Abstract
Israeli society has changed its attitude to the sacrifice of life in war, a change that is reflected in the bereavement discourse. Attitudes have shifted from the unquestioned justification of military losses prior to the First Lebanon War (1982) to the emergence of an antiwar bereavement discourse after the war and during the South Lebanon war of attrition that followed it. More recently, following the Al-Aqsa Intifada and the Second Lebanon War (2006), a discourse that accepts losses has emerged. While the retreat from the hegemonic discourse prior to the First Lebanon War is explained by the changing attitudes to military sacrifice among the social elites, the latter shift took place in parallel with the alteration of the social composition of the Israeli Defence Force. It is argued that the social composition of the military affects the level of sensitivity to losses. While secular upper-middle class groups tend to show a high level of sensitivity to war losses, which they then translate into a subversive bereavement discourse, religious and peripheral groups with a hawkish agenda are more tolerant of military losses, or, alternatively, may seek to avoid excessive casualties by improving the military’s performance or the quality of the political directives.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
Other factors cited by political scientists and IR scholars are less relevant to the Israeli case. For instance, sensitivity is affected by the likelihood of obtaining benefits from war, namely the extent to which the war is portrayed as successfully attaining its original goals (Feaver and Gelpi 2003; Gelpi et al. 2005/2006), which can extend to cost–benefit calculations (Larson 1996: 10–12). The first stage of the First Lebanon War was successful, as the IDF was portrayed as performing well. Nonetheless, this stage already sparked protests. Another argument is that public support declines as the log of casualties increases (Mueller 2005). But the 2,600 casualties from the 1973 War, when Israel contained an Egyptian–Syrian attack, sparked less intense protests among parents than the subsequent wars.
References
Arian, A. (n.d.) From war to peace and back again: observations regarding Israeli Jewish public opinion 1987–2006
Bacevich, A. J. (2007). Warrior politics, The Atlantic Monthly, May.
Barak, E. (2003). The withdrawal from Lebanon: test case of military-politics relations. In R. Erez (Ed.), Civil-military relations in Israel: influences and restraints (pp. 29–37). Tel Aviv: Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies (Hebrew).
Ben-Ari, E. (2005). Epilogue: a ‘Good’ military death. Armed Forces & Society, 31, 651–664.
Ben-Eliezer, U. (2004). Post-modern armies and the questions of peace and war: the Israeli defense forces in the ‘new times. International Journal of Middle East Studies, 36(1), 49–70.
Buznak, A. (2002). Resign and immediately! Tel-Aviv Magazine, 2 August (Hebrew).
Cohen, S. A. (2000). Changing societal-military relations in Israel: the operational implications. Contemporary Security Policy, 21(3), 116–138.
Druker, R., & Shelah, O. (2005). Boomerang. Jerusalem: Keter (Hebrew).
Feaver, D. P., & Gelpi, C. (2003). Choosing your battles. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Gelpi, C., Feaver, D. P., & Reifler, J. (2005/2006). Success matters: casualty sensitivity and the war in Iraq. International Security, 30, 7–46.
Hasson, N. (2006a). Protesters, mourning parents welcome ya’alon’s condemnation of war, haaretz.com, 15 September.
Hasson, N. (2006b). My son was killed because of negligence, haaretz, 23 August (Hebrew).
Helman, S. (1999). From soldiering and motherhood to citizenship: a study of four Israeli peace protest movements. Social Politics, 6, 292–313.
Jentleson, B. W. (1992). The pretty prudent public: post post-Vietnam American opinion on the use of military force. International Studies Quarterly, 36, 49–74.
Larson, E. V. (1996). Casualties and consensus: the historical role of casualties in domestic support for U.S. military operations. Santa Monica: RAND.
Lebel, U. (2006). ‘Whom to blame?’ The culture of loss following crisis: culture shifts in the bereaved parents–state relationship. Journal for Cultural Research, 10(4), 363–388.
Lebel, U., & Ronel, N. (2005). Parental discourse and activism as a response to bereavement of fallen sons and civilian terrorist victims. Journal of Loss and Trauma, 10, 385–405.
Levy, Y. (2007a). Israel’s materialist militarism. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield/Lexington Books.
Levy, Y. (2007b). From the ‘people’s army’ to the ‘army of the peripheries. Jerusalem: Carmel (Hebrew).
Lis, J., Ashkenazi, E., Shavit, A. 2006. Former IDF chief says soldiers were sacrificed for Spin, haareatz.com, 14 September.
Makovsky, D., & White, J. (2006). Lessons and Implications of the Israel-Hizballah war: A preliminary assessment. Washington DC: The Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
Maoz, Z. (2006). Defending the holy land: a critical analysis of Israel’s security and foreign policy. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
Mueller, J. (2005). The Iraq syndrome. Foreign Affairs, 84, 44–54.
Ram, U. (2007). The globalization of Israel: Mcworld in Tel Aviv, Jihad in Jerusalem. New York: Routledge.
Rosental, R. (2001). Is bereavement dead?. Jerusalem: Keter (Hebrew).
Shafir, G., & Peled, Y. (2002). Being Israeli: the dynamics of multiple citizenship. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Shragai, N. (2007). A bereaved mother: the last days of the war were not unnecessary. haaraetz, 23 April (Hebrew).
Silver, E. (2008). No comfort for bereaved parents, Jewish Chronicle, 1 February.
Smith, H. (2005). What costs will democracies bear? A review of popular theories of casualty aversion. Armed Forces & Society, 31, 487–512.
Tilly, C. (2007). Democracy. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Vasquez, J. P. (2005). Shouldering the soldiering: democracy, conscription, and military casualties. Journal of Conflict Resolution, 49, 849–873.
Wendt, A. (1992). Anarchy is what states make of it: the social construction of power politics. International Organization, 46, 391–342.
ynet reporters. 2008. Parents’ report: we won’t forgive Olmert unless he resigns, ynetnews, 23 January.
Zamir, Y. (1982). Letter to Menachem Begin, 28 June, 1982. (http://www.mideastweb.org/survivalZamir.htm).
Zino, A. (2006). Bereaved father hands olmert ‘resignation letter’,” ynetnews, 4 October.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Levy, Y. An Unbearable Price: War Casualties and Warring Democracies. Int J Polit Cult Soc 22, 69–82 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10767-009-9048-x
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10767-009-9048-x