Can someone assist with argumentative essay on Gender Integration?

Uta Klein

The Gender Perspective of Civil–Military Relations in Israeli Society

Introduction

During the Israeli election campaign in 1999 a surprising newspaperadvertisement appeared. Under the heading ‘Gentlemen, It’s Impossible Without the Ladies’, it showed the candidates of the big parties, Dan Meridor, Amnon Lipkin-Shahak, Ehud Barak and Benjamin Netanyahu, dressed in women’s clothes. The ad called for more women in the Knesset. Surprising and unusual was the text beneath the photo: ‘Don’t forget that every second voter is a woman. It is true: you all might be born leaders and excellent officers, but only women candidates in safe places on the party lists can rep- resent the whole electorate.’ The advertisement was especially unusual in mentioning the connection between the political success of male aspirants following a military career and the political failure of women. In this article civil–military relations in Israel are explored from a gender perspective. On the one hand, it is asked whether the drafting of women has changed the masculinity of the defence forces. On the other hand, the impact the central- ity of the military as an institution and the military discourse has on gender relations in society is explored.

State of Research

The exceptional centrality of security to the national existence of Israel has led scholars to investigate the impact of the military on the political and civil system. During a first phase works concentrated on the ‘classical’ issues. The main question was whether the political sphere controls the military sphere,

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as the non-interference of officers in politics is seen as a sine qua non of democracy. Generally speaking, Israel was viewed as a unique case of a system which maintains a democracy during protracted wars and prolonged conflict (Perlmutter, 1969; Horowitz, 1982; Horowitz and Lissak, 1989). The persistence of democracy was attributed to the permeable boundaries between the military and the civilian sector and thus to the ‘civilization’ of the military. The army was deemed a ‘citizen army’ and Israel was seen as a ‘nation in arms’ with the army not reflecting a specific group in society. Because of the extended reserve duty (of male Jewish citizens, a fact which has rarely been emphasized) and the connection between civilian and military elites in social networks, the role extension of the Israeli military is balanced by the civilization of the defence sphere – so the argument ran (Horowitz and Lissak, 1989). Moshe Lissak (1983, 1984) described the Israeli case as a cluster of ‘paradoxes’ of civil–military relations. In general, these studies viewed Israel as a positive model of a successful partnership of the elites.

This research, however, is limited in scope, it is characterized by a weakness of the ‘general theoretical framework for the study of civil–military relations’ (Peri, 1983: 6). According to Baruch Kimmerling (1993: 206), ‘ideo- logical and value-loaded considerations blurred the issue’. Questions emerging especially after the war of 1967 and the occupation of Palestinian territory were neglected for a long time, but they were articulated during a second period of research, starting in the late 1980s and initiating a contro- versial debate on various aspects of the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) and its function in society. Scholars emphasized the effects of armed conflict on larger society, on its attitudes and values. The connection between military and political elites (Maman and Lissak, 1996; Etzioni-Halevy, 1996) became a focus of research as well as various aspects of military–industrial relations (Mintz, 1985; Carmi and Rosenfeld, 1989; Klieman and Pedatzur, 1991). Scholars began to discuss whether the predominance of security and military power has led to a ‘militarization’ of Israel. Ben-Eliezer (1995) talked about ‘militaristic politics’, Kimmerling (1993) used the term ‘civilian militarism’.

Furthermore, on a micro-level, scholars started to investigate the com- munication and the interaction in military units (Ben-Ari, 1998), the meaning of battle and participation in war to individuals (Linn, 1996) and the period of defence duty as a transition period to adulthood (Lieblich, 1989, 1990).

The gender perspective, however, has been neglected in these studies. Apart from the important but occasional works of Bloom (1982) and Yuval- Davis (1985), this approach has gained interest only recently. In none of the aforementioned ‘classical’ works are questions of gender or gender identity construction in the IDF and in society taken into account. Only Baruch Kimmerling, in a short passage, mentions a ‘machism culture’, meaning that during wars society is divided into two major cultures: a ‘ “warrior society” of males and the other “home front”, basically women’s society’

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(Kimmerling, 1993: 216). Gal (1986), in his often referred to book on the Israeli soldier, dedicates one chapter to ‘women in the IDF’. This is aston- ishing because Israel is unique in the sense that Jewish Israeli women have been conscripted since the foundation of the state of Israel.1 Thus Israel serves as an interesting case study to analyse the impact of a most advanced – in terms of numbers – integration of female citizens in the defence forces on society and on the defence forces themselves.

In this article I present the major findings of my research.2 I argue that although (Jewish) women are conscripted, the military in Israel is the main force in shaping male identity. Military service can be understood as a rite of passage to male adulthood. The military is perpetuating the stereotype of a woman as subordinate. In society at large the dominance of security and of the military discourse leads to gender inequality

Childhood, Adolescence, Gender and Conscription

Military service in Israel is compulsory for both men and women. The debate on the defence law during state formation is one of the longest ever recorded debates only because of the controversial discussion on the integration of women in the defence forces (Berkovitch, 1997). The religious parties viewed the integration of women as harmful because of their physical condition, the impact on morality in the institution and because of the feared impact on the birth rate. The secular forces viewed the integration of women as self-evident just as they saw the exclusion of married and pregnant women as obvious. In the end, religious parties and the ruling party agreed that Jewish men and women were conscripted on unequal terms.

The National Service Law (1953) specifies groups of persons that are automatically exempted from service: married [sic!] women, pregnant women and mothers, Christian and Muslim women. Further, in 1978, the govern- ment of Menachem Begin (Likud) enacted a law allowing women to be exempted for religious reasons if they wanted. The law, however, does not exempt men for reasons of religion, conscience, or marital status. Yet in practice Jewish religious men who are actually studying in a Yeshiva, are exempted. The length of service is different too. Men have to serve for three years, women for two. Regulations have changed a couple of times: in both 1993 and 1994 the length of service for women was cut back.

As a result of unequal conscription regulations and policies, about 90 percent of (Jewish) men are drafted as opposed to 60 percent of (Jewish) women. Stuart A. Cohen (1997: 93) states that 80 percent of the male recruits complete their statutory length of service. In comparison, only 15 percent of female conscripts complete 24 months. Furthermore, only men are regularly called to reserve duty up to the age of 50 or 52 years. According to the law

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women have to be ready for reserve duty until the age of 24 years, only. In practice, however, almost none of them are called to reserve duty. In addition to this, men are accepted for service regardless of education, while women must have eight years of formal education. On the one hand, this means that the average qualification of female soldiers is higher. On the other hand, this practice ‘reinforces the social handicap of those women’ (van Creveld, 1994: footnote 3). According to Reuven Gal (1987), not meeting this edu- cation/intelligence criterion constitutes the second most important reason why women are exempted from military service. All in all these aspects of different conscription policies show that what is called ‘universal’ conscrip- tion is selective rather than universal, when the female population is con- cerned.

Among the Arab population, only Druse men are obliged to serve. Bedouin men can volunteer and Muslims are excluded. Thus my remarks about masculinity apply to the Jewish Israeli collective. On the one hand, the IDF creates a common bond between Jewish Israelis who come from different ethnic backgrounds, on the other hand it might be worth exploring whether the exclusion of most Arab males leads to the creation of what Robert Connell (1995) calls marginalized and subordinated masculinities along national ethnic lines within the group of male citizens.

Israel indicates specific characteristics of (pre-)military socialization compared to western countries. Long before conscription Israeli youths get acquainted with the military. In western societies, states ‘without enemies’, young men usually start to think about questions of security and, more con- cretely, whether they want to serve in the military or not at the age of 15 or 16. In Israel, however, due to the military situation, even children get used to questions of war and peace. Indeed, there is some sort of pre-military social- ization. All of the male family members of Jewish children are ‘somehow connected’ to the defence forces. They are either doing compulsory service or reserve duty. Especially in the current situation, each Jewish Israeli family is coping with fear for their male members.

Another characteristic is the nearly universal conscription of male Jewish youths in Israel. The life of the late adolescent is directly connected to military service. The uniformity of male socialization is thus a culturally specific element of socialization in Israel, whereas even in those western countries with compulsory service young men decide whether to serve in the military or to do civil service. It is well known that the armed forces nowadays attract young men with specific biographies and do not represent the male collectivity of the population (Kohr, 1993). Moreover, in Israel, due to reserve duty the biography of nearly all Jewish men is connected to the military. In contrast to western states, we can speak of lifelong military social- ization.

Military socialization and instruction in Israel begin at kindergarten and

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school age. In school, Israeli Jewish youths prepare themselves to join the military forces. Members of the IDF hold lectures to give information and impressions of life in the Israeli army. Some youths volunteer for special units or undergo pre-induction courses. Most of Jewish Israeli pupils take part in the yearly Yom Hakheilot, a one-day course which is held in cooperation by the schools and the army. Gender differences are already at work at this stage because boys and girls are separated. Films portraying soldiers in action and the excitement of military life are shown to the boys. The young men are told that physical exercise is essential in preparing for military service. Girls, however, do not usually see films about women in action. Physical perform- ance is scarcely ever mentioned. The main emphasis of the lectures and talks for girls is on more emotional questions involving military service, like separ- ation from parents. The school curriculum includes activities for boys orien- tated to the role of fighter, like physical training and lectures on the combat units (Centre of the Chief Education and Youth Officer Headquarters Zahals, 1998). Military service for males is a bodily experience.

Military service is an inherent part of the maturation of boys, a rite of passage to male adulthood. Male and female youths have very different reasons for joining the army and participation means something very different for their self-perception. When asked about their motivation to serve in the IDF, males assign higher importance to normative reasons (‘to be like everyone’) and value roles, which can be recognized from outside: ‘to be a fighter’ and ‘to do something prestigious’ are the reasons named for pre- ferring a certain job in the IDF. This shows a clear gender difference (May- seless and Gal, 1993: 9). The female youths, by contrast, show a more intrinsic motivation (‘meeting new people’, ‘doing something interesting’) and public recognition does not seem to play a big role (Mayseless and Gal, 1993: 13).

Parents play an important role in this context. They support their son’s maturation process and their fulfilment of the military task, feeling it as a necessary, justified sacrifice. Mazali sees in this phenomenon the upholding of what ‘is arguably the most fundamental social contract in Israeli Jewish society’ (Mazali, 1998: 275). By this, so her argument runs, soldier sons in Israel are performing the task of resocializing their parents to the collectivity. Even when the son is still a small child, it is the parents’ assumption (and fear) that he will become a soldier, possibly a member of a combat unit.

Cultural Memory

It is ‘combat culture and its underlying Zionist ideology [which] powerfully shape the masculine identity of Israeli Jewish Youths’ (Kaplan, 2000: 127). Historical traits of gender images help us to understand current elements of gender in a given cultural context. Therefore, some aspects of the history of

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Zionist masculinity are mentioned to understand a kind of ‘overstress’ in current Israeli military attitudes and thinking (Klein, 2000).

Zionism developed at the end of the 19th century as a reaction to pogroms in southern Russia and the eruption of modern anti-Semitism in Central Europe. Viewing the history of the Jewish people as one of continu- ous persecution, the Zionist movement aimed to renew the national life of the Jewish people in Palestine. The Zionists perceived the Diaspora Jew as passive and effeminate. The Zionist ideal of manliness was constructed as an antithesis of the Diaspora Jew. Physical strength and readiness to defend honour by means of fighting were the desired characteristics of the ‘new Jew’.

We must not forget that the Zionist movement emerged as a kind of late- comer among European nationalist movements. As assimilated Jews had adopted traits of courage held up as ideals in the gentile world, the Zionist movement utilized symbols which were familiar to other nationalist move- ments: patriotic songs, glorification of the heroes of the past and military edu- cation. The ideal of manliness was very much the same as that of other nationalist movements. Zionism envisaged a nation like all other nations, and on the level of reform of the Jewish psyche its men were to be like all other men.3 Nevertheless, a particularly potent drive stemmed from its rejection and contempt for the Diaspora. The complete transformation of the Jewish people could only take place in Palestine.4 In so far the colonization of Pales- tine has also been a remasculinization-process (Klein, 1998).5

The Zionist ethos of masculine ideals of physical force and strength underwent an intensification because of the Shoah and is since engraved in Jewish Israeli society. It is part of the mythological Sabra, the prototype of the Israel-born new Jew, the native Israeli, as a person who is soft inside but thorny on the outside. The Jewish–Arab conflict and existence in a continu- ous state of conflict have enhanced this ethos. The state of Israel was ‘born’ in a war (Gal, 1986), which ended with armistice agreements and with the recognition that the conflict between Arabs and the Israelis was deep and complex. The Holocaust syndrome and political geography conditioned a sense of isolation. Israel regarded its neighbours as enemies, an attitude which has, so far, changed only with respect to Egypt and Jordan. In its 50 years of existence Israel has experienced six wars, each of which has strengthened the drive to excel in the military realm.6

Jan Assmann (1988, 1995) differentiates between a ‘communicative memory’, a kind of everyday memory which has a limited temporal horizon, and the ‘cultural memory’, which is characterized by its distance from everyday. Cultural memory is marked by the ‘concretion of identity’, which means, it ‘preserves the store of knowledge from which a group derives an awareness of its unity and peculiarity’ (Assmann, 1995: 130). Cultural memory uses fixed points. Those are fateful events of the past, whose memory ‘is maintained through cultural formations’ – which can be texts,

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rites, monuments – ‘and institutional communication’ – which is, for example, recitation, practice, observance. Assmann speaks of ‘figures of memory’ (Assmann, 1995: 129).

Which ‘figures of memory’ do we find in Israeli society? Which ‘fixed points’ are chosen? As David Biale (1994) has shown, the dialectics between power and powerlessness from biblical to modern times is one of the key issues in Jewish history. In Israeli historiography periods of exile over a long period have been left out as these periods might transpose a powerlessness of the Jewish people. In 1926, the sociologist Maurice Halbwachs had already drawn the attention to current needs of society which direct the perception of history. There is no objective memory preserving the past. Instead, there is always a reconstruction of the past which relates knowledge to a contem- porary situation.

The Zionist movement arguing against supposed elements of the Diaspora constructed a kind of counter-history against the defenceless Jewish people. Chosen as fixed points were the heroes of history, warriors like Bar Kochba or the Maccabeans. Markers of national revival accordingly were a new interpretation of Masada and the Tel-Hai story, with its hero Trumpel- dor.

The relation of memory, culture and current society, however, is the main question. Cultural memory is ‘reflexive practice’: each society has a body of texts, images or rituals used to stabilize the society’s self-image. Strength is of tremendous importance to Israelis and their identity. Any sign of weakness is regarded as a threat to identity. Culture, especially myths and rituals, per- petuate the construction of the defence-oriented male as part of the negation of the Diaspora (Klein, 1998, 1999). Mirta Furman (1999) shows the trans- mission of messages emphasizing heroism and active self-defence during holiday celebrations in kindergartens. She has observed that folktales present the warrior figure, whose major trait is being Jewish and masculine, as a model of identification. Children are confused about history and presence and draw a connection between historical figures and their own brother or father participating in wars and reserve duty: ‘The stories of exemplary per- sonalities forge the emotional foundation for constructing attitudes and behavior, such as the belief in the necessity of military service and the inevitability of war’ (Furman, 1999: 149). Thus, a Holocaust-code underlies the interpretations of current affairs. An example has been a tragic accident which happened in 1997. On their way to Lebanon, 73 young soldiers, members of the Israeli air force, died when two helicopters transporting them collided. Newspaper articles, television programmes and speeches of poli- ticians in the following days and weeks named the dead young men ‘the cream of the crop’, ‘the best of our boys’, ‘the best of our country’s youth’. In one article it was mentioned that the helicopter disaster has ‘reminded us all of our common fate, of the bonds of blood and steel, that bind us together’.

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The agony of the families ‘was a unifying force’. The then-Labour MK Ehud Barak reminded the population of the fact that ‘in this bitter hour we are the IDF’. A psychologist at Bar-Ilan University explained in an interview: ‘The Jews are world champions in dealing with tragedy, throughout our history, from ancient times through the Holocaust and during the years of statehood. It’s part of our identity – not that we wish it so or have asked for it’, and he called upon the political leadership to ‘make a daily effort to preserve the feeling of brotherhood’.7

The IDF as a Gendered Institution

Usually societies and armies see the soldier as the embodiment of traditional male sex-role attitudes and behaviour. The socializing process during army service aims to teach toughness and masculinity and to eliminate what is regarded as effeminate. As the military in general is a male institution, it proves Michael Kimmel’s (1996: 7) argument that masculinity is largely a ‘homosocial enactment’, that it is other men who judge masculinity.

Although in Israel (Jewish) women are drafted, military service proves to be a rite of passage to male adulthood. On the one hand this is a result of the expectation of society. Society still expects a young man – if he is not orthodox – to be ready to fulfil his obligation to serve. On the other hand it is a result of a gendered institution. Conscription on unequal terms and different lengths of service were mentioned earlier.

In a ranking which Segal et al. (1999) used to compare the integration of women and homosexuals in a cross-national survey, Israel was given a mean rank of 8.3 for women (on a scale from 1 indicating the most integrated to 18 indicating the least integrated). The US, Norway, Canada and Great Britain all achieved higher rankings.8

Until January 2000 – contrary to widespread myths – women were not allowed combat roles. The fighter in western societies is a symbol of mascu- linity (Morgan, 1994). With the introduction of the volunteer army in 1973, the US opened the armed forces up for women. The integration of women into the armies of European NATO member states has taken place more or less over the last decade. In most of the armies combat roles for women had been ‘the last taboo’. Although the line between combat and non-combat roles in modern warfare is difficult to define, it seems that the exclusion of women in at least some of the roles had been of tremendous symbolic importance. So too in Israel. Women participated in the national project by undertaking auxiliary roles. The main tasks of women in the military in the first decades lay in social work, nursing and teaching (e.g. teaching new immigrants). Thus a sexual division of labour within the IDF devel- oped which reflected the gendered roles of defence as a male duty and

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motherhood as a female duty in society at large. This even works inside the military:

The female soldiers in the IDF also have an additional, non-assigned though culturally encouraged function. With their visible femininity, in sharp contrast to the rugged army milieu, these women soldiers serve as a nurturing factor, especially in the combat units. They soften the atmosphere in the unit, bringing to the barracks a touch of warmth and affect, reminiscent of home and family. (Gal, 1986: 52)

To exclude women from war experience helped to exclude them from the myths of war experience. The battlefield remained the place of male com- radeship. When in 1994 Alice Miller went to the Supreme Court for not being allowed to become a military pilot in the Israeli army, the former president Ezer Weizman told her in an interview: ‘Did you ever see a man mending socks?’9 However, former commanders of the Israeli women’s corps argued combat restriction was not a sign of chauvinist attitudes but due to the risk of being taken as enemies by Arabs (Almog, 1992). In fact there is no proof that captured women had been treated more cruelly than men or more brutally than enemies are treated in wars in general (Bloom, 1991).

The exclusion of women had important effects on a material and symbolic level. Symbolically, female soldiers were not to disturb the male preserve and not to disturb the dichotomy of the male protector and the female protected in society (Stiehm, 1982). As combat units ‘always receive the highest priority in every aspect of military life’ and ‘their members are always accorded the highest prestige’ (Gal, 1986: 143), female soldiers in Israel (as elsewhere) could never obtain a high prestige. Status in the IDF is determined by the proximity to combat.

After the Yom Kippur War in 1973, professional roles were made increasingly more open to female soldiers because the IDF aimed to fill rear positions and male soldiers were being transferred to combat roles. Thus, in 1976, 210 positions out of a possible 706 were open to women and in only half of them were female soldiers represented (Halperin-Kaddari, 1997). Moreover, 70 percent of the female soldiers were transferred to office work. In 1996, about two-thirds of the positions were open to women, whereas one-third of the positions were combat-related (Izraeli, 1997). Some of the so-called combat-related positions had been opened up for women prior to this: they had started to work as constructors for ammu- nition, armour, combat engineering and infantry. They had also started to command men.

In January 2000, the parliament abolished the combat restriction for women. Even if figures have changed during the last decades, women in the Israeli defence forces are still overrepresented in person-related and admin- istrative professions (Klein, 2001). According to a CHEN commander, 20 percent of all female soldiers are still appointed to office work.10 However,

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this number is disputed as the terminology has changed. Instead of ‘secre- tary’, new expressions are being used, which nevertheless mean more or less the same work. The other most popular areas for women have to do with education, welfare and communications. Interesting for the analysis of gender construction in professional roles are the reverse cases. In 1997 a male soldier was claiming that he was not allowed to serve as a male nurse, although he had the education. He was told that the IDF views nursing as a ‘female occupation’.11

Combat restriction blocked the career path of women in the forces. Among the officers, the percentage of women in the rank of major general in 1995 was 0 percent, brigadier 0 percent, brigadier general 0.8 percent, colonel 2.2 percent, lieutenant colonel 10.3 percent and major 22.5 percent (Klein, 2001). Cohen (1997) has compared promotion to the next rank between female and male officers and he found that female colonels had to wait 13 months longer for the promotion.

Military service is a bodily experience, a physical exercise. Pictures in newspapers and official brochures show male soldiers mostly appearing in groups, always moving, sweating, exhausted, the eyes focused on a distant point. Female soldiers are shown more often alone or in twos, they smile, they are more static. Eyal Ben-Ari notes that masculinity is never simply achieved once and for all, but must be constantly accomplished. Military service is ‘made up of a “series” of tests of manhood and soldiering’ (Ben- Ari, 1998: 114). Even the style of walking is an example. One young man tells in a personal account:

The hikes got longer, with heavier loads to carry. For every hike we usually got some reward. You hike for the strap of your rifle, for the paratroopers’ insignia, for your cap. Gradually you learn to love those night marches, and you get to know yourself really well. Your odor, the sound of your footsteps. . . . You admire the performance of your squad leader – he walks, while you run, and you still cannot catch up with him. Gradually you discover that he knows how to walk – and you learn this too. . . . After 14 months of training together, I was able to identify my buddies from a distance by their way of walking, you know. (Lieblich, 1989: 5)

Sion (1997) has drawn attention to the function of breaking the distance between the soldiers and their commanders for strengthening the soldier’s identification with the army. Commanders appear as father figures, mothers or older brothers and the ‘high ranking officers, who are often removed from day-to-day contact with the soldiers, approximate God-like figures due to their importance and inaccessibility’ (Sion, 1997: iii). In the first phase of the initiation rite, the basic training, the recruits go through an ‘infantilization’. The second period, Sion argues, is aimed at their becoming fighters. ‘The course starts after the final hike marking the end of basic training’ and ‘this turning point also involves a change in the relationship between the soldier

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and their commanders with the latter becoming “big brothers” to the former’ (Sion, 1997: iv).

Although motivation for combat units in Israel seems to be decreasing, it is still high compared to other countries. Interestingly enough, fewer than 20 percent of male soldiers in the IDF are combat soldiers. Nonetheless, the combat soldier, the fighter, is the ultimate proof of manhood and ‘the military provides a continuum of situations that stimulate combat’ (Kaplan, 2000: 137). To be a fighter first of all means to control feelings of fear. ‘The con- fession “I’m afraid” is an admission all Israeli soldiers learned to deny during their instruction’, writes Yaron Ezrachi (1998: 138).

The Impact on Society

It is especially important that it is men who are doing the reserve duty. According to Helman (1997), the participation of males in the military rests upon its construction in terms of a community, which is experienced as over- lapping with society as a whole. ‘Belonging to this community of warriors is experienced in terms of embeddedness in society, as a criterion of normalcy and as an entitlement that legitimizes participation in the associations of civil society’ (Helman, 1997: 306).

The centrality of the military and of security in society leads to a mar- ginalization of women on a symbolic level. Because they are not regarded as capable of defending the country and taking part in security discourse it is no wonder that in the public consciousness the soldier as a defender is male. Buildings to commemorate members of the forces who have died in uniform (which are found in each town, city or settlement) are called Yad lebanim (House of the Sons) and war memorials show women bidding farewell to sons or husbands going to war (for example the memorial by Mordechai Kafri at Balfuria) or women nursing wounded soldiers (by Moshe Ziffer at Nitzanim).12

The marginalization can be seen also on a practical level: Jewish Israeli men accumulate what Pierre Bourdieu (1983) calls social and symbolic capital, which grants them advantages in civilian life. They gain from their military service by accumulating social capital, by establishing contacts for their professional careers (networking) and by achieving material and symbolic benefits. By contrast, the capital Jewish women accumulate is not valued very highly on the civilian labour market. Service in the higher echelons of the army is a pathway towards positions of importance and influence in public life. The IDF until a few years ago provided a stepping stone for most of the senior officers who pursued a civilian career in economy. In high-tech industry the links between the defence forces and civilian employers are very strong. A manager says about Israeli companies:

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‘Israeli entrepreneurs have technological experience and prefer teams that have already worked together in the army or the defense industry’ (Izraeli, 1997). In other fields, military experience is even a condition for getting a job: Israel’s national airline, El-Al, until recently used to recruit its pilots exclusively from the military. Before a court decision in 1995, the defence forces excluded women from pilot training, so only men were chosen by El- Al. Research on the mechanisms to recruit and select job applicants in Israeli firms, which was done to study discrimination against Arab Israelis, shows that a third to a half of them considered individuals’ army records when selecting managers, professionals, technicians, clerical staff and craft workers, and a third did so when hiring operatives and labourers. The firms consider ‘army service as a means of screening out unreliable individuals and identifying potentially high achievers’ (Wolkinson, 1994: 271).

A military background is regarded as a necessary precondition for public office. The percentage of women in the Knesset since the establishment of the Israeli state had never exceeded 10 percent, except in the current parliament where it has reached 12 percent. Beside the exclusion of women in the orthodox religious parties, the predominance of military experience in the society as a whole is responsible for stratification. Men convert their military rank into analogous positions of power in political parties.

Officers start a ‘second career’ following their military career at the age of 40–50. This is usually called ‘parachuting’. The first phase of the change of high-ranking military personnel into the political realm had taken place in the 1950s and 1960s by the veterans of the independence war, Moshe Dayan, Yigael Allon, Chaim Bar-Lev, Moshe Carmel, Ezer Weizman, Yigael Yadin, Yitzhak Rabin and Chaim Herzog. After the war of 1967, political parties competed in attracting high-ranking officers. One of the most spectacular cases was the appointment of Ezer Weizman, former commander of the air force, to a minister of Herut in less than 24 hours after he had left the defence forces. Others include the former officers of Command Unit 101: Mordechai Gur, Ariel Sharon and Rafael Eitan.

Founders of new (Jewish-dominated) parties to the present day are often former high-ranking members of the IDF. This holds true for all political per- suasions. Founders of left-wing and peace-oriented parties have also been former army officers (e.g. Matti Peled, founder of the United Arab List). The CVs of Knesset members show the significance of military experience and background. Except for the CVs of (most) orthodox and Arab Knesset members, the military position is listed directly after education and pro- fession.

As the hegemony of the military is accepted by huge parts of Jewish society, it is ironically the peace movement which reproduced this hegemony for a long time but nonetheless used it for the opposition against the occu- pation of Palestinian territories. Militaristic values have been shared by Peace

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Now activists, as they had army experience, often in an officer rank, and expressed their loyalty to the state. In 1978, a so-called ‘officers’ letter’ was published to urge Prime Minister Begin to seek peace with the Arab states. Women were not allowed to sign! Even Yael Tamir, who had served as an officer, was prevented from signing (Klein, 2001). War – and peace too it seems – is seen as a man’s affair. Only in the 1990s did women acquire more respect and were accepted in the movement and gained status. They started to criticize that the leadership was mainly male. The decline of militaristic messages ‘enabled more feminist women to join in and encouraged further feminization, which in turn further undermined the militaristic credo of the movement members’ (Feige, 1998: 105).

Conclusion

In spite of women’s conscription in the IDF, the ‘business’ of war and conflict is exclusively male. As the concept of ‘citizenship’ is associated with the right and the duty of defending the country, military service in the feminist dis- cussion is often seen as a way to achieve political rights. The Israeli example shows that the exclusion of women from politics, from ‘first class citizen- ship’, is maintained in spite of women’s participation in the defence forces. They do not have control of the use of force. In other words: the inclusion of women in the military allows them to be militarized but not to be em- powered. On the contrary: the ‘security question’ is used to keep women quiet, to exclude them from far-reaching political functions.

Although the Israeli army is still perceived as the main mechanism for building a national identity, it has particularly become the basis of a male self- image and a source for male social mobility in society. The military turns out to be the main agent of society in shaping gender roles, constructing mascu- linity, and thus it serves as the main source of gender inequality in society. In spite of the participation of women in the military, Israeli experience shows that ideologies of manhood and the dominant position of the military in society are deeply intertwined. This does not mean that the exclusion of women would be a solution or change their societal status. It would – given the centrality of security and military – increase gender inequality.

Tragically, we can observe this mechanism during the current crisis in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. During the 1990s, as a result of the Oslo agreements, an increasing public discourse on the centrality of the military and on the IDF itself had begun. One example has been the discussion about sexual harassment in the army. What was denied in the past, seems to become an issue of public debate. Since the introduction of the 1998 Sexual Harass- ment Prevention Law, the highest number of complaints filed has been in the Ministry of Defence. When the former general and then Minister of

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Transport, Yitzhak Mordechai, was recently investigated on suspicion of sexual assault against an employee in his ministry, several women charged that Mordechai had harassed them as well during his army tenure (IWN, 2000).

In some circles, there has been a lot of confusion and alarm about a decline in the willingness to serve although motivation in general is still high. The movement ‘New Profile’, which works for the acceptance of conscien- tious objection in Israel, might be marginal, but at the same time it shows that there are young people refusing to take over an obligation for military roles. Whereas the last decade had produced a critic of the dominance of the military in many ways, the current disastrous situation means a relapse which has consequences for gender images also. Those forces of society are now coming (again) to the fore who want to prevent the breakdown of the hegem- onic discourse and the development of a pluralistic society. As there is a clear connection between gender inequality and war, the demilitarization of society is the only guarantee for developing gender equality. One of the main aspects of demilitarization is the change of models for masculinity.

Notes

1 In China women are also conscripted, but as not even 10 percent of each age group are being called, this is negligible.

2 For the complete study, see Klein (2001). 3 The link between the construction of heterosexuality and masculinity is shown in

Unheroic Conduct by Daniel Boyarin (1997). 4 The political Zionist approach was not the only one: Ahad Ha-Am advocated a

spiritual Zionism, which rejected the emphasis on physical strength. According to his interpretation of Jewish history, the secret of the survival of the Jewish people was the respect of spiritual power and not to be impressed by physical strength. Instead of the fighters of Jewish history he praised Rabbi Yohanan ben Zakkai, who – as legend tells – fled from Jerusalem under siege hidden in a coffin and estab- lished the rabbinical centre Yavneh. The ‘true Jew’ in his view was not ashamed of physical weakness. Nevertheless, political Zionism represented by Herzl became the mainstream of the Zionist movement.

5 Even the transformation of language, the transformation of Yiddish as a female connotated ‘mother tongue’ into Hebrew can be read as part of the transformation process (Klein, 2001).

6 If we count the War of Attrition, then we can speak of seven wars. Each war, of course, was experienced in a different way. The most traumatic one was the Yom Kippur War (1973). The Lebanon War (1982) was a watershed, as it provoked the criticism of a huge part of the population and led to the rise of a strong peace movement. The Second Gulf War (1991) was the first local war which Israel did not join in actively – with a clear impact of this enforced passivity on male identity.

7 Jerusalem Post, 6 February 1997.

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8 The study was carried out before the bill for opening all jobs went through parlia- ment.

9 Jerusalem Post, 27 May 1996. 10 Jerusalem Report, 20 December 1999 (‘Fighting the Wrong War?’). Women who

serve in the defence forces were administratively controlled by the CHEN, an abbreviation of Cheil Nashim, which means Women’s Corps. In Hebrew the abbreviation means ‘charm’. From summer 2001 the Women’s Corps began to be dismantled. In its place a body headed by the advisor for women’s affairs is being established.

11 Jerusalem Post, 1 January 1997. 12 One exception is the memorial by Batya Lishanski at Hulda. Three portraits are

carved in Jerusalem stone: one of an anonymous soldier, the other of Efraim Chizhik, leader of the Jewish forces in the 1929 battle of Hulda, and the other of his sister Sarah Chitzhik, who fell at Tel Hai in 1921.

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