring the lines between legitimate POWs and hostages taken by sub-national actors. The Israeli position, however, was not set in stone. Israel was willing to countenance any Arab move as long as all or some of the persons in question were returned to Israel (ISA/HZ3902/4/317, from: Jerusalem, November 24, 1969; Director-General’s recommendations to the Minister [November 25, 1969]; from: Jerusalem to: Geneva, November 28, 1969). The only exception was that releasing Israeli pilots was made a precondition for any deal. The upshot was that Israel could be satisfied with the return of the military personnel without the TWA hostages or any other unspecified contingent of the claimed Israelis either from Egypt or from Syria. Thus Israel accepted de facto the implicit Arab position that any Israeli concession was only a prelude to further concessions. Another concession in the context of the late-1969 deal concerned Israel’s agreement to negotiate with two Arab countries acting as one. That directly contradicted Israel’s

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paradigm of attempting to separate its enemies and bargaining with each separately on whatever subject. With the exchange on December 6, it emerged that all of Israel’s complaints about the physical treatment of its pilots in Egypt, involving repeated violations of the Geneva Convention, were confirmed (ISA/ HZ3902/4/317, from: General Eyal, chief manpower officer, IDF, to: the Director-General of the Foreign Ministry, December 14, 1969). However, for lack of clear evidence and not wanting to cause the POWS further harm, Israel had avoided any countermeasures as long Egypt held the pilots. This deal was perhaps the initial precedent for the aftermath of the 1973 War and years later for other deals. All in all, in December 1969 Israel returned seventy-one Egyptian and Syrian military personnel and got back two pilots from Egypt and the two civilian hostages from Syria. With the ongoing War of Attrition on the Egyptian and Syrian fronts and repeated Palestinian terrorist attacks, the POW issue remained very much on the agenda (ISA/HZ33/7). In January 1970, a night watchman was kidnapped from his post in northern Israel; later that year several pilots had to abandon their planes over hostile territory and were taken prisoner by the Egyptian army, while others continued to be held by Syria. With the conclusion of the War of Attrition, Egypt held twelve Israelis including seven pilots, and Syria held three pilots. Israel held seventy-one Egyptian POWs and forty Syrians POWs. However, all efforts to work out a release of all POWs with no prior conditions failed. The International Red Cross Committee, trusted by all, could only secure regular visits of the Arab POWs held by Israel with no parallel luck on the Arab side. In the early 1970s, terrorist organizations launched repeated attacks within and outside Israel for various political purposes, including the capture of hostages for use in future negotiations. Two major incidents took place in May 1972, both at Israel’s national airport near Tel Aviv: a Sabena (Belgian) plane hijacking and forced landing in Israel, and a massacre at that location. The Sabena hijackers were unsuccessful in taking hostages. The Red Cross, much to Israel’s chagrin, called them “commandos” and criticized the Israeli rescue mission, claiming it had been executed despite Israel’s request that the ICRC conduct negotiations with the hijackers (Eban, 1972). The Israeli cabinet’s legal adviser suggested the episode had further contributed to blurring the lines between legitimate POWs and terrorists (Shamgar, 1972). The feeling of frustration with the ICRC, which Israel saw as using delaying tactics regarding Israel’s POWs to retaliate for the Sabena affair, combined with Damascus’s refusal even to allow doctors’ visits, caused Israel to act (ISA/5241/1-HZ, from: Geneva to: Jerusalem, May 16, 1972; ISA/7240/2-A, the interoffice committee regarding the Israeli POWs, file 1, 11.1971-9.1972, minutes of discussion 4; June 8, 1972, from: the military

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secretary to the minister of defense to: the government legal adviser, June 8, 1972). Israel viewed the Syrian prison conditions as harsher than Egypt’s. Syria had held three pilots since 1970 with no medical visits from the outside world and almost no prison-yard walks. In June 1972, an Israeli commando raid in Lebanon seized five senior Syrian officers and brought them to Israel. Israel now held forty-four Syrian POWs including the officers while Syria held the three pilots. Israel’s decision makers wanted the successful operation to be a springboard for a package deal involving Egypt, sparking intensive diplomatic activity. The partial documents available suggest that Syria quickly agreed to a prisoner swap. Israel, surprised by this response, went one step too far by openly, though cautiously, proposing the general Israel-Syrian-Egyptian deal, which did not materialize. Even though the actual exchange took place only on June 3, 1973, it stands to reason that it was the direct result of the negotiations following the Israeli kidnapping of the officers. This episode established several precedents that might have been useful in the future had it not been for the fact that the post-1973 decisions were made by a failing leadership suffering from the October 1973 trauma. Perhaps the most revealing lesson was that the Syrians did not care about any POW who was not a close associate of the regime. The five senior officers were not just high up in the military hierarchy but had probably reached their position because of some special allegiance to the regime. There are no indications in the contemporary documentation that the Syrian authorities cared about the non-senior officers and whether they stayed in an Israeli POW camp for longer or shorter periods. Yet that lesson was not applied to the 1973 context. Two more lessons pertain to the international arena and the functioning of international organizations. All indications available today are that the ICRC tried to be fair to all. Even its avoidance of assertively pursuing the denied rights of the Israeli POWs in Egypt and Syria can be understood in light of its concern lest the Arab actors would not accept it as an “honest broker.” That does not mean Israel had to satisfy the organization at all costs. Indeed, Israel created a clear asymmetry between the conditions of the Arab POWs it held and those of the Israeli POWs. Israel allowed visits by the ICRC a short time after taking prisoners, provided regular medical care, and enabled postcard communications between POWs and their families. That policy was in line with the Geneva Convention but made it impossible for Israel to insist on reciprocity with the Arab players. Unlike the ICRC, the UN played a negative role that harmed not only Israeli but also Syrian interests. Security Council Resolutions 316 of June 26, 1972 and 317 of July 21, 1972, gave Egypt the alibi it sought not to join the emerging deal and deterred Syria from concluding a speedy deal lest

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the Soviets and Egyptians blame it for preferring its own interests to “world peace” (according to ISA/7240/2-A. That was the impression of the ICRC representative to Cairo, from: Director-General, Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs to the Minister, July 5, 1972). The vote at the council (thirteen for condemning Israel, the US and Panama abstaining) was not only a setback for the exchange efforts but also an indication of the international community’s distinction between POWs taken in battle and officers on operational missions kidnapped from the sovereign territory of a warring nation. Israel and the ICRC did not see that distinction; four Israeli POWS then in Egypt had been abducted from the Israeli side of the Suez Canal. Apparently the international community saw the difference as long as Israel was on the kidnapping side (UKNA/FO17/1756, from: Tel Aviv, to: London, July 3, 1972). One last lesson in the context of Resolutions 316 and 317 concerns the negative role of the UN and its subsidiaries, including the Security Council. The resolutions were so one-sided toward Israel that they also harmed the interests of the Soviet Union’s closest regional ally, Syria. Because of Resolution 316, the indirect contacts with Israel were slowed to the point of insignificance. That not only harmed the officers’ families, part of the regime’s supporting infrastructure, but also gave Israel the time to extract the rich intelligence available to these senior figures. Actually, the most significant player to realize the mistake were the Soviets themselves, and after the 1973 War they ignored the Security Council as a forum for POW issues and partly accepted Kissinger’s suggestions through bilateral negotiations. THE IMMEDIATE AFTERMATH OF THE OCTOBER 6 ATTACK For reasons much discussed in the literature on the 1973 War, Israel’s euphoric atmosphere in the wake of 1967 War continued up to the minute that hostilities broke out on October 6, 1973. That attitude of the decision makers was also reflected in the POW issue. Israel did have some POWs in Egypt since the War of Attrition; the three in Syria had been released as a result of the officers’ kidnapping, and the issue became more and more humanitarian per se. By October the Egyptians already had all the intelligence they could extract from the POWs, and no Israeli quid pro quo could convince them to exchange the prisoners. Israel continued to make efforts but in vain. With the outbreak of hostilities on October 6 heavy military censorship was imposed on all news regarding the Israeli POWs probably fearing more backlash with the publication of the unprecedented number of Israeli POWs since 1948/9. All newspapers only repeated the official versions (Meir, 1974: 65). Thus Meir and her government continued a traditional Israeli line of ignoring the participation of civil society organiza-

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tions and the public in general in the discourse on the POW issue. In retrospect, the Meir government’s elaborate policy of withholding information from the public eventually backfired, which may have been one of its reasons for abandoning the POWs-for-POWs principle and instead exchanging POWs for POWs and land. That mistaken policy coupled with the strong rumors of a major Israeli defeat, heavy casualties, and a lack of supplies gave credence to Arab claims that they held a large number of POWs. Indeed, Israel had not seen such a large number of pilots, officers, and field personnel taken prisoner at any point in its history, and the country entered a stage of shock. Several elite intelligence units had been captured by the Syrians, leading to permanent, severe damage to Israel’s intelligence capabilities. Leading pilots, some with knowledge beyond their formal responsibilities, were also captured. 22 DAYS IN OCTOBER: THE SHOCK, AND THE FORMATION AND IMPLEMENTATION OF POLICY The October 6 attack marked a culmination of several processes: the accumulated dissatisfaction with the handling of the attrition period; the public feeling in retrospect that, in overlooking Egypt’s violation of the ceasefire agreement that had ended the War of Attrition, Israel had made a crucial mistake; and finally, the lack of preparations for the imminent war. All that rendered the Israeli cabinet inept and incapable of making the right strategic decisions. Consequently, the cabinet shaped its POW policy in line with Kissinger’s interests, giving in to Arab demands that had never been raised before but would become standard in future POW deals. Right from the first public indication that any of the warring parties held POWs, the war of concepts started on an asymmetrical footing. Israel believed that by strict adherence to the Geneva Convention it would gain world sympathy, leading to an early exchange. Four days into the fighting, the semiofficial Israeli daily Davar published a short piece on the hospitalization of apparently Egyptian and Syrian officers in an Israeli (civilian) hospital, giving the signal for continued reports along these lines until the Israeli POWs were returned (Davar, October 10, 26, 1973). However, that move, along with others to follow, including a daily report to the ICRC on the numbers, names, and conditions of the Arab POWs, was mistaken (Eban, 1973). Israel boasted of being a Western country that gave the best possible treatment to POWS. That concept is totally alien to the Arab decision makers. For them, until the very moment of exchange, all POWs are pawns on a foreign policy chessboard. Even releasing their names and allowing medical care is a political accessory for extracting more concessions from the other side.

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Indeed, the Arab players missed no opportunity to parade Israel’s POWs during the initial stages of the fighting while managing to keep Israel in the dark. No information was provided on the numbers and identities of the captured troops (DC/US/Jerusalem cable 1169 to: State, Washington, October 19, 1973). Israel learned of its POWs’ identities only close to the actual exchange, and the negotiations were prolonged by bargaining over the price of the names and medical visits. Throughout the dealings Israel committed yet another mistake by blocking detailed information available through public channels to its own citizens, ostensibly to prevent any possible blow to morale yet giving rise to rumors of all kinds (Davar, October 8, 1973; Maariv, October 24, 1973). At that point Israel had a strong interest in an early exchange: it would minimize the damage to Israel’s image and its already shattered deterrence if any was left. Moreover, the sooner the captured troops returned, the less intelligence damage would occur. Yet there is no record of any cabinet discussion on guidelines for the POW policy in the coming days and weeks. Amid the decision-makers’ disarray, the POW issue was no exception. The first indication of any component of policy appears in an October 12 telephone conversation between Meir and the ambassador to Washington, Simcha Dinitz. The ambassador asks for instructions regarding a possible ceasefire and, within that context, whether Israel insists on a general POW exchange, including the attrition POWs. The PM’s response includes these words: “the most important [element] for us is to get our boys out of captivity” (Meir and Rabin, 1973). Later in the conversation she details several scenarios for a ceasefire and basically agrees to any route to one, so long as there is a general POW exchange. This major policy decision that only the POW issue is important had never been approved by any Israeli administration, and opens the door to any conditions the enemy imposes. That quid pro quo of POWs for any political concession continues to affect Israel’s POW issues to this day. Moreover, despite the lessons of the capture of the senior Syrian officers, Israel was now too overextended militarily even to consider such an operation. Given that Syria did not care about its POWs unless they were very high in the hierarchy, it had no incentive to continue with any exchange process. It took Israel four more days to admit that it had lost Mt. Hermon, or “the eyes of the country” as it was known since its location enabled Israel to detect movements deep inside Syria. The way it was reported again showed Israel’s failure to comprehend the minds of enemy leaders: while admitting that the fate of the Hermon soldiers was unknown to Israel, the report once again mentioned its abiding by the Geneva Convention (Davar, October 16, 17, 1973). It took Meir about a week to forswear a perhaps emotional approach to the POW issue and take a different tack. In a draft letter intended to eventually reach Kissinger, she suggested a comprehensive Israeli posi-

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tion. It included an immediate exchange of POWs, agreement on the procedure of peace negotiations, and return to prewar lines. Clearly, no party including the US could consent to this methodology, but at least Israel moved from making the POW issue equal to all others to making it a precondition for any long-term arrangements (ISA/7049/25-A/October 19, 1973, 19:45). Whereas Meir perceived the issue as a merely humanitarian one that needed to be included in any settlement as a precondition, the Soviets and the US did not share her view. However, somewhat responding to Israel’s concerns part of the outcome of Kissinger’s talks in Moscow (October 21, 1973) was that: “Brezhnev’s pledge that he will produce the Arabs on a prisoner exchange” (Kissinger, 1973). That led President Nixon to promise Meir: “the Soviets have agreed to join us in strongly urging an immediate exchange of prisoners of war” (Nixon, 1973). But that Soviet expression of sympathy contained no definite commitment and was subject to the Syrians,’ and ostensibly the Soviets,’ time constraints in learning all that could be learned from the Israeli captives. Additionally, it is clear from the wording that the message, as much as the Soviet statement, did not include any specific commitment to directly and speedily intervene on this humanitarian issue turned into a topic of superpower discussion. The declarative nature of the Soviet-American agreement on the POWs emerged during the October 22, 1973, meeting between the Soviet foreign minister and Kissinger: “The Secretary offered a second written understanding [Tab B] to confirm the agreement to use maximum influence with the parties to ensure an exchange of prisoners of war within seventy-two hours of the ceasefire.” “This will help me in Israel,” Kissinger said. After a brief private conversation, it was agreed that a “formal written understanding was not necessary” (according to Memorandum of Conversation, Moscow, October 22, 1973, 8:45–9:45 a.m.; source: National Archives, Nixon Presidential Materials, NSC Files, Kissinger Office Files, Box 76, Country Files, Europe, USSR, Kissinger Trip to Moscow, Tel Aviv and London, October 20-22, 1973. Top Secret; Sensitive; Exclusively Eyes Only. The meeting was held at the guest house of the US delegation in Lenin Hills, Moscow). The only possible reason was that Israel was the sole party genuinely interested in the exchange. A striking example can be found in the deliberations at the Security Council preceding the adoption of Security Council Resolution 340 with the Israeli permanent representative, Yosef Tekoah, being the sole speaker to raise the POW issue (DC/US/Washington cable from the Secretary of State 211133 to: embassies and consulates, October 24, 1973). The Arab players were either disinterested or opposed it for tactical reasons already explained above. Under these circumstances the Americans saw no point in taking a position that might be interpreted as one-sided. Kissinger repeated his evasive wording in his meeting with

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the Israeli PM and chief of staff, but to give his position some credibility, since even Meir could see the holes in that formula, he said the matter could not be discussed publicly (ISA/7047/15-A/minutes of the meeting of the Israeli PM and the chief of staff with Kissinger, October 22, 1973). Actually, Kissinger probably did not then comprehend the magnitude of the leadership crisis in Israel. At that point, forty-eight hours before the full cessation of hostilities, Meir was willing to appease him at any price; given her eroding support among the Israeli public, she needed some backing. Moreover, from their losing position both Meir and Dayan led the Israeli nation to believe that no ceasefire would be acceptable unless the POWs were returned. On the eve of the scheduled parliamentary elections (originally set for October 31 and later moved to December 31), the political issue and the pressing need to show some results probably mattered more to Meir than anything else—an assessment that Kissinger shared. That is probably why she abandoned her request for a prisoner exchange and implored Kissinger to speak publicly of the US-Soviet formula before she addressed the parliament on October 23, 1973. And indeed, the department’s spokesman made that statement on October 23, 1973 (DC/US/Department of Sate cable 208876 to: Cairo, Tel Aviv, October 23, 1973). Now, based on a rather vague formula Israel not only agreed to a ceasefire but also committed to release the Arab POWs without any parallel commitment from the Arab actors. Moreover, Arab bargaining did not center on an exchange deal but rather on amending their violation of the Geneva Convention and conveying to Israel the names of its POWs. Clearly, Meir and Kissinger were playing on two distinct fields: he was seeking an agreement with the USSR that would maintain world peace, she moved from attempting to satisfy her potential voters to easing the pain of the POW families (Meir and Kissinger, 1973). However, despite the difficulties in the dialogue it marked a major change in Israel’s modus operandi regarding its prisoners. It came in the form of a statement by Meir: “There is one other matter I want to ask you about. There are 4,000 Jews left in Damascus, who are living in terrible conditions. We would like the Red Cross to come in and take them out” (according to FRUS/ 1969–1976, XXV, National Archives, Nixon Presidential Materials, NSC Files, Kissinger Office Files, Box 76, Country Files, Europe, USSR, Kissinger Trip to Moscow, Tel Aviv & London, October 20-22, 1973. Top Secret; Sensitive; Exclusively Eyes Only). At first sight, yet another humanitarian issue for the prime minister, but indeed a major shift in the Israeli attitude toward its prisoners: Israeli POWs were from then on only one element of its position. Indeed, the change was not lost on the Syrians and the eventual exchange deal included the town of Kuneitra. Kissinger, realizing the implications of the new Israeli position, simply stated: “There are two things I will raise with the Russians: the prisoners of war and that.”

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Apparently, this episode marked the first time an Israeli POW issue was internationalized. Instead of a three-way deal between the two protagonists and the ICRC or other international organization as mediator, it became another discussion point between the two superpowers, opening the door to US concessions to the Soviets on account of that humanitarian issue. Moreover, any mediation effort grants the Arab position more credibility and post factum also affords them rehabilitation for their violations of the Geneva Convention and their efforts to conceal information and turn a humanitarian question into another debating point on the negotiating table. That Israel was the sole country that was interested in its own POWs was further emphasized by the debate preceding the adoption of UN Security Council Resolution 338: no representative but the Israeli one spoke about POW exchange (DC/US/Tel Aviv cable 8467 to: State, Washington, October 22, 1973). Nevertheless, that position did not inject any new thinking about the return of the POWs. The war continued past Resolution 338 of October 22 and despite Resolution 339 of October 23. When hostilities ended on the 24th, Israel laid a siege to the Egyptian Third Army that was deployed within the Sinai Peninsula with no way of linking up with the rest of the Egyptian forces. Under other conditions, i.e. with two adversaries respecting the Geneva Convention, that would have been the turning point. However, with a player like Egypt that did not care about its besieged troops, it meant nothing. Not realizing the complexities of the situation, the Israeli cabinet approved on October 24 a “top secret” resolution no. 69, specifying inter alia: assemble POWs who are [Egyptian] officers in order to increase “our bargaining power” [unclear quotation boundaries—the quotation seems to start before the quotation marks] (article 2) and later in article 5: “maximum effort in order to bring about the immediate release of [our] POWs will continue” (ISA/7049/25, from the cabinet secretary to the PM, defense minister, foreign minister, October 25, 1973, “top secret”). It was not only a rather conservative resolution but rather meaningless, a defensive, passive move. How would the Egyptian officers be used to expedite the exchange process while the cabinet refused to acknowledge that Egypt was far from interested in retrieving all of its POWs or even the officers among them? One right move, which may not have led to the desired deal but would have shown that Israel had finally begun to grasp the rules of game, would have been to collect a small group of the most valuable officers for Egypt: the highest ranking and those connected to top figures in the government and military. Meir’s repetition of the number of Egyptian POWs meant nothing to Egypt and convinced the enemy that Israel did not understand the game. Likewise, on the day of the resolution Meir also divulged to Kissinger, through Dinitz, that Israel had only partial knowledge of the number and identities of its POWs in Egypt. At that point, on the eve of an end to actual fighting, Israel lost

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about eighty POWs to Egypt, but did not know the whereabouts of about 290 more. In addition, Egypt had already held ten more POWs since the War of Attrition (Dinitz, 1973). By sharing the information with Kissinger during his meeting with the Soviet ambassador to Washington, Meir inadvertently gave Kissinger and Dobrynin an additional tool in their attempt to rescue the besieged Egyptian Third Army. The guns fell silent on October 24, 1973. Israel was clearly at a loss to formulate a policy that would retrieve its imprisoned fighters. Israeli morale remained extremely low, and the public was not sure the leaders were doing enough to get the boys home. Once some of the military censorship was lifted after the ceasefire, it emerged that Israel did not even know the number and identities of some of the POWs and casualties. That led to two more developments that further eroded Israel’s already-low bargaining power. The Syrians launched a public war of nerves against Israel, realizing that with the price tag Israel attached to its POWs, Syria could get much more than its POWs back in any future bargaining. And on the domestic front, Israeli citizens started to form civil society organizations promoting the idea that they should be brought back at any price. PARENTS AND CIVIL SOCIETY By coincidence these two campaigns began simultaneously on October 25. Syria unofficially announced that it had fifty Israeli prisoners from the Mt. Hermon outpost, and “mothers and wives of POWs” called on the Israeli government to immediately exchange POWs (Davar, October 25, 1973). For Syria, the move was only one stage of an endeavor to maximize their quid pro quo for the Israeli POWs. For the Israeli group, it was a genuine attempt by people totally ignorant of the government’s efforts to retrieve their dear ones. They could not know at the time that most of the policy that was devised piecemeal was mistaken and they were only worsening Israel’s inferior position. Right from the chaotic outbreak of hostilities on October 6, Israel had had to deal with unprecedented issues: How to verify the fate of a missing ground soldier? A pilot who was seen leaving his plane deep inside hostile territory? How to try to get the troops back when their identities were unknown? The Syrians and Egyptians, in any case, aimed to put together a large enough contingent of captured troops that Israel would pay as much as possible for them, after the intelligence in their possession was extracted. All that, on top of their traditional violations of the Geneva Convention, led the Arab actors not even to release the POWs’ names. The families’ exertions along with the overall Israeli sense of despair and defeat—even though the conditions on the ground now signified otherwise—led to another negative precedent. For the first time ever in

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wartime, Israel underwent a rift between the government—interested in publicly playing down the POW issue as a symbol of the failure of the first forty-eight hours—and the families. There had already been pressure on the government in the attrition period, but now the magnitude was greater. Moreover, all Israeli diplomatic moves were shrouded in secrecy since Israel had so little information on the POWs (DC/US/Tel Aviv cable 08686 to: State, Washington, October 27, 1973). Meanwhile, Israeli foreign minister Abba Eban advised the US ambassador to Israel that his country had practically no names of prisoners, except for forty in Egypt out of “some hundreds,” and that he wished the US would try along with the Israeli government “to keep all aspects of the POW issue under wraps.” He also informed the ambassador that some Israeli POWs were murdered at the Mt. Hermon outpost (DC/US/ Tel Aviv cable 08686 to: State, Washington, October 27, 1973). ICRC MEDIATORS—NOT MUCH SUCCESS; NO TANGIBLE RESULTS FOR ARABS The War of Attrition had established that the ICRC could insist on regular visits to the Israeli POWs, but always subject to the diplomatic and strategic balance sheet. The organization had failed to secure the release of the attrition POWs or to get updated information on their health in the first stages of their captivity. All that, coupled with the issue’s elevation to a strategic one, downgraded its role in the war’s aftermath. Senior ICRC officials even complained to Israel about their de facto exclusion from discussions on the topic (ISA/7049/25-A/Geneva cable 367 to: Jerusalem, October 26, 1973). Apparently, like other players, they did not realize the depth of the Israeli government’s crisis and its almost total inability to make its voice heard in the superpower talks. And yet, the government was able to convey that if there was even one issue that united the exhausted people, it was the POW issue. That point was not lost on Kissinger and his colleagues, who suggested to all interested parties that unless there was progress on the matter Israel might stall the diplomatic process (DC/US/Department of State cable 212609 to all pertinent representations, October 27, 1973). Given Israel’s intense concern about its POWs and Egypt’s lack of interest in its own, Kissinger offered the sole strategic benefit he could find at that moment that would further remove Egypt from its traditional ally, the Soviet Union: the US would supply the Third Army with forty tons of food and Egypt would undertake to (the following is from Ismail Fahmi, Egypt’s acting foreign minister): “(a) [provide] the list of wounded to the Israelis in the next military meeting; (b) to give the same list to the Red Cross; (C) we are ready to negotiate regarding the exchange of wounded POW’s; (d) we are ready to give the list of POW’s to

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the Red Cross; (e) we have already permitted the Red Cross to visit the wounded POW’s” (FRUS/1969-1976, XXV, Memorandum of Conversation, Washington, October 29, 1973, participants: Egypt: H. E. Ismail Fahmi, Acting Egyptian Foreign Minister, H. E. Abdallah El Erian, Egyptian Ambassador to France, Mr. Umar Sirri, Minister, Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Cairo; United States: The Secretary of State, Assistant Secretary of State Joseph J. Sisco; National Archives, RG 59, Central Files 1970–73, POL 27 ARAB-ISR. Secret; Nodis. A handwritten notation indicates that this is a first draft). That was a winning proposal. Egypt did not want its prisoners to return and spread the word of their whereabouts after the first couple of days, or how a battlefield victory turned into a defeat. On the other hand, the lifting of Israel’s siege of the Third Army would prove that Egypt could take care of its own, and after being supplied by the US the troops would look refreshed and fit, also disproving Israeli claims. Meanwhile Israel still struggled to find the right formula to free the POWs. Kissinger, for his part, preferred indirect Israeli-Egyptian talks so that both parties would realize that, absent the US in general and Kissinger in particular, no agreement on either POWs or the Third Army was attainable. While keeping its contacts with Kissinger secret, the Israeli government still had one major arena to take care of: Israeli public opinion. With the parliamentary elections due on December 31, protest started to escalate. Hence Israel chose to create a mock confrontation with the ICRC by prohibiting it to search for Egyptian soldiers who were left behind in the Israeli-occupied areas along the Suez Canal: as long as Israel did not get the lists of its POWs, no such missions would be allowed (DC/US/Geneva cable 05717 to all pertinent representations, October 29, 1973). Moreover, concurrent with Kissinger’s talks with the Egyptians that Israel was not made privy to, Israel announced, in clear contravention of Kissinger’s agreements with the Egyptians that no wounded Third Army soldiers would be allowed to leave the besieged area (Davar, October 29, 1973; DC/US/Tel Aviv cable 8780 to all State and pertinent representations, October 30, 1973). That small gesture to Israeli public opinion was not enough. On October 29, 1973, a group of parents of POWs wrote an open letter to Meir asking how she could renege on her promise not to agree to a ceasefire without the POWs’ return. They further demanded to declare the ceasefire null and void and cease any contacts with the enemy and with international organizations (Davar, October 30, 1973). That letter from concerned parents marked the beginning of antiwar and antigovernment civil society organizations that would try to sometimes succeed to turn policy in new directions. The parents, however, could not comprehend the pressures the government was under. On the one hand, it was a losing group of people responsible one way or another for the October disaster; on the other, they could not withstand Kissinger’s pressure but

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were not fully aware of his commitments to Egypt. Thus they were in no position to reveal details to the parents and simply did not know what Kissinger’s next ultimatum would include. The overall impression was that the government was evading the public and had something to hide, further intensifying public anger and civil activity. In a rather pathetic attempt to square the circle, Meir traveled to the US attempting to find out what was being planned between the parties. As already indicated, Kissinger revealed part of the picture to each Middle Eastern adversary, meaning Meir’s efforts were futile. The prime minister was undoubtedly under pressure. In her meeting with Kissinger, Meir acknowledged that “What is in jeopardy now is the greatest thing we have, the confidence of our people in us. We promise to them, and we find twenty-four hours later we can’t deliver” (Meeting at Blair House, taken from Nixon Presidential Materials, NSC files, box 611, Country files, Middle East, Israel, Vol. 13, November 73- December 73). It was probably the first time in Israel’s history that its decision makers had to take into account the views and activities of an extra-parliamentary group, later to be joined by protest movements demanding the government’s resignation. The precedent set on November 1, 1973, would later affect Israel’s negotiations with Egypt and the Palestinians. Whereas the families demanded the POWs’ immediate release, Kissinger demanded that Israel withdraw to the October 22 lines in accordance with Security Council Resolutions 338, 339, and 340, which entailed lifting the Israeli siege of the Third Army. Meir and her cabinet were at a dead-end. However, with US-Egyptian relations improving and the US becoming the Soviet Union’s replacement, nothing of the sort could be verified regarding Syria, which the war’s end found in a much worse position than Egypt. Whereas the latter could claim it had reoccupied some of the land lost to Israel in 1967, Syria had only lost further land. On the other hand, it had quality Israeli POWs, first and foremost an intelligence officer who divulged his wide-ranging information. Syria also had other intelligence personnel and high-ranking officers, including the most senior Israeli pilot ever taken prisoner. Given Syria’s total contempt for the Geneva Convention many, if not all other POWs, were subject to murder with about twenty-eight killed in prison and under torture. Even Saudi Arabia, attempting to somewhat soften the impression of its oil embargo, tried to convince the Syrians to be less brutal (DC/US/Jeddah cable 4792 to: State, Washington, Tel Aviv, Beirut, November 1, 1973). In any case, both Syria and Egypt again demanded that Israel uphold Security Council resolutions, which meant returning to the October 22 lines. Israel claimed these could not be verified; the Arab actors claimed they meant full Israeli withdrawal from Mt. Hermon, giving the Syrians an outpost Israel had occupied in the 1967 War, and a full lifting of the siege on the Third Army. That is, both countries demanded strategic

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benefits for launching the POW exchange process. Egypt now sought to become a full-fledged member of the US camp and was willing to pay some price for that; Syria was sure of Soviet support and hence much less open to compromise with the US. By early November the lines were fully drawn. Israel and Egypt conducted direct negotiations with American participation. The POW issue became yet another topic on the agenda, while the mounting popular pressure in Israel rendered Meir incapable of making any concessions but subject to Kissinger’s pressure and dictates. Egypt now enjoyed full access to the Third Army and was in no hurry to see it reunited with the rest of the army. Syria, for its part, was still striving to extract intelligence from the Israeli POWs and wanted to regain not only territory occupied by Israel in this latest war but some of the 1967 losses as well. These points became the basis for the Israeli-Egyptian interim agreements of November 1973 and January 1974 and the May 1974 interim agreement with Syria. Under these agreements Israel withdrew from parts of the Sinai, eventually restoring all of it in the March 1979 Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty. Israel and Syria gradually exchanged their POWs, completing the process in May 1974, and Israel withdrew from the Syrian town of Kuneitra, which it had occupied in 1967. In June 1974 Golda Meir resigned, largely because of the growing protest activities of groups demanding that she take responsibility for the war and her failure to retrieve the POWs earlier. CONCLUSION The October War marks the beginning of a new chapter in Israeli history. In the context of the POW issue, lessons can be drawn from Israel’s political behavior during and after the war. These lessons should form the basis for any guidelines if and when Israel finds itself in similar situations in the future: Stage 1–Chaos and battle fog; no way to determine who is dead, alive, and missing. The main task: finding out by name who is missing. Stage 2–An attempt to distinguish the MIAs from the POWs. Stage 3–Concurrent with stages 1 and 2, a concerted effort to find enemy POWs who are high-ranking and/or relatives of senior decision makers. Stage 4–Defining the possible main strategic assets that the enemy would be interested in and either protecting them or open the negotiations so that both sides have something to bargain for. Stage 5–Defining prices and trying to include the topic sufficiently on the diplomatic agenda. Stage 6–Insisting on clear and simultaneous moves by all actors so that each move is reciprocated by release of some of the POWs.

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This is only a blueprint of a possible approach to the release of Israeli POWs. The 1973 war was the first to present the issue not as a humanitarian one but as one more item on the agenda. Israel was then in no position to change that in the face of a secretary of state who tried to be evenhanded, the Soviet Union that fully supported Syria, a failing Israeli government, and strong domestic protest. Some of the subsequent military engagements made it clear that the Arab actors had fully studied the 1973 developments. For Israel, the Yom Kippur War was a watershed line regarding policy on POWs. Leaving the arena to the “street” became customary in the years to come, as did blurring the lines between POWs and hostages. Sub-national players are not bound by international instruments, and they followed previous behavior by the national Arab players. Already before 1973, mainly as a result of the War of Attrition and successive regular and irregular attacks on the borders and within Israel and the weakening of public morale, Israel abandoned its realist policy on prisoner exchange deals and adopted an inconsistent policy with no clear-cut criteria. That process peaked in 1973 and became a norm. The principle of POWs for land was eventually translated into a growing tendency to exchange strategic assets for Israeli individuals, both soldiers and civilians. REFERENCES Dinitz, S. (1973). Phone conversation with Prime Minister, October 24 at 3:40pm (Israel time). ISA/PM Office/Phone conversations, October 12, 1973-October 25, 1973. Eban, A. (1972). Interview to Israel Radio as reported in ISA/5241/1-HZ, from: the ministry to major Israeli representations overseas, and other cables in that file. Eban, A. (1973). “Foreign Minister’s press conference,” Davar, October 25, 1973.IDF official website: POWs exchange, 1948-1998 http://web.archive.org/web/ 20070311103548/http://www1.idf.il/DOVER/site/mainpage.asp?sl=HE&id=5&from= history&docid=17002. Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs. (2004). “Background on Israeli POWs and MIAs,” January 26, 2004. Kissinger, H. (1973). Telegram from Secretary of State Kissinger to the President’s Deputy Assistant for National Security Affairs (Scowcroft); source: National Archives, Nixon Presidential Materials, NSC Files, Kissinger Office Files, Box 39, Kissinger Trip Files, HAK Trip—Moscow, Tel Aviv, London, HAKTO, SECTO, TOSEC, Misc., October 20-23, 1973. Top Secret; Sensitive; Exclusively Eyes Only; Flash.Sent to Scowcroft for President Nixon. Liu, M. (1992). “Counting the ghosts,” Newsweek, October 5, 1992. Meir, G. (1974). Testimony before the Agranat Commission of Inquiry, February 2, 1974. Meir G. and H. Kissinger (1973). Notes from a meeting that was held in the guest house in Herzliya, Israel. ISA/7047/15-A/minutes of the meeting of the Israeli PM and the chief of staff with Kissinger, October 22, 1973; FRUS/1969-1976, XXV, National Archives, Nixon Presidential Materials, NSC Files, Kissinger Office Files, Box 76, Country Files, Europe, USSR, Kissinger Trip to Moscow, Tel Aviv and London, October 20-22, 1973. Top Secret; Sensitive; Exclusively Eyes Only.

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Meir, G. and Y. Rabin (1973). ISA/6695[7049]/3-G/PM, Meir and Rabin office/phone conversation PM-Washington ambassador, October 12, 1973, 19:00, 3, 6. Morris, S. (1993). “Quagmire,” The New Republic, May 31, 1993. Nixon, R. (1973). Letter from President Nixon to Israeli Prime Minister Meir, source: National Archives, Nixon Presidential Materials, NSC Files, Kissinger Office Files, Box 136, Country Files, Middle East, Dinitz, June 4-October 31, 1973. No classification marking. A handwritten notation reads: “Hand delivered to Amb. Dinitz, 11:00 a.m., 10/22/73.” Sammon, R. (1992). “POWs: Pentagon knew soldiers held after war, panel leaders say,” CQ Weekly Online, June 27, 1992. http://library.cqpress.com.proxy.library.nd. edu/cqweekly/wr102407359. Shamgar, M. (1972). Letter to the Director- General of the Foreign Ministry, ISA/5241/ 1-HZ, May 23, 1972. Waller, D. (1994). “The Americans left behind,” Time, October 17, 1994.

SEVEN The 1973 War as a Stimulator in the Reshaping of Israeli National Ethos Eyal Lewin

THE QUERY OF THE PEACE CONCESSIONS Seldom do historians or scholars of political science make any account of the balance of the Israeli concessions at the 1978 Camp David agreement that formed the framework for the 1979 Israel-Egypt peace treaty. The title and the terminology of the negotiations between the parties were those of peace, with Begin and Sadat’s famous call: no more wars, no more bloodshed, no more tears (Stein, 1999). Yet within the framework of political realism, the result for Israel can be seen rather as the German stand at the 1918 Armistice of Compiègne. From strictly a realistic strategic point of view, the Israeli concessions can surely be viewed as political suicide: in exchange for its southern neighbor’s promise to end the state of war, Israel was about to lose some crucial strategic assets (Kumaraswamy, 2006; Reich, 2005; Stein, 1999): (1) The Sinai Peninsula formed an enormous buffer zone that just a few years earlier enabled Israel to survive the 1973 sudden Egyptian attack. With its 60,000 square kilometers, the Sinai desert represented 90 percent of the territory acquired by Israel during the 1967 War, and was three times the size of the whole country. De-facto, Israel surrendered to its neighbor 75 percent of its land. (2) Israel evacuated and dismantled hundreds of highly important military installations as well as dozens of strategic defense locations. (3) Israel agreed that its largest rival in the region, Egypt, would be militarily modernized. Beyond huge economic American grants to Egypt, the United States supplied the Egyptian army with quantities of 147

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These territorial, strategic, and political deep concessions fall in total contrast with the 1973 War’s military results, where Israel crushed the Egyptians. In spite of the fact that the war started with the IDF overwhelmingly caught by surprise and vastly outnumbered, it ended with a clear Israeli victory. By October 25, 1973, after nineteen days of fighting, Israel proved to be as unbeatable as ever: Israeli forces that had crossed the Suez Canal advanced to positions some 100 kilometers from Cairo, totally cutting the Cairo-Suez road; the bulk of Egypt’s Third Army was trapped and besieged, tens of thousands of Egyptian soldiers encircled, and the Egyptians and their Soviet patrons urging for ceasefire (Herzog, 2003). One explanation for the puzzling contrast between the deep Israeli concessions and the victorious results of the 1973 War could be that Israeli policymakers were, in a Wilsonianistic manner, idealistic ones. Political scientist Hedley Bull defined idealistic idealism in international relations as the belief in progress, and particularly as the conviction that the system that had given rise to war was capable of being transformed into a fundamentally peaceful and just one (Bull, 1977). Indeed, proponents of the late Menachem Begin refer to the Israeli prime minister as a leader driven by deep humanistic ideological attitudes and as the chief advocate of liberal attitudes of peace and justice (Avner, 2010; Haber, 1978; Naor, 1993). Yet an idealistic portrayal of Israel’s leadership falls short of explaining the vast majority that supported the peace terms in the Knesset as well as within the population at large. Moreover, such description totally contradicts the more common evaluation of Israeli decision makers who are more often counted to be rather realistic leaders. Efraim Inbar, a political scientist and a former member of the Political Strategic Committee of the National Planning Council, put it very clearly:

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Israeli policy-makers have been keenly aware of the pervasive threat to the integrity of national borders in the international system and have assumed that over the long run, no state can ever be certain of its security. Israel’s foreign policy elite has always perceived the anarchical nature of international politics [. . .]. Most Israeli leaders have realized that in the real world, threats to national security are omnipresent and that all states attempt to widen their margins of security, even at the expense of their neighbors [. . .]. Thus, within the Israeli political elite, political Realism became the dominant conceptual framework for understanding regional and international politics (Inbar 1999: 54).

Inbar also quotes Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, who in the early 1970s defined Israel’s existence as a state of dormant war, waking up every few years and turning into an active violent confrontation. The Thomas Hobbes view of Middle Eastern geopolitics, held by Israelis throughout the decades, was supported by a history of Israel’s constant warfare with its Arab neighbors who from its very foundation in May 1948 were determined to destroy it. Because Israel had to encounter repeated rounds of warfare, it had to produce each time a retaliating reputation of intolerance to Arab attacks and to force its Arab neighbors to accept it as unchallengeable (Brooks, 1997; Sachar, 1981; 1996). If such was the case, then, the puzzle remains: How come a fragile state in a hostile neighborhood willingly hand out its major strategic and economic assets? How come the people who have experienced existential threats just few years earlier were now willing to generously yield most of the country’s territorial advantages, earned not so long ago by blood and tears? One possible answer is the changing tides between two rival forms of ethos within the Israeli society: the ethos of conflict and the peace ethos. In this chapter, the ethos clash is defined and the two forms of ethos are portrayed through extracts from hundreds of testimonies of soldiers who fought the 1973 War and citizens who experienced it. Understanding the competing forms of ethos within Israeli society, and the heights that the clash between them reached relating to the 1973 war will enable us to understand not only Israeli concessions in the 1978 Camp-David agreement but also the Israeli public support for the Oslo accords, and most importantly—an Israeli possible wide consensus over further future concessions, even those that might strategically endanger Israel’s very existence. ETHOS CLASH IN ISRAELI SOCIETY Ethos is widely defined as the configuration of central societal beliefs that provide particular orientation to a society. It combines dominant societal

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beliefs in a particular structure, and lends meaning to a specific group’s societal life (Bar-Tal, 2000). The national ethos of a country is the array of particularistic shared values and traditions from which a people’s images of its future and its past are envisioned. The ethos integrates the community into a unit believing in a common mutual destiny, and forms the foundation for its unique identity as a distinctive social group. The integrative ethos is also the moral source for the national community’s informal social controls; it enforces commitments upon society and drives its members into a largely voluntary social order. Thus, the ethos of a nation holds in fact one of the most important keys to a people’s ability to unite into a cohesive society (Etzioni, 2009). The use of the expression in political science goes back to the German romanticism of the late eighteenth century with philosopher Johann Gottfried Herder introducing the term Zeitgeist, which translates into “the spirit of the age.” Inspired by philosopher Friedrich Hegel’s concept of mind and moral fiber, Herder spoke of the cultural, ethical, and political climate in which a nation evolves and crystallizes (Barnard, 2003). These ideas project a strong association between the ethos of a nation and representations of the long history that the nation claims to have. The features of a community, some scholars claim, originated in the historical stages when the mental maps of the people, their prevailing culture, norms and ideas had first been cultivated (Rothstein, 2000). This attitude corresponds also with the writings of sociologist Maurice Halbwachs, considered to have been the first to use the concept of collective memory. Building upon the ideas of philosopher Henri Bergson, who distinguished between a memory of a specific event and a memory of enduring attitudes, and on the socio-cultural accounts of sociologist Emile Durkheim who had indicated the manners in which Australian Aborigines had preserved the sacred values and rituals in their communities, Halbwachs spoke of a group memory that was shared by its members, passed on, and constructed by the social group (Halbwachs, [1952] 1992). According to the advocates of collective remembrance who have followed Halbwachs, among them historians Marc Bloch and Aby Warburg, a social group’s common recollection is a contested ideological terrain, where different actors try to establish their particular interpretation of the past as the only way in which their particular group should comprehend its history. Society’s collective remembrance is an ongoing process that unites the group according to the ideological perceptions and the common ethics that are derived from its told and retold history (Durkheim 1995; Halbwachs, 1992; Rothstein, 2000; Russell, 2007). Brooding over a century of bloodshed, late twentieth century scholars have added critical insights to the comprehension of collective memory, particularly in its national contexts. Historians Eric Hobsbaum and Terence Ranger have gathered studies where some of the traditions which

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we tend to refer to as very ancient ones are examined; it seems that various European traditions did not originate through centuries of practice but were rather invented comparatively recently. The creation of Welsh and Scottish national culture, for example, does not necessarily date back earlier than the nineteenth century; neither do British royal rituals of the twentieth century. The very name of Hobsbaum and Ranger’s edited book leads to the idea of the artificiality of social cultures: The Invention of Traditions. The major thread of thought in the book is how constructed versions of the past, and of the continuity between past and present, form a mechanism with which modern societies establish social cohesion, legitimize authority, and socialize populations into a common culture. In fact, Hobsbaum refers to a politics of memory, analyzing how national ethos is institutionalized through the exercise of social engineering (Hobsbaum, 1983). Other scholars too claimed that statist ideologies involve a manipulation of space and time in order to legitimate a monopoly on administrative control. National history, according to this point of view, is based on nothing more than false unity designed through an elite’s conquest of historical awareness. These scholars also point out how national states all over the world exploit professional historical research and shift their peoples’ center of collective memory from the temple and its priests to the university and its professors, from a religious set of myths to a political narrative, relying on a subjective interpretation of history at best (Duara, 1995; Levi-Strauss, 1979; Smith, 1986). Whether judging the phenomenon as a positive one or as a destructive aspect of our society, it seems that decades after Halbwachs, scholars have examined and reexamined his terminology, arriving again and again at the same concept. The basic understanding is that a social remembrance shapes images of the past and draws, by doing so, the lines of political cultural profiles (Fentress and Wickham, 1992; Olick and Levy, 1997). In its national context, the idea of a collective memory resides deep in international studies theorist Benedict Anderson’s comprehension of the nation as an imagined community. The national identity, according to Anderson, has a symbolic and constructed nature, and by utilizing the communications media it is capable of reaching dispersed populations (Anderson, 1983). The collective identity of a nation as a unique combination of a public that shares mutual values and beliefs that lie in its common narratives—that is, its constructed collective memory—and of the united role that its members believe fate has destined for them in this world. This is the national ethos, containing the foundation of the collective identity through both a sense of a certain duty that the nation is obligated to fulfill and a set of common goals that is intended for the people as a united entity to achieve (Lewin, 2012).

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That being said, one should constantly bear in mind that the term “ethos,” particularly national ethos, carries with it more than just the accumulated and interpreted collective remembrance. It encompasses also the enduring shared beliefs that characterize a society. These beliefs are organized around leading themes, myths, values, ideologies, concerns, and the group’s self image; they form necessary conditions for the performance of social systems, functioning as lenses through which each member comprehends the spirit of his social group (Bar-Tal, 2000; Giddens, 1984; Somers and Gibson, 1994). Reality is subjectively interpreted by rival political forces; state formations, parties, movements, and numerous other social agents are all involved in constructing versions of national past, national ethos, and national identity that originate from them. In particular, the politics of war remembrance reveal the struggle of various groups to articulate certain narratives and to gain recognition for differing identity structures (Ashplant, Dawson, and Roper, 2000). When examining a country’s national resilience during war, a national ethos that corresponds with warfare proves to be an essential factor promoting the chances for victory and survival. Yet beyond the mere existence of such ethos, an examination of its content is needed in order to comprehend its capacities. Inquiring into the nature of different occurrences of national ethos reveals two distinct forms: a national ethos of conflict and a national peace ethos. Whereas the former inspires fighting forces and struggling populations, the latter promotes deep beliefs in appeasement, reconciliation, and pacification. The significance of a national ethos of conflict for national resilience during war is immense. A thorough historical research relying on the events of World War II has proved that an ethos of conflict can stimulate mobilization of people into defending their country and serve as an inspiring instrument that will encourage them to bravely protect their national assets. The overwhelming social power of the ethos of conflict makes it an essential condition for a country to win its struggles against violent enemies (Lewin, 2012). A peace ethos, on the other hand, can hardly tunnel collective energies into tasks where fierce fighting is needed. For instance, as opposed to other case studies of the World War II theater, the national ethos of the Norwegian people was shaped in the form of a peace ethos. The Norwegians viewed themselves to be not only highly democratic, but also to be the carriers of the message of democracy throughout the world. Much of the inspiration and spirit of international peace that laid the foundations of the League of Nations had come, certainly by no coincidence, from the policies and through the active involvement of the Norwegian leadership. Since national ethos as well as the belief in a national cause had always been very strong within twentieth century Norwegian culture, in

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the midst of its outstanding social and economic development, Norway refrained from adequately developing its army. The result was devastating: on April 9, 1940, no more than 15,000 German soldiers took control over the ports of Norway, whose coastal defenses proved impotent because its armament was meager and its people psychologically unprepared for a brutally abrupt transition from peace to war. In the course of several hours, most of the ports were taken and major Norwegian ships were torpedoed, with hundreds of sailors losing their lives. The ethos of a peaceful small country that was destined to inspire large world forces through international political mechanisms had become the foundation of Norwegian politics. However, the winds of war were covering the skies with the dark clouds of aggressive forces; in a world where international rules were no longer honored, where even an invasion into a neighboring country could now be implemented without any declaration of war, the neutral pacifistic international law-abiding ethos proved to be ruinous (Derry, 1957, 1973; Larsen, 1948; Lewin, 2012). Within Israeli society, an ongoing arm-wrestling match takes place, where a national ethos of conflict and a national peace ethos are constantly competing in an effort to shape the ideals of the nation and consequently—to influence its future on some of the prominent issues that need a collective decision making. At the beginning of the twenty-first century a clear competition can be delineated between two rival forms of Israeli national ethos: the ethos of conflict, deeply embedded in the traditional Zionist attitudes; and the peace ethos, led primarily by followers of post-Zionist concepts. Some of the topics in dispute that shape these competing forms of ethos can clearly be drawn from Israel’s fundamental document—the May 14, 1948, proclamation of the state. Other disputed topics have been discerned more recently by scholars of Israeli studies, in particular by political psychologist Danny Bar-Tal (Bar-Tal, 2000). The themes within the various topics are intertwined; they each cause and are caused by one another at the same time. The ethos of conflict was shaped and carved into the writings and opinions of various Zionist leaders throughout the twentieth century. Consolidated through decades of political and physical struggle, some of its values have eventually become the very principles of the State of Israel. Its core belief is the Zionist ideology and the particular doctrines that derive from it: the moral justification of a Jewish state in the Land of Israel, where all the Jews will gather and sustain their eternal historic continuity as a national community. Parallel doctrines consist of the denial of others’ rights to settle the country, particularly the Palestinians, and of viewing their aspirations to do so as proof of vicious intentions to harass the Jewish people. Led by the ethos of conflict, Israeli culture and the Israeli education system established a national identity that was based on the concept that the State of Israel was under a constant and everlasting threat of extinction. In spite of the collective threat, according

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to the Israeli ethos of conflict, inherent Jewish strength enabled the nation to overcome its enemies by virtue of courage, diligence, ingenuity, and above all—moral superiority (Oren, 2009). The peace ethos has its roots in a post-Zionist attitude. During the 1980s a group of scholars known as the new historians cast doubt on the most basic Zionist ideology that provided the essential justification for Israel’s very right to exist. Some of these scholars were more extreme and others were less so, but altogether they drew a new historic picture, furnishing an alternative interpretation of the state’s past, viewing the Zionist movement as a militant colonialist endeavor, based on the exploitation, subjugation, and uprooting of the Arab population of the country. Sociologist Baruch Kimmerling was perhaps the first to point out how the Jewish state had been built on the ruins of an Arab society that supposedly existed on this territory for hundreds of years. The Jews, following the new historic paradigm, took the 1948 War as an opportunity to violently inherit the country. The formation of Israeli society and the settlement of the land were based on incursion into a populated country and replacing its local indigenous inhabitants (Kimmerling, 1983; Pappe, 1992). The new historians claim that their novel approach is no more than the natural evolution of political thought once Israeli society experienced a transition from the nation-building phase into an institutionalized phase, transferring its efforts from what had been conceptualized as a struggle for survival into striving to become a mature liberal state. The basic goals of Zionism had long been accomplished, following the postZionist concept, and now the time has come for cultural normalization (Ram, 2005). The rival forms of ethos totally contradict one another, they collide with each other, and they outline one of the deepest ideological cleavages that separates Israeli society—at times even tears it up. No comprehension of the dynamics of Israeli politics can be fully achieved without a fundamental understanding of the clash between these different forms of ethos; no sociological analysis of Israeli society can be complete without an inquiry into these two contradictory doctrinal sets of values and beliefs that split the nation. As mentioned before, though deep roots for ethos clash can be found in the very early days of modern Zionism, it was the 1973 War that gave ethos clash its boost within Israeli society. Peace Now movement, perhaps the ultimate train engine of the peace ethos in Israeli society, was formed in 1978, at a time when the Israeli-Egyptian peace talks seemed to be collapsing. Reserve officers from some IDF top combat units published an open letter to Prime Minister Begin in which they warned that the historic opportunity for peace might be missed lest Israel conclude the negotiations and lead to an agreement. Following the publication of this letter, tens of thousands of Israelis signed petitions in support of the letter, and the Peace Now movement was thus practically established.

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Tzali Reshef, founder of the movement, claimed that the 1973 War experience shaped the movement leaders’ worldview into a liberal one (Reshef, 1996). This theme is also evident in the works and books of other major activists, who connect their political attitudes with their war experiences. Such is the case of author and scriptwriter Benny Barabash, who, as an infantry officer, sustained serious injuries in the 1973 War and several years later would join the Peace Now movement leadership (Barabash, 1994). Yuval Neria, another chief organizer of Peace Now, was awarded the Medal of Valor, the highest decoration for combat bravery in Israel, due to his part in the battles in the Sinai Peninsula. He testified clearly that (Gvirtz, 1993: 5): “[. . .] the letter was a direct result of our part in the war. We had witnessed hell and [now] we had to warn against it.” Each ethos has its reasoning, its inherent logic, its historic origins, and theories of social science that can explain the background for its development. The basic themes of the rival forms of ethos are located both in the predominant document of Zionist existence—namely, the proclamation of the state—as well as in studies by political psychologists researching Israel. In all, there are five basic topics of national ethos: (1) Jewish attachment to the country; (2) siege mentality; (3) images of the enemy; (4) collective self-identity; (5) patriotism. THE FIVE THEMES OF ETHOS CLASH Jewish Attachment to the Country According to the ethos of conflict, the link between the Jewish people and the country is first of all the bond of the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and the Promised Land. The attachment was so strong, that for 2,000 years, ever since their 70 AD expulsion from Palestine by the Romans, Jews have striven continuously to reestablish their bond with the land of Israel. The fact that during most of the time most of the Jews did not manage to live in Israel is a result of physical barriers laid by foes of the Jewish people. Although it is hard to deny that many chose of their free will to remain in exile, the neglect of the land by successive conquests over the ages and the hazards of travel turned repatriation into a precarious project. Aside from the fact that in some locations in Israel Jewish families lived uninterruptedly for two millennia, such as in the village of Peki’in in Upper Galilee, throughout the centuries the Jewish presence in Israel was renewed again and again (Ashkenazi, 2012). In spite of the conquest of the Holy Land and of the fact that most historical periods were threatening ones for the Jews, each persecution and expulsion in the Diaspora brought a new influx of Jews to the country (Dimont, 1994; Johnson, 1987; Lupovitch, 2010).

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When Jews came to the land, in growing numbers as of 1882, they quickly found out that arable land was scarce. The little of it that they could cultivate was almost impossible to purchase, since its Arab owners were landlords who leased the land to local peasants. Eventually, Jewish pioneers had to build their settlements mainly on drained swamp land and on desert land. The Jewish national awakening of the late nineteenth century focused on the vision of a Jewish civilization that would maintain full, meaningful Jewish life and insure Jewish physical existence. Its major goal was to form a Jewish center in Palestine, universally acknowledged by Jews and non-Jews. Thus, the essence of modern Zionism is based on two predominant premises: (a) Jewish society is a national entity that has an exclusive culture that ought to be developed and preserved; (b) surviving as a national entity can take place only in the land of Israel, where a Jewish homeland has to be rebuilt. Overall, then, the primary task of Zionism and the common denominator of all the currents of Zionist ideology was belief in the gathering of all the Jews in Israel, because only in this specific location could Jewish continuity thrive. Life in the Diaspora, according to the Zionist belief, was physically dangerous and morally degrading; nobody could be a proud Jew outside the boundaries of the land of Israel. It was only here, in the Holy Land, that Jews could develop either as individuals or as a society; it was only here that a viable Jewish society could be established and thrive; it was only in that piece of land in the Mediterranean that the vision of Jewish civilization could be implemented (Avineri, 1981; Eisenstadt, 1986; Laqueur, 2003). This is the background of the ethos of conflict, according to which the land of Israel belonged historically to the Jews, who had never disconnected themselves from the country even through the 2000 years of exile. According to the ethos of conflict, this historic connection still exists and forms the basic right of Jews to claim national ownership of the territory. According to the peace ethos, on the other hand, Zionism was de facto a colonial project of a Jewish European society that eventually supplanted the Palestinian native population of the country. Proponents of the peace ethos claim that the Jews were not any different than the British settlers in Africa, Asia, and India or the French settlers who colonized Algeria, claiming an emotional link to the North African soil. Resembling the Protestant missionaries who penetrated Africa, backed by a supportive infrastructure supplied by Britain, believing that they were cultivating the wildlife of the ignorant inferior local residents, Jewish Zionists were, in their own eyes, the representatives of Britain—the country that would be there for them in the crucial formative years. In fact, in their speeches and writings some of the Zionist leaders even took the British colonies in Egypt as an example to learn from. The Jews, just like the Europeans in various locations around the globe, became an imperialist

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community that was meant to serve itself and the imperialist powers (Pappe, 2008). When Theodor Herzl, the founding father of modern Zionism, wrote his vision of a future Jewish state, he expressed it in the following manner: “[. . .] We should [. . .] form a part of a wall of defense for Europe in Asia, an outpost of civilization against barbarism (Hertzberg, 1982: 222).” The Zionists in Palestine, then, were no more than settler colonialists of the Orient; Zionism and European imperialism have epistemologically, historically, and politically been intertwined in their view of the Orient as inferior. Sociologist Gershon Shafir, one of the leading proponents of this point of view, claimed that during the last twenty years of the nineteenth century the Zionists created an ethnic plantation colony, by purchasing land and employing local labor; they later adopted a different model, one of pure settlement, where they preferred to exclude the local native workers (Shafir, 1989; 1996). Moreover, according to the peace ethos believers, the extent to which the Zionist movement spoke of itself in the ideological terms of a Jewish liberation movement, or a national one, never exceeded the instrumental social constructs that enabled an effective implementation of such settler colonialism (Said, 1979; 1992). Viewing the country as an instrument is typical for many of the soldiers who have experienced the dreads of the 1973 War. Shortly after the 1973 War, journalist Yair Kotler published a book titled The Shock, containing testimonies of anonymous soldiers of all ranks as well as civilians who had gone through the war. A reserves infantry captain, for example, told him (Kotler, 1974: 61): Reaching peace is something that depends first of all on us. [. . .] It could very well be that the Egyptians are really afraid from our territorial pretences, [so] what we have to do is to pull out; we should plan a peace initiative. I am willing to give up large portions of the land it that what it takes to reach peace!

Siege Mentality Political psychologist Daniel Bar-Tal devoted decades of research to fully comprehend the phenomenon of national siege mentality. He inquired into several examples, taken from current history, of nations in a state of siege mentality: Japan during the 1960s, the Soviet Union until the 1980s, Albania of the 1970s and 1980s, South Africa until the elimination of apartheid, and Iraq of the 1990s. At present, North Korea and Iran are considered to be countries where siege mentality dominates politics (BarTal, 2004). The ethos of conflict views Israel as still struggling, due to outbreaks of war from time to time, for its safety. Issues of national security are therefore naturally dominant, in line with the way in which perceptions

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of citizenship and people’s political standpoints are formed within this ethos. The more dangerous the situation is perceived to be, the more reality is viewed as a condition of siege under which the whole country is put by its ruthless enemies—the more Israelis identify themselves with the larger national group and the more they are willing to take action even at a price that demands personal sacrifices (Horowitz, 1982; Arian, 1995; Canetti-Nisim, Zaidise & Pedhazur, 2005; Maoz & McCauley, 2008). The dominant perception of Zionist leaders who maintain the ethos of conflict is that Arab terror and warfare are a continuation of the long history of efforts to destroy the Jewish people. This attitude is echoed in numerous surveys that point out how most Israelis feel that the security of the state and its citizens is under constant threat, and are therefore very concerned with the conditions in which their survival could be guaranteed (Bar-Tal, Jacobson and Klieman, 1998; Stein and Brecher, 1976; Stone, 1982). As a result of these views, security considerations became decisive in the formulation of any Israeli policy; some scholars of Israeli politics even referred to the topic of safekeeping of the state as a supreme cultural symbol in Israel, a culture of security (Ben-Meir, 1995; Horowitz, 1984; Kimmerling, 1985; Lissak, 1993; Peri, 1983). The sources of the Israeli siege mentality may be found deep in the roots of Jewish tradition. In the Book of Numbers chapter 23 Bil’am speaks of the uniqueness and separateness of Israel among the nations, using the psalm: “the nation shall dwell alone, and not be reckoned among the nations.” These words have been comprehended throughout the ages as the formative statement of the relationship between Israel and the nations of the world. The centuries long anti-Semitism all over the globe, as well as Israel’s international isolation ever since the establishment of the state, has been taken as proof that it was Jewish destiny to stand apart from all other nations. The notion that Israel is a nation that dwells alone is embedded not only in the long history of pogroms, destruction, and deportations; its key historical origins lie in the memory of the Holocaust. The fact that when millions of Jews were murdered the world remained indifferent has left its mark on future generations. Auschwitz became a symbol and a metaphor for the long—and eventually, tragic—Jewish residence in countries of other nationalities in general and in Europe in particular. Yet the Holocaust, according to the ethos of conflict, was not the last historic experience of a nation that dwells alone. The chronicles of the Jewish-Arab conflict contributed to the development of a victimized selfperception and have been viewed as the direct continuation of the persecution of the Jewish people; accordingly, all of Israel’s military activities have been perceived as acts of self-defense (Harkabi, 1968; Zafran and Bar-Tal, 2003). The silence and even cooperation of the rest of the world in the face of Arab violence toward Jews is evidence of the continuation of basic attitudes toward Jews throughout history. The outside world is

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comprehended as inherently unsympathetic toward Jews; it is a hostile territory where anti-Semitism often dictates hate and resentment. The attempts to drive Israel to concessions with its neighboring countries are a trap designed to isolate Israel politically and weaken it militarily. Negotiating the country’s security assets, according to the ethos of conflict, can lead nowhere, because all the Arabs want is an opportunity to crush the Jewish state; as for the rest of the world—there is nothing that the State of Israel could do, other than committing national suicide that would satisfy it (Steinberg, 1994). Things look totally different from the peace ethos point of view; its basic claim is that its rival, the ethos of conflict, has built into the Israeli political culture a threat perception that leads extensively to militarism. Extreme emergencies, during which the very existence of a state is threatened from the outside, draw attention away from lesser domestic disputes and thus contribute to the consolidation of the political community (Evrigenis, 2008). Thus, a fairly cynical, though not necessarily unrealistic, viewpoint leads to the claim, on these grounds, that political leadership had better do its best to keep some of the threats active so that society constantly practices a rally-round-the-flag syndrome (Mueller, 1973). The Israeli case may not necessarily diverge from that viewpoint, particularly in the eyes of peace ethos advocates. For example, social cleavages concerning internal threats, such as those between pious and secular Jews or between Ashkenazi originated and Sephardic Jews are considered to be often used as tools to manipulate voters (Gordon, 1992). Henry Kissinger is reputed to have said on this matter: “Israel has no foreign policy, only a domestic political system.” The peace ethos views suspiciously the declared existential risks for the State of Israel. Until 1967 the newly founded state was geopolitically fragile, and lacked an appropriate strategic depth; however, over more than four decades things have changed completely, turning defensive existential wars into mostly calculated ones, where the IDF goes into fighting with some important strategic advantages (Cohen, 2008; Handel, 2008). The concept of a no-choice war, applied mainly to the 1948 War, has been replaced by the claim, held by peace ethos proponents, that Israel has almost always chosen its wars. The retaliatory raids initiated by Israel following the 1948 War are a good example of that. The Israeli leadership planned these raids into Arab territory to act as blows against potential terrorists who planned to infiltrate Israel as well as to provide a deterrent mechanism designed to encourage neighboring Arab countries to prevent border infiltrations. The major Israeli idea was that damage to Arab property and population would be expensive, and would consequently reduce terror attacks (Parker, 1996). However, an escalation in the frequency and scope of Israeli retaliatory raids produced a vicious circle.

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The Arab side was not deterred, and chose rather to increase the attacks against Israel; Israel, in turn, had to further accelerate the number and effect of the raids. Eventually, the policy of Israeli retaliation prompted the Arabs to continue their attacks as fiercely as they could, and ended up propelling the rounds of violence, concluding with the 1956 War (Khouri, 1985; Morris, 1993). Even the defensive campaign of 1967, following some peace ethos believers, was not only the reaction against aggressive Arab forces threatening to tear the small country apart, but rather a sequence of quarrelsome Israeli policies. It was the Israeli nuclear breakthrough that convinced Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser to attack before a full manufacturing of an atomic bomb was completed (Aronson, 1992); the frequent use of Israeli air power against the Syrians drove them to what eventually became a violent confrontation (Cohen, 1992), not to mention the fact that capturing the Golan Heights was totally an Israeli initiative unnecessary for the termination of the 1967 War. Also, Israeli economy, and not existential threat, was considered to be the real cause for the 1967 War. With a severe economic crisis and an unemployment rate going as high as 20 percent, and with manpower draining out as emigration exceeded immigration, Israel simply needed a victorious war in order to completely change its material environment (Hirst, 1984). Following the 1973 War, one can find more than one testimony yearning to break the siege. A twenty-six-year-old truck driver who crossed the desert with an ammunition truck and was hit by Egyptian aircraft admits (Kotler, 1974): I have been through three wars now and I need a rest. I want to go to Germany, Switzerland or Austria. Italy is also an option. All I need is to breathe freely; that’s what we all need now.

Images of the Enemy To a large extent, the ethos of conflict de-legitimizes the Arabs. However, even objective spectators of historical events would find it hard to deny that as far as the image of the Arab as a brutal and barbarian enemy goes, the Arab opponent indeed made this stigmatization an easy job. In thousands of cases, Jews have been brutally murdered ever since they first arrived in nineteenth-century Palestine. In fact, one can almost comprehend the history of Zionism as the history of the Jews’ murderous encounter with the country’s Arab inhabitants. The many local incidents throughout the centuries add to larger ones, like the 1929 Hebron massacre where suddenly an Arab mob attacked the Jewish community; sixty-seven Jews—men, women, and youngsters— were killed in one day and their homes and synagogues were ransacked (Segev, 2000). During the week following the United Nations’ November 29, 1947, resolution on the partition plan, sixty-two Jews were murdered

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by Arabs. Arab militias, gangs, and terrorists as well as armies assaulted almost every Jewish village in the country. In mixed cities, like Haifa or Jerusalem’s Old City, Jewish neighborhoods came under lethal attack. By May 14, 1948, when Ben-Gurion announced that the state was established, a total of 1,256 Jews had been killed, most of them civilians (Franzman, 2007). Winning the war and signing the 1949 armistice agreements between Israel and its neighbors, supposedly ending hostilities, marked no end to the continuous Arab homicidal campaign. In fact, the scope of Arab terrorism only expanded in frontier settlements as well as in urban population centers, where the targets of atrocious assaults were mainly innocent civilians—men, women, and children of all ages alike; anyone who was Jewish was a potential victim of brutality. It should, therefore, come as no surprise that Israelis who hold the ethos of conflict portray Arabs as being eternally bent on destroying Israel and the Jewish people (Bar-Tal and Teichman, 1988; Cohen, 1985; Domb, 1982; Harkabi, 1977; Landau, 1971; Segev, 1984). Proponents of the peace ethos, however, reject stereotyping Arabs as more brutal than others. They find how historical accounts of the Moslems’ attitude toward Jews prove that most of the time tolerance prevailed. Islam disputed both Judaism and Christianity, but Muhammad demonstrated remarkable respect for each of them, proclaiming freedom of conscience for what he called “the people of the book.” The Koranic injunction of jihad, the holy war, is reserved rather for the Arab idolaters who refused to accept the theocratic order of the prophet for his people. Toward Jews, Islam had always proved to be a religion of patience and acceptance. Jews throughout history received rather the best treatment from Moslems, who regarded them generously as fellow believers and refrained from allowing religious differences to ruin their good relations (Cohen, 1994; Parkes, 1966; Poliakov, 1975). Neither do peace ethos proponents find any empiric proof for the claim that Arabs are warmongers or that they have a peculiar tendency toward violence. War, they claim, has been an important component in the formation and existence of peoples throughout the entire history of mankind; nations have readily resorted to violence throughout history and the preparation for conflict has always been a major feature characterizing even the most civilized of societies (House, 2008; O’Sullivan, 1986). Attributing aggression specifically to Arabs overlooks the fact that the entire human species is considered to have long been addicted to war, favoring it over more civilized modes of conflict resolution (Hedges, 2003). The Arabs, according to the peace ethos, have been known in more than one instance throughout the chronology of the conflict to prove their willingness to put an end to arms. In recent decades, with the opening of diplomatic archives and the exposure of thousands of documents, it

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seems that Arab quests for peace were perpetually refused by Israel’s leaders. An extreme example is the May 1949 peace initiative of the Syrian leader Husni al-Zaim, who offered not an armistice but a full-fledged peace treaty. In spite of the fact that al-Zaim’s suggestions, reaching BenGurion’s desk directly and indirectly, indicated sincere peace intentions, negotiations with Syria in order to achieve comprehensive peace never took place. Knowing that in order to achieve a peace treaty concessions had to be made, Israel preferred to drag matters out until in due course al-Zaim’s reign was ended with a coup d’etat, and the old belief that there was nobody for Israel to negotiate with could prevail once again within Israeli society (Rabinovich, 1991; Shlaim, 1986). Perhaps a leader whose good relations with the Zionist leadership were more famous was Abdullah I, King of Jordan, whose connections with the Jewish Agency started during the 1930s. Until as late as 1950 he initiated peace programs that were secretly negotiated with Israel, but the Israeli government suspended any decision, domestic Palestinian pressure on the king together with Syrian and Egyptian criticism made the signing of a peace treaty difficult, and the negotiations eventually collapsed. The opportunity had been missed; a year later King Abdullah was assassinated, and seventeen years afterwards the two countries were back at war. Retrospectively, therefore, peace ethos proponents claim that responsibility for the lost chance cannot be solely laid on the Arab side; rather, they maintain that the Israeli government could have fostered the Jordanian peace initiative and already made a breakthrough in 1950 (Rabinovich, 1991). Even Egyptian President Anwar el-Sadat’s first attempts to achieve peace, according to peace ethos believers, were rejected by an aggressive and somewhat arrogant Israeli leadership, and the chronicles of the years preceding the peace treaty can retrospectively be interpreted as the conjuncture of Egyptian frustration and Israeli indifference toward any option other than eternal war with its neighbor. Confidently counting on the superiority of the Israeli army in any upcoming warfare, Prime Minister Golda Meir represented the Israeli hard-line political mainstream that was unwilling to enter any negotiations that would essentially lead to deep territorial concessions (Bar-Joseph, 2006; Stork, 1978). Corresponding with the peace ethos, some observe that overlooking Arab quests for peace hardly occurred only in distant history. Following this observation, King Hussein of Jordan thought along the same lines as Sadat, but preferred to keep such thoughts suppressed because of the regional opposition; even Syria and the PLO reached the point attained by Sadat, and were willing to take the same course over two decades following the Camp David accords (Rubin, 1994). On March 28, 2007, the Arab Summit Conference in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, called for a comprehensive peace with Israel. In return for withdrawal from the territories, Israel would be recognized by all twenty-two

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Arab countries, and full normalization would be implemented. This announcement was merely a repetition of an identical previous resolution, shaped by the same leadership of the Arab world some five years earlier. According to peace ethos believers, as in numerous instances before, the Israeli leadership hesitated and refused to embrace any such opportunity; once again an Arab inspiration for a comprehensive peace was strangled to death by Israeli disregard and political apathy (Dajani Daoudi, 2009). A bereaved mother whose son, the commander of a tank company in Sinai, was killed on the second day of the 1973 War, said (Kotler, 1974: 186–187): [As long as] this land is bleeding, we cannot build it. [. . .] We must reach an agreement at all costs. Israel cannot build itself on the ruins of other peoples. [. . .] We ignored them, we thought that we were so much better than them; [but] now that we were struck, perhaps we shall see things differently, perhaps we shall be willing to give peace a chance. [. . .] Call them terrorists, call them killers. [But] they are, after all, the people whom we expelled from their homes and from their country. [. . .] There are [Arab] extremists, but there have always been also progressive [Arabs] who were willing to accept Israel as a fact, particularly after World War II.

Collective Self-Identity The Israeli collective self-esteem, deeply embedded in the ethos of conflict, springs from the invention of the Sabra, the Hebrew word for an Israeli-born Jew, as an archetype of a collective figure to be adored and imitated. From its initial stages, Zionist discourse focused on the construction of a new Jew, totally different from the one that inhabited the European surroundings where he was counted to be in exile. Somewhat ironically, the proud leaders of early Zionism adopted the anti-Semitic stereotype of their original group, and viewed the Jew in exile to be uprooted, cowardly, manipulative, old and sickly, helpless and defenseless in the face of pogroms and persecutions. The Sabra, the new Jew of the land of Israel, was intended to be the total opposite of this negative perception (Shapira, 1999). Sociologist Oz Almog indicated that the Sabras who led the formation of the Jewish state were born in the 1930s and 1940s, they grew up in pioneering settlements, and they were socialized and educated in light of the communal and national ideals of the Zionist labor movement. Though forming a small minority within the total Jewish population, their cultural influence was tremendous, particularly due to their role in state building. They became Palmach commanders, soldiers in the Jewish Brigade of the British army, and, later, officers in the IDF. Their love of the land, their recreational habits of lighting bonfires and collective sing-

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ing, their bluntness and straightforwardness, together with a puritanical attitude, signified to a large extent the cultural fulfillment of a utopian ideal of the new Jew (Almog, 2000). From an objective point of view, the Sabra was actually a fictive hegemonic identity that reflected the culture, values, and collective aspirations of a small minority within the founding group of the Jewish settlement in Israel. In reality, this image stood detached from the diversity of the Jewish immigrant society and represented only a minority of young people who in most cases were the descendents of the first Zionist European pioneers (Rubinstein, 2000). However, detached as it may have been, this was the myth that formed the ideal that would shape, throughout decades, the collective Israeli character that possessed all the positive traits of the people: deep attachment to the land, physical virtues alongside moral qualities of bravery, cleverness—and above all, honesty and high integrity (Shapira, 1996). The ethos of conflict does not stop with Jewish morality as is, but also envelops the concept, springing from the words of the biblical prophet Isaiah, of being a light for all nations. This phrase, a light for all nations, expresses in the collective identity of Israelis the notion that on top of being highly moral, their universal designation is to serve as a mentor for spiritual and ethical guidance for the entire world. Jewish culture is viewed as the cradle of Western civilization and as representing a supreme morality (Hazani, 1993). It is in this context that the code of purity of arms, Tohar Haneshek, ought to be comprehended not only as the official military doctrine of ethics adopted by the IDF, but as an inherent set of values within Israeli consciousness. Inherently, war bears a natural tension between the realm of morality and the realm of battlefields, deriving from the desire to survive, on the one hand, and to adhere to principles of justice on the other. Hence moral dilemmas in warfare are not exclusive to Judaism; societies have been debating the ethics of war all over the world (Holmes, 1989; Norman, 1995; Walzer, 1978; 1992; 2001). At all times, the basic concept of the ethos of conflict is that the Sabra fights clean-handedly a morally justified war and that Jewish combatants are ever better than any of their opponents. Indeed, the collective self-image, that has developed into one of the foremost themes addressed in the Israeli educational system, portrays an Israeli soldier who would rather spare an Arab’s life than kill innocents. This has become one of the utmost manifestations of collective self-esteem in the ethos of conflict: not only fighting just wars, jus ad bellum, but also fighting them justly—jus in bello. The Israeli collective self-image that stems from the peace ethos is totally different. If the enemy is no warmonger and the Israeli collective identity is the mirror-image of the enemy, then once it is accepted that Arabs are just as peace loving as any other people, it follows that Jews are just as capable as others of war atrocities. This equation is in fact part and

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parcel of the whole peace ethos, and by definition calls for severe selfcriticism, often turning into excessive disapproval, verging on obsessive self-hatred. One of the first critics of the ethos of conflict, if not the very first one, was probably Yizhar Smilansky (pen name, S. Yizhar), an Israeli-born writer who as early as 1948 wrote a novella titled The Story of Khirbet Khizeh. This piece of literature has been part of the Israeli high school curriculum since 1964 and a matriculation elective. It tells the story of the expulsion of inhabitants from an imaginary Arab village at the end of the 1948 War by an IDF unit acting under orders. By the time the narrator starts his account, most of the residents have already fled; only women, children and the elderly remain. The young soldiers are cold and insensitive, even somewhat bored—neither particularly brutal nor expressly compassionate. They have been ordered to blow up the houses, to load the people on trucks, and to drive them away—an order that the IDF soldiers carry out to the letter. The villagers are submissive, though here and there a proud protest can be noticed. The eviction is carried out with humiliation: the Arabs are forced to trudge through a puddle en route to the waiting vehicles and to abandon all of their belongings, even blankets. Khirbet Khizeh, translated into “the ruins of the village Khizeh,” was not the name of an actual place. The author picked an imaginary locale in order to symbolize the land being emptied of its Arab inhabitants in the wake of the war. S. Yizhar has been acclaimed since the late 1930s as the most talented prose writer of the Sabra generation. The fact that he situated the tragedy in an undefined fictional location must have made it easier for his readers, perhaps even for himself, to cope with the scenario of Israeli soldiers committing atrocities; it certainly paved the way for this story, and the ideas that it stands for, to penetrate deep into Israeli culture and to become one of its classics (Shapira, 2000). However, according to the peace ethos, even during its first decades the Israeli public did not need imaginary scenes in order to realize that atrocities were taking place, and that moral failures were simply being systematically swept under the carpet. During the early 1950s numerous murderous cross-border raids by Palestinian infiltrators were held along the country’s borders. Since these incidents became frequent and the numbers of casualties mounted, the Israeli leadership decided upon a policy of retaliation. The strategy was based on an “eye for an eye” attitude, and its guiding principles were mixed ideas of punishment, revenge, and deterrence. For example, on October 1953, in response to a homicidal attack on the Jewish town of Yehud, east of Tel Aviv, where a mother and her two children were savagely slaughtered, Israel launched a strike on the Arab city of Qibya, where IDF units moved from house to house, blowing entrance doors, throwing grenades through the windows, and gunning down inhabitants

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who attempted to escape. About forty-five houses were demolished and over sixty Arabs, most of them women and children were killed. The Israeli forces suffered no casualties. It was only due to the wave of international public condemnation that Israel eventually switched its policy and from then on preferred to attack military and police targets. The Qibya raid had actually ended a fouryear period of IDF lethal assaults almost exclusively directed against civilian populations (Caplan, 2010; Morris, 1993). During the years after the 1967 War, reports of military malpractice in the territories appeared in the media, focusing mainly on destruction of property during the suppression of Arab villages in Judea and Samaria or refugee camps in the Gaza Strip; but such incidents were usually excused on the grounds of operational needs and would most likely be dismissed as aberrations (Cohen, 2008). The 1982 War, the first military campaign after 1973, marked a turning point. Although domestic opposition to the 1982 War started very early in Israel, it was not until September 1982 that social disapproval of the activity of the IDF on moral grounds reached its peak with the Sabra and Shatila massacre, in which Palestinians were executed in their refugee camps by Christian Lebanese Phalangists, Israel’s allies, revenging the assassination of Lebanon’s admired president, Bachir Gemayel. The massacre took place in parts of Beirut that were under Israeli control, and once it was exposed, a public roar followed. As the news spread around the world and more details and pictures were revealed, public unrest in Israel grew. About 10 percent of the Jewish population participated in one of the largest protests ever to have been organized in the country, the four-hundred-thousand protest, demanding an inquiry into who was to be blamed for the slaughter. Under public pressure, the Israeli government resolved to establish the Kahan Commission, an inquiry commission led by former Supreme Court Justice Yitzhak Kahan. The commission’s report, after several months, concluded that there was no direct involvement of any IDF units in the massacre; nonetheless, the commission recorded that Israeli military personnel of various command levels were aware of the fact that brutal slaughter was in progress and took no steps to stop it. The commission also noted that information about mass murder was available, in real time, to senior IDF officers. These conclusions led to political turmoil—but above all, to a discourse about guilt. During the decades following the 1982 War, the moral issues that led to questioning the role of the IDF about its friction with civilian populations, and the extent to which the army is capable of maintaining codes of decency, have become an integral part of public discourse in Israeli society, with the Sabra and Shatila experience exerting a far-reaching influence. Feelings of guilt and self-accusations, typical of the peace ethos, reached a climax that was reflected by the establishment in 2004 of the organization called Breaking the Silence. Numbering hundreds of mem-

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bers, all of them veteran Israeli soldiers, this organization is determined to record and expose as many testimonies of Israeli soldiers about any inappropriate behavior that they have seen, either by fellow soldiers or by settlers, in the territories. Sponsored by funding from Israel and abroad, their main activity is the initiation of photograph exhibitions and the collection of evidence proving that IDF units are harassing innocent Palestinians at the checkpoints and in the Arab cities. Following the 2008 Israeli operation in the Gaza Strip that was launched in order to stop the massive amount of rocket firing on southern Israeli villages bordering with Gaza, Breaking the Silence sought to publicize many testimonies that were in line with accusations by Amnesty International and other human rights organizations, claiming that the IDF had acted indiscriminately and disproportionately (Breaking the Silence, 2012). In Israel, as even some of its severe critics may admit, democratic rules allow public inquiry into official policies as well as governmental actions, including military ones. Specific complaints, including personal testimonies, can be filed and dealt with, for that matter, by particular comptrollers in various governmental offices. Thus, any allegation can be subject to thorough legal investigation through the suitable channels. These procedures, however, are beyond the scope of Breaking the Silence and similar organizations. At the very heart of their activity lies the motivation to shape the themes of internal guilt and low self-esteem based identity that are inherent in the peace ethos. In 1999, S. Yizhar, wrote another novel Discovering Elijah, this time concentrating on his personal memories from 1973, when he went to the frontier in order to learn from first-hand what was going on. In this novel the Jewish soldier is no longer hesitant or confused when confronted with unlawful orders, but rather brutal and vicious. Yizhar’s 1973 IDF soldiers are portrayed as villains at best. In one of the scenes he describes how they go around kicking the corpses of Egyptian soldiers in order to loot gold teeth (Yizhar, 1999). Although most of the Egyptian soldiers were originally poor villagers who could never acquire gold teeth or any other dental care, Yizhar insisted that when he went into the desert at the end of the war he saw these things with his own eyes (Berkowitz, 2006). Generally speaking, it was at the aftermath of the 1973 War that the images of the noble Israeli soldiers who were eager to give water to the 1967 Egyptian POWs were switched to other descriptions of IDF behavior during the war. In one of the testimonies, for example, an Israeli paratrooper tells the story of how Egyptian soldiers are trapped with their truck in a swamp and the IDF soldiers shoot them to death. When one of the survivors, unable to abandon the sinking truck because his wounded legs got stuck, begs for his life, the paratroopers refuse to help him out and they watch him as he is about to drown. The Egyptian survivor prefers a quick death and so eventually he begs to be shot. The para-

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troopers, instead of saving him, honor his last wish and start to target him; but they fail to hit him, and he dies slowly, suffocating in front of their eyes (Bar-Ilan, 2011: 180–189). Patriotism Patriotic loyalty is considered to be an unconditional love, a compulsive commitment to the object of admiration, that eventually leads to what some scholars refer to as an obsessive dedication (Tamir, 1997). This point of view reveals a convention that when it comes to matters of war and peace, any personal logic can be rejected in the name of patriotism (Somerville, 1981). In patriotic instances of sacrifice, people forfeit either years of their lives, their health, parts of their bodies, or their very existence for the sake of their country. It therefore seems almost self-evident that patriotism is closer to the ethos of conflict than to its rival the peace ethos, because war grounds create a perfect arena for patriotic sacrifice; it is in battlefields that one has the chance to make fatal decisions that are characterized by a zero-sum game between the profit of the collective and the immediate benefit of the self (Somerville, 1981). Looking for an example that fully envelopes the attributes of patriotism is an easy task in the Israeli case of ethos of conflict, because contemporary Israeli history is paved with events where people followed the patriotic pattern, forming—each in his own way—a model for others to follow and imitate. Yet the ultimate exemplar, forming in Zionist legacy the archetype of a patriot, is undoubtedly Joseph Trumpeldor; in his life as well as in his death, he demonstrated what loyal devotion and sacrifice. Trumpeldor was born to a Jewish family, yet in an era of secularization he was brought up as a Russian. In his early twenties he volunteered for the Russian army and participated in the siege of Port Arthur, where during the Russo-Japanese War he lost his left arm in battle and became the most decorated Jewish soldier in Russia and the first Jew in the Russian army to receive an officer’s commission. However, as the years passed he had become more and more affiliated with Zionism. He immigrated to Palestine in order to work in the early Kibbutzim. When World War I broke out, he developed the idea of the Jewish Legion to fight along with the British, an idea that brought about the formation of the Zion Mule Corps. This regiment is considered to have been the first all-Jewish military unit organized in close to two thousand years, and became the ideological first step for the formation of the IDF. Leading the Jewish regiment, Trumpeldor was wounded once again, in his shoulder. After the war he organized groups of Jewish pioneers from Russia and led some of them to Jewish farming villages in Palestine. One such village was Tel Hai, a remote and isolated settlement

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in the northern part of Israel, dwelling on a loosely defined border between British and French control. On March 1, 1920, a firefight broke out between hundreds of Shiites from the neighboring Lebanese village and the several defenders of Tel Hai commanded by Trumpeldor. Seven of the Jewish defenders were initially killed, and Trumpeldor himself was shot in his hand and then in his stomach. A doctor arrived just before that evening, and Trumpeldor died while being evacuated. On his deathbed, Trumpeldor articulated his monumental exclamation, previously written by him in letters to his comrades, “never mind; it is good to die for our country.” Trumpeldor’s outstanding figure would from then on light the spirit of Jewish settlement and defense, his last words imprinted on the Zionist heritage, symbolizing the ultimate expression of Israeli love of country throughout ages to come (Segev, 1999; Roshwald, 2006). Strictly militarily, the whole event at Tel Hai was a total failure. For the Jewish pioneers, having eight settlers murdered all at once, not to mention the killing of their highly experienced leader, was a hard blow to recover from. However, the story of the battle and the bravery of the defenders of Tel Hai embodied the ideals of settlement and defense, of a willingness to absorb the loss of war and to cope with the high costs of the conflict. Consequently, rising far above the theme of patriotism that lies within the ethos of conflict, Joseph Trumpeldor became an iconic symbol of patriotism through his life—and even more, his death. The historical event at Tel Hai emerged as the ultimate national myth of the ethos of conflict and Trumpeldor’s last famous words stressing the willingness to die for country became a moral legacy (Zerubavel, 1991). The patriotic themes within the peace ethos, on the other hand, are diminished by other current social trends. The globalization process, which immensely influences the peace ethos, encourages individualism, which in turn jeopardizes the concept of supremacy of the national social group. Globalization, highly corresponding with modern capitalism, is considered to re-cast human behavior from that of a social animal into that of a homo economicus. Media, workplace, and educational systems instill material self-interest as the leading social norm. Consequently, the more others are perceived as acting from self-interest, the more each citizen is encouraged to respond accordingly with a competitive attitude (Nikelly, 2000). The distinctions between individualism and collectivism have been conceptualized by some scholars as factors that differentiate cultures; societies are hence categorized as collectivist versus individualist. In a collectivist society the members more strongly identify with the group, therefore its wellbeing takes priority over the individual’s desires; in individualist cultures, on the other hand, sharper boundaries are drawn between the self and others. Individualism strives for personal autono-

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my, placing itself, in relation to collectivism, on the opposite end of a bipolar scale (Hofstede, 2001). Other scholars tend to view one’s specific location on the bipolar scale not as emerging only from the social environment to which he or she belongs, but rather as personality traits, modifiable by situational demands. Unlike the collectivist, who suppresses personal goals for the common good and maintains a relationship with the group even when personal costs highly exceed the rewards, the individualist’s attitude leads him to focus on independence, self-fulfillment, and personal preferences (Oyserman et al., 2002; Triandis, 2001; Waterman, 1984). In a society where individualism prevails, whether as an outcome of collective cultural shifts or as a result of personal traits or as a product of all the factors together, very little room is left for a coherent form of patriotism that places the common good over personal wants. Additionally, the primary assumption of the peace ethos is that peace, rather than traditional national collective goals, is the sacred value for which mankind should strive. This leads inevitably to an inherent contradiction within the logic of the peace ethos relating to patriotic sacrifice: If existential threat no longer exists, and the enemy at long last is one who has come to terms with a legitimate Israel at his side, what is the justification for sacrifice? A partial answer that provides some purpose for the lethal costs of war is that those who die do it for the sake of peace; in order to achieve peace some sacrifice ought to be made. This molds the peace ethos into the form of the ethos of conflict: peace activists become soldiers fighting against war instead of soldiers fighting for other causes. Although he definitely did not anticipate the lethal personal price he would eventually pay, nor did he foresee the thousands of Israelis and Arabs yet to be killed, Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin phrased it clearly in his address to the United States Congress on July 26, 1994: “I, military I.D. number three-zero-seven-four-three, retired general in the Israeli Defense Forces in the past, consider myself to be a soldier in the army of peace today. [. . . fighting] the battle for peace.” These were the words that inspired Time Magazine that used the very same terminology commenting on the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin in its November 13, 1995, edition: “The soldier lived to become a man of peace, yet the man of peace met the death of a soldier, his body torn by bullets.” As the events in the Middle East brought about anything but peace, and Israelis were being killed in the streets by terror attacks at rates that the country had never encountered before, a new notion of sacrifice was shaped: a sacrifice for peace. The dead and wounded have become recognized as the victims of peace. A tank commander that participated in 1973 in one of the fierce battles along the Suez Canal claimed (Kotler, 1974: 77–78):

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I ceased to believe in the future of the state. You win once, twice, thrice, four times, five times. [But] in the sixtieth time you [eventually] don’t [and then] it’s all over. I am in doubts; I no longer plan my future. That is why I support any compromise; a peace agreement might just allow me some extra time to live. [. . .] I know; I am not a Zionist. All I want is to live now. That is why I am for concessions. If we give up the land it might take a long while before war starts once again. Meanwhile we could simply live our lives.

Indeed, after all is said and done, the essence of the peace ethos is the value of life. Land, history, and divine promises are no longer worth dying for when life is the alternative. In his March 13, 1995, speech at the Tel-Hai Memorial Day, Yitzhak Rabin rephrased Trumpeldor’s last words, “it is good to die for our country,” and claiming that death and bereavement are not destined by fate he preached for a reversal of Trumpeldor’s heritage, coining a new conceptual sentence: “it is good to live for our country.” It seems, then, that the interpretation of patriotism through the lens of the peace ethos leaves us with merely a shadow of patriotism. At the end of the day, whereas patriotism is in fact the backbone of the ethos of conflict, it is rather alien to the peace ethos. DISCUSSION The 1948 War was, perhaps, the peak of the ethos of conflict within Israeli society. As war with the Arabs approached, following the United Nations’ confirmation of the partition plan, Zionist leader Chaim Weitzman anticipated the heavy losses that the struggle was about to demand. His warning to the people in Israel was (Ha’aretz, December 15, 1947): “A state is not handed to a people on a silver platter.” Following these words, as the first young Jewish men and women were killed in battles, poet Natan Alterman wrote one of his best known verses of that war. The poem became a canonical one, read out publically in memorial ceremonies for decades afterwards (Alterman, 1947). A boy and a girl are presented in the poem as the silver platter of the emerging state. They are still dirty from the battlefields where they were defending the country’s borders; they are tired but silent, fully aware of their national duty, conscious of their responsibilities toward the nation as its young generation. However, whereas for the first few decades Zionism could strive due to the dominance of the ethos of conflict, the 1973 War changed the tides within Israeli society and the peace ethos emerged as the hegemonic set of values that would from then on construct the country’s future. If the ethos of conflict praised the young people who were the silver platter of the state, the peace ethos viewed things vice-versa, expecting rather the

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state to do nothing other than bestow good upon its citizens. Self-proclaimed left-wing playwright Shmuel Hsfari’s song we are the children of winter 1973 was the counter-version for Alterman’s 1947 poem we are the silver platter. Hsfari’s song was first performed on the eve of the 1994 Independence Day by a military band, and soon became one of the leading anthems for proponents of the peace process. The soldiers that are presented in this song are young boys and girls whose major goal is to make love, to leave peacefully, to laugh and enjoy life. They indirectly accuse their parents’ generation, those who fought the 1973 War, for not having done enough for the sake of peace and they demand that peace, allegedly promised to them by their parents, be made immediately. Within the peace ethos inside out became upside down. The young ones, instead of asking to fight for the country, demand peace from their parents. Whereas the anthem of 1948 reflected a young generation that dedicated its life to giving, the anthem of 1994 reflects a young generation that claims that they deserve to get. The common expectation of followers of the ethos of conflict that their offspring would proudly wear the IDF uniform, in due time was retrospectively substituted with the hope that they would never have to fight wars. That the song was distributed by an IDF band was no exception in the prevailing peace atmosphere of Israel of the early 1990s. State agencies are where the great struggle between competing forms of national ethos takes place. Loyal to other themes of the peace ethos, the song switches cause and effect, and reflects the perception that war is not the sole initiative of the Arabs but rather the responsibility of the Jews; the Israeli parents who promised peace could have done so, but alas failed—to fulfill their promise. Following the rise of the peace ethos, the great question is, naturally: quo vadis? Where does it all take us? Will the Israeli public stubbornly stick patriotically to its country, or should the new social trends lead to Israeli geopolitical compromises that in due time might jeopardize any defense of the Jewish state? One elusive and ambiguous answer can be found within the testimony of Amnon, a paratrooper, who was interviewed thirty-five years after the 1973 War in research about patriotism, for which he was picked since in daily life, during recent years, he had been performing outstanding actions regarding the absorption of young Jewish boys and girls in their first steps as immigrants in Israel. Amnon’s testimony proves how moving from one ethos to another is not necessarily a one-way street (Lewin, 2011: 178–180): [. . .] I have started to view the state and the authorities in an ambivalent manner throughout the [1973] Yom Kippur War. I love the state

The 1973 War as a Stimulator and I hate it, I curse the state but I am quite aware of the fact that we do not have an extra one, using [Yitzhak] Rabin’s words. Until the [1973] war I had been patriotism at its best. I volunteered to be a paratrooper. I was very proud of it. I became a combat medic. I was ready to pay any cost it took for the sake of the state without questioning. Today I am willing to pay the price too, but it’s different, because today the questions and doubts don’t cease to bother me. I was a combat medic in the paratroopers unit when serving there was only for those who knew that they would be the first ones to go, they should be the front line in every battle; they are bound to jump first into fire. Today every Schmendrik [a Yiddish word for a foolish or contemptible person—E.L.] gets to wear the red beret [worn only by paratroopers—E.L.], but we went there not for prestige but because we knew we would be the living shield of the state. That was the story, to protect our homeland, not as a flowery phrase but for real. [During the 1973 War] towards the end of the fighting we were sent into the city of Suez. It was terrible. It started as a battle in which we were supposed to defeat the city, and then it turned out to be some sort of lethal hide-and-seek game where Egyptian snipers were simply playing around and shooting us down. We had to evade their bullets but very soon we had wounded soldiers all over. There was this dilemma over and over again, I had to take care of the injured because I was the medic, but I also had to survive. We gave up trying to save the dead bodies of our friends. We had entered the city as conquerors, but we have become fugitives, locked inside the urban area in inferior positions and unable to retreat. You see your friends, your close friends—not just people that you know, bleeding to death in your arms. And there is nothing you can do about it; all you can do is just concentrate in your own chances to survive. And then all of a sudden I realized what a horrible mistake it was to send us into that hell from the first place. The IDF high command hadn’t bothered to gather intelligence, to analyze the data. They had simply thrown us into the fire. I have no idea how I managed to make it alive until we were rescued. I cannot think of an experience more horrid than that. I have never gone back there and I never will. [. . .] A few months later I left the country and went to study in France. It was an escape. I ran away because I couldn’t bear what we had experienced. I kept having flashbacks of the Suez encounter—in fact I still have them today. And I kept thinking how all this could have been avoided, how my best friends could have lived, how our military leadership had morally failed. You see, I was so angry, that I had made up my mind to run away, I had decided to start a new life elsewhere. But very soon I found out that I couldn’t do it. I am attracted to this country, I am a part of it and it is a part of me. I hate so many things that go on around here; I have so much criticism towards so many phenomena in Israel, but I cannot stand the thought of staying abroad. Once I completed my studies at the university in Paris I ran away to Israel because there was no other

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Eyal Lewin place on earth where I could live. I am a groupie of this country, this is why I had been a successful emissary in North America several years ago, but I hate so many things that take place here.

Yet Amnon’s ambivalence towards the country, although his patriotism seems to prevail at all times, goes beyond the incidents of the 1973 combat of Suez. At the end of the testimony concerning the war, he added something else, illuminating his dual relationship with the state: My youngest son serves in an elite unit where he is at his best, but our elder son had been mistakenly sent to the wrong unit in the army, where he has experienced sexual abuse until they have finally dismissed him with a handicap. I am proud with both my sons, they are for me the two sides of the coin: The State of Israel we love and for which we volunteer, and the State of Israel that fails to appreciate our good energies and wastes it all for nothing. I had started to view things this way in the cursed streets of Suez, and all through the years whenever a malfunction or a scandal occurred it became more and more vivid to me: Israel is the country of everything that I love and at the same time it is the country of everything that I despise.

Following Amnon’s testimony, perhaps the complex answer is that in Israeli society the ongoing clash between the rival forms of ethos is an ongoing contest with no clear winners at any point in time. Although we can indicate clearly that after the 1973 War the peace ethos was propelled and would reach some of its peaks some twenty years later with the Oslo Accords, one can hardly guess the exact current trends and how Israeli society will eventually react when either called for substantial territorial concessions or challenged with lethal existential war; any estimation of which ethos shall prevail is similarly as true as it is false. REFERENCES Almog, O. (2000). The Sabra: The creation of the new Jew. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Alterman, N. (1947). The silver platter. Davar, December 26, 1947 [Hebrew]. Anderson, B. (1983). Imagined communities. New York: Verso. Arian, A. (1995). Security Threatened: Surveying Israeli opinion on peace and war. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Aronson, S. (1992). The politics and strategy of nuclear weapons in the Middle East: Opacity, theory, and reality, 1960–1991: An Israeli perspective. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. Ashkenazi, E. (2012). Researchers race to document vanishing Jewish heritage of Galilee Druze village. Ha’aretz, July, 25, 2012. Ashplant, T. G., G. Dawson and M. Roper (2000). The politics of commemoration: Contexts, structures and dynamics. In T. G. Ashplant, G. Dawson, and M. Roper eds., The politics of war memory and commemoration. New York: Routledge. Avineri, S. (1981). The making of modern Zionism: The intellectual origins of the Jewish state. New York: Basic Books. Avner, Y. (2010). The Prime Ministers: An intimate narrative of Israeli leadership. Jerusalem, Israel: The Toby Press.

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Index

Abdullah, King, 162 Abramovich, Amnon, 105 Agranat Commission, 19, 21, 23, 25, 66, 128, 145 Agranat, Shimon, 19 Agudath Israel, 39 Aharon, Lotte, 72 Alon, Yigal, 66 al-Zaim, Husni, 161 Almog, Oz, 163, 174 Alterman, Natan, 85, 115, 171, 174 Americanization, 96, 97, 115 Amital, Yehuda, 47–49, 50, 53 Amnesty International, 167 Anderson, Benedict, 151, 174 anti-Semitism, 158, 177 Arab terrorism. See terror Ashkenazi, Motti, 10, 13, 21–31, 33, 34, 35, 36, 65, 67, 72, 77 Asp, Kent, 82, 115 asymmetry, 121, 127, 133 Auschwitz, 158 Avinery, Shlomo, 83 Bar Ilan, Meir, 39 Bar-Tal, Danny, 84, 115, 149, 152, 153, 157, 158, 161, 175, 178 Barabash, Benny, 154 Barak, Ehud, 96, 99 Barnea, Nachum, 99, 100, 104, 115 Baudrillard, Jean, 82, 117 Begin, Menachem, 41–43, 51, 66, 67, 69, 90, 91, 147, 148, 154, 175, 176, 178 Ben Gurion, David, 40, 43, 74, 117, 118 Ben Meir, Yehuda, 103 Ben-Yishai, Ron, 73, 111 Benayahu, Avi, 108, 112–113, 115 bereaved, 5, 60–73, 74–76, 163 bereavement, 2, 5, 57, 66–69, 72, 75–76, 96, 171

Bergson, Henri, 150 Black Panthers, 32 Bloch, Daniel, 16, 21, 26, 34, 81, 83 Bloch, Marc, 150 Breaking the Silence, 166, 167 Brin, Shlomo, 47, 53 Bull, Hedley, 148, 175 Camp David agreement, 147, 149, 162 Casualties: sensitiveness/ panic, 5, 56, 70–71, 103, 113 censorship, 83, 84–86, 87, 89, 92, 93, 102, 107, 109, 111, 134, 140 civil-military: relations/ dynamics/ gaps, 3, 5, 76 CNN, 93, 112 Cohen, Avner, 114, 116 Cohen, Shalom, 110, 116 collective : action, 11–13, 18, 27, 31, 153; attitude, 1, 46, 97, 163–164, 169–170; identity, 26, 55, 151, 155, 164; memory/ remembrance, 10, 32, 68, 86, 150–151 communication, 82, 88, 97, 98, 107, 108–109 conflict: Arab-Israeli, 37, 93, 95, 102, 108, 114, 130, 158; ethos, 149, 152, 153, 155, 156, 157–159, 161, 164, 168, 169, 170, 171–172; interstate, 123, 124, 125, 127, 161; social, 13, 39; resolution, 161 contention, 11, 13, 20 Davar, 13, 15, 17, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 81, 85, 135 Danzig, Hillel, 19, 34 Dayan, Moshe, 4, 10, 13, 18, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 29, 64, 65, 66–67, 93, 131, 138

179

180

Index

decision making by Israeli leaders, 4, 7, 11, 16, 25, 27, 37, 39, 56, 60, 70, 73, 75, 88, 90, 93, 94, 99, 102, 104, 106, 112, 113, 123, 126, 127, 128, 133, 134, 135, 143, 144, 148, 153 democracy: street, 15, 27 demonstration, 10, 14, 18, 20, 21–22, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 63, 64, 66, 70, 93 Dinitz, Simcha, 136, 139, 145, 146 Disengagement [2005], 104–105, 113 Dor, Moshe, 24, 26, 34 draft dodgers, 100, 105 Drori, Zefanya, 51 Durkheim, Emile, 150, 175 Dviri, Manuela, 68–69, 70, 77 Eban, Abba, 66, 141, 145 Editors Committee, 85, 87, 92 Egypt, 20, 75, 129, 130, 130–133, 134–135, 139–140, 141–144, 147; Egyptian Third Army, 75, 139, 141–142, 143, 144, 148 Eitan, Rafael, 69 Elazar, David, 73 el-Sadat, Anwar, 147, 162 El Erian, Abdallah, 141 Enlai, Zou, 126 epistemic community, 57, 58, 76 Erez, Yaakov, 89 Eshkol, Levi, 130 ethos: national, 3, 4, 7, 32, 126, 149–152; peace, 7, 152, 153, 154, 156–157, 159–160, 161–163, 164–167, 170–171, 171–172; conflict, 7, 43, 152, 153, 155–156, 157–158, 160–161, 163–164, 168–169, 171–172 Fahmi, Ismail, 141 Filber, Yaakov, 45–47, 48, 50, 53 Four Mothers, 70, 71, 73, 99 Galey Tzahal, 85, 97 Gaza, 6, 41, 43, 93, 95, 96, 101, 104, 105, 106, 108, 113, 114, 166, 167 Gemayel, Bachir, 166 Generals' Wars, 87, 88 Geneva Convention, 123, 125–126, 128, 130, 132, 135, 136, 138, 140, 143

Golan Heights, 2, 3, 41, 43, 50, 52, 72, 160 Goldstein, Dov, 22, 23, 35 Gonen, Shmuel, 64, 65 Goren, Shlomo, 44 Greater Israel, 9, 14, 42, 44, 52 grief community/ regime, 56–61, 68–70, 76 Grutman, Jacob, 69 Guber, Rivka, 60, 61, 72 Gush Emunim, 9, 38, 42–43, 52 Gush Etzion, 47 Haaretz, 86, 87, 94, 104 Haber, Eytan, 86, 89, 116, 148, 175 Haetzni, Boaz, 74, 77 Haetzni, Elyakim, 74 Ha-Ichud HaLeumi, 44 Halutz, Dan, 105 Halbwachs, Maurice, 150, 151, 175 Hall, Stuart, 58, 59, 77 Hamas, 73, 114, 122 Hapoel HaMizrachi, 39, 40 Har Etzion yeshiva, 47 Harel, Israel, 74 Harnik, Goni, 69 Harnik, Raya, 69–70, 70 Hsfari, Shmuel, 171 HaTechiya movement, 44 Hebron massacre [1929], 160 Hegel, Friedrich, 150 Herder, Johann Gottfried, 150 Hermann, Tamar, 10, 31 Herzl, Theodor, 157 Hesder yeshivot, 40, 47, 49–50 Hezbollah, 73, 99, 102, 103, 104, 122 Hobbes, Thomas, 149 Hobsbaum, Eric, 150, 176 Holocaust, 47, 84, 109, 114, 158 home front, 101, 108 Hussein, King, 162 Hussein, Sadam, 94 ICRC, 132, 133, 135, 139, 141, 142 IDF, 3, 10, 14, 25, 32, 33, 40, 50, 64, 65, 70, 71, 73, 81, 82, 84, 85, 86, 87, 89, 91, 93, 94, 95, 96, 99, 100–101, 101, 102–103, 104–105, 107–110, 110, 111, 112, 113, 114, 127, 130, 132, 148, 154,

Index 159, 163, 164, 165, 165–167, 168, 172, 173 Il-Sung, Kim, 126 Inbar, Efraim, 148–149 Individualism, 94, 96, 169–170 International Committee of the Red Cross. See ICRC Intifada: First [1987], 93, 100, 106, 107, 113; Second [2000], 101, 114 ISA, 109, 111 Israel Defense Forces. See IDF Israeli Press Council, 87 Israeli Security Agency [Shabak]. See ISA Israeli society, 1, 2, 4, 7, 10, 31, 32, 37, 38, 53, 75, 81, 86, 95, 100, 103, 106, 149, 153, 154, 166, 171, 174 Izak, Haim, 24 Jenin, 102 Jihad, 161 Jordan, 40, 42, 95, 130, 162 journalists, 2, 3, 6, 16, 17, 20, 24, 28, 84, 86–87, 88–89, 89–92, 95, 98, 99–100, 101, 102, 104, 105, 106, 110–111, 113 Kadmony, Assa, 22 Kahan Commission, 166 Kahan, Yitzhak, 166 Kahane, Samuel Zanvil, 40 Katzir, Ephraim, 64 Kaniuk, Yoram, 16, 35 Kibbutz, 10, 21, 25, 52, 62, 62–63, 65, 66 Kissinger, Henry, 127, 129, 134, 135, 137–138, 139, 141–143, 144, 159 Knesset, 14, 16, 22, 26, 27, 29, 41, 73, 85, 87, 99, 106, 109, 148 Kol Israel, 84, 99 Kook, Avraham Yitzhak Hacohen, 44, 46, 47 Kook, Zvi Yehuda, 41, 44, 45, 46, 47, 51 Kotler, Yair, 157, 160, 163, 170, 176 Kuhn, Thomas, 58, 78 Kuneitra, 138, 144 Labor Party, 4, 13, 15, 17, 19, 21, 26, 29, 31, 38, 39, 42, 43, 88, 91, 99 Lapid, Arnon, 63, 72, 78 Lapid, Yossef (Tommy), 90, 100, 117

181

liberalism, 56, 74, 76, 148, 154 Lifshitz, Eliezer Meir, 51 Likud Party, 17, 19–20, 22, 42, 43, 51, 66, 88, 91, 107 loss community, 56 Lotberg, Yoseph, 67 Maariv, 13, 14, 20, 21–22, 24, 86, 88, 89, 100, 101 Machon Meir yeshiva, 51 Magen David Adom, 106 Mahapach, 91 Mechdal, 15, 16, 20, 21–22, 42, 43, 87 media, 6, 7, 9, 10, 13, 15, 18, 21, 23, 24, 27, 28, 31, 33, 64, 65, 68, 69, 71, 73, 74, 75, 81–115, 121–122, 126, 128, 130, 151, 166, 169 mediatization, 6, 82–83, 101, 110, 112 Meimad, 49 Meir, Golda, 13, 15, 22, 23, 26, 27, 65, 66, 128, 130, 131, 134, 136, 137–138, 139, 142–144, 162 Menashe, Carmela, 95–96, 98–99, 100 Mercaz Harav yeshiva, 41, 45 MIA, 14, 122, 126, 128, 144 ministerial responsibility, 10, 21, 22, 23, 29 mishap. See mechdal missing in action. See MIA Mizrachi Jews, 40 mobilization, 9, 30, 37, 52, 113, 152 morale. See national morale Mossad, 82, 91, 92, 109, 111 Movement for Peace and Security, 18, 25, 27, 32 Mozes, Noach, 87 Mt. Hermon, 136, 140, 141, 143 Muhammad, 161 Mullen, Mike, 112, 117 Nasrallah, Hassan, 102 Nasser, Gamal Abdel, 131, 160 narrative, 2, 3, 28, 75, 93, 151, 152 national: ethos, 7, 151–153, 155, 172; morale, 72, 73, 84, 88, 99, 103, 112, 121, 129, 136, 140, 145 national emergency government, 14 national religious, 2, 21, 39, 42, 44; party (Mafdal), 39, 40–44, 51, 52

182

Index

national resilience, 7, 102, 108, 130, 152 national security, 32, 81, 83, 84, 103, 110–111, 149, 157 Nave, Chanan, 99 negotiations, 10, 14, 21, 41, 127, 128, 129, 130, 132, 133, 134, 136, 144, 147, 154, 162 Neria, Yuval, 154 Neria, Moshe Zvi, 45 Nir, Amiram, 89 NGO, 96, 110, 113 nuclear project, 82, 114, 160 oversight, 15, 16, 20, 21–22, 29, 32, 42, 43, 65, 66, 72, 87 Pa’il, Meir, 22 Palestine, 131, 155, 156, 157, 160, 168 Palestinian Authority, 95 paradigm, paradigmatic shift, 58, 83, 110, 111, 115, 131, 162 Pardo, Tamir, 109 patriotism, 105, 168–170, 171, 173, 174 peace: ethos, 7, 152, 153, 154, 156–157, 159–160, 161–163, 164–167, 170–171, 171–172; movement, 4, 32; victims of, 170 Peace Now, 154 Peled, Matti, 17 Peled, Yossi, 97 petition, 11, 14, 21, 30, 65, 66–67, 154 PLO, 89, 95, 162 Poalei Agudath Israel, 39 political upheaval. See Mahapach post-heroic society, 7 post-war, 4, 18, 43, 55, 59, 104 POW, 121–145 pre-army mechinot, 50 press, 6, 11, 16, 20, 22, 81, 83, 85, 87, 88, 88–89, 90, 91, 92, 94, 101, 103, 109 prisoners of war. See POW protests, 2, 4, 9–33, 43, 44, 52, 63, 65–67, 69, 72, 89, 142, 143, 144, 145, 165, 166 Rabin, Yitzhak, 43, 66, 95, 109, 113, 136, 149, 170, 171, 173 radio. See Galey Tzahal Ranger, Terrance, 150 Red Cross, 7, 14, 131, 138, 141

redemption, 44–48, 52 Regev, Miri, 107 republicanism, 4, 56, 57, 60, 74 reserves soldiers, 3, 4, 21, 51, 65, 89, 97, 100, 104, 122, 154, 157 Reshef, Tzali, 155, 177 Rotter, 102 Sabato, Haim, 49–50 Sabra, 163, 164, 165 Sabra and Shatila massacre [1982], 90, 166 Sarid, Tikva, 65 Sarid, Yossi, 26 Schiff, Zeev, 85, 86, 88, 90, 91, 94, 109 security, 85–96, 97, 98, 100, 101, 103, 104, 106–107, 109, 109–114 Shachak, Amnon, 100 Shai, Nachman, 86, 93, 94, 109, 118 Shalit, Gilad, 73 Shamir, Moshe, 24–25 Shapira, Haim Moshe, 40–41, 51 Shapira, Yaacov Shimshon, 13, 14 Sharet, Moshe, 86 Sharon, Ariel, 22, 69, 87, 88, 89, 89–91, 93, 101, 105, 112 Sharon, Bruriah, 70 Shavit, Ari, 104 siege mentality, 84, 95, 155, 157–158 Sirri, Umar, 142 Sisco, Joseph, 142 Smilansky, Yizhar. See Yizhar, S. Sneh, Efraim, 73 social agent, 3–4, 5, 8, 11, 75, 81, 82, 85, 88, 90, 91, 92, 94, 106, 152 Sphengental, Ora, 63 spokesperson, 85, 86, 94, 102, 107–109, 112 Stalin, Joseph, 126 Stern, Elazar, 73 Suez, 2, 3, 20, 133, 142, 148, 170, 173, 174 Supreme Court, 92, 111, 166 Syria, 3, 49, 86, 122, 129, 130, 130–132, 133–134, 135, 136–137, 138, 140, 143–144, 145, 160, 161, 162 Tchernowitz, Yemima Avidar, 71 Tel Hai, 169

Index territories, 40, 41, 43, 44, 52, 93, 95, 107, 162, 166 terror, 75, 92, 95, 101, 109, 123, 127, 128, 130, 132, 158, 159, 161, 163, 170 Torani seed groups, 45, 46, 50 tribal campfire, 97, 101 Trumpeldor, Joseph, 168–169, 171 turnover [1977]. See Mahapach UN Security Council resolutions, 133, 136, 143 Warburg, Amy, 150, 177 watershed line, 1, 4, 7, 51, 52, 122, 145 Waxman, Nahshon, 122 Weitzman, Chaim, 171 Weitzman, Ezer, 96 wars and military operations: attrition, 99, 130, 131, 132, 134, 135, 136, 139, 140, 141, 145; Cast Lead [2008], 167; Gulf [1991], 94, 113; Independence [1948], 3, 40, 60, 61, 62, 71, 84, 130, 149, 154, 159, 165, 171; Korea, 126, 127, 129; Lebanon—First [1982], 5, 6, 33, 68, 69, 70, 73, 88–89, 89, 91, 93, 94, 99–100, 166; Lebanon—Second [2006], 33, 73, 98, 101, 102, 103, 104, 108, 111, 113, 122; Pillar of Cloud [2012], 113; Qibya raid [1953], 85, 165, 166; Six Day [1967], 5, 18, 25, 32, 38, 41, 44–46, 47, 49, 52–53, 63, 86, 91, 127, 130, 134, 143, 144, 160, 166;

183

Vietnam, 83, 126–127, 127, 129; World War I, 168; World War II, 152; Yom Kippur [1973], 2, 3, 4, 5, 6–7, 10, 13, 18–19, 27, 32–33, 38, 42–44, 45, 46–53, 56, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 68, 69, 71, 74, 75–76, 81, 88, 90, 93, 105, 110, 111, 114, 121, 122, 127, 131, 132, 134, 148, 154, 157, 160, 163, 167, 171, 172 Warhaftig, Zerach, 41, 54 West Bank, 6, 40, 41, 43, 44, 52, 93, 96, 98, 107, 108 Yadlin, Aharon, 19, 21 Yechimovitz, Shelly, 99 Yediot Ahronot, 24, 26, 67, 69, 72, 87, 89, 99, 100, 104, 105 Yeelon, Moshe, 105 Yoffe, Avraham, 22 Yizhar, S., 165, 167, 178 Zack, Moshe, 88 Zedong, Mao, 126 zeitgeist, 84, 150 Zemer, Hanna, 15–16 Zionism, 48, 154, 156, 157, 160, 163, 170, 171; modern, 154, 156, 157; post, 154; religious, 5, 37, 38, 39, 44, 45, 48, 51, 51–52, 74, 76 Zoreah, Naomi, 72 Zygier, Ben, 109

About the Editors

Udi Lebel is associate professor, head of the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Ariel University. His main research areas include bereavement, death and dying, and civil-military relations. His latest book is Politics of Memory (London and New York: Routledge). Eyal Lewin is assistant professor at the Department of Middle Eastern Studies and Political Science at Ariel University. His books and papers focus mainly on the various factors of political psychology and political sociology, covering topics such as patriotism, national resilience, and national ethos. ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTORS Alexander Bligh is asociate professor in the Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities in Ariel University. Founder and first Chair of the Department of Political Science and Middle Eastern Studies at Ariel University, and visiting professor at Columbia University, University of Toronto, University of Notre Dame, Liberty University and others. Bligh is also Director of Middle East Research Center at Ariel University and author of several books and numerous papers concerning international and Middle Eastern affairs. Nissim Leon is a Senior Lecturer and Director of the Graduate Program in Social and Cultural Studies in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Bar-Ilan University. His research interests include modern Judaism, Ultra-Orthodox communities, religious fundamentalism, nationalism, the emergence of collective memory, and the politics of the middle classes. Nissim is the author of Harediyut rakah (Soft UltraOrthodoxy): Religious Renewal in Oriental Jewry in Israel (Jerusalem, 2010) and a number of articles on related topics. Rafi Mann is an historian and media researcher, a senior lecturer in the School of Communication in the Ariel University, and a teaching fellow in the Communication and Journalism department in the Hebrew University, Jerusalem. He authored and co-authored several books on Israel’s media and history. In 2013 he was awarded the Prime Minister Prize for his book about Ben-Gurion’s struggle over Israel’s public sphere.

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About the Editors

Eithan Orkibi lectures in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Ariel University, and he is a research fellow at the Samaria and Jordan Rift R&D Center, Ariel.. Specializing in social movement rhetoric and political discourse, he published The French Students and the Algerian War: Collective Identity and Expression (2012, Paris: Syllepse), and articles focusing on language, persuasion, and symbolic behavior in protest and collective action.