Ben Eliezer jewish politics
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A Nation-In-Arms: State, Nation, and Militarism in Israel's First YearsAuthor(s): Uri Ben-EliezerSource: Comparative Studies in Society and History, Vol. 37, No. 2 (Apr., 1995), pp. 264-285Published by: Cambridge University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/179282Accessed: 12/10/2008 12:55
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A
Nation-in-Arms:
State,
Nation,
and
Militarism n Israel'sFirst Years
URI
BEN-ELIEZER
Tel-Aviv
University
Like
many
other
states,
Israel
was
forged
through
he
struggle
of a national
liberationmovement that
likely
drew
inspiration
rom
an ethnic
past
and that
certainlyworked to establish a political framework.1Once the state existed,
however,
its leaders
did not
regard
the ethnie as an
objective
category
that
would in
large
measuredeterminewhethera nation would
emerge.2
Instead,
they
viewed the ethnie as
a
subject
susceptible,
n
varyingdegrees,
to
manipu-
lation,
invention, domination,
and mobilization.3As
the
prime
minister
of
Piedmont
said,
We have
made
Italy,
now
we
have to
make
Italians ;
or
as
Israel's
first
prime
minister, Ben-Gurion,
put
it
in
April
1951
during
the
election
campaign:
I
see
in
these elections the
shaping
of
a nation
for
the
state because
there is a state but not a nation. 4
Thisessaydeals with the firstyearsafter hefoundingof the Israelistate.My
main concern is to examine the
way
in which the state constructedan ethnic
population
nto a
fighting
nation,
a nation-in-arms.
Usually,
states
construct
nations
through
various
means,
such as the
school
system,
the
media,
and the
army.
In a
speech
to the
Israeli
parliament
Knesset),
Ben- Gurionclaimed that
efficiency
was
the
reason,
among
all the
possibilities,
for
the reconstruction
f
the Israeli
nation,
primarilyby
the
army:
I have
been a Zionistall
my
life and
I
do
not
deny
the existenceof
Israel,
heaven
forbid . .
.
but
. . . even the
English
nation was not
always
that
nation . . . but was
Anthony
D.
Smith,
State-Making
and
Nation-Building,
n
John
A.
Hall, ed.,
States
in
History
(Oxford:
Basil
Blackwell,
1986),
251.
2
An ethnic
community,
or
ethnie,
shares
a
common
myth
of
origins
and
descent,
a common
history,
elements of
distinctive
culture,
a common territorial
association,
and
sense of
group
solidarity.
A
nation s
much more
impersonal,
abstract,
and
overtly
political
than an
ethnic
group.
It is
a
cultural-political
community
that has become conscious
of its
coherence,
unity,
and
particular
nterests.
See,
Anthony
D.
Smith,
Ethnieand Nation n the
Moder
World,
Millenni-
um,
14:2
(1983),
128-32;
Peter
Alter,
Nationalism
(London:
Edward
Arnold,
1989),
17.
3
John
Breuilly,
Nationalism
and the
State
(Manchester:
Manchester
University
Press, 1982);
Eric J. Hobsbawm,Nations and Nationalism Since 1780 (Cambridge:Cambridge University
Press,
1990);
Ernest
Gellner,
Nation and Nationalism
(New
York:
Cornell
University
Press,
1983);
Benedict
Anderson,
Imagined
Communities
London:
Verso,
1983).
4
Hobsbawm,
Nations
and Nationalism Since
1780,
44-45;
Ben-Gurion
n
Mapai's
meeting,
from
Eyal
Kafkafi,
A
Country
Searching
For Its
People
(Tel-Aviv:
Hakibut
Hameuchad,
1991),
3.
0010-4175/95/2387-0548
$5.00
+
.10
?
1995
Society
for
Comparative
Study
of
Society
and
History
264
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ISRAEL AS A
NATION-IN-ARMS
265
composed
of
differenttribes . . .
fighting
one
another.And
only
after a
development
of
hundreds
of
years
did
they
become
one nation.
...
We
do
not have
hundreds
of
years, andwithout the instrument f the army ... we will not soon be a nation ....
We must
guide
the
progress
of
history,
accelerate
it,
direct it.
... This
requires
a
frameworkof
duty
. . .
a framework
of national
discipline.5
Israeli
military sociologists
have
accepted
Ben-Gurion's
rationalization.
Relying
on
theories
of
nation
building
and
modernization
that
perceive
the
army
as
an
agent
of
development
and
integration,6
these
sociologists
wrote
on
the
many
and
varied
functions of
the Israeli
army
and on its
expanding
role
in
the civil
sphere.
The
army
was said
to
contribute to
immigrant
absorption,
act
as a
melting pot
for
Jewish ethnic
groups, help
in
conquering
the
wilder-
ness
and in
further
settlement,
educate for
good
citizenship
and for
love of
country,
and
foster
culture.
Virtually
no area of
life
seems to
have
escaped
the
eyes
of
the scholars who
probed
the
non-military
use
of
the
military. 7
As
for
the
army's
involvement
in
internal
politics
or
the
chances of a
military
coup,
this
possibility,
most
scholars
claimed,
was
not
real,
since
Israel is
a
nation-
in-arms.
The
nation-in-arms was
portrayed
as
a model of
relations
between the civil
and
military
sectors,
in
which
the
boundaries
between
the two
are
frag-
mented.8 These permeable boundaries, some scholars believed, allowed the
two
sectors
(and
the two
elites)
to
interact
across a
wide
range
of
situations
and to
benefit from
reciprocal
influence
after
agreeing
on
the
rules of
the
game.
It
made it
possible,
on
the
one
hand,
to
conceive of
expanding
the
army's
role and
intervention
in
building
the
nation,
a
phenomenon
that
Horowitz and
Lissak
termed
(partial)
militarization
of the civil
sector.
At
the
same
time,
it
was said
to
bring
about
civilianization,
in
which
civilians
increase
their influence
and
involvement in
the
military
sector,
for
example,
through
Israel's
unique
system
of
service in
the
reserves,
which
transformed
5
Kneset
Protokol,
August
19,
1952.
6
John
J.
Johnson,
ed.,
The Role
of
the
Military
in
Underdeveloped
Countries
(Princeton:
Princeton
University
Press,
1962);
LucianW.
Pie,
Armies n
the
Process of
Political
Moderniza-
tion,
in
Johnson,
The Role
of
the
Military
n
Underdeveloped
Countries,
69-89;
Moshe
Lissak,
Military
Roles
and
Modernization
California,
Sage,
1976).
7
Moshe
Lissak,
The Israel
Defence Forces
as an
Agent
of
Socialization
and
Education,
n
M. R.
Van
Gils, ed.,
The
PerceivedRole
of
the
Military
(Rotterdam:
Rotterdam
University
Press,
1971) 325-39;
Dan
Horowitz
and
Baruch
Kimmerling,
Some
Social
Implications
of
Military
Service
and the
Reserve
System
in
Israel,
Archieve
European
Sociologie,
15
(1974),
262-76;
Amos
Perlmutter,
The
Military
and
Politics in
Modern
Times
(New
Haven:
Yale
University
Press,
1977), 251-80; Idem., MilitaryandPolitics inIsrael:NationBuildingandRoleExpansion(New
York:
Frederick
A.
Praeger,
1969);
Victor
Azarya
and
Baruch
Kimmerling,
New
Immigrants
n
the
Israeli
Armed
Forces,
Armed
Forces and
Society,
6:3
(1980),
22-41.
8
A. R.
Luckham,
A
Comparative
Typology
of
Civil-Military
Relations,
Government
and
Opposition,
6
(1971), 17-20;
David
Rapoport,
A
Comparative
Theory
of
Military
and
Political
Types,
in
Samuel
Huntington,
ed.,
Changing
Patterns.
of
Military
Politics
(New
York:
Free
Press,
1962), 71-100;
Adam
Roberts,
Nation
in
Arms,
The
Theory
and
Practice
of
Territorial
Defence (London:
Chatto and
Windus, 1976).
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266
URI
BEN-ELIEZER
the
army
into a
people's army
mbued with
the
democraticand civil
(some
added,
egalitarian)
spirit
characteristic
f
the
general
society.9
Overall,
these studies tended to focus on the
army's
integrative
mission,
ignoring
its
instrumental ole of
wielding
the
means of
organized
violence.
The
integrative
approach,
doubtful
enough
in research
on the
third
world,10
was
wholly
inappropriate
or
Israel,
which
had
experienced
plenty
of
wars
with violent confrontations n
the intervals
between them.
Interestingly,
ven
the few scholars who went
beyond
the civil
role
of
the Israeli
nation-in-arms
and dealt with its
military,
instrumental
aspect, preferred
o
stay
within
the
integrative
approach
and to write abouthow
the
nation-in-armsunctions as
a
means to survive in a hostile
strategic
environment. 11
These scholars
ad-
dressed neither he crucialrole the
army
played
in
controlling
he
Israeli-Arab
citizens
through
he
military
administration
uring
the
1950s and
early
1960s
nor
their
exclusion from
participating
n
the
nation-formation
rocess
because
they
were
exempt
from
military
service.12
The
question
that should
be asked
is
whether it
makes sense to
view the
nation-in-arms
as a
functional mechanism
for
avoiding
military
coups,
as a
response
to needs
of
survival,
or as
a means
of
modernizing;
perhaps
t
should
be
seen
as a
political
means thatconscious
political
actorsuse
to
legitimize
the
idea of solving political problems by militarymeans throughthe attemptto
make the business
of
the
military
he
preoccupation
nd concern of the entire
nation.
THE FORMATION OF THE NATION-IN-ARMS
Ever since the nation-state became the central
organizingprinciple
n
Europe,
both
in
principle
and in
practice,
this
system
has
produced
both internaland
external
wars.13 More
frequent
wars meant hatthe nation-state
was forced to
tax the populationmore heavily, mobilize citizens for combat, and demand
9
Dan Horowitz
and Moshe
Lissak,
Out
of
Utopia (Albany:
SUNY
Press,
1989),
195-230;
Dan
Horowitz,
The Israeli
Defense Forces:
A
Civilianized
Military
in a
Partially
Militarized
Society,
in
Roman Kolkowicz
and Andrei
Korbonski,
Soldiers,
Peasants and Bureaucrats
Lon-
don:
George
Allen and
Unwin,
1982),
77-106;
Eduard
Luttwakand Dan
Horowitz,
The
Israeli
Army
(London:
Allen
Lane,
1975);
Yoram
Peri,
Political-Military artnership
n
Israel,
Inter-
national
Political
Science
Review,
2:3
(1981),
303-15.
10
Vicky
Randall and Robin
Theobald,
Political
Change
and
Underdevelopment
Durham:
Duke
University
Press,
1985),
67-98.
11 Dan Horowitz, StrategicLimitationsof A Nation in Arms, Armed Forces and Society,
13:2
(1987),
277-94.
12
On
the
tendency
to
ignore
the Palestinians
n
the Israeli
Sociology,
see Baruch
Kimmerling,
Sociology, Ideology,
and
Nation-Building:
The Palestiniansand their
Meaning
in
Israeli Soci-
ety,
American
Sociological
Review,
57:4
(1992),
446-60.
13
F.
Gilbert, ed.,
The
Historical
Essays of
Otto Hintze
(Oxford:
Oxford
University
Press,
1975),
159-77;
Michael
Howard,
Warand the
Nation-State,
n his The
Causes
of
Wars
Lon-
don: Unwin
Paperbacks,
1984),
23-35.
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ISRAEL AS
A NATION-IN-ARMS
267
absolute
loyalty.'4
It
was within
this
context that the nation-in-arms
was
formed.
France afterthe
revolution,
Prussia
following
its defeat
by
Napoleon,
and
Japan
n the
early years
of the
Meiji
Era
(1868-1912)
are
examples
of
states
which constructed a nation
for
the
purpose
of war. The wars
that
France
waged
for more than
twenty
years
had one distinctive feature that its adver-
saries lacked: national
passions.
France's
wars were those of a
nation,
a
fact
given
legal
affirmation
by
the
levee
en
masse,
in which the
entire male
population
was
conscripted.
The nation-in-arms
would
later extend this
idea,
in
the form of the moraland material
contribution f
the home
front
to the
war
effort
and
of
the
blurring
of
differences
between soldiers and citizens.15
Napoleon,
who inherited
the
Jacobin
nation-in-arms,
exploited
it
craftily
for the
purpose
of
waging
war. Half a
century
later,
the 1870s
humiliating
defeat
to
PrussiaturnedFrance
again
into a
nation-in-arms,
eady
for
revenge
through
the Reveil national
of the
years
1910-14,
a
rediscovery
of
patriotic
ideals
and
vocabulary
within
large segments
of French
society.16
Even more
than
France,
Prussia s an historical
example
of
how a nation was
constructed
or invented from above with the conscious
aim
of
winning
wars.
The
cardinal
expression
of
the new
concept
was the reformscarriedout within
the
Prussian
armyafterNapoleondefeated it in 1807. These includeda gradual ransition
from
a
standingarmy composed
of
mercenariesand
foreign
troops
to
a
mass
army
which
included
a
national
militia.17
The
Prussian
army's
reformsdid
not
reflect a surrender
y
the
government
to
nationalist,
radical,
or liberal
tendencies but
were,
even
more than
in
the
French
case,
a calculated manufacture f
national
feeling
to
help
in
winning
wars.
Vagts
labels
the
Prussian
generals
who
fomented the
changes
in
the
army
and in
the
general
conception
of
war Prussia's
military
Jacobins. And
aptly
so. Total mobilization
enabled the state to
indoctrinate he
conscripts
with a nationalist-militaristoutlook which, after theirdischarge,they trans-
ferred to the
rest
of
the
population. Gradually
Prussia-Germany
became a
14
Samuel
E.
Finer,
State and
Nation-Building
n
Europe:
The Role of the
Military,
n
Charles
Tilly,
ed.,
The
Formation
of
National
States
in
Western
Europe
(Princeton:
Princeton
University
Press,
1975), 84-163;
Richard
Bear,
War
and the Birth
of
the Nation
State,
The
Journal
of
Economic
History,
33
(1973),
203-21;
Anthony
Giddnes,
The Nation State and
Violence
(Berkeley: University
of California
Press),
1987;
Karen A.
Rasler and
William
R.
Thompson,
War
and
State
Making
(Boston:
Unwin
Hyman,
1989).
15
Carlton J. H.
Hayes,
Jacobin
Nationalism,
n his The
Historical
Evolution
of
Modern
Nationalism
(New
York,
Russel and
Russell,
1931),
43-83;
Hans
Kohn,
Nationalism,
Its
Mean-
ing and History (Malabar:Robert E. Kreiger), 65, 82, 27-29; Alfred Vagts, A History of
Militarism
(New
York,
Meridian
Books,
1959),
104-28;
Richard
D.
Challener,
The
French
Theory
of
the
Nation in Arms
(New
York:
Russell and
Russell,
1965).
16
David B.
Ralston,
The
Army
of
the
Republic,
The
Place
of
the
Military
in the
Political
Evolution
of
France,
1871-1914
(Cambridge,
MA: M.I.T.
Press,
1967);
Douglas
Porch,
The
March to the
Marne,
The French
Army,
1871-1914
(Cambridge:
Cambridge
University
Press,
1981).
17
Gilbert,
TheHistorical
Essays
of
Otto
Hintze,
208;
Vagts,
A
History of
Militarism,
129-52.
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268
URI BEN-ELIEZER
state
almost
constantly
at
war,
blurring
he
boundary
between civil and mili-
tary
to
the
point
where war became
everyone's
project.
All
that remainedwas
to
spur
the nation to war, a
goal
thatGeneral Baron ColmarVonDer Goltz,
for
example,
set
himself,
at
the turn of the
century.
Wars,
the
general
noted
in
his
book,
The Nation
in
Arms,
are the fate of mankind .
.
. in
our
day
not
only
the
rulers
must
be
familiar
with
the
art
of war: wars are of the
nation. 18
The aim of
Japan's
eaders
at the adventof the twentieth
century
was to turn
their
country
into
an
empire
able
to
stand on
an
equal footing
with the
European
mpires.
War
was
one avenueto that
goal,
albeit not in
the tradition-
al
sense.
A
Japanesemilitaryacademyreportexplained:
A
characteristic
of moder
war is a
fight
with the total
strength
of
nations. War
in
earlier imes
was
decided
by
the side with the
strongestmilitary
power.
In
modem
war,
fighting
is
on
the
level of financial
war,
ideological
war,
and
strategic
war,
in
addition
to the
military
war.19
In
the
years following
the
Meiji
Restoration
of
1868,
Japan
had the ambitions
of
a
great
power
but
the
resources of
a
small
power.
By
applying
universal
conscription,
Japan's
eaders embraced
a
plan
to use the
army
as a school
for
the
population,
a means
to inculcate national
and
militaristicvalues. The
vast
reserve system applied from that time on turnedJapaninto a nation-in-
reserve. 20
The FrenchJacobins
and then
Napoleon,
the
Prussian
reformers,
he
impe-
rial
Japanese
eaders
are
all
paradigmatic xamples
of
a moder
phenomenon:
Wars
are
no
longer fought by
the
nobility
or
by
mercenaries
but
by
mass
armies imbued
with a nationalist
spirit
and backed
by
active
civilian
sup-
port.
The
nation-in-arms
model ascribes an
important
place
to the
state
in
creating-or exploiting-nationalist
sentiment,
and
in
linking
it
to
the need
for war and then
to the
army
as the
state's instrument
or
waging
war,
thus
placingthearmy n a positionof no longer beingconsideredalien andseparate
18
Martin
Kitchen,
The
German
Officer
Corps,
1890-1914
(Oxford:
Clarendon
Press,
1968;
Emillio
Willems,
A
Way
of
Life
and
Death,
Three
Centuries
of
Prussian-German
Militarism
(Nashville:
Vanderbilt
University
Press,
1986)
49-112;
Geoff
Eley, Army,
State and Civil
Society:
Revisiting
the Problem
of German
Militarism,
rom
his
Unification
o
Nazism
(Boston:
Allen
and
Unwin,
1987),
85-109;
Geoffry
Best,
The Militarization
f
European
Society
1870-
1914 ,
in
J.
R.
Gillis,
ed.,
The Militarization
of
the WesternWorld
New
York:
Rutgers
Univer-
sity
Press,
1989),
13-29;
Colmar
Von Der
Goltz,
The Nation in
Arms
(London:
Hugh
Rees,
1913),
470-71.
19
Theodore
F.
Cook,
The
Japanese
Reserve
Experience:
From Nation-in-Arms
o Baseline
Defense, in Louis A. ZurcherandGwynHarries-Jenkins, upplementaryMilitaryForces (Lon-
don:
Sage,
1978),
265.
20
Ibid,
259-73;
Hakwon
H.
Sunoo,
Japanese
Militarism,
Past and
Present
Chicago:
Nelson-
Hall, 1975),
1-65;
Meirion
and Susie
Harries,
Sheathing
the Sword:
The Demilitarization
of
Japan
(London:
Hamish
Hamilton,
1987);
J. B.
Crowley,
From
Closed
Door
to
Empire:
The
Formation
of the
Meiji
Military
Establishment,
n
Bernard
S. Silberman
and
H. D.
Harootunian,
eds.,
Modern
Japanese
Leadership:
Tradition
nd
Change
(Tucson:
University
of Arizona
Press,
1966).
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ISRAEL
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269
from
society
at
large.
For that
reason,
perhaps,
the
nation-in-armsdoes
not
excel
in
military coups;
but it is
certainly
not immune to
militarism,
which
makes wars a normativeand
legitimate
solutionfor
political problems.21
What follows
is
an
analysis
of how
a nation-in-arms
was
formedas
a
way
to
legitimize
the solution
of
political
problems
by
military
means. The first
section deals with two
causes,
partypolitics
on
one
side
and national
politics
on the
other,
that induced the state's
leadership
o
develop
the
new
mode
of
mobilization. The second section deals with the
practices
that have built the
nation-in-arms
onstruct,
and the
third
section illustrates
how this
construct
was
culturally egitimized.
The last section examines the relationsbetween a
fighting
nation and the
possibility
of war.
A STATE
ARMY CONSTRUCTS
A
NATION
A
state is not a
legal entity
that derives
its
existence
solely
from a
declaration
(in
this
case,
May
14,
1948).
In
the
seminal
period
of
Israel,
various
political
actions were carriedout
in
an
attempt
o construct he
state. One such action
involved the transition from
a
militia
and an
underground
orce to a
full-
fledged army
fighting
a
war.
Beginning
in
December
1947
and
reaching
a
peak
the
following
summer,
this
change
was
markedalso
by
mobilizationon
the basis of order and duty.22 srael still did not resemblea nation-in-arms.
When that idea
was
first raised
in a small forum
by
the
acting
chief
of
staff,
Yigael
Yadin,
it was
rejected.
A
nation-in-arms annot
be
trusted,
we need
trained
people,
Yadin
was
told.
And:
Youcannot
make
a
commandoforce
out of vendors from
the
market. 23
Statism
(mamlakhtiut)
was
the
principle
of action
that the
state's leaders
invoked in
order
to transfer o the state the
responsibility
and control of
most
functions
from
the
voluntary
bodies
usually
attached o
political
parties
n
the
pre-state
era. The state would
thereby
concentrate he bulk
of
power
in
its
hand. The process included, for example, the attempt o eliminatethe differ-
ent educational
tracks;
the
formation
of
an
independent
state
bureaucracy;
and,
most
crucial,
the
placement
of a
monopoly
on
the means of
violence,
so
cardinalto
every
state.24
The
process
of
forming
one
army,
however,
encountered erious
obstacles.
21
On the
concept
of
militarism,
see Volker
R.
Berghahn,
Militarism: The
History of
an
International
Debate,
1861-1979
(Cambridge:Cambridge
University
Press,
1981),
31-36;
Mi-
chael
Mann,
The Roots and
Contradictionsof Modem
Militarism,
in his
States,
War and
Capitalism
(New
York: Basil
Blackwell,
1988),
166-87;
Kjell
Skejelsbaek,
Militarism,
its
Dimensions and Corollaries:An Attempt o ConceptualClarification, n AsbjornEdie and Narek
Thee, eds.,
Problems
of Contemporary
Militarism
New
York:St.
Martin's
Press,
1980),
77-105.
22
Yoav
Gelber,
Ben-Gurionand the
Establishment
of
the
IDF,
Jerusalem
Quarterly,
50
(1989),
56-80.
23
Ben-Gurion's
Diary,
March
17, 1948,
Ben-GurionArchive.
24
Peter Y.
Medding,
The
Founding
of
Israeli
Democracy
1946-1967
(Oxford:
OxfordUniver-
sity
Press,
1990),
134-37;
Charles Liebman and Eliezer
Don-Yehiya,
Civil
Religion
in
Israel
(Berkeley:
University
of
Berkeley
Press,
1983),
81-122.
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URI BEN-ELIEZER
Many
of those who had
set
the tone
in
the
military
nfrastructure
efore the
state's establishment
and
during
the war were
identified not
with
the
ruling
party,Mapai (Israel Laborparty)but with the more left-wing opposition,
Mapam.
Attempts
by Mapai,
led
by
Ben-Gurion,
to obtain
influence
in
the
army
before and
during
the war were
not
always
successful. The
army
was
rife with
party
factionalism,
even in the
war's darkest
days,
which
often left
it
unable to act.25
Now,
citing
the creation
of
the state and his
authority
as its
elected
leader,
Ben-Gurion
aspired
to form a state
army
not
saddled
by
party
politics.
Naturally,
Mapam
objected.
In
August
1949,
when
the
government
submitted
o the Knesset
a law on
security,Mapam
said it feared that such an
army
would
produce
a
militarist,
echnocratic lite
estranged
rom
the nation's
needs. As an
alternative,
Mapam proposed
a militia
strongly resembling
the
forces of the
pre-stateperiod
that
would draw
ts
strength
rom
the
people,
not
the state bureaucratic
pparatus
hat
operated
by
law and fiat.26
Mapam,
in
fact,
had raisedthe
idea of a
people's
army
based
on the notion thatthe
people
themselves,
not the
state,
would determine he use of
arms.
Unlike the nation-
in-arms,
the
people's
army
implies
that the state's
authority
s
weakening
or
being rejected.27Mapam's
underlying
rationalewas obvious.
If
its
proposals
were
accepted,
the
party
would
gain
a
huge political
advantage
and would
dislodge Mapai's
foothold
in the
army.
But even
many
in
the
ruling party,
Mapai,
could not understand
why
Ben-Gurion
was so
eager
to
tamper
with
the
power
centers
in
which
their
party
wielded influence and to transfer
full
political weight
to
the state. Ben-Gurion's
political
view was clear.
The
devel-
opment
of
political parties
n
public
life
had not
necessarily
accordedhis
party
a
superior
position
and
during
the
pre-state period
had often
paralyzed
its
ability
to
act.
It was this inclusion
of
political
parties
in
public
life
that
enabled
Mapam
to influence
security
forces.
Statism,
Ben-Gurion
hoped,
would
give
a tremendous
power
advantage
o those
who
headed
the state and
controlled its centralistand autonomousmechanisms.Thus, to the queryof
Mapai
activists- Is
it conceivable
that the
party
will
not
be active
in
the
army? -Ben-Gurion
replied,
It is for the
good
of
the
state and
not
to the
detriment
of the
party. 28
The controversies
urrounding
he efforts
by
state's leadersto form
a
supra-
party
mass
army
recalled
disputes
generatedby
the Junkers'
attempts
to re-
form
their
army.
They,
too,
ostensibly
acted
against
their
own interests
by
demanding
such
reforms.
But their calculation
was clear.
A
strong
Prussian
25
AnitaShapira,TheArmyControversy, 948, Ben-Gurion'sStruggle or Control(Tel-Aviv:
Hakibutz
Hameuchad,
1985;
Yoav
Gelber,
Why
he Palmach Was
Dissolved
(Jerusalem:
Shoken,
1986).
26
August
15,
1949,
Kneset Protokol
(Israel's
parliament);
Mapai
Center,
February
2,
1950,
Mapai
Archive.
27
Roberts,
Nation
in
Arms,
37.
28
Mapai
Secretariat,
August
7, 1949,
Mapai
Archive.
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ISRAEL AS A NATION-IN-ARMS
271
army
under indirectJunker
control would serve Junker
politics
better than
a
weak and
depleted
Junker
army,
which would risk defeat
in a war.29
The analogybetween the Prussianand Israeli cases is even more compre-
hensive.
If
Ben-Gurion
had established
a
strong professional
standing
state
army,
he would have
played
into
the
handsof
the
Mapamopposition
by giving
a basis for their
fear
thatthe
army
would be isolated
from
society's
needs. The
nation-in-arms
was the
appropriate
ormula
for
avoiding
this
potential
criti-
cism. This is
a
formula
of an
army
that is not a militia but exhibits
the ele-
ments of a militia:
an
army
controlled
by
the
state,
not
by
the
people,
but
in
which the
people participate.
Likewise,
in
orderto neutralize
iberal and left-
wing
criticism
against
a
strongstanding
state
army,
he Prussian
reformersdid
not
stop
with
general
conscription
o form an
hierarchical,
egimental,
formal
mass
army,
the
Landstrum,
but
combined
with
it a militia
element,
the less
rigid
and more
populist
Landwehr.This enabled
the Prussians o
present
the
reformed
army
as
representing
he
people
and the
modem,
rather than the
traditional,
political
order.30
Party politics
was
only
one reason for the nation-in-arms.
Neither
the
Prussian,
Japanese,
nor French model of the nation-in-armswas
built in
routine times.
Japan
faced a
change
of
leadership
following
the
defeat
and
overthrow
of
the
TokugawaShogun.
Intrusions
by
Westernnations
into
Japa-
nese
internal
affairs
were crucial
in
triggering
the
Meiji
Restoration.France
was under threatof invasion and
facing
a
desperatemilitary
situation,
while
Prussia
had
been defeated
in a
war,
and its leaders defined
reality
in
terms of
national
catastrophe.
These vicissitudes were
appropriate
or
the
leaders to
establish
new social
arrangements
or
mobilizing
the
population.
Israel,
too,
was
facing
tremendous
upheaval.
The
600,000
PalestinianAr-
abs who had left
the
country during
the war
were
waiting
for
permission
to
return,
and
those
who had
remained were
placed
under
military
govern-
ment.31 This situation could threatenIsrael no less than the fact that most
states
did
not
recognize
the new
state's
borders,
which did
not follow the
United Nations 1947
partition
resolutionbut
were
redrawn
according
to war
gains.
Under these
circumstances,
he
leadership
wantedto
prepare
he
popu-
lation for
the
possibility
of
a second round.
The formation
of
a
strong
mass
ethnic
army
was the main
means
to
achieve that
goal,
although
it was
not
enough by
itself. Almost
concurrently
with
the Arab's
mass
exodus,
about
29
Vagts,
The
History of
Militarism,
59-60.
30
Ibid, 138-9. As for the Frenchcase, Challener'sbook, TheFrenchTheoryof theNation in
Arms,
provides
an excellent discussion of the
connection
between
partypolitics
and the
nation-in-
arms.
31
Benny
Morris,
The
Birth
of
the Palestinian
Refugee
Problem,
1947-1949
(Cambridge:
Cambridge
University
Press,
1989);
Ian
Lustick,
Arabs in a
Jewish State
(Texas:
University
of
Texas
Press,
1980).
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URI BEN-ELIEZER
200,000
Jews streamed nto
Israel at
a
rate
of
15,000
to
30,000
per
month;
and within
a
few
years
the
country's population
more
than
doubled.32The
immigrants urned srael nto a statein whichone ethnicgroupconstituted he
majority.
But
was
it a nation?
The Jewish
immigrants
ame from
every
corer
of
the
world.
They
brought
a
babel
of
languages,
a
bewildering
array
of
customs
and
outlooks. Some
were Ashkenazi
(like
the
majority
n the
pre-stateperiod),
but most of them
were
Sephardi
from
North
Africa and
the
Middle
East).
Few were
acquainted
with the
Zionist
movement and
its realization n the
pre-stateperiod.
When
the
prime
minister
visited a battalion commanders' class
in
the
army,
he
describedhis
impressions,
saying
thathe
saw
only
one
race,
Ashkenazis.
I
see no
greater
danger,
he
added,
than f the commandersarefroma 'noble'
race
and the
rank and file from a
low
race. 33
Ben-Gurion
resisted the
possibility
that the
Sephardi
and Ashkenazi com-
munities
would become
focal
points
of
identification.The Israeli
leadership
designated
he
army
as the
means for
making
the
new
immigrants
part
of
both
the nation
and its
ethnic
army.
A
case
in
point
was the
army's
involvement n
the
ma'abarot,
he
squalidcamps
in which
the
majority
of the
new
immigrants
were
housed
in
that
period.
Beginning
in 1950
the
army
assumed
respon-
sibility
for
many
of
these
camps.
Its
involvement-teaching, looking
afterthe
children,
doing
maintenance
work,
dispensing
medical
aid,
and
supplying
food
and
clothing-extended
even to
making
arrangements
or
laundry
or for
communications
acilities
in the
camps.34
The
army's presence
in the ma'abarotdrew
it closer
to the new
immigrants
and
prevented
he creation
of a
possible
barrier
between
the
two
groups.
As
the
journal
for the Israeli
Defense Force
stated,
The
army's help
. . . will
teach the new
immigrant
hat the
army
and the
uniform he sees are
in
fact
his.
And,
again:
The
army's
help
is further
proof
thatthe soldier
is
really
the
right-handof the civilian. 35The army,then, was not depictedin termsof its
primary
unction,
as the
instrument
of
organized
violence in the
society,
but
was
given
a
civil
image
of an intimate
friendly
force.
Newspapers
of the
period
ran
numerous
eatures
titled,
Soldiers
Take Good
Care
of
the
Kids,
Female
Soldiers
Teach
Hebrew,
and the like.36
This
intimacy
attested
not
only
to an ethnic
sympathy
but,
more
broadly,
o the
immigrants'
mobilization
to the
security
missions
of the new
state.
32
July
5, 1949,
Kneset
Protokol;
Tom
Segev,
The
First Israelis
(New
York:Free
Press, 1986);
Varda
Pilovski, ed.,
Transition
From 'Yishuv' to State
1947-1949
(in
Hebrew) (Haifa:
Haifa
University,
1988);
Mordechai
Naor,
ed.,
First Year
o
Statehood,
1948-1949
(Hebrew)
(Jerusa-
lem: Yad
Ben-Zvi,
1988).
33
Mapai
Secretariat,
June
1,
1950,
Mapai
Archive.
34
Bamachane
(IDF's
Bulletin),
November
23, 1950;
Kneset
Protokol,
January
29, 1951,
Bamachane,
September
20,
1951;
Kneset
Protokol,
December
20,
1951.
35
Bamachane,
November
23,
1950;
Bamachane,
April
5,
1951.
36
Bamachane,
September
20,
1951.
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ISRAEL AS
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NATION-IN-ARMS
273
Now
the
army
was involved in civilian
tasks,
just
as the
immigrants
would
soon take
part
in
the
military.
Ben-Gurion eft no doubt
about the
purpose
of
the institutionalaffiliations orgedbetweenthe new immigrantsandthe army.
They
would
learn,
he
said,
not
army
Hebrew
but Hebrew
soldiering. 37
The
army's
involvement
in
educating
the new
immigrants
was
part
of a
vast
project
meant
to
turn
he
IsraeliJewish
population
nto a
fighting
nation
along
the
lines of the classic
French
example
presented
n the
French
assembly
in
the
following
terms:
The
young
men
were
to
go
forth
to
battle;
the married
men
would
forge
arms;
the women were to
make
tents and
clothing;
and
the
aged
were to
preach
hatredof
kings
and
the
unity
of the
Republic. 38
THE PRACTICES OF A NATION-IN-ARMS
On
August
23, 1793,
the Jacobin
state
gave organizational
xpression
to
the
aim
of
creating
a
strong
army.
The levee en
masse made
it
mandatory
or
all
Frenchmales to
enlist. Three
hundred
housandwere
mobilized
immediately.
Within
little
more than a
year
the
army
would number
over
one million
soldiers.39
The Israeli
military
service
law of
August
1949 and a
numberof
subsequent
amendments
gave legal
validity
to
the
special
arrangements
n-
tended to
establish a
strong,
professional,
mass
army
in
Israel.
Particularly
notable
was the
decision
to create a four-tiermilitarysystem:a careerarmy,as
well as a
regular
army;
the
reserves;
and
the
border
settlements.
The
army
comprised
men
and
women
alike,
even
those in
the
age
group
of
fourteen
to
eighteen
years
old
were
placed
within a
security
framework
Gadna)
to
pre-
pare
them for
military
service
by
means of
a few
hoursof
activity
each
week.
The duration
of
compulsory
service for
males,
in
those
days
considered
very
lengthy,
was
two
years;
from
1952,
it was two
and a
half
years.40
The
suppositions
of
some
scholars
notwithstanding,
he
purpose
of
Israel's
extensive
reserve
corps
was not to
introduce
civilian
patterns
nto
the
army.41
The historicalexamplecan be helpfulhere too. Prussianswho completedtheir
five-year
stint
in
the
army
(three
years
as a
conscript
and
two of
reserve
duty)
were
transferred o
the
Landwehr
militia,
which had
no
professional
officer
corps
and
lacked the
severe
discipline
of
the
regular
army.
Nevertheless,
the
Prussian
militia was
an
extension of
Prussian
militarism,
not
its
antithesis.
The
army
was
backed
up by
the
first
Landwehr,
hen
by
the
second
Landwehr,
and
in
the last
resort
by
the
entire
remaining
male
population,
the
Land-
37
Kneset
Protokol,
August
18,
1952.
38
Challener,
The
French
Theory of the Nation in Arms, 3.
39
Pierre
Birenbaum,
States and
Collective
Action:
The
European Experience
(Cambridge:
Cambridge
University
Press,
1988),
55-66.
40
Kneset
Protokol,
August
29,
1949.
41
Lissak,
The
Israel
Defence forces
as an
Agent
of
Socialization
and
Education ;
Horowitz
and
Kimmerling,
Some
Social
Implications
of
Military
Service and
the
Reserve
System
in
Israel ;
Horowitz,
The Israeli
Defense
Forces:
A
Civilianized
Military
n
a
Partially
Militarized
Society.
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URI BEN-ELIEZER
sturm.42In
Japan,
too,
where
leaders wanted to create a nation
capable
of
standing
on an
equal footing
with the
West,
an efficient
conscriptsystem
was
developed. The exampleof the Frenchnation-in-arms ndthe German mili-
tary
model
were
never
far from
the
minds of
Japan's
eaders
when
they
backed
up
the men
in
active service with an extensive
system
of
organized
reserves.
After two
years
of service the soldier
passed
into the
FirstReserve for a
period
of five
years
and four
months,
then
to
the Second Reserve for ten
years.
This
amountedto seventeen
years
and four
months
of
military obligation.43
The
pattern
recurred
n
Israel,
where the aim was to establish a mass
army
of
conscripts,
called
up by
state
order,
combined with
professional
officers,
for whom
being
a soldier was
their
only
job.
This was
backed
up
by
the
reserve
army
of citizens trained to be soldiers
in
every
respect
and who
demonstrated
xcellence,
among
other
ways, by
their
ability
to
shift,
quickly
and
efficiently,
whenever called
upon,
from civilian to
soldier status.44Such
an
army
had one
purpose
only:
to
win in
a war.
Hence,
Ben-Gurion's
reply
to
the
left-wing Mapam's
dea
of a
voluntary
militia: Wemust
forget
the roman-
ticism of the
army.
. . . We
will
make war
not with a local militia but with an
army
of
rapid
movement and
heavy
firepower,
activating large
formations,
various
corps
. . . in combined
operations
. . with uniform
planning
and
command. 45
In
1952
Ben-Gurionused
this same
spirit
o
justify
the
government's
decision
to
extendcmilitary
ervice
by
an additional
six months.
Israel's
security,
he
stated,
was based
on
training
he entire
nation-people
of all
ages capable
of
bearing
arms-to
fight
when threatened.Ben-Gurion
declared
hat
f
Israel
was
not
wiling
to be a
fighting
nation,
t could
not be a
living
nationand
certainly
not
an
independent
one.46
The Israeli
prime
minister
aspired
to construct
a
new
Israeli,
even
as the
Jacobinstate had
constructeda new Frenchman.
The ideal
was described
by
Barere,
the
strong
man
of
that
Jacobin
state,
in his
memoirs:
In France the soldier is a citizen, and the citizen a soldier. 47
Moreover,
Ben-Gurion
explained,
when he
offered reasons
for
prolonging
army
service,
quantity
s also
decisive. It
was a comment
in the
style
of
Napoleon's
God
walks with the
big
battalions.
Not
surprisingly,
he over-
whelming
majority
of the Israeli
parliament,
ncluding
the
right-wing
opposi-
tion Herut
party,
led
by
Menachem
Begin, supported
he
proposal
to extend
army
service
by
six
months.
The vote was
seventy
in
favorand eleven
against,
a
very impressive
majority
demonstrating
hat
the
people's
elected
representa-
tives
unequivocally
supported
he
idea of a nation-in-arms
or
Israel.48
42
Gilbert,
The Historical
Essays of
Otto
Hintze,
208; Finer,
State and
Nation-Building
n
Europe,
153.
43
Cook,
The
Japanese
Reserve
Experience,
260-2.
44
Kneset
Protokol,
August
29,
1949.
45
Kneset
Protokol,
November
9,
1949.
46
Kneset
Protokol,
August
18,
1952.
47
Hayes,
The Historical
Evolution
of
Modern
Nationalism,
43-83.
48
Kneset
Protokol,
August
18,
1952.
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275
The
government
ost no time in
implementing
he law of
August
1949.
In
March 1950 the
daily
press reported
that citizens would
be called
up
for
reserveduty.Thiswas explainedas another mportant tepin deployingall the
branches
of
the Israeli
security
forces to meet
any
situation. And
just
to
prevent
self-satisfactionon the
part
of
those not
yet
called
up,
the
newspapers
explained
that until now
these
people
had
been
given
a
kind of break
but
would henceforth
share
in
responsibility
for
the state's
security.49
In
July
1950,
Phase Two of the mass
call-up
began.
Initially,
all
those who
had
already
served in
the
IDF
were
assigned
to
the reserves. Now
came
the
turn
of
all males
below the
age
of
fifty
who
had not
yet
done
military
service
(mainly
new
immigrants).
The
military
reserve
system
then
encompassed
almost the entireJewish male
population.
The
army ournal
noted:
One
thing
is
clear to us all-that
the main
strength
of
our
state,
in
addition to
the
conscript army
and the staff of
the career
army-is
the
army
of
the
nation,
namely,
the nation itself. 50
So
important
was
the motif of
participating
n
the
nation-in-arms hat the
army
bulletin
boasted about
the
reserve
call-up
of
mules
every year
and
described the
way
in
which
the
poor
animals
were
processed
and
incorporated
n
their
military
unit.
The
implied message
was
clear: If
livestock could
be
drafted,
so could
the new
immigrants.51
General Yadinfirst
describedthe
Israeli citizen as a
soldier
on
ten months'
leave. In
Japan,
Tanaka
Gi'ichi',
one of
the
founders
of
the
Imperial
Military
Reserve
Associate,
commented in
1911 that
all citizens
are
soldiers. 52
n
both
cases,
the
idea went
beyond serving
in
the
army
under
egal
obligation:
It
implied
civil
virtue and
a non-formal
criterionof
citizenship.
The
organiza-
tional
arrangements,
which
guided
all Israelis
who
would
be,
directly
or
indirectly,
involved
in
military
affairs,
formed
the
social basis
for
Israeli
militarism. The
concept
also
entailed a
singular
definition of
reality.
A
BROAD
CONCEPT OF
SECURITY
Immediately
after
the end of
the 1948
war,
in
reply
to a
question
from
the
army's journal,
Ben-Gurion
described
the situation as
a
temporary
ruce.
During
the
Knesset debate on
the
military
service law
he
spoke
of an
armed
peace.
No
one should
harbor llusions
about
the
future,
the
prime
minister
asserted,
warning
about the
dangers
of a
false
peace. 53
On
another occa-
sion,
Ben-Gurion
said
that
a
mini-war
was
being
conducted
between
Israel
and its
neighbors,
for
which the
blame
lay
with
those
states
in
the
region
that
were
caught
up
in
a maelstrom of
disturbances,
coups,
political
chaos
and
political assassinations-a volatile situationwith unknowableconsequences
which
could
spread
anywhere.
The Knesset
listened in
silence to
the
demoni-
49
Haaretz
(daily
newspaper),
March
12,
1950.
50
Bamachane,
July
20,
1950.
51
Draft-Cards or
Mules,
Bamachane,
July
31,
1952.
52
Cook,
The
Japanese
Reserve
Experience,
271.
53
Bamachane,
October
17, 1949;
Kneset
Protokol,
August
29,
1949.
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276
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BEN-ELIEZER
zation of Israel's
neighboring
countries,
and
only
one
member,
from the
Communist
Party,
called out:
This is
a
prelude
o the
order,
t is
preparation
for war. 54
Ben-Gurion
presented
a
broad
concept
of
security.
Security,
he
had ex-
plained
in
1949,
meant more than the
army.
It entailed
stepping up
the birth
rate and
populating
empty
areas.55With the
passing
of
time,
Ben-Gurion's
definition
of
security
would
be broadened
still
further;
and the civil
sphere
would
shrink
correspondingly.
Militarism became
something
universally
shared
when
Ben-Guriondeclared
n
1955:
Security
s not
possible
without
immigration
. . .
security
means settlements .
.
. the
conquest
of
the sea and
air.
Security
s
economic
independence,
t means
fostering
research
and
scien-
tific
ability
.
. .
voluntarism
of the
population
for
difficult
and
dangerous
missions.
56
One
of
the means
resorted o
by
the
leadership
o
create
a
broad
definition
of
security
was Nahal
(the
acronym
or
Fighting
Pioneer
Youth).
This
special
unit combinedcivil
missions like
agriculture
nd land settlementwith combat
roles. The civil
missions,
however,
were
part
of the broad definition
of
security.
Whenever
a
dispute
arose between the Defense
Ministry
and the
kibbutz movements
over settlementsites
for the
youth
movements'
graduates
who comprisedNahal, the ministryhad the last word. To preventsuch fric-
tion,
the
he'ahzut,
the
security
settlement,
was created. Its
purposes
were
based
entirely
on
military
considerations:
The he'ahzutwas the most
complete
expression
of
using
settlement
for
militarypurposes.57
Nahal,
thus,
reconstructed
ettlementand
army
into Siamese
twins,
never
to
be
separated.
If a certain
civilian
image
was attached to
Nahal
in
the
soldiers'
dress,
their
lax
discipline,
their
loose sexual
mores,
in the
informal,
communal
relations
within their units-and
if
the
army
made no effort to
reverse
such
tendencies,
the
goal
was
clear.
The statist
professional
army
in
uniformwas likely to arouseoppositionin a countryin which the socialist
ethos
prevailed,
labor
parties
ruled,
and
ideology
strove
as
much to create a
voluntaristic
society
as
to form a new
state. The
special
arrangements
and
practices
that
brought
about the nation-in-arms
onstituted the
leadership's
formula
for reconciliation
and
effectively
merged
voluntaristicwith coercive
elements. The
IDF was
not to be a classic
state
army
based
on coercion
only
but was
to
display
elements
of
voluntarism,
emotion,
pioneering,
comrade-
ship,
and
a militia-like
ethos,
all
imputed
to the
nation's needs.
Ben-
54 KnesetProtokol,August19, 1952;Davar (daily newspaper),August 19, 20, 1952. See also
Baruch
Kimmerling's
article
about
Israel's
conception
of
peace
( Exchanging
Territories
or
Peace:
A
MacrosociologicalApproach,
The
Journal
of
Applied
Behavioral
Science,
23:1
[1987],
13-33).
55
Mapai
Center,
January
12,
1949,
Mapai
Archive.
56
Kneset
Protokol,
November
7,
1955.
57
Asnat
Shiran,
The
Policy of
Settlement
During
the
Independent
War
and
After
(in
Hebrew)
(Tel-Aviv:
M. A.
thesis,
Tel-Aviv
University,
1992),
197-98.
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ISRAEL
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277
Gurion
called
it statist
pioneering
(halutziut
mamlakhtit),
explaining
that
even
though
Israel
possessed
a
powerful
instrument f manifold
performance,
meaning
the state, it still needed
pre-state pioneer
endeavors.58Nahal was,
then,
an extreme
example
of
the
general
pattern,
a fusion
of the
statist,
coercive,
bureaucratic
mechanism
of mobilization
with an emotional
and
communal
element,
a
synthesis
that
helped
to mobilize
the Israeli Jewish
population.59
Mass maneuvers
were another means
that served
to construct a broad
concept
of
security. Every
exercise
has its own
mission,
the
daily
news-
paper,
Ha'aretz,
informed
its
readers
in the autumn
of
1953,
going
on
to
describe
how
that
year's
maneuvers
differed
from
previous
ones of 1951 and
1952.
Nor did the
paper pass
up
the
opportunity
o
publicize
the
army's
slogan:
And
you,
the
citizen,
share
n
their mission and their success. 60The
large-scale
maneuvers,
like
the
reserves
system,
were the
handiworkof the
chief of
staff,
Yigael
Yadin.
Through
hem Yadin
wanted
to test the
idea of a
nation-in-arms.
To dramatize
his
point,
Yadin n 1950 sent
military
police
to
arrestthe
secretary
of
the Finance
Ministry,
who had the
impression
that his
position
exempted
him from
service. Yadin also demandedthat at least one
exercise
be
held
with
100,000
troops participating-virtually
the entire
army
that Israelwould put into actionin the event of a war.6'
The mass
maneuvers blurredthe distinction
between two
types
of
time:
peace
and war. The
press provided
daily reports
on
the exercises:
A
surprise
attack
by
the 'Reds'
on
the
'Blacks' in the air force
maneuvers,
one
paper
wrote. A few
days
later
paratroops
rom the
country
of
the 'Yellows' were
reported
to have landed
on the
soil
of
the
'Blacks. '
And
three
days
after-
ward readers
learned that efforts
by
the 'Greens' to breach the lines
of the
'Blues' were thwarted.
The entire
population
was
involved,
as
befitted a
nation-in-arms.While
the maneuverswere
in
progress,
a
numberof incidents
occurredon the Egyptianborder,blurring he line betweentrainingexercises
and real attacks. The
uncertainty
was
heightened
when Israel
denied,
at
first,
that
its soldiers had entered he
demilitarized
one,
ascribingeverything
o the
Egyptians'
over-vivid
imagination.
The
press
wrote that
travelers
n
the Gal-
ilee
(where
the maneuvers
were
being
held)
were
caught
up
in
a war atmo-
sphere.
The
country'spresident,
escorted
by
the chief
of
staff,
touredthe area
of
what were labeled battles.
The
day
after his visit
the
IDF
raided
the
Jordanian
village
of
Qibiyeh,
this time
for
real,
killing
some
fifty
inhabi-
tants and
blowing
up
about
forty
houses. The United Nations
and the
Great
Powers were outragedat the scale of the operation,its brutality,and Israel's
58
Mapai
Council,
June
19,
1948,
Mapai
Archive.
59
Uri
Ben-Eliezer,
Israel's
Myth
of
Pioneering
and
the Elusive Distinction
between
Society
and
State,
in
Megamot (forthcoming,
1995).
60
Haaretz,
September
28,
1953.
61
Shabtai
Tevet,
Moshe
Dayan
(Tel-Aviv:
Shoken,
1971),
355.
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BEN-ELIEZER
violation of
the
armistice
accords. The
government,
n
contrast,
continuedto
hold
what it called
thorough
discussions on
security. 62
The Arabstates had
difficulty
in
accepting
the idea that Jewish state could
exist in
the Middle East.
They,
too,
prepared
or
a second
round.
Concur-
rently,
Palestinians
continued to
infiltrate into Israel.
At first
these
were
refugees
seeking
to
return to
their
homes,
and
then
they
were
sabotage-
and-murder
quads.
The
Israeli sense of
security,
however,
cannot be under-
stood
as the direct result of an
objective
situation.
Rather,
it
was the
prod-
uct of
a
politics
that
presented military
action as
the
only
viable
alternative
to the Arab
threats.
Throughout
he
early
1950s,
border
ncidents-triggered
mainly by conflicting interpretations
f the
armistice
agreements,
the sta-
tus of the
demilitarized
zones,
and the
exact location of the
boundaries-
occurredwith
Syria,
Jordan,
and
Egypt.
The
government
decided to react
vig-
orously.
After
Moshe
Dayan
was
appointed
chief
of
staff,
at the end of
1953,
Israel
opted particularly
or
reprisal,
usually
using
the
paratroops
o
carry
it
out.
Reporters
or the
army
weekly
accompanying
he
fighting
forces on
their
missions
acquainted
every family
in
Israel with the
daring bravery
of
the
soldiers
through irst-person
rticlesand authentic
photographs.63
he
reprisal
raids gradually spawneda myth of heroic warriors; he nation esteemed its
military
emissaries and
made
them
symbols
of
the
new Israel.
Every
young-
ster
who was drafted nsisted
on
joining
the Red Berets
(the
paratroops),
and
those who were
accepted
became the
pride
of the
family
or
neighborhood.64
In
themselves,
the border
disputes
and the infiltrationsdid not attest
directly
to an imminent war but
legitimized
the creation of a crisis
atmosphere
and
justified
the
possibility
of
war as
a
means of
solving political
problems,
a
phenomenon
which is defined as militarism.
Although
admiration
or
the
army
ntensified,
the
press
continued o demon-
ize theenemyanddownplay heIsraeli-Palestinian onflict.Thearmy ournal,
for
example,
ran a series
of
articles
by
a
Dr.
Sasson
Ashrikiwhich
were
meant
to
enlighten
the reader
about
the
Arab
problem.
In
them the
refugees
were
described
as abandoners
nd as the
oker
in the hands of
the Arab states.
There was
no
refugee
problem,
the
writer
claimed,
stating
that the
refugees
were not interested
n
returning
but were
being
incited
by
their leaders. Dr.
Ashriki also had a
scoop: Fortypercent
of
the abandonerswho receive aid
from
the U.N.-do
not even exist. 65
By
the
mid-1950s
the Jewish
population
was
given
the
opportunity
o demonstrate ts nationalcommitment.
62
Haaretz,
October
7,
12,
15,
21,
1953.
63
Bamachane,
September
18,
1956;
October
3,
1956.
64
Teveth,
Moshe
Dayan,
399;
Uzi
Benziman,
Sharon,
an Israeli Caesar
(New
York:Adama
Books, 1985), 50;
Uri
Milstein,
By
Blood
and Fire
(in Hebrew;
Tel-Aviv:
Levine-Epstein,
1975)
176-93.
65
Bamachane,
October
5, 12,
1955.
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A
NATION READY FOR
WAR
At the end of
September
1955,
the arms deal between
Czechoslovakia
and
Egypt
was made
public;
and a wave of
popular
voluntarism
wept
the
country
in
the
form
of contributions or arms
purchases
through
what was
called
the
Defender
Fund
(Keren
Hamagen).
The new
immigrants,
he so-called Second
Israel,
now
shared
in
a collective effort aimed at
supplying
the
army
with
funds. The
press published
the amounts donated
and described
the
donors,
noting
the
general
enthusiasmand manifestationsof
mass voluntarism
never
before seen
in
the
country. 66
On October
21,
the
newspaperspublished
price
lists of
weapons;
and
the
public beganbuyingthem. The Teachers'Associationcontributedan amount
sufficient to
purchase
one
warplane
and
one tank. The
Haifa
City
Council
decided to
contributea
torpedo
boat to
the
navy.
The
Artisans'
Association
purchased
a
warplane.
The
City
of
Ramat Gan
bought
a
transportplane
and
one hundred
parachutes.
Discount Bank
collected
enough
for a tank.
The
town
of
Ramle's
elected
representatives
decided to
purchase
a tank
to be
called Ramle 1. At the
same time the
popular
manifestations
ontinued. As
the cabinet was
deliberating
he
Defender
Fund,
an
elderly
woman
appeared
and
donatedan ancient
Venetian
glass
vase.
A
second
woman
turned
up
at
the
Prime Minister's Office with a heavy bracelet made of pure gold. Lydia
Balulu,
mother of
ten,
who had
received a
childbearing
prize
of 100
pounds
sterling,
donated it to
the fund.
Schoolchildren
organized
street
parades,
and
Yadin,
the former
chief of
staff,
made an
emotional
appeal:
Parents,
buy
a
suit of
iron,
a suit of
armorfor
the defense of
your
children. 67
The
spontaneous
organizing
attested to a
sense of
partnership,
o
proto-
national bonds.68
The
leadership
ost no
time
in
directing
this
outpouring
of
feelings
into
channels it
found
desirable.
Parades and
mass
demonstrations
were
organized,
booths for
donationsand
special
offices were
set
up;
informa-
tion pamphlets were distributed;and two former chiefs of staff headed a
public
committee which
declared that it
intended to
raise
$25
million for
purchasing
weapons.
This
intense
activity
was
based on
both
the
leadership's
guidance
and the
public's
active
commitment.69
This
activity
indicated the
success of
a
political
method
that
sought
to
blur
any
distinction
between
politics
from
above and from
below.
This was
the
nation-in-arms
manifested
not
only
as a
policy
of
the
leadership
or
any
other
state
agent
but as
a
project
of
all.70
Another
expression
of the
nation's
inest
hour at
that
time was
Operation
Wall (MivtzaHoma). The armydid not want to
budget
funds for
obviously
defensive
purposes,
such
as
developing
civilian
support
or
fortifying
settle-
66
Davar,
October
21,
23,
1955.
67
Davar,
October
24, 25,
1955;
November
5,
6,
1955.
68
Hobsbawm,
Nations and
Nationalism,
10-11.
69
Histadrut
Political
Committee,
December
28, 1955,
Histadrut
Archive.
70
Hobsbawm,
Nations
and
Nationalism,
46.
-
8/20/2019 Ben Eliezer jewish politics
18/23
280 URI
BEN-ELIEZER
ments. The result
was that
non-government
companies belonging
to civil
institutions,
such as
the
Histadrut
Federation
of
Laborand
the Jewish
Agency,
ralliedto the cause of
improving
he defenses of bordersettlements. Workers
from
the
big
cities volunteered o
help
in
the construction.
The
operation
was
made
viable,
thanks o the
cooperation ypical
between
the
civilian
companies
and
the
army,
a
clear
indication
hat
security
was
no
longer
purely
a
project
of
the state and its
bureaucracy
but an
enterprise
of the
people. Gradually,
he
campaign gathered
momentum,
becoming
a
mass movement that
ultimately
encompassed
more than
100,000
volunteersand 300
settlements.71
The
Jacobins
n France
spoke
of the need
to
turnhouses into
fortresses.72 n
Israel
a similar notion was
put
forward.
As
early
as March
1951,
Ben-Gurion
had stated
in
the
Israeli
parliament
hat it was
essential
for
every
settlement
and
locality
to be
strengthened
and trained o face the
enemy.73
A
few
years
later
a Defense
Ministry
official,
Shimon
Peres,
explained
the
significance
of
Operation
Wall
in
terms of its contribution
o
the nation-in-arms
model. Peres
noted
that,
until
the nineteenth
century
wars had been
fought by professional
soldiers whose
goals
were
military strongholds.
However,
as national
senti-
ment
developed
and
as nations
emerged,
wars ceased to be a matter for
mercenaries
and
militarystrongholds
were
no
longer
their
only
target.
Nowa-
days, he noted, soldiers and civilians were interchangeable.Today'ssoldier
would be tomorrow's
civilian,
and vice
versa;
today's
civilian settlement
would be tomorrow's
military
stronghold,
and
vice versa.74
The Jacobin
state endeavored
o
keep
its citizens
in
a
state
of
permanent
activity.
Something
of the
same sort was also discernible
through
the
mass
participation
elicited
by
the Defender
Fund
and
Operation
Wall
in
the new
Israel.
This state of constant
mobilization also led to the dominance