The army as a focus of power: Structuring Israeli

The Israeli army enjoys social consensus that affords a key socializing factor and an inseparable part of the Israeli civil experience. A large part of developing the personal, gender and civil identity is rooted in this entity.

The army has a patriarchal structure, of total, hierarchical, pyramidal and total (centralist and rigid) dimensions (Goffman, 1961; Jerbi 1996). It has the functional dimension of defense or victory in war. In Israeli society it has a covert social objective of education and socialization, in addition to the overt and declared objective that characterizes every army – defense.

It is an integral part of the normal life track in Israel and its impact is measured beyond the legal period of time for which people must serve in the army. Furthermore, the obligation to serve does not end with the completion of regular service; men are considered part of the reserve duty array until the age of 45-50.

The centrality of this institution in Israeli society was born out of the 'siege' feeling that was fundamental to Israeli society and created a 'struggle culture' (Yishai,1996). This culture adopted military norms and values that are defined as 'masculine' (Jerby, 1996) and integrated them in the life array:

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1. Style of speech – scathing, rough, slang born in the army, with curt commands, using battle concepts in daily language;⁴⁹

2. Derogatory attitude to weakness, fear, expressing feelings

3. Glorifying the readiness to sacrifice life for the sake of the homeland, coping with death at the personal, group and national levels;

4. Developing a framework for civilian life in the shadow of war⁵⁰ while justifying using force for reasons of defense;

5. The pace of life that shifts between tension–pain-euphoria and back again.

The centrality of the army in Israeli life is well expressed in a letter written a father to his son who was recruited:

"…On Sunday we took you to the army... All your life was spent in one neighborhood, so it seems to you that that is the entire world, but it is not so. You will meet people from Ashdod and from Yeruham…, from Kishinev and Moscow… The army, my son, is not similar to anything else...three years for which there is no way to prepare or to understand them…, and there is something else, my son, that is unfashionable… Be proud… I know you have grown up into a period in which there are quite a number of shirkers. The post-modern period is at its peak and no-one (including myself) thinks any longer that the army is always right. But our family…is still stuck with Zionism, believing in this State and with the old concept that says that you are going or not going just for yourself but because this is the right thing to do. In the next three years you will serve in the regular army and I will breath irregularly because this is our country and there is no other, and because this is what it demands of the best of her sons.."

(Lapid, 2005) Alice Miller's struggle⁵¹ with the military establishment came from a view of the army as a central institution in Israeli life and in developing Israeli identity. The perception behind this was that if women will be

49 Hebrew has military expressions incorporated into daily language, such as 'struggle for his life', 'the outbreak of illness', 'to stand as still as soldiers', 'battle fox' and so on.

50 Life is conducted in the shadow emergency orders, including censorship, field security and others; developing a military reserve duty array (formerly only for men but joined recently by women) and legislation suitable for organizing work relations in such a situation; establishing a civilian array to function in emergency, a rear command in the 1990s following the Gulf War etc.

51 Alice Miller demanded that the option to be recruited to the pilot course be open to women too.

She won her case in 1991, opening the way for women not only to that prestigious course but also to other roles that had been closed to women till then.

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integrated in operational military roles, an egalitarian track will open up for them since the army has great influence on both shaping identity and on civilian life and integrating therein.

The State of Israel is the only country in the western world, and perhaps in the entire world, where compulsory recruitment of women exists. As participating in the defense forces is a social entry ticket, women naturally saw themselves as involved in this framework. Not so the men – the policy-makers. The structure of social belonging is composed of circles of differing radii around the core of "pure Israeliness" (Algazi, 1992). In the first circle are the men, before the women. The type of military service affords a dimension for further ranking and is divided according to participating in the 'right' war and serving in the 'right' unit.

These define belonging as ranked belonging that also determines differing civilian rights, decided according to the relative status as identified by the cultural code customary in the State of Israel (Jerby, 1996).⁵²

The type of service for girls was and is one of the factors that structure inequality between men and women, despite the very drastic changes it has undergone. It preserved patriarchal structures with stereotypical consideration of women by allocating the roles that 'support fighting' which were the same traditional female roles such as education, services and care, and by characterizing them using the excuse of biological difference or the gender social roles – future motherhood.

This difference in attitude to women prevented them the jumping board to roles in the civilian sector as happens amongst men. Military service increased the starting disparity between men and women and provided a network of connections throughout life for men.

The 'parachuting' of military personnel into the civilian system transferred the male, patriarchal and militaristic behavioral code into the civilian social systems, while preserving the preferred power relations in favor of the men compared to the women. Women found themselves in power institutions, in a power-oriented atmosphere that caused them to internalize large parts of the manifestations of power, including the many years of silence regarding the sexual harassment they experienced during their military service (Sasson-Levi, 2001) and in civilian life. Military service, the service of the country, afforded a cover of protection from

52 Men serve for three years compared to women who serve for two, thus they receive a bigger demobilization grant, and other financial benefits manifested in the salary, years after, being the one of the reasons for gap salary.

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the illegal or non-value oriented behavior, out of appreciation of the courage and sacrifice that contrasted with the anomalous behavior at the civilian level.

Women, as a group, also find themselves in a dilemma and conflict as soldiers, as mothers and wives of soldiers and as civilians in a country that know battles, bereavement and pain of war. Many women would object to the conquest, to being in Lebanon, to the perception of the Arab population despite the attitude they were afforded among both the broad public and the army⁵³.

Thus, since 1967, the political debate has become more of a military debate while rejecting the social debate (Levi, 1993), or to be more exact, placing it in the hands of religious parties as will be detailed later. The many 'generals' arriving as managers or employees at civil work places bring with them the army brotherhood with deep loyalty and old commitments that blocks the path to women. The army-political-economic axes combine to a powerful patriarchal axis that excludes women, discriminates against them and reproduces itself.