Print ISSN 2433-4189 / Online ISSN 2433-4197

グローバルセキュリティセミナー叢書

第5号

GLOBAL SECURITY SEMINAR SERIES NO. 5

Military and Society in Israel and Japan:
Family Support, Mental Health and Public Support

Coedited by
Eyal Ben-Ari and Hitoshi Kawano

防衛大学校先端学術推進機構
グローバルセキュリティセンター

© National Defense Academy, Japan Ministry of Defense
1-10-20 Hashirimizu, Yokosuka, 239-8686 JAPANGlobal Security Seminar Series No.5

Military and Society in Israel and Japan:
Family Support, Mental Health and Public Support

Coedited by
Eyal Ben-Ari and Hitoshi Kawano

March 2020

Center for Global Security, National Defense Academy
Yokosuka, Japani

CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
INTRODUCTION
CHAPTER 1
Micky Aharonson

CHAPTER 2
Eitan Shamir

CHAPTER 3
Yagil Levy
CHAPTER 4
Eyal Ben-Ari
CHAPTER 5
Ofra Ben Ishai

CHAPTER 6
Hitoshi Kawanoiv
By Eyal Ben-Ari and Hitoshi Kawano

113

Israel 2019: A Practitioner’s Strategic Overview

22
IDF Doctrine in the 21st Century: Change andAdaptation in face of New Strategic Realities
35
Casualties and Israeli Society
44
Psychological Discourses and the Military in Israel

MAMDA: Areas of Responsibility, Structure andChanges

Family Support and Gender Policy in the Japan SelfDefense Forces: A Case Study of JGSDF Families

58

81

SEMINAR PROGRAM

100

CONTRIBUTORS

101i

GLOBAL SECURITY SEMINAR SERIES

Global Security Seminar Series is published occasionally by the Center for Global Security.
The Center designs series of international seminars and other independent seminars.
series consists of the working papers of these seminars.

ThisThe views expressed in thispublication are solely of the authors, and do not necessarily represent those of the institutions
or governments of the authors.

Copyright ©2020 by National Defense Academy of Japan.

Published by the Center for

Global Security, Institute for Advanced Studies, National Defense Academy, Yokosuka,
JAPAN.
iACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

We would like to thank all of the presenters and participants in the seminar, including Saya
Kiba, Associate Professor, Department of Intercultural Communication, Komatsu
University; Masao Yogo, Specified Research Professor, Faculty of Psychology, Director of
Affective Sciences, Harris Science Research Institute, Doshisha University; Keiko Ito,
Project Lecturer, Center for Research on Counseling and Support Services, University ofTokyo; Masanori Nagamine, Professor and Colonel, GSDF, Division of Behavioral Science,
National Defense Medical College ; and Christopher Udell, LCDR, U.S. Marine Corps.
We would also like to thank Hideya Kurata, Director of Center for Global Security, National
Defense Academy, for hosting the Global Security Seminar. We also deeply appreciate
editorial assistance provided by Teruhiko Fukushima, Head of Division of Planning andPublication, Center for Global Security, National Defense Academy, for publication of thisseminar report.
Finally, we would like to thank Shutaro Sano, LTC, GSDF, for his lecture on Japan’s national
defense policy, Takashi Terada, MAJ, GSDF, Yuki Ohta, LCDR, MSDF, and Shin’ichi Hirao,
1st LT, GSDF, for offering assistance and providing a campus tour of NDA.

Eyal Ben-Ari
Kinneret Center on Peace, Security and Society in Memory of Dan Shomron

Hitoshi Kawano
National Defense AcademyiIntroduction [Ben-Ari and Kawano]1

Introduction

Eyal Ben-Ari
Kinneret College on the Sea of Galilee

Hitoshi Kawano
National Defense Academy

This collection deals with two rather different kinds of armed forces. On the one hand is
the Israel Defence Force (IDF) established in 1948 when the country became independent.
On the other hand, are the Japan Self-Defence Forces (JSDF) that were established in
1954 due to the advent of the Cold War and American pressure. While the IDF has
participated in six major wars, numerous large operations and thousands of small
skirmishes and engagements, the JSDF has been involved primarily in peace-keeping
efforts and providing support during natural disasters, besides a major mission of national
defense. And, whereas the IDF is a conscript military with a very large reserve force, theJSDF is an all-volunteer force that has a relatively small number of reservists.
Given the ongoing “security renaissance” in Japan, for the sake of “enlightenment” andmutual understanding in military affairs and some issues pertaining to the civil-military
relations focusing mainly on the case of Israel, the Center for Global Security hosted a
Global Security Seminar, “Military and Society in Israel and Japan: family support,
mental health and public support,” on October 5, 2018, at National Defense Academy,
Yokosuka, Japan.
In this introduction to this volume, we sketch out the background of the IDF and SDF andprovide a short summary of each chapter.

THE ISRAEL DEFENSE FORCES AND SOCIETY
Israel is probably the extreme example - South Korea and Taiwan are arguably similar toit - of a democratic country that exists within a permanent conflict, within a "war with no2

Introduction [Ben-Ari and Kawano]end". Unlike other countries that have moved towards all-volunteer forces Israel has
continued to maintain conscription. In addition, the IDF is seen as holding special placein society and ideas about the importance of military service and security are prevalent
among large parts of the population. Indeed, even today, the IDF is seen as the social
institution awarded the highest trust; even higher than other institutions such as theSupreme Court, media or government 1. As a consequence, the IDF has been provided
with a host of material and symbolic resources, and has managed to retain high-quality
personnel in its regular component and reserve force.
At the end of the 20th Century a number of key developments began to emerge that havechanged perceptions and expectations of the IDF: the continued military occupation ofPalestinian territories and political changes, new values in Israeli society, and new
demands stemming from the expansion of neo-Liberal ideas. These three changes
represent challenges for the transformation of the IDF.
Since the end of the Cold War, threats to Israel’s security have been accumulating andchanging. With the weakening of many Arab states and the peace agreements with Egypt
and Jordan, the key development is the emergence of a hybrid mix of (limited)conventional, unconventional (nuclear) and sub-conventional threats supported andcoordinated directly or indirectly by Iran. Hacohen suggestively calls this situation a longterm, multi-arena conflict centered on a “war” of attrition against Israel 2 . These
circumstances have led to the strategic idea that while Israel could militarily overthrow
the political rulers in Gaza (Hamas), invade southern Lebanon (dominated by Hizballah),or destroy large parts of Syria’s military infrastructure, efforts should be made to manage
conflicts, to keep them below the threshold of war. This policy is justified by politicalreasons (the need for internal and external legitimacy) and the fear of more radical groups
potentially taking over in territories bordering Israel (Islamic Jihad in Gaza for example).
Deterrence is to be achieved both by making enemies feel vulnerable by robbing them of
their ability to continue to arm themselves with impunity, and causing suffering and fear
among the civilian population so that they may put pressure on their leaders to end
hostilities3.
Roni Tiargan-Orr and Meytal Eran-Jona, “The Israeli Public’s Perception of the IDF: Stability andChange”, Armed Forces and Society, Vol. 42-2, 2015, pp. 324-343.
2
Gershon Hacohen, Multi-Arena Attrition: The New Existential Threat to Israel, BESA Perspectives,
Number 1277. Begin-Sadat Center, Bar-Ilan University, 2019. https://besacenter.org/he/perspectivepapershe/%D7%94%D7%AA%D7%A9%
D7%94-%D7%A8%D7%91-%D7%97%D7%96%D7%99%D7%AA%D7%99%D7%AA/.
3
Efraim Inbar and Eitan Shamir, “Mowing the Grass’: Israel’s Strategy for Protracted Intractable1

Introduction [Ben-Ari and Kawano]3

Probably the most serious threats to Israel are the over hundred thousand rockets andmissiles situated in Lebanon, Gaza and Syria some of which have been developed with
precision systems. More recently Israel’s enemies have begun wielding substantial
numbers of drones with both intelligence and offensive capabilities. This arsenal menaces
Israel’s military targets and national infrastructure. The second kind of threat arecommando units that can penetrate Israel in tunnels, via the air or overland to attack towns
and villages near its borders in order to sow fear and to possibly kidnap soldiers andcivilians that could be used in negotiations over the release of political prisoners or to
obtain other concessions. Further, time is set aside for the IDF to prepare for a major war
if it does eventuate. These aims of decreasing the enemies’ urgency to react withescalatory responses are achieved by extending offensive actions over time to allow themto "cool off" or undertaking actions covertly to provide attacked enemies with "deniability
space" hence reducing their political motivation to strike back4.
As a consequence of these developments, almost all aspects of the IDF's structure,planning and operations have been transformed. The military has reduced personnel,
closed a large proportion of its armored forces and some air force squadrons andconsiderably downsized logistics units. At the same time, the number of special forces,
intelligence soldiers and infantry has gone up and new capabilities such as drone units,anti-missile battalions and cyber formations have been introduced and significantly
expanded. The IDF has emerged as a military of special, sophisticated units with many
commandos and elite forces supported by a thin layer of armor.
These changes have been started out of a combination of factors: changed threats to thecountry and the conflicts it is engaged in, economic pressure and social change centeredon new values and expectations of how the IDF puts its soldiers at risk. In other words,
the transformation of the IDF is not only the outcome of transformed security
environments but also the result of changing political, economic and social circumstances.

Conflic”, Journal of Strategic Studies, Vol. 37-1, 2014, pp. 1-26; and Yaakov Lappin, “The War
between the Wars: Israel vs Iran in Syria”, Fathom Journal 21, 2018. http://fathomjournal.org/wpcontent/uploads/2018/10/Lappin-F21-PDF.pdf.
4Gadi Eisenkot and Gabi Siboni, “The Campaign Between Wars: How Israel Rethought Its Strategy
to Counter Iran’s Malign Regional Influence”, Policywatch 3174, Washington Institute, September 4,
2019. https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/view/the-campaign-between-wars-howisrael-rethought-its-strategy-to-counter-iran.

4Introduction [Ben-Ari and Kawano]

Social and political changes. The military occupation of Palestinian occupied territories
is a task that professional militaries are not keen on since it forces them to provide services
for civilians and constantly undertake missions of pacification, that is, preventing antioccupation activities.5 These tasks are very different from the classic functions of themilitary - deterring potential enemies and preparing for and winning wars - so thatmilitary commanders assume them only for lack of alternatives. Yet, during the past
decades the Occupation is something that has become increasingly disputed politicallyand the IDF has been forced time and again to publicly justify its activities.
Economic changes. The IDF was always successful in obtaining budgets and using themwith little public monitoring. Today, with the advent of a neo-Liberal economic and social
regime things have changed. For the past three or so decades, the Ministry of the Treasury,
the State Comptroller, as well as the media have become vocal in criticizing the size of
the IDF a, the way it utilizes its budget, the manner it uses personnel and lack of
accountability in comparison with other government offices. As a consequence of thepressure these actors have brought to bear, a number of public committees were
established to examine how the IDF allocates and uses its budgets. Again more widely,these developments signal increasing demands for greater financial accountability andthat the IDF utilize its considerable resources in an effective and efficient manner.
Changing values. While neo-Liberal values and modes of action are most evident in theeconomic realm, they have also had an enormous impact on the culture of Israelis. Since
the mid-1980s the country has seen greater emphasis on individual choice,competitiveness, and economic and material success as measures of success. The
emphasis on individualism, in turn, implies that more than in the past there is a changed
attitude towards authority including senior commanders of the IDF. The most importantdevelopments in this respect are demands for casualty aversion and the open and complete
justification for the sacrifices soldiers are asked to undertake6.
This process, in turn, has been intensified by the increasing mediatization of critical
coverage of the IDF and its judicialization whereby specific cases are brought to thecourts against the army and its commanders 7. All of this means that IDF is much more
Yael Berda, Living Emergency: Israel’s Permit Regime in the Occupied Territories, Stanford:
Stanford University Press, 2019.
6
Yagil Levy, “The Tradeoff between Force and Casualties Israel’s Wars in Gaza, 1987–2009”,
Conflict Management and Peace Science, Vol. 27-4, 2010, pp. 386–405.
7
Nahman Shai, Media War, Tel Aviv: Yediot Publishers, 2013 (Hebrew).
5

Introduction [Ben-Ari and Kawano]5

visible to external actors, must enter into negotiations with Israeli society (for example
over conditions of service or willingness to be recruited) and that the attitude towards themilitary is much more conditional than in the past. These changes are important for the
IDF since any action it undertakes - and especially in regard to major transformations must take into account how it maintains its legitimacy and autonomy in order to assure
continued public support, the willingness of high-quality personnel to be recruited to eliteunits, and to ensure that it can obtain the resources needed for it to continue to function
effectively.
Now we turn to outline a number of key changes in the IDF 8. In general, the governing
principle is the significant reduction of any unnecessary resources and the direction ofthese resources into expanding and developing new capabilities. This principle thus also
answers demands that the IDF use the resources at its disposal in a much more efficientmanner. Reductions in personnel have occurred in regard to the three major componentsof the IDF: conscripts, regulars and the reserves. In effect, the IDF has moved over theyears to a softer form of compulsory service based on selective conscription and creationof different mixes of conscript service in which any extension of service is compensatedwith salary commensurate to the civilian market place. This situation is an outcome of
the fact that the IDF does not really need all of the conscripts it mobilizes but wants
conscription to continue in order to assure that high-quality personnel are recruited. Next,
beginning in the 2010s the IDF has fired thousands of regulars (mostly officers and asmall number of NCOs) in order to slim down the force and to show their acceptance of
external criticisms about waste of personnel. And finally, a new reserve law enacted in2008 lays the groundwork for the generation and training of the reserve forces and theirutilization in operational missions and war. A new plan instituted in 2015 includes
discharging 100,000 reservists and establishing new brigades for routine security
measures comprised of conscripts and regulars so that even more reservists can be let go.
The reduction in these numbers is related to such decisions as cutting down artillery andlight infantry brigades, cutting down the territorial commands by about six per cent,reducing systems which are not at the core of the IDF (like the Education Corps, Military

Based on Eyal Ben-Ari, “A Defense Reform in-the-Making: Israel During the Last Decade”, inInsoo Kim, ed., Defense Reform in Asia, Proceedings of the 19th Hwarangdae International
Symposium, Seoul: Korean Military Academy, 2017, pp. 308-314; and Eyal Ben-Ari, Israel’s
Preparation for Asymmetrical Threats: The “Campaign Between the Wars and High-Intensity
Conflicts, Taipei: Institute for National Defense and Security Studies (Ministry of National Defense),
2019, pp. 221-236.
8

6Introduction [Ben-Ari and Kawano]

Rabbinate, Chief Reserve Officer, the chief of staff’s Advisor on Women’s Affairs, Army
Radio and the Military Censor) and cutting back on major-general positions.
Operationally this downsizing is also linked to the phasing out of older tank units andsquadrons of warplanes and the personnel belonging to them. The IDF is now envisaged
as participating in short yet intense engagements with guerrilla and terrorist organizationsin urban areas. In addition, a depth command has been set up to carry out long-range
operations in other counties, the number of which has steadily risen in recent years.
In addition, today, intelligence is crucial since so much of operational matters center on
it with thousands of soldiers working around the clock. During the past few years, a
special cyber intelligence division has also been established in which many resources
have been. In communications the IDF has created and widened its internal network sothat close contact between the arms and services is facilitated. The Israeli air force
also looks very different today compared with a few years ago. While it has downsized
the number of fighter aircraft and logistics, it has nevertheless significantly increased its
capabilities. Today's capabilities allow the air force only one day of fighting to carry out
the same number of bombing sorties and target handling that were generated throughout
the entire Yom Kippur War.
Although envisaged to be relatively short-term, the missile and rocket attacks canpotentially be difficult for the country's civilian population. Thus, in 1992 the Home Front
Command was created and spread all over the country (divided into units down to thelevel of municipalities). It provides emergency services aimed at both the general andspecific populations (such as the elderly or the bedridden). With about ten-thousand
missiles foreseen to fall on the country's civilian centers this Command has taken on
especial importance and thus its constituent units have been bolstered, new units such as
search and rescue established, and the integration of the military and local government
services have been much improved. Finally, over the past decade the military has invested
huge sums in acquiring a variety of drones, including ones slated for intelligencegathering (some able to fly as far as Iran) and attack vehicles. In addition, the IDF haspurchased new satellites and developed satellite-based communications systems making
irrelevant the limitations of previous systems.

THE SELF-DEFENSE FORCES AND SOCIETY IN JAPANIn Japan, the relationship between the Self-Defense Forces (SDF) and society has changed
significantly over the last three decades due to the end of the Cold War, and the changing

Introduction [Ben-Ari and Kawano]7

security situation surrounding Japan. New security challenges in the post-Cold War era
include international terrorism, North Korean nuclear and ballistic missile development,
and China’s increased military presence in Asia 9 . As the security environment
surrounding Japan becomes ever severer, the roles of the SDF have been redefined andexpanded. In late 1991, after the Gulf War, the International Peace Cooperation Law was
adopted by the Diet, and took effect in June, 1992. The law ushered in the new era of the
SDF personnel working as UN peacekeepers. For the first time in its history, the GroundSelf-Defense Force (GSDF) personnel are to be sent overseas as an operational unit inorder to take part in the United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC)
operation in 199210. Following the UNTAC mission in 1992-93, the SDF also participatedin other UN peacekeeping operations in Mozambique (ONUMOZ: 1992-93), and in 1996,
the Japanese contingent joined the UN Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF) on
Golan Heights, the Israeli-Syrian border 11 . Unfortunately, the longest-runningpeacekeeping operation by the SDF ended in 2013 with the withdrawal of the 34th
Contingent to UNDOF. Other international cooperation activities by the GSDF troops
include the UN peacekeeping operations in East Timor, South Sudan, Haiti, as well as
humanitarian assistance missions in Rwanda and Iraq.
In addition, SDF took part in numerous international disaster relief operations since 1992,
including those in Honduras, Turkey, India, Iran, Thailand, Indonesia, Russia, Pakistan,Philippines, Haiti, Nepal, New Zealand and Australia.
Latest development of the GSDF role expansion is a new mission to join the Headquartersof Multinational Force and Observers (MFO) in the Sinai 12. Since April 2019, 2 GSDF
personnel are working at the HQ of MFO on the mission of the Egypt-Israeli Peace Treaty
supervision as a part of “Internationally Coordinated Operation for Peace and Security,”
which made possible by the amendments to the International Peace Cooperation Law in2015. This mission marks Japanʼs first participation in an international peace operation
9

Akihiro Sado, The Self-Defense Forces and Postwar Politics in Japan, Japan Publishing Industry
Foundation for Culture, 2017; Sheila Smith, Japan Rearmed: The Politics of Military Power, Harvard
University Press, 2019.
10
The Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force (MSDF), prior to the GSDF’s overseas operation,
dispatched six minesweepers to the Persian Gulf on a minesweeping mission in April 1991.
11
The 43-man Japanese Contingent consists of mostly GSDF personnel, as well as some MSDF and
ASDF personnel. Major part of the Japanese transportation unit stationed at Camp Ziouani in Israel,
while a small detachment section stayed in Camp Faouar in Syria. In 2013, however, Japan pulled outof the UNDOF mission, which was the longest UN peacekeeping operation by JSDF lasted for 17
years, due to the spillover of violence from the Syrian civil war.
12
Japan has financially contributed to the MFO since 1988.

8

Introduction [Ben-Ari and Kawano]that is not under the UN control.
After the 9.11 terrorist attacks in the U.S. in 2001, the role expansion of the SDF has taken
further steps “toward a more flexible, joint, and responsive force. 13” The Anti-Terrorism
Special Measures Law allowed the Maritime Self-Defense Force (MSDF) ships to engage
in refueling operations in Indian Ocean, while the Special Measures Law on Humanitarianand Reconstruction Assistance in Iraq allowed GSDF to conduct its humanitarianassistance operation in Iraq in 2004-06. It was the first overseas non-UN peacekeeping
operation by GSDF. The Air Self-Defense Force (ASDF) planes also supported the GSDF
troops by providing air transportation. Although the Iraq operations by GSDF and ASDF
were over a decade ago, MSDF ships are still engaging in anti-piracy operations in the
Middle East with a new forward operational base in Djibouti. Having joined themultinational naval anti-piracy operations in the Gulf of Aden and off the coast of Somalia,
MSDF has so far provided 4 two-star admirals as the Commander of Combined Task
Force 151, on anti-piracy mission, since 2015 14 . Having engaged in operations in the
Middle East and the East and South China Seas, the role of MSDF has expanded, to thepoint of being “overstretched,” MSDF has reduced the number of vessels in the Middle
East since 2016.
Other pivotal social events were the two major earthquakes that hit Japan in 1995 and2011. The 1995 Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake destroyed the Kobe area and more than
6,400 people lost their lives. The Great East Japan Earthquake on March 11, 2011, took
the lives of almost 20,000 people. The worst natural disaster in Japan since the end of
WWII called for the largest ever disaster relief operation by the SDF, mobilizing 100,000
troops. In both cases of national emergency, the significant role of the SDF in disaster
relief operations is underscored, and as a result, the public image of the SDF has improved
to the highest level. According to the latest opinion poll, the SDF is the most publicly

Giuseppe Stavale, “The GSDF During the Post-Cold War Years”, in R. Eldridge and P. Midford,eds., The Japanese Ground Self-Defense Force: Search for Legitimacy, Palgrave, 2017, pp. 183230.
14
It was, in fact, a significant moment in the history of SDF when Rear Admiral Ito, MSDF, took
the command of a multinational force “for the first time ever” on May 31, 2015. MSDF has
deployed two destroyers and two P-3C reconnaissance airplanes off the Horn of Africa since 2009.
In February, 2020, Rear Admiral Ishimaki was appointed as the 4 th MSDF Commander of
CTF151. https://combinedmaritimeforces.com/2015/06/02/japan-makes- history- as-it-takesthe-lead-of-combined-task-force-151/.
13

Introduction [Ben-Ari and Kawano]9

trusted institution in Japan, followed by medical institution and police 15.
In terms of the Japan-Israeli relations, it should be noted that the Israeli military personnel,
NGO workers and scholars took part in international efforts to cope with the natural
disasters and subsequent humanitarian crises in both cases.
In June 1995, five months after the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake, two Israeli
psychologists, Dr. Reuven Gal and his wife, Ivria Gal, along with a guest lecturer of an
American psychiatrist, Dr. Robert J. Lifton, were invited to conduct a 7-day workshop for
the Japanese clinical psychologists and other medical and healthcare professionals
dealing with the issues of post-traumatic stress management. At the workshop organized
by Kwansei Gakuin University, Dr. Gal, a former Chief Psychologist in Israel Defense
Force, and then Director of Carmel Institute for Social Studies in Israel, introduced an
Israel-based coping style (BASIC-Ph) model and several stress management techniques
including the Critical Incident Stress Debriefing and Scribble Therapy to the Japaneseparticipants16. The long-lasting impact of the workshop on the Japanese audience resulted
in further research projects on mother-child stress coping research and developing family
coping model of traumatic stress 17.
In March 2011, reacting to the heartbreaking news of the largest ever earthquake thatdevastated Japan, many countries and NGOs offered support. IsraAID, an Israel-based
international NGO and humanitarian aid agency established in 2001, was one of the firstforeign responders to work in Japan18. The Israeli search-and-rescue team arrived 4 days
later on humanitarian relief mission. By the end of March, a group of officers from theIsraeli Home Front Command and the IDF’s Medical Corps were providing medical“SDF tops poll for trustworthiness as lawmakers and the media rank near the bottom”, Jiji
Press, November 23, 2019.
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2019/11/23/national/sdfsurvey-trustworthiness-lawmakers-media/#.XpUuwpngpPY.
16
Shigeo Tatsuki, “A Life-modeled Social Work Practice with Earthquake Victims: Phase
Specific Responses during Crisis and Post-crisis Periods,” December 12, 2000. http://tatsukilab.doshisha.ac.jp/~statsuki/papers/PresentationPapers/5th-US-JAPAN-WRKSHP.htm.
17
Ibid. Also see the following works: Shigeo Tatsuki and Haruo Hayashi, ”Family System
Adjustment and Adaptive Reconstruction of Social Reality among the 1995 Earthquake
Survivors,” International Journal of Japanese Sociology, Vol. 9-1, 2009, pp. 81-110; S. Oishi, R.
Kimura, H. Hayashi, S. Tatsuki, K. Tamura, K. Ishii, J. Tucker, “Psychological adaptation to theGreat Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake of 1995: 16 years later victims still report lower levels of
subjective well-being,” Journal of Research in Personality, Vol. 55, April 2015, pp. 84-90.
18
Dylan Adelman, “8 Years Later: IsraAID’s Response to the Great East Japan Earthquake”,
March 11, 2019, AJC Global Voice. https://www.ajc.org/news/8-years-later-israaids-response-tothe-great-east-japan-earthquake.
15

10

Introduction [Ben-Ari and Kawano]supplies and care for the tsunami survivors in Miyagi Prefecture. IsraAID has been in
Japan since 2011, continue to provide critical post-trauma capacity-building,
psychological and mental health support. In 2013, IsraAID established JISP (Japan
IsraAID Support Program), with funding from the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs,in order to keep offering humanitarian aid in response to natural disaster not only in Japanbut also on a global scale 19.
In addition, the security policy and institutional innovations under the second Abegovernment (2012－present) include the establishment of the National Security Council(2013), which published the National Security Strategy for the first time in post-W.W.II
Japan; dissolution of the Operations and Planning Division of Internal Bureau, MoD, inorder to improve effectiveness of operational planning by Joint Staff; and creation of
Acquisition, Technology & Logistics Agency for a more efficient use of resources inprocurement of equipment and logistic items, while revising the arms export principles
by allowing certain defense equipment and technology. As for the organizational control
system of the SDF, the support function of the Chiefs of each service Staff on military
matters was enhanced, while the support by the civilian bureaucrats of the Internal Bureau
was limited to policy matters in 2015, which renders the support for the Minister ofDefense “in a well-balanced manner like the two wheels of a cart” from a policy expert
and military expert perspectives 20 . More importantly, a symbolic security policy
innovation was the Legislation for Peace and Security in 2015, which technically allowed
limited use of force for collective self-defense21. At the same time, the Guidelines forJapan-U.S. Defense Cooperation was revised in April, 201522.
In March 2018, Ground Component Command (GCC) was established to unify the five
regional GSDF commands, and thereby, improve effectiveness of operations with other“Israel provides humanitarian aid to Japan as flood toll hits 156”, i24News, July 10, 2018.
https://www.i24news.tv/en/news/international/asia-pacific/179131-180710-israel-provideshumanitarian-aid-to-japan-as-flood-toll-hits-156. In January 2019, Japan International Support
Program (JISP) became an independent NGO, separated from IsraAID. https://jisp.org/
about_jisp/.
20
Ministry of Defense, Defense of Japan 2019, p. 203.
21
In response to “survival-threatening situation,” Japan’s use of force is permitted under the “three
new conditions” for self-defense, which included a new condition, “when an armed attack against aforeign country that is in a close relationship with Japan occurs and as a result threatens Japan’ssurvival and poses a clear danger to fundamentally overturn people’s right to life, liberty and pursuitof happiness.” Ministry of Defense, Defense of Japan 2016, p. 213.
22
The 2015 guideline revision intended to ensure “seamless, robust, flexible, and effective bilateral
responses” to any security-threatening situations, and thereby, enhancing the Japan-U.S. defense
cooperation and the Alliance. Ministry of Defense, Defense of Japan 2016, pp. 230-237.
19

Introduction [Ben-Ari and Kawano]11

SDF commands and/or the U.S. Army and Marine Corps. Under the direct command of
GCC, for the first time in GSDF history, a marine unit, Amphibious Rapid Deployment
Brigade, was activated in Kyushu to be engaged in counter-invasion operations in the
East China Sea. As the concepts of the defense force have evolved from the “Dynamic
Defense Force” (2010 National Defense Program Guideline: NDPG) to “Dynamic Joint
Defense Force” (2013 NDPG), and further to “Multi-Domain Defense Force” (2018
NDPG), which “organically fuses capabilities in all domains including space, cyberspaceand electromagnetic spectrum; and is capable of sustained conduct of flexible andstrategic activities during all phases from peacetime to armed contingencies. 23”
In an age of “force in operation” after the Cold War, SDF is seeking to be a more effective
and efficient military organization capable of dealing with a wide variety of operations
along with the US and other international forces under the current policy of “Proactive
Contribution to Peace” with the National Security Strategy. In other words, 21 st century
Japan is going through decades of “security renaissance” as an astute observer describes 24.
However, the historical process of acquiring a new security identity would not proceedwithout difficulties and “friction” in the Clausewitzian sense. The three major issues in
the civil-military relations, control, effectiveness, and efficiency, are all on the table fordebate in the current “security renaissance” in Japan, besides the issue of legitimacy25.
Balancing the “Peace Constitution,” prevalent post-war pacifism, and the societal
imperative of “protection from the military,” with the increasing need for “protection by
the military,” which is the functional imperative for national security, deriving from thecurrent security environment surrounding Japan, “the civil-military problematique 26 ”
continues, and the public debate will go on for the foreseeable future.
THE CHAPTERS
The following chapters are based on presentations made at the seminar.

“National Defense Program Guidelines for FY2019 and beyond,” December 18, 2018.
http://www.cas.go.jp/jp/siryou/pdf/2019boueikeikaku_e.pdf.
24
Andrew Oros, Japan’s Security Renaissance: New Policies and Politics for the Twenty-First
Century, Columbia University Press, 2017.
25
Florina Matei, “A New Conceptualization of Civil-Military Relations,” in The Routledge Handbookof Civil-Military Relations, Routledge, 2013, pp.26-38; R. Eldridge and P. Midford, eds., The Japanese
Ground Self-Defense Force: Search for Legitimacy, Palgrave, 2017.
26
Peter Feaver, “The Civil-Military Problematique: Huntington, Janowitz, and the Question of
Civilian Control”, Armed Forces and Society, Vol. 23-2, 1996, pp.149-178.
23

12Introduction [Ben-Ari and Kawano]

In Chapter 1, “Israel 2019 – a practitioner’s strategic overview,” Micky Aharonson
summarizes the changing nature of threats and security challenges Israel is facing in thelast decade, and presents an overview of Israeli strategic posture in the Middle East in
dealing with different types of contingencies from a pragmatic perspective.
In Chapter 2, “IDF Doctrine in the 21st Century: Change and Adaptation in face of New
Strategic Realities,” Eitan Shamir describes the historical process of formation anddevelopment of IDF doctrine, and examines the factors in driving these changes, inparticular, focusing on strategic environment, technology development and social change.
Issues and challenges regarding the newly developed strategic doctrine are also discussed.
In Chapter 3, “Casualties and Israeli Society,” Yagil Levy takes on the issue of military
death, by examining different forms of public discourse regarding war casualties, how thecasualties are legitimized, and what made them socially acceptable, while describing the
emergence of casualty sensitivity syndrome in the 1970s and 1980s, and further
elaborating on multiple policy impacts of casualty sensitivity.
In Chapter 4, “Psychological Discourses and the Military in Israel,” Eyal Ben-Ari
examines the three psychological discourses in constructing understandings of war andmilitary service in Israel: developmental, therapeutic, and organizational-psychological.
He argues that these discourses work to incorporate notions about war and service into
the “normal” routines of social life.
In Chapter 5, “MAMDA: Areas of Responsibility, Structure and Changes,” Ofra Ben Ishai
introduces the unique nature of MAMDA, the Human Behavioral Science Department in
the IDF, which is an intra-military unit with distinct characteristics compared to the othermilitaries. As a former Head of MAMDA, an extensive overview of the organizational
structure, areas of responsibility and institutional development is presented.
In Chapter 6, “Family Support and Gender Policy in the Japan Self-Defense Forces: A
Case Study of JGSDF Families,” Hitoshi Kawano examines the historical developmentof family support programs in the GSDF, and shares some survey and interview resultsof the research project on GSDF families conducted in 2015, mainly focusing on
perceived family support needs, issues of trust and self-efficacy, and perceived
effectiveness of the family support programs.

Chapter1 ― Israel 2019: A Practitioner's Strategic Overview [Aharonson]

13

CHAPTER 1

ISRAEL 2019: A PRACTITIONER'S STRATEGIC OVERVIEW

Micky Aharonson
Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security

INTRODUCTION

In 2018, the State of Israel celebrated its 70th anniversary. Israel is a developed and an
OECD (Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development) country, yet theservice in the Israeli Defense Forces (the IDF) is still mandatory both for men and women.
Since it was established, the country has taken part in eight wars and numerous armed
conflicts and military operations, mainly in the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
However, the nature of threats and security challenges Israel is facing today is quite
different from those of previous decades. These threats and challenges also involve
significant opportunities for Israel in the Middle East.

THREATS AND CHALLENGES

Currently, the main strategic process in the Middle East involves competition forsupremacy between different factions. These are Shiite and Sunni Islam, states (Egypt,
Saudi Arabia, Turkey and mainly Iran) and non-state actors like the Islamic State (IS) andHezbollah. In addition, external powers like Russia play a growing role in the region,
while the US is weakening its presence in the Middle Eastern arena. This state of affairs
presents both challenges and opportunities to Israeli and its allies.

14

Chapter1 ― Israel 2019: A Practitioner's Strategic Overview [Aharonson]

The threat posed to Israel by the sizeable conventional Arab armies in the past is hardly
relevant anymore. Syria's Assad has been busy trying to regain control and has rebuilt
his country from the ruins. Iraq, insofar as it can be viewed as a unitary state, has otherchallenges to deal with instead of threatening Israel. Egypt cooperates with Israel, inparticular in the Sinai Peninsula, while confronting the common threat of terrorists
operating in the name of radical Islam such as IS. Other radical movements, such as theMuslim brotherhood, are very much present throughout the Middle East. In Egypt, when
the Muslim brothers won the elections and governed in the years 2011-2012, there was asignificant concern in Israel that the new Egyptian regime would abandon the IsraeliEgyptian peace treaty of 1979. Since the A Sisi regime came to power in 2013, thisconcern has become irrelevant, at least for the time being.

The Egyptian leadership also shares Israeli concerns regarding Hamas movement in the
Gaza Strip to the south of Israel. The approach of Hamas since it took over in 2006, andits ideological hostility towards Israel, is reflected both in actions and in statements.
These have led to years of isolation of Gaza bringing Gaza’s Palestinian inhabitants to an
existence constantly on the brink of humanitarian disaster.

Gaza is very different from the other Palestinian entity, the Palestinian Authority in theWest Bank. In addition to the major economic gaps between the impoverished Gaza andthe relatively well-off Palestinian Authority, there are also critical ideological differences
between the two Palestinian entities. Governed by Fatah, the Palestinian Authority
cooperates with Israel on security issues, which contributes greatly, even critically, to thesecurity of the Authority and to its ability to handle internal terror and security challenges
posed by Hamas and other radical Islamic factions.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is increasingly seen as a challenge that must be contained,
rather than as an insurmountable hurdle to Israel's acceptance in the Middle East. Israel
has contacts with other regional players and with Muslim countries around the world.
Recently the Israeli PM paid historical visits to Oman and Chad that officially have no
diplomatic relations with Israel. Israel's economic achievements and status as an OECD
country, along with its warm relations with Washington, make it an attractive
international partner.

15

Chapter1 ― Israel 2019: A Practitioner's Strategic Overview [Aharonson]

The Arab and Muslim street still holds Israel responsible for the stalemate in the IsraeliPalestinian conflict. Yet the leadership in the area increasingly perceives the hardships
they have experienced since the uprisings commonly known as "the Arab Spring"', ashaving very little, or nothing at all, to do with Israel.

One of the most prominent examples of this understanding is the position of Crown Prince
Mohamed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia. Last year, the Prince made an unprecedented
statement about the rights of the Jewish people in Israel and the growing fatigue with thePalestinian ongoing refusal to accept any offer for settling the conflict. Nevertheless, thePalestinian issue remains on the popular agenda in Arab and Muslim countries. Whilethe heads of these states are more open minded towards cooperation with Israel on
different levels, full-fledged diplomatic relations still depend on progress towards theresolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

When the US government declared its intention to open an embassy in Jerusalem last year,
there were grave concerns that doing so would trigger popular violence around the world.
However, except for few demonstrations in some capitals and a violent protest on the
Gaza border, the opening of the embassy passed with no major repercussions. This wasa clear indication that even the issue of Jerusalem, which was always portrayed as the oneof the most sensitive in the list of unresolved issues between Israel and the Palestinians,
is no longer perceived as existential for the Muslim and the Arab masses. Moreover, the"Arab Spring" uprisings that started in Tunisia in 2010 and spread to Egypt, Syria, Libya,
Bahrain and Yemen, involved high level of violence and many casualties.

Thisdemonstrated to the Palestinians in the West Bank the tragic outcome of such uprisingsin the region that are far worse than the unresolved conflict with Israel. Despite thestalemate with Israel, the Palestinian leadership in the Palestinian Authority has chosen
to follow a path of non-violence against Israel. It has chosen to operate mainly byencouraging boycotts in international fora such as the United Nations Human Rights
Council where Israel is singled out for criticism. The ongoing condemnation of Israel by
this body, while ignoring atrocities performed against minorities in the region, has not
succeeded in forming a meaningful international front against Israel.

Votes ininternational fora such as the UN are almost always against Israel. Gradually, Africanand other non-Western countries that traditionally have voted against Israel now support

16

Chapter1 ― Israel 2019: A Practitioner's Strategic Overview [Aharonson]

it or at least, abstain from condemning it. One reason is Israel's intense MASHAV activity(the equivalent of Japan's JICA) to assist in medicine, agriculture, disasters relief (as after
the tragedy in Fukushima) and other fields.

The main threat to Israel today is Iran and its proxies. Iran has repeatedly threatened toannihilate Israel while pursuing a nuclear weapons capability. As long as Iran does notpossess nuclear weapons, the threat to Israel remains conventional and not existential.
Iran continues to develop its military capacities, including a fully independent ability to
produce and launce missiles, while managing to obtain access to advanced technologies.
Simultaneously, Iran aspires for regional dominance and operates intensively to develop
proxies, clients and terror cells throughout the Middle East. All these are united in
opposition to the United States, which the Ayatollahs refer to as the great Satan, and Israel,
which is referred to as the little Satan.

In the Middle East, Iran's long presence in Lebanon is manifested in its cooperation with
Hezbollah, which possesses an arsenal of missiles and rockets equivalent to those ofsovereign, well equipped, states. Iran is also involved in the bloodshed in Yemen byarming the Houthis and providing them with financial support. It is also very deeply
entrenched in Iraq and in Syria.

To the north of Israel, Iran makes use of Syrian infrastructure and land in order to arm
Hezbollah and launce terror attacks against Israel.

Recently a major terrorist

infrastructure was revealed by Israel which was aimed at creating a front on the Syrianside of the Golan Heights. The Iranians also use Syria for weapons transfers from Iran to
Hezbollah in Lebanon. Iran's geopolitical goal is to create a permanent and continuous
military presence from Iran, through Iraq, Syria and Lebanon to the Mediterranean.
Assad's regime in Syria owes a great deal to Iran for its help recapturing the majority of
Syria's territory from the different rebel groups. This, and the weariness of his army after
eight long and blood-stained years of internal war, would make it difficult for him to resist
Iranian military presence in Syria. This is despite the destabilizing effects of this presence,stemming from the open, active hostility between Iran and Israel and the repeated Iraniandeclarations about destroying Israel.

Chapter1 ― Israel 2019: A Practitioner's Strategic Overview [Aharonson]

17

Israel openly declared that it will not act against Assad's regime in Syria- it neversupported officially the rebellion against Assad, which is Sunni in majority and hostile
towards Israel. For Israel, the lack of a central, clear sovereign authority in Syria meansa vacuum that is filled, in the Syrian case, by a mish mash of dozens of terrororganizations and movements such as IS, therefore making it much harder to deal withany aggression towards Israel originating in Syria.

As opposed to the Assad regime, Israel publicly declared it will oppose any Iranian
military presence in Syria and will act against it.

Accordingly, Israel carried out

numerous attacks in Syria against Iranian military targets and weapons transfers into Syria,
while adhering to the principle of not harming assets critical to Assad's rule and control
of Syria.

This goal, Assad's survival, is the second most important issue for Russia, the first being
Russian equipment and personnel. Israel must take into account Russian priorities in
Syria because of Russia's presence and role in the Middle East. In recent years, Russia
has been regaining strength in the region while the US has been playing a less dominantrole. Russia's return to the region, or more precisely, re-emergence as a super power since
it never really left, make it highly relevant to Israel's national security. Beyond Russia'sinternal reasons for expanding its presence in the Middle East, this re-emergence has been
made possible due to the fact that the US, the leading power in the region for decades,
has been pulling back from most fronts. The reduced commitment of the Obamaadministration to the region was exemplified by its reluctance to act after Assad crossed
America's declared red line concerning the use of chemical weapon during the battles in
Syria. The Trump administration followed suit by declaring its intent to withdraw
American soldiers from Syria (and Afghanistan). The US is Israel's strategic ally, andsupport for Israel in the US remains bi-partisan and likely to continue regardless of theparty of the next administration.

At the same time, the Russian presence in Syria includes permanent military and naval
air bases (Tartus and Hmeimim). Russia's evident interest in other international issues
relevant to Israel, make it a highly important player in the region in Israel's perception.
Russia's relations with Iran, its interest in playing a role in the Israeli-Palestinian conflictand its dominant role in Syria, are key factors in its relations with Israel. In Syria, Russia

18

Chapter1 ― Israel 2019: A Practitioner's Strategic Overview [Aharonson]

is not generally opposed to Israeli interests or aspirations, as long as these don’t project
negatively on its key goal in the country, which is stabilizing Assad's regime. To that end,
Russia cooperates with Iran in Syria and finds itself having to work both with Israel andwith Iran, who are enemies, in the same region. Despite Iran's importance to Russia onvarious issues, in particular its support for the Assad regime in recent years, it must take
into consideration Israeli interests because of Israel's capacity to harm major assets of
Assad and Syria more generally.

Russia and Israel established a de-confliction mechanism based on an agreement between
the highest political and military echelons. The "hotline" between the two countries isused for notifying Russia about an expected Israeli activity in Syria. Israel provides
Russia with early warning before it operates in Syria against Iranian targets so that
Russian personnel and equipment are left unharmed. This, however, forces constraints
on Israel as Israel aspires to prevent the Iranians from strengthening their positions in
Syria.

Last year, Syrian forces shot down a Russian airplane while trying to shoot down an
Israeli aircraft. Russia blamed Israel for the tragic outcome because of Israeli aircraft
operating too closely to the Russian airplane without proper coordination with Russia.
The Russians claimed a tighter coordination and alertness on Israel's part could have
prevented the tragic incident. Israel claimed it provided enough warning. For a few
months Israeli-Russian relations were strained, casting doubt on future Israeli militaryactivity against Iran in Syria. Russia declared it was sending Syria a sophisticated air
defense system that would as a consequence, make Israeli military operations against Iranin Syria, much more challenging. The system was indeed delivered. However, Russianinterests in maintaining positive relations with Israel did not change, and in addition,
Israel still holds the capacity to disrupt Russian plans in Syria. Therefore, after a few
months passed, Prime Minister Netanyahu was welcomed again by President Putin in
Moscow. The conclusions of the meeting are not yet known, but it is assumed the twocountries agreed to continue their cooperation and reached operational understandings
regarding the Syrian arena.

Another party operating in the Syrian arena is Turkey. Its aspirations and actions in theregion as a whole are significant for Israel. Turkish president Erdogan is highly andChapter1 ― Israel 2019: A Practitioner's Strategic Overview [Aharonson]

19

constantly antagonistic where Israel is concerned. Erdogan's policy is to maintaincommercial interaction with Israel and low-level diplomatic relations (the ambassadors
have been re-called). Meanwhile, Erdogan publicly expresses anti-Semitic and antiIsraeli positions, including an exchange of personal insults with the Israeli premier. Of
greater concern is that Turkish policy under Erdogan is openly supportive of Hamas andsubversive in Jerusalem. Turkey is financing welfare activities and Islamic institutionsin Jerusalem. Furthermore, Turkey supports terrorists in social media websites whilecalling openly for violent protest against Israel. These actions and policies are part ofTurkey's greater goal to become the dominant leader of the Muslim world and inparticular, the Middle East hegemon.

It is directly related to Israel's shaky relations with Turkey that Israel is advancing
strategic and energy cooperation with Greece and Cyprus. In addition to summits
between the leaders of the three countries and their military, coordination and cooperationis on the rise. The formation of the EMGF (East Mediterranean Gas Forum) in 2019, thatcombines the three countries and Egypt, Jordan, Italy and the Palestinian Authority, also
promotes regional cooperation and strengthens Israel's Mediterranean presence and ties.

SUMMARY AND INSIGHTS

Iran is the main threat Israel faces. The repeated declarations by senior Iranian officials
alongside its ongoing and developing missile program and military nuclear potential
present a genuine menace to Israel. As long as Iran does not reach a military nuclear
capability, the threat to Israel will not be existential.

Nevertheless, Iranian support ofradical Islamic movements, such as Hezbollah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad and others, present
a continuous danger to Israel. The threat is amplified by Iran's ongoing attempts todevelop its conventional military capacity and its goal of regional hegemony. This is seenin Iranian subversive activities in the Middle East, Africa and beyond.

The silver lining is that Iran is perceived as a major threat not only by Israel but also byothers, such as the Saudis and the United Arab Emirates. With the rationale of the enemyof my enemy is my friend, these countries have more in common with Israel than ever20

Chapter1 ― Israel 2019: A Practitioner's Strategic Overview [Aharonson]

before. Nevertheless, the relations of these countries with Israel remain clandestine, andonly Jordan and Egypt maintain open, full diplomatic relations with Israel in the region.
At present, these relations are limited in scope in terms of tourism, economy and otheraspects of bilateral cooperation, in parallel to security and anti-terror cooperation between
the leaderships.

The Israeli aspiration to have no Iranian military presence in Syria is hardly a realistic
one. Iran is not expected to give up its goal of creating territorial continuity all the way
to the Mediterranean. The declining willingness of the US to maintain significant
ground and other forces in Syria makes this more likely. However, Israel can and must
act for the purpose of minimizing Iran's hold in the areas close to its border in the southof Syria. It must also oppose any attempt by Iran to increase Hezbollah's infrastructure
and arsenal in Lebanon and its destabilizing activities in the north of Israel.
Strategically, beyond maintaining its technological military abilities, this requires firstand foremost a constructive dialogue with Russia. The close and paralleled alliancewith the US does not contradict a dialogue between Jerusalem and Moscow, which will
enable Israel to continue operating against Iranian entrenchment in Syria (using the deconfliction mechanism), and other means.

Cooperation with the US and to a much lesser extent, Russia and the EU, are also
necessary in order to manage the conflict with the Palestinians. Israel must preserve its
freedom of action and a certain degree of international backing in order to containHamas's rule in Gaza. Israel should continue to limit Hamas's ability to govern andattempt to weaken its ability to launch rockets towards Israel. In the meantime, Israel
should also make sure it prevents further deterioration of the economic situation andliving conditions in Gaza, even under Hamas rule. This logic must be pursued until
Hamas renounces its destructive intentions towards Israel and recognizes its existence.
In parallel, Israel must manage its relations with the Palestinian Authority so the
Authority continues its constructive security cooperation with Israel. This depends, toan extent, on the relatively positive economic situation in the Palestinian Authority andthe ability to bring growth in the coming years. The Palestinian Authority's dependence
on Israel for preventing the rise of Hamas in the West Bank contributes to the chancesof further cooperation with Israel in the future.

Chapter1 ― Israel 2019: A Practitioner's Strategic Overview [Aharonson]

21

In summary, Israel's handling of the Palestinian challenge is utterly different in the twodifferent Palestinian entities, Hamas in Gaza and the Palestinian Authority in the Westbank. The relations with both, however, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as a whole,
are increasingly perceived by the international community as limited in its regional
impact following the events of the "Arab Spring". These events, which followed theinsurgencies of the "Arab Spring" including the conduct and practices of the IslamicState and other terror organizations, also created common international understanding of
Israel's ongoing need to deal with terror organizations since it was established in 1948.
The willingness of many countries to share knowledge and cooperate with Israel infighting terror assist in creating common strategic ground for cooperation between
Israel and the international community in other spheres.

22

Chapter 2 ― IDF Doctrine in the 21st Century: Change and Adaptation in Face of New
Strategic Realities [Shamir]

CHAPTER 2

IDF DOCTRINE IN THE 21ST CENTURY: CHANGE AND ADAPTATION IN
FACE OF NEW STRATEGIC REALITIESEITAN SHAMIR
Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies, Bar Ilan University

INTRODUCTION

The purpose of this paper is to describe the changes in IDF (Israel's Defense Forces)
doctrine in recent decades while exploring the most prominent factors in driving thesechanges.

Since the end of the 1990s and the beginning of the 21st century, Israel has been
experiencing important shifts in its strategic environment, while old threats have been
reduced new threats have emerged. Other trends in technology and social composition
also had an impact on Israel’s military doctrine. As a result, Israel's security and military
doctrine went through some significant changes in its doctrine in order to adapt to these
new realities.

This paper is structured in the following way: it commences by describing the tenets of
Israel's traditional security and military doctrine, a doctrine that served the country wellin its first decades of existence. It then proceeds to discuss those main factors that havebeen driving the change: Strategic environment, technology development and socialchange. Thereafter we will present the official view of the IDF based on its strategic
doctrine document - the first one ever to be openly published. 1 Next the IDF response to1

IDF Chief of the General Staff, IDF Strategy (Hebrew), August 2015,
http://www.idf.il/SIP_STORAGE/FILES/9/16919.pdf.; Michael Herzog, “The IDF Strategy Goes

Chapter 2 ― IDF Doctrine in the 21st Century: Change and Adaptation in Face of New
Strategic Realities [Shamir]

23

these challenges will be presented and finally we will mention some open-ended doctrinal
issues that are still under debate.

ISRAEL'S TRADITIONAL SECURITY DOCTRINE

The state of Israel was established in May 1948. From the moment of its establishment
it had to fight in order to secure its survival. It won the War of Independence (November
1947 – July 1949) after overcoming the local struggle against Palestinian militias andthereafter repelling an invasion by a number of Arab state armies. However immediately
after the war ended, it continued to endure low-intensity warfare - constant cross-borderattacks, mostly by armed Palestinian gangs but also by the neighboring Arab states. It
was also clear, due to Arab hostility, that another high-intensity round would occur
sometime soon2.
Against this background, in 1953 Israel’s Prime Minister and founding father, David Ben
Gurion produced his "18 Points Document", which served as the foundation for Israel's
Security doctrine for decades ahead. First Ben Gurion laid out a list of assumptions:•Arab hostility toward the State of Israel will likely continue for decades.

•

Israel suffers from chronic inferiority in both territory and demographics.

•

The major threat: a potential invasion of Israel by strong conventional forces
ending the life of the young Jewish state.

•

Israel's borders are long and lack natural barriers.

However, Israel enjoys theadvantage of ‘interior lines' (except facing Jordan's West Bank).
•Also, the continuous terror attacks against border-settlements might slowly erode
the population's confidence in the young state and endanger its existence in thelong run.

Public”, The Washington Institute, Policy Watch No. 2479, 28 August 2015.
http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/view/new-idf-strategy-goes-public.
2
Main editorial, “On the Second round”, Davar, October 27, 1949.
http://jpress.org.il/Olive/APA/NLI_Heb/SharedView.Article.aspx?parm=CzRg1ZXxmnsNeV487qh
wrgvvKCi%2Fwr9kC9bBVU0V4n1bXq0r5rLKrX1yAl0I67MMYw%3D%3D&mode=image&href=DAV%2f1949%2f10%2f27&page=1&rtl=true (Hebrew).

Chapter 2 ― IDF Doctrine in the 21st Century: Change and Adaptation in Face of New
Strategic Realities [Shamir]

24•

Given the physical asymmetry between Israel and the hostile Arab nations, Israel
cannot achieve a decisive military victory to compel the Arabs to give up 3. Israelis
can only hope that by repeatedly achieving partial victories, they will cause Arab
resolve against Israel to dissipate gradually.

Those partial victories would,

meanwhile, bring temporary respite between rounds of violence.

Ben Gurion concluded that only a series of decisive defeats on the battlefield might
convince Arab regimes to accommodate the notion of Israel's permanence.

Following his analysis, Israel’s strategic tenets as prescribed by Ben Gurion were thefollowing4:•

Defend ourselves by ourselves and exhibit conventional superiority and selfreliance on the battlefield.

•

Develop and maintain a "special relationship" with a superpower for the sake of
diplomatic and material support - Israel sought an alliance with France and lateron with the United States.

•

Obtain technological superiority based on superior education and academic
achievements to nurture a thriving industry and economy, the only way tocompensate for resource inferiority.

•

Possess moral and ideological certainty that Israel's struggle is inherently just,which is critical for mobilizing a society that has to endure a long struggle.

•

Nuclear capability – Israel will not get a second chance to correct its initial failures
and therefore seeks the ultimate insurance 5.

Ben Gurion and his military advisors divided the Arab threat into two categories 6:the 'Fundamental Threat', in which the Arabs would launch a major offensive(high-intensity war) intent on physically annihilating Israel; and3David Ben-Gurion, Uniqueness and Purpose, Tel Aviv: Maarachot, 1971, p. 219 (Hebrew).
This summary is based on: Isaac Ben Israel, Israel Defense Doctrine, Ben Shemen: Modan
Publishing, 2013, pp. 27-84 (Hebrew).
5
Although this last point came years later in the 1960s, there is evidence that Ben Gurion was seeking
such a capability very early on, see: Binyamin Pinkus, "Atomic Power to Israel's Rescue: FrenchIsraeli Nuclear Cooperation, 1949–1957", Israel Studies, Vol. 7, Spring 2002, p. 110.
6
Motti Golani, There Will Be War Next Summer, Tel Aviv: Maarachot, 1997, p. 18 (Hebrew).
4

Chapter 2 ― IDF Doctrine in the 21st Century: Change and Adaptation in Face of New
Strategic Realities [Shamir]25

the 'Routine Threat', in which the Arabs conduct constant small-scale raids (lowintensity conflict) in order to wear down the resolve of the Jewish population toremain in Israel.

The major and most immediate threat was the ‘Fundamental Threat’. To counter thisthreat the IDF was primarily designed. Due to its small population size, Israel cannot
maintain a standing army large enough to face all levels of threats. Therefore, the major
portion of Israel's military has to be a part-time force intended to be mobilized only whenfighting intensifies to a level beyond the capability of the standing force. This, in turn,means that the army has to receive advance warning of the need to mobilize extra forces.
Furthermore, in order to not cripple the national economy, operations involving such amobilization must be brief enough to return mobilized soldiers to their civilian lives assoon as possible. The resulting security concept, was summed up in three catch-terms:
Deterrence – Early-Warning – Battlefield Decision7.

Deterrence, in the hope of avoiding warfare altogether. Early warning: if the deterrence
fails the advanced intelligence branch should be able to provide sufficient early warning
for the masses of reserves to mobilize. Decision will be achieved by superior commandand training and through the use of armor, air force and elite infantry that employ
maneuver approach against enemy centers of gravity resulting in a quick destruction ofenemy formation by “Blitzkrieg” type of operations.

Israel's security doctrine served the country well during the first four decades of its
existence in October 1956 Suez Campaign and June 1967 Six Days war Israel initiatedpreemptive strikes when it felt threatened. In the October 1973 war, the early warning
system failed, but other components of its security doctrine worked well and, after initial
defeats, enabled Israel to turn the tables in this war.

In general, it could be argued that Israel's security doctrine, has been proven successful.
Egypt, Israel's most dangerous rival, signed a peace treaty with Israel in 1979, followed
by Jordan in 1994. Since the US war with Iraq in 1991 and invasion of Iraq in 2003 andSyrian Civil war in 2011, neither of these states' armies are in a condition to pose a serious

7

Yitzchak Ben-Israel, Israel Defense Doctrine, Tel Aviv: Modan & Misrad Habitachon, 2013, pp.
59-67 (Hebrew).

26

Chapter 2 ― IDF Doctrine in the 21st Century: Change and Adaptation in Face of New
Strategic Realities [Shamir]threat on Israel’s border. Therefore, the historic 'Fundamental Threat' has been reduced
to a minimum. However, at the same time serious new rivals have emerged forcing the
IDF to adapt.

FACTORS AFFECTING IDF SECURITY DOCTRINEThe IDF recent doctrinal adaptation has been affected by three main factors. First andforemost are the types of threats and enemies- this will be discussed in the next section.
In recent decades Israel has transformed itself into a technology power house. The Israeli
military industries together with the IDF played a key role in this process. Lastly, gradualsocial changes, or at least the perception of them, have also influenced trends in IDF
doctrinal development.

During the first few decades of independence, Israelis believed that the very existence of
their embryonic state remained precarious. From the 1990s the ‘no alternative’ ethos was
weakened. As a result of the effects of globalization and privatization transformed theonce collective-socialist society into an individualistic society8. Today, careers in security
have been substituted by careers in high-tech, as demonstrated by the growing impact ofyoung IDF officers on the thriving Israeli high-tech and IT sectors.

The nature of the low intensity conflicts in which Israel has been involved during the past
decades has altered public expectations of the IDF9. Until the 1973 War the IDF fought
against stronger opponents and mistakes and casualties were expected.

But since thatwar, operations incurring even minor casualties have often resulted in public criticism.
Thus, politicians and senior IDF commanders have become more casualty averse
preferring instead to employ technological solutions in an attempt to minimize casualties.

In the aftermath of the First Gulf War, the Israeli security establishment recognized theneed to embrace information age technologies 10 . Obviously, it fitted well with the8

Yagil Levy, The Other Army of Israel: Materialist Militarism in Israel, Tel Aviv: Yedioth Ahronoth,
2003, pp. 236-243 (Hebrew).
9
Sergio Catignani, Dilemmas of a Conventional Army: The Israel Defence Forces during the Two
Intifadas, PhD dissertation, London: King’s College, 2006, Chapter 5.
10
Eliot A. Cohen, Michael J. Eisenstadt & Andrew J. Bacevich, Knives, Tanks and Missiles: Israel’s
Security Revolution, Washington DC: Washington Institute For Near East Policy, 1998, pp. 118-119.

Chapter 2 ― IDF Doctrine in the 21st Century: Change and Adaptation in Face of New
Strategic Realities [Shamir]

27

changes of Israeli society and the change in ethos discussed earlier. By the Second Gulf
War (2003) it was decided that developmental and acquisition efforts should be directed
toward RMA (Revolution in Military affairs) technologies. The focus was gradually
directed toward technologies that were part of the information revolution 11.

Thus, today, the solutions for operational challenges - such as rockets, tunnels, ATGM’s(Anti-Tank Guided Missiles), IED’s (Improvised Explosive Device) - are mainly soughtin the form of technological solution. Accurate intelligence needed for the employmentof advanced precision guided weapons delivered from afar has become the preferred
modus operandi of the IDF, one that has substituted - as demonstrated in the IDF latest
big operations in Lebanon (2006) and Gaza (2008, 2012, 2014) – the use of combinedarms ground maneuver by large ground units such as division and brigades – the preferred
IDF modus operandi and its main hall mark in past conflicts.

THE CURRENT STRATEGIC ENVIRONMENT AND MAIN THREATSThe IDF strategic documents (2015 and an update 2018) identify Iran as the main threat
to Israel at this time. Despite not sharing a border with Israel, Iran poses the gravest threat
to Israel. Its revolutionary zeal and aspiration of dominance combined with a richcivilization, glorious past and vast resources, qualifies the country as a regional power.
Using its Revolutionary Guard and various proxies Iran is pushing for dominancethroughout the region: in Iraq, Yemen, Lebanon, and Syria, and is trying to create what
seems to be an Iranian sphere all the way from Teheran to the shores of the Mediterranean.
Iran’s nuclear program poses a challenge on a different level. Iranian leaders threaten to"wipe up Israel from the map", 12 specifying a date 13 and stating that "Israel is a one[nuclear] bomb country". 14 Such threats are taken very seriously by Israel. While the IDF

Shai Shabtai, “Towards a Fourth Revolution in IDF Military Thinking”, Ma’arachot 392, January,
2002, pp. 9-12 (Hebrew).
12
Nazila Fathi, “Wipe Israel 'Off the Ma’ Iranian Says”, The New York Times, October 27, 2005.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/27/world/africa/wipe-israel-off-the-map-iranian-says.html.
13
Toi Staff, “Khamenei: Israel won’t Survive Next 25 Years”, The Times of Israel, September 9, 2015.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/khamenei-israel-wont-survive-next-25-years/.
14
Saira Khan, Iran and Nuclear Weapons: Protracted Conflict and Proliferation, Abingdon:
Routledge, 2009, p. 86.
11

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had made preparations and threaten to strike Iranian nuclear installations, curbing Iranian
nuclear program is mostly conducted by the diplomacy and intelligence agencies.

Now that the Assad regime with Iranian backing is securing its victory, the threat of an
Iranian military presence on Israel’s Syrian border is imminent. Additionally, the Syrian
Army can rebuild itself and pose a threat as well.

Under the umbrella of the Iranian threat there are a number of violent non-stateorganizations – mainly Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza. Until a decade ago,
Hamas and Hezbollah were incapable of escalating beyond low-intensity operations butnow, supported and supplied by Iran, they have reached a capability to launch a
potentially serious attack against Israel’s home front. According to intelligence estimates,
Hezbollah has about 130,000 missiles and rockets deployed in Lebanon 15. Over the past
few years, Hezbollah, acquired a great deal of experience employing thousands of fighters
to capture or hold territory in the Syrian war and since 2011 has been threatening andtraining to invade Israel on the ground 16 . Hezbollah is probably the most advanced
military non-state organization force worldwide, relying heavily on Iranian supply,
mentoring and training 17. Hezbollah ground forces are deployed in southern Lebanon, todefend the large offensive artillery capability that can strike targets all across Israel. As
in 2006, the rocket-artillery arm is the main offensive weapon, but Hezbollah intends toalso capture Israeli territory adjacent to the border and raid objectives deep inside Israelby using elite units trained in Iran, as was demonstrated by the discovery of its elaborate
system of offensive tunnels exposed on the Lebanon – Israeli border18.

Another source of military threat are groups such as, the Islamic State, who are capableof conducting only limited terrorist or guerrilla attacks on Israel, across the border from
Egypt.

Eado Hecht and Eitan Shamir, “The Case for Israeli Ground Forces”, Survival, Vol. 58-5, October–
November 2016, pp. 123-148.
16
Eado Hecht, "War on the Northern Front", Infinity Journal, Vol. 6-2, Spring 2018, pp. 23-29.
https://www.infinityjournal.com/.
17
Thus, for example, in summer 2012, it was reported that Hezbollah had conducted an Iranianmentored exercise in which 10,000 fighters practiced defensive battles and attacks to capture portionsof northern Israel. N. Yahav, "Hezbollah Conducted 10,000 Man Exercise" (Hebrew), Walla News.
http://news.walla.co.il/item/2560837.
18
Arutz Sheva Staff, “We have deprived Hezbollah of its attack tunnels”, Arutz Shave, December 25,
2018. http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/256690.
15

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29

The IDF identifies three hostile axis/alliances in the region that are antagonistic to stateof Israel:

The Shia’ alliance, led by Iran. This alliance generates terror, its main conventional threat
is the use of the various types of missiles and it has a motivation to develop nuclear
capability.

The second hostile axis are various Palestinians groups attempting to undermine Israel
through the use of various means including terror, law-fare and propaganda to undermine
Israel’s international legitimacy so as to gradually cripple the country until it reaches thepoint of its collapse.

Lastly are Sunni Jihadi groups, ISIS or Al-Qaeda is mainly a low-intensity terror threat.

Against these axes and their hostile actions and intentions Israel must employ a
combination of military and diplomatic power. First and foremost, Israel can rely on its‘special relations’ with the US and should increase its diplomatic and militarycollaboration.

Secondly, it should continue to foster its military coordination with Russia in regard to
the presence of Russian forces in Syria.

Thirdly, Israel and the IDF should continue to build strong alliances with regional friendly
countries such as Greece and Cyprus by increasing joint maneuvers and military
coordination.

THE IDF DOCTRINAL AND FORCE STRUCTURE RESPONSE

The IDF has stated two general basic principles and objectives for the use of force:•

Decisive Approach – Aiming to change the Status Quo.

Chapter 2 ― IDF Doctrine in the 21st Century: Change and Adaptation in Face of New
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30

Decisive approach calls for large scale high intensity operation by employing andconcentrating maximum IDF capabilities in minimum time frame for the sake of far
reaching result such as changing the military or/and the political realities in the region.
•

Denial and Preemption Approach- Aiming to maintain the Status Quo.

While the IDF should be ready for decisive operations it will be most likely engage mostof the time in limited operations (in goals and scope), such as the recent operations in
Gaza (2008, 2012, and 2014).

Another relative new dimension to Israel's military doctrine is what the IDF calls"MABAM", the Hebrew acronym for the "operations between the wars". A constantstring of covert operations designed to destroy key assets of Israel’s opponents such as
Hamas in Gaza but increasingly Hezbollah and Iranian high-value assets in Syria19. The
cumulative effect of these operations is to weaken the enemy's capabilities and postpone
the next war20. In addition, the doctrine calls for the use of “influence operations” mainly
through the use of cyber and defensive measures.

The IDF has embraced a few operational principles to guide its force development:•

Multi Domain Maneuver aiming to capture and destroy high value targets. The
IDF operates within five domains (land, maritime, air, space, and cyberspace), andmulti-domain maneuver employs military capabilities in these domains
simultaneously and cohesively in supporting capabilities to create conditions
designed to generate and enable forces freedom of movement and action.

•

Precision Standoff Fire based on Quality Intelligence – The employment ofprecision fire allows Israel to use its technological advantage and to minimize its
own casualties as well as collateral damage. Effective use of precision fire isconditioned on real-time high-quality intelligence to generate targets.

Thisbecomes a very difficult task against an enemy such as Hamas and Hezbollah,
who as guerrilla type organizations maintain very low signature.

Yasser Okbi, “Reports: Israeli Aircraft Struck An Iranian Base Outside Damascus”, Jerusalem
Post, December 2, 2017. https://www.jpost.com/Arab-Israeli-Conflict/Reports-Israeli-aircraft-struckan-Iranian-base-outside-Damascus-515789.
20“IDF Strategy”, 2015, pp. 28-31.
19Chapter 2 ― IDF Doctrine in the 21st Century: Change and Adaptation in Face of New
Strategic Realities [Shamir]•

31

Special Operations and PSYOP - One way to counter terror and guerrilla is byemploying special operations forces that conduct pinpoint operations against theseorganizations. The goals of these operations are not to destroy these organizations
but rather to disrupt and influence their moral.

•

Defense active and passive – The main strategic threat is not an invasion of landarmies but the thousands of various types of missiles and rockets aimed at Israel’s
rear. While a strong offensive capability is critical to deter and suppress enemy
fire it is not sufficient and must be complemented with defensive capabilities, bothan active defense system that will keep Israel’s strategic installations in working
order and passive measures to protect the civilian population.

These operational principles are currently translated in the IDF on-going five years plan
force build up in the following key ways:-

Reinforcing the ground maneuver capability to overcome the ATGM’s andexplosive traps of Hezbollah and Hamas by creating at least three heavy elite
armored divisions, well trained and equipped with the Merkava 4 tanks and heavy
Namer’s APC armed and equipped with advanced active protection systems such
the Trophy and Iron Fist.

-

Special operations forces and capabilities – In order to enhance its special
operations capabilities the IDF has taken a few steps in recent years: It has createda new Commando Brigade, Oz 89.

The brigade was created through theconverging of some of its special units: Egoz, Rimon, Duvdevan, and Maglan intoa single Commando Brigade thus enabling for unified training, doctrine andequipment for these assortments of small units and to allow better utilization ofthese units in during operations. The commando brigade is part of the 98th
Airborne Division, the IDF elite Division which includes another 3 paratroop
brigades (two in reserves) and other smaller special mission units. The division's
main purpose is vertical flanking deep inside enemy territory. The Commando
and the 98th Davison will be commanded and controlled by the Depth
Headquarters – a dedicated command organization that was created as a result oflessons learned from recent large operations which showed that Israel's Special
Forces were underutilized.

Chapter 2 ― IDF Doctrine in the 21st Century: Change and Adaptation in Face of New
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32-Stand off fire- In recent decades the IDF has been constantly acquiring andimproving its fire capabilities. In fact, the IDF has been leading the RMA21. Two
important developments in recent years are the establishment of a missile corps in
the ground forces with missiles capable of reaching 300 KM22. Another tendency
is to reinforce divisions and brigades with enhanced independent fire assets byproviding them more for example MLRS batteries and other advanced artillery
and fire capabilities.

-

Air Power – Mastery of the skies has always been critical in Israel’s security
doctrine. The decision to acquire a few F-35 squadrons is congruent with theIsrael’s Air Force tradition to equip itself with the best fighter jet it can achieve,as the all-purpose fighter jets are the backbone of the Air force. The F-35 carriessome unique capabilities and will allow the IAF to enhance its reach and maintainits lead in the region. Israel’s is also a world leader in the development and useof drones.

Drones are used for a variety of missions and their number andsophistication are rapidly developing. The emphasis on drones from various types
will continue to grow.
- Israel’s maritime power- Traditionally, Israel’s navy was quite small and thoughtechnological advanced, it was mainly designed as a local force to protect Israel’s
shores and seaports. Two developments in recent decades caused a significant
buildup in the Navy’s capability: This first is the growing threat of Iran and thesecond is the natural gas discoveries.
The purchase of six Dolphin class submarines from Germany, each capable ofcarrying a combined total of up to 16 torpedoes and submarine-launched cruise
missiles. According to the press these cruise missiles have a range of at least
1,500 km (930 mi) and are widely believed to be able of carrying nuclear
warhead 23 . If true, it would provide Israel with an offshore nuclear secondstrike capability against a possible nuclear Iran in the future. These submarines
are also a force multiplier in the conventional sense and play a major part in
Israel’s capability to project power beyond its borders. The second development
are the off shore gas discoveries in the Mediterranean.
21

The same German

See Dima Adamsky The Culture of Military Innovation: The Impact of Cultural Factors on the
Revolution in Military Affairs in Russia, the US, and Israel, CA: Stanford Press, 2010, pp. 93-99.
22
Alex Fishman, “Introducing the IDF’s new ‘missile corps’”, Ynet News, September 2, 2018.
https://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-5096287,00.html.
23
Ronen Bergman, "Report: Dolphin subs equipped with nuclear weapons", Ynet News, June 3, 2012.
https://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4237408,00.html.

Chapter 2 ― IDF Doctrine in the 21st Century: Change and Adaptation in Face of New
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33

Shipyard, Thyssen-Krupp, that has built the submarines is building four Sa'ar(corvette type missile boats) patrol vessels for protecting the Israeli offshore gas
fields. These boats will join the existing Sa’ar fleet in Israel’s Navy.
- Missile Defense – In contrast to the past, there is a new emphasis on defensive
measures in the form of substantial investment in systems that can intercept
incoming missiles and rockets, most notably the triage that supplement each other:
the Iron Dome, David's Sling and Arrow systems. The IDF has also formed its
Homefront Command with authority to guide civilians in time of crises andinvested in training first responders that have the expertise to intervene in disasterareas. The magnitude of the missile threat had also led to increasing US-Israeli
military cooperation (and a deviation from the complete self-reliance principle).
Since 2001, once every two years, the IDF and the United States European
Command (US EUCOM) train together to improve cooperation and coordination
between the armies. An essential part of the exercise is integrating US Navy
warships equipped with the Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense System (Aegis BMD)
designed against short to intermediate-range ballistic missiles, with Israel’s
missile defense systems further enhancing Israel’s missile defense capability.
- Intelligence- Israel puts even greater emphasis on intelligence, this is evident in
the high priority the intelligence corps receives in high quality recruits over otherbranches. The intelligence corps has increased in size and specialization to
include, tactical and field intelligence, real time intelligence for target acquisition,
strategic intelligence, human and cultural intelligence (reading the Arab street
following the “Arab Spring”), cyber capabilities (offense and defense).
-

Border protection and territories policing – Israel’s long borders along loosely
governed territories such as the Sinai Peninsula and its control of Palestinian
territory led the IDF to form units specializing in patrolling and policing theseareas. These forces are lightly equipped and are trained for these missions. They
can therefore free up other forces to train and specialize for high intensity
scenarios.

Some of these forces are Reserves while others consist of mixed

female and male battalions.

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Chapter 2 ― IDF Doctrine in the 21st Century: Change and Adaptation in Face of New
Strategic Realities [Shamir]

SUMMARY

The last decades saw major shifts in the region surrounding Israel. Following the US
invasion to Iraq 2003 and the so called “Arab Spring” some threats to Israel’s security
declined while others have increased. Consequently, Israel has had to adapt its security
doctrine. Israel’s main antagonist are still the Palestinians, who do not pose an existential
threat, but its current strongest antagonist in the region is a Muslim non-Arab country that
does not share a border with it: Iran. As a consequence, the conflict takes shapes in many
forms and shapes: various types of warfare, different locations and domains, both direct
and through proxies24. But while Iran is the major threat Israel confronts, it is by nomeans the only one.

While many of Israel’s traditional security tenets from David Ben Gurion’s era have notchanged, the large spectrum of threats Israel is facing necessitated different emphasis on
some elements of its force structure while further building and improving others.
The IDF is currently debating future directions of its force development. Questions are
asked and debated, for example, in regard to the role of heavy armored ground forces
versus the use of special operations and/or air power and precision fire. Other questions
are asked in regard to the role of drones versus manned aircraft or the utility of cyber
operations during war.
While these debates are going on, as is often the case in Israel’s history, they are most
likely to be decided in tests of fire, and the hard lessons they will derive will continue toguide the IDF's doctrine and force development.

24

Direct and open engagement between Israelis and Iranians have occurred most recently in Syria.
See Isabel Kershner, “Israel Confirms Attacks on Iranian Targets in Syria”, New York Times, January
20, 2019.

Chapter 3 — Casualties and Israeli Society [Levy]

35

CHAPTER 3

CASUALTIES AND ISRAELI SOCIETY

Yagil Levy
Open University of Israel

Israel was created at the beginning of the twentieth century as a colonial project of Jewish
emigrants, mainly from Eastern Europe.

During the formative years of the pre-state

political community, a conflict developed between the Jewish and Palestinian
communities, which were both under British rule.

Gradually, the conflict escalated fromlocal clashes to intercommunal conflict, culminating in the 1948 War between Israel andthe surrounding Arab states following the formal establishment of the Israeli state.
Since then, Israel has been embroiled in a prolonged conflict with the Arab world.

Since

1

1860, about 24,000 people have died in wars, the costliest of which was that of 1948,
during which about 6,000 people fell, approximately one percent of the whole population.
Notwithstanding these heavy burdens, Israel tolerated casualties and when this tolerance
declined, it adapted to the new reality by changing policies.

This article describes the dynamics in legitimizing military death.

It begins with the

emergence of the casualty sensitivity syndrome in Israeli society and the mapping of its
determinants.

The article proceeds with a presentation of the different forms of casualty

sensitivity and its policy impacts.

EMERGENCE OF THE CASUALTY SENSITIVITY SUNDROME

Until the 1970s, Israel tolerated casualties.
1

Public discourse was dominated by the

Haaretz, October 20, 2018. https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/memorial-day-2018-71-israelisoldiers-added-to-list-of-fallen-1.5995105.

36

Chapter 3 — Casualties and Israeli Society [Levy]

hegemonic bereavement model, according to which death in war was presented as thenorm and casualties were viewed as heroes, in accordance with the perception that Israel
faced existential threats.

Bereaved parents refrained from publicly voicing any concerns

or demands regarding their loss, and even expressed pride.

In return, they became

symbolic public figures lauded by the public and the establishment2.

The 1970s and 1980s marked the turning point; it was during these years that thelegitimacy accorded to military sacrifice began to erode and the casualty sensitivity
syndrome developed.

In the 1973 War, Israel was surprised by an Egyptian-Syrian attack that was barely pushed
back and Israel suffered some 2,500 fatalities, about 0.1 percent of the total Jewish
population.

This war shattered the public perception of the IDF (Israel Defense Forces)

as having unlimited power3, a perception that had crystallized following the 1967 War inwhich Israel impressively defeated the armies of Egypt, Jordan and Syria and expanded
its borders.

The impacts of the 1973 War resulted in deeper changes that matured

politically during the First Lebanon War (1982-1985).

This war was sold to the public

as a “short-term” military operation to uproot the Palestinian mini-state led by the
Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in southern Lebanon, which threatened thecivilian population in the north of Israel.

However, once it became apparent that Israel

had resorted to force in order to reshape internal Lebanese politics—an objective that
prolonged the fighting and necessitated an extended siege of Beirut in July and August
1982—antiwar demonstrations erupted.

For the very first time, the criteria for

legitimizing the use of force were subject to debate; protest groups focused on the goalsof the war, which was categorized as one of “choice,” and therefore distinct from the“wars of no choice” Israel had waged previously.

Ultimately, the IDF was dragged intoa war of attrition against Shiite militias in south Lebanon for three additional years,
culminating in about 650 IDF casualties 4 .

In 1985, largely due to further antiwar

protests, the IDF unilaterally withdrew from parts of Lebanon5.
Udi Lebel, 2007. “Civil Society Versus Military Sovereignty: Cultural, Political, and Operational
Aspects.” Armed Forces & Society, Vol. 34-1, 2007, pp. 67-89.
3
Zeev Maoz, Defending the Holy Land: A Critical Analysis of Israel’s Security and Foreign Policy.
Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2006, pp. 412-436.
4
Yagil Levy, Israel’s Death Hierarchy: Casualty Aversion in a Modern Militarized Democracy. New
York: New York University Press, 2012, pp. 42, 53-54.
5Maoz, Defending the Holy Land, pp. 206-229.
2

Chapter 3 — Casualties and Israeli Society [Levy]

37

Heavy burdens decreased the legitimacy of sacrificing mainly in conjunction with otherfactors, similar to those seen in other Western democracies: (1) The ascendancy of amarket society that was affected by Israel’s exposure to globalization.

The market ethos

together with globalization enhanced the liberal discourse, challenged previous
collectivist commitments and symbols, and increased criticism of the military expenditurethat had risen since the 1973 War and was not offset by any war-produced economic
gains.

(2) The decline in the perception of the external threat since, following the 1967

War, Israel had established its regional dominance.

Furthermore, the Egyptian-Israeli

peace treaty, signed in 1979, proved that even very significant existential threats could be
removed by diplomatic means—in this case, at the cost of complete withdrawal from the
Sinai Peninsula which had been captured in 1967. This could challenge the rightness of
future wars which, in turn, would negatively affect the legitimacy of sacrificing.

(3) Thedestabilization of the republican exchange between state civilian institutions and thecitizenry which had laid the infrastructure for the state’s capacity to mobilize the Jewish
community for war sacrifice.

However, this exchange was destabilized after the 1970s

when military service lost much of its value in a market society, the liberal discourse
undermined soldiering as a criterion for social benefits, and groups which did not servein the army collected significant rewards which were not contingent upon the test of
military service.

In addition, military failures ruptured the image of the Ashkenazi(Jews of European descent), middle-class warriors, the social backbone of the IDF6.

However, as the literature has already shown, circumstantial political factors canreinforce (or mitigate) such social trends and heighten casualty sensitivity, as follows:1.

An increase in the log of cumulative casualties 7 .

In the case of Israel, 2,500

fatalities in the three weeks of the 1973 War and 230 in the first week of the First
Lebanon War (June 1982) reinforced the existing erosion of the social willingness tosacrifice.
2.

Paradoxically, when casualty rates are low, the media presents the fallen to decisionmakers and the public as individuals, with names and faces 8 .

Individualization

Levy, Israel’s Death Hierarchy, pp. 42-46.
John E. Mueller, War, Presidents, and Public Opinion, New York: Wiley, 1973.
8
Eyal Ben-Ari, “Epilogue: A ‘Good’ Military Death”, Armed Forces & Society, Vol. 31-4, pp. 651664.
6
7

38

Chapter 3 — Casualties and Israeli Society [Levy]

increases sensitivity to loss.
fallen decreased.

Indeed, casualty sensitivity rose as the numbers of

For example, after 1983 during the First Lebanon War, Israeli

television broadcast soldiers’ funerals, and this negatively affected public toleranceof casualties9
3.

As Gelpi et al. maintained, public anticipation that the military operation will notaccomplish its goals reduces tolerance for casualties10.

A sense of failure in the1973 War, and especially in the First Lebanon War where Israel was embroiled incostly guerilla warfare, presented the sacrifices as worthless.
4.

Rightness of the war increases tolerance 11 and vice versa, as happened during theFirst Lebanon War the rightness of which as a “war of choice” was challenged andtolerance decreased.

5.

Elite dissensus negatively affects tolerance for casualties12, as was the case with theFirst Lebanon War, the first war initiated by a rightist government and therefore
challenged by the left-center wing.

6.

The social profile of casualties matters.

The greater the presence of middle-classgroups among the casualties, the greater the likelihood of protest emerging from theranks13.

In the First Lebanon War, which claimed the lives of about 230 soldiers,

some 70 percent of the casualties in the first week came from the secular middle class,with 20 percent of all casualties coming from the upper-middle class.
casualties were reservists.

A third of all

It was the most organized, wealthy and sacrifice-averse

social stratum in Israeli society that created the infrastructure for the protest 14.
7.

In sum, these political factors reinforced the impacts of the social trends generating
casualty sensitivity.

Politically, this sensitivity took two forms: antiwar collective

action and a subversive bereavement discourse.

9

Ruvik Rosental, Is Bereavement Dead? (In Hebrew), Jerusalem: Keter, 2001, pp. 53-54.
Christopher Gelpi, Peter D. Feaver, and Jason Reifler, Paying the Human Costs of War: American
Public Opinion and Casualties in Military Conflicts. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2009.
11
Ibid.
12
Eric V. Larson, Casualties and Consensus: The Historical Role of Casualties in Domestic Support
for U.S. Military Operations. Santa Monica, CA: Rand Corporation, 1996.
13
Yagil Levy, “How the Military’s Social Composition Affects Political Protest: The Case of
Israel.” Peace & Change, Vol. 35-1, 2010, pp. 123-145.
14
Levy, Israel’s Death Hierarchy, pp. 51-56.
10Chapter 3 — Casualties and Israeli Society [Levy]

39

FORMS OF CASUALTY SENSITIVITY

Bereavement-informed collective action is the form of casualty sensitivity which mosteffectively translates changes in public opinion into effective pressure on the government
to redeploy the forces and even halt missions.

In Israel, the initiation of such collective

action followed the operation to conquer Beaufort Castle in south Lebanon on the firstnight of the First Lebanon War.

It claimed the lives of six soldiers and, in response, a

few bereaved families formed a group known as the Beaufort Family.

Instead ofinterpreting the mission as heroic, as bereaved parents had in previous wars, these parents
viewed it as a futile operation and blamed the government for the loss of their sons, thus
sparking the antiwar protest15.

As the IDF became embroiled in a guerilla war in Lebanon, more groups were formed,
the most important of which was Soldiers against Silence composed of reserve soldiersin 1983.

Together with the peace movement Peace Now, this group initiated apermanent demonstration outside Prime Minister Begin’s home, beginning in April 1983,
displaying long lists of the names of the casualties and an updated daily casualty count16.
Ultimately, in large measure because of the protests, which prompted the formation of a
relatively moderate, broad-based coalition government following the general elections of
1984, the IDF unilaterally withdrew from parts of Lebanon in 198517.

Politically, the second withdrawal from Lebanon in 2000 was more significant.
Although Israel had ended the First Lebanon War in 1985 by unilaterally withdrawing its
troops, it was dragged into a guerrilla war against Hezbollah forces in the security zonethat Israel still occupied as a buffer between Lebanon and northern Israeli towns.

Duringthe years 1985-2000, this war claimed more than 300 IDF fatalities18.

The turning point came in February 1997.

Two military helicopters collided en route to

Lebanon and claimed the lives of 73 soldiers.

In response, the middle-class-based Four

Mothers movement was founded by mothers of soldiers who were serving in Lebanon at
15

Ibid., pp. 51-52.
Ibid., p. 54.
17
Maoz, Defending the Holy Land, pp. 206-229.
18
Dalia Dassa Kaye, “The Israeli Decision to Withdraw from Southern Lebanon: Political Leadershipand Security Policy”, Political Science Quarterly, Vol. 117-4, 2002-2003, p. 570.
16

40

Chapter 3 — Casualties and Israeli Society [Levy]

the time of the helicopter accident.

Four Mothers led the campaign to pull Israel out of

Lebanon unilaterally and unconditionally.

In its discourse, the movement challenged

the costs and compared them to the political and military logic of the specific mission interms not of rightness, but rather of logic19.

Ultimately, the campaign played a key rolein shifting public opinion and driving the Israeli government to unilaterally withdraw its
troops from Lebanon in 2000; or at least this achievement was later attributed to the
movement’s actions20.

This cost-centered discourse created a new cultural barrier to

war sacrifices, known as “Lebanon phobia,” which would play a key role in the Second
Lebanon War of 200621.

Common to these collective actions was the development of a subversive bereavement
discourse.

Bereavement discourse refers to the way that various social groups interpretthe loss of their children’s lives, or the potential risk to their lives posed by their military
service, and how they translate this into public discourse, on a spectrum of attitudes fromsubversive to submissive.

A subversive bereavement discourse seeks to undermine theassumptions that support the mobilization for war.

It can either challenge the war’s

22

justification and rightness or question its costs .
For example, “Do not use spears and the bodies of our sons to try to dictate who shall rulein Lebanon,” wrote Yehoshua Zamir23, a bereaved father, member of the Beaufort Family,
to Israel’s Prime Minister a few days after his son was killed in the Beaufort operation.
A similar tone was voiced by one of the activists of Soldiers against Silence: “I am notwilling to die for a strong government in Lebanon…for Israeli solidarity…for military
discipline…for an insane government”24.

Four Mothers used a more moderate rhetoric,

focused on the logic and the costs rather than challenging the rightness of the war, as
Rachel Ben Dor, the movement’s founder, presented the motivation to act:
On the night of the helicopter disaster I became forcefully aware of the

Levy, Israel’s Death Hierarchy, pp. 72-76.
Tamar Hermann, The Israeli Peace Movement: A Shattered Dream, New York: Cambridge
University Press, 2009, p. 166.
21
Ibid., p. 76.
22
Yagil Levy, “Conceptualizing the Spectrum of the Bereavement Discourse”, Armed Forces &Society, Vol. 44-1, 2018, pp. 3-24.
23
Yehoshua Zamir, “Letter to Menachem Begin”, June 28, 1982. http://www.mideastweb.org/
survivalzamir.htm.
24
Cited in Lily Weissbrod, “Protest and Dissidence in Israel”, Myron J. Aronoff, ed., Cross-Currents
in Israeli Culture and Politics, Piscataway, NJ: Transaction Books, 1984, p. 58.
19
20

Chapter 3 — Casualties and Israeli Society [Levy]

41

terrible price we were paying in the Lebanese quagmire.

I made up mymind that something must be done to stop the endless bloodletting.

My

assumption was that if these were the results, there must be something
wrong with the means that we must call for a change, for improvement in
the situation; and not accepting it as if it was preordained25.
In sum, the combination of collective action and a subversive bereavement discourse
translated the sensitivity into a political factor.

What are the impacts?

IMPACTS OF CASUALTY SENSITIVITY

As the literature shows, casualty sensitivity has multiple impacts on policy-making, as
follows:
1. Casualty aversion: A military policy that strives to limit risk or even avoid missions
that could result in casualties.

While the protests described above generated re-

deployments in Lebanon, “Lebanon phobia” which had already taken hold was best
demonstrated in the Second Lebanon War.

In July 2006, Israel launched a full-scale

war against Lebanon in response to the abduction of two soldiers by Hezbollah
militiamen on the Israeli-Lebanese border.

Military policies were informed bysensitivity to the soldiers’ lives. Therefore, concern about casualties led thegovernment to rule out a ground operation, and the Israel military deployed the airforce.

Aerial assaults, however, failed to stop Hezbollah from launching rockets andinjuring civilians in Israel’s northern towns, resulting in the death of about 40 civilians.
Nevertheless, favoring the soldiers’ lives over the lives of Israel’s own civilians
contributed to the hesitation to approve a ground operation inside Lebanon, which
would have been effective in clearing out the launchers 26 .

Ultimately, Israel was

reluctantly dragged into a short ground operation that resulted in more than 100
fatalities, but it failed to achieve the war’s goals and Israel accepted a ceasefire 27.
2. Risk transfer: Adoption of a counter-fire doctrine, first implemented during the 1990s
in Lebanon, premised on standoff precision armaments (artillery, fighter aircraft andgradually drones).

Thus, the combatants’ exposure to risk was reduced but it was

Four Mothers’ website. http://library.osu.edu/projects/fourmothers/cry_movement.htm.
Avi Kober, “The Israel Defense Forces in the Second Lebanon War: Why the Poor Performance?”
Journal of Strategic Studies, Vol. 31-1, 2008, pp. 3-40.
27David Makovsky and Jeffrey White Lessons and Implications of the Israel-Hizballah War: A
Preliminary Assessment, Washington, DC: The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, 2006.
25
26

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Chapter 3 — Casualties and Israeli Society [Levy]

shifted to enemy noncombatants.

This policy was best demonstrated in the ground

operations Israel initiated against the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip in the years 2005-2014
to halt rocket fire from Gaza to Israel28.
3. The removal of politically active and casualty-sensitive reservists from friction
zones: Reserve soldiers are more likely to engage in political protest than regularconscripts and against this background their deployments have been limited since the1990s29.
4. Revising Israel’s military doctrine: In 2016, the IDF introduced a multi-year
efficiency plan based upon careful strategic planning and premised on the assumptionthat the Israeli public no longer tolerates gradual escalations leading to prolonged
campaigns.

This may necessitate the application of overwhelming military power atthe outset in order to end any military conflict decisively and swiftly30.
5. Realignment of the social composition of field units: This was accomplished byencouraging the integration of soldiers from lower-class and religious groups who still
regarded military service as a track for upward mobility and therefore, together with
their social networks, they displayed more motivation to sacrifice.

The service

attracted Mizrachim (the 1950s' immigrants from Muslim countries), the 1990s'
immigrants from the former Soviet Union and from Ethiopia, women (who until the
1990s were excluded from combat roles) and most importantly, religious enlistees,
who associated military service with religious values.

The steep drop in the

proportion of secular middle-class casualties from about 68.5% during the first weekof the Lebanon War to about 45.5% in the second Intifada, matched by casualties fromthe lower-class rising by similar proportions, clearly reflected the IDF’s new social
makeup.

The Second Lebanon War in 2006 further confirmed this trend, while also

mirroring changes in attitudes toward bereavement, which now assumed a more
submissive tone.

Because the proportion of fatalities among upper middle-class

regulars and reservists was relatively small, critics of that campaign failed to generatea critical mass for effective political protest 31 .

A similar pattern occurred during

Operation Protective Edge in Gaza in 2014, when 65 IDF soldiers were killed, mostly
in flawed attempts to destroy tunnels leading from Gaza into Israel.

Here again,

Yagil Levy, “The Gaza Fighting: Did Israel Shift Risk from Its Soldiers to Civilians?” Middle East
Policy, Vol. 24-3, 2017, pp. 117-132.
29
Yagil Levy, “The Decline of the Reservist Army”, Military and Strategic Affairs, Vol. 3-3, 2011,
pp. 63-74.
30
Meir Elran, Gabi Siboni and Kobi Michael, eds., IDF Strategy in the Perspective of National
Security (In Hebrew), Tel-Aviv: Institute for National Security Studies, 2016.
31
Levy, Israel’s Death Hierarchy, pp. 84-89.
28

Chapter 3 — Casualties and Israeli Society [Levy]

43

despite revelations of command incompetence, the tone of bereavement still continued
to be private, contained, and deferential32.

In sum, growing casualty shyness had several policy-oriented impacts through which thegovernment could balance aversion to missions with steps mitigating the negative impacts(from its perspective) of such sensitivity.

CONCLUSION

Since the 1990s, Israel has reflected the Western pattern of decreasing tolerance formilitary casualties.

Similar to other industrialized democracies, the ascendancy ofmarket society together with decreasing existential threats attenuated this tolerance inconjunction with political variables such as the likelihood of achieving a mission’s goals
or its rightness.

Bereavement-informed antiwar collective action limited thegovernment’s freedom of action to deploy troops in risky missions.

However, Israeli

society has adapted to the new reality by changing the military doctrine, realigning thesocial composition of the troops and increasing the reliance on technology.
Consequently, the government and the military have re-expanded their freedom of
operation, enabling them to sustain warfare in the prolonged Arab-Israeli conflict.

Yagil Levy, “Has the ‘Spider Web’ Theory Really Collapsed? Casualty Sensitivity during Operation
Protective Edge”, Military and Strategic Affairs, Vol. 7-3, 2015, pp. 59-77.
32

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Chapter 4 — Psychological Discourses and the Military in Israel [Ben-Ari]

CHAPTER 4

PSYCHOLOGICAL DISCOURSES AND THE MILITARY IN ISRAEL1

Eyal Ben-Ari
Kinneret Center on Peace, Security and Society in Memory of Dan Shomron

In a study carried out a decade and a half ago, Edna Lomsky-Feder and I2 examined theplace of psychological discourses in constructing understandings of war and military
service in Israel. This paper represents an update of that contribution. The central
argument is that these discourses work to incorporate notions about war and service into
the “normal” routines of social life. Concretely, we examined three discourses: thedevelopmental focusing on how military service is constructed as a “natural” stage inprogression towards adulthood and manhood; the therapeutic discourse centers on thetraumatic influences of war on warriors and (since the first Intifada and the Gulf War)civilians and thereby blurs the power relations between Israelis and Palestinians; theorganizational psychological one deals with the military’s effectiveness by likening it toother organizations and thus obscuring its unique character as specializing in theorganized use of violence. Here I offer a shortened and updated version of that article.

The background to our analysis is the expansion of psychological discourses that explain
and orient behavior in contemporary industrial societies.
1

We follow previous scholars 3This is a shortened and updated version of an article that appeared as Edna Lomsky-Feder and Eyal
Ben-Ari, “Psychological Discourses and the Normalization of War and the Military in Israel”, Gabriel
Sheffer and Oren Barak, eds., Militarism and Israeli Society, Bloomington: Indiana University Press
2010, pp. 280-304.
2
Edna Lomsky-Feder and Eyal Ben-Ari, “Psychological Discourses and the Normalization of War
and the Military in Israel”, Gabriel Sheffer and Oren Barak, eds., Militarism and Israeli Society.
Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2010, pp. 280-304.
3
J. De Vos, Psychologization and the Subject in Late Modernity, New York: Palgrave Macmillan,
2013; F. Furedi, Therapy Culture: Cultivating Vulnerability in an Uncertain Age, London: Routledge,
2004; E. Illouz, Saving the Modern Soul: Therapy, Emotions, and the Culture of Self-Help,
Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007; Nancy Schnog, “On Inventing the Psychological”, Joel
Pfisher and Nancy Schnog, eds., Inventing the Psychological, Hew Haven: Yale University Press, 1997,
pp. 3-4.

Chapter 4 — Psychological Discourses and the Military in Israel [Ben-Ari]

45

in defining the “psychological” as encompassing the public life of psychologicaldisciplines, as changing visions of the psychological interior, and as a set of “commonsense” or “folk” models for interpreting social phenomena. During the past decades
these discourses have moved from the academic and professional fields to become widelyused "lay" theories that people around the industrialized world employ to interpret theirlives. In other words, they have become mundane or common-sense knowledge.

DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY AND THE MILITARY:
A “NATURAL” WAY OF GROWING UP

Nation-states are based on the idea of mass armies based on enthusiastic young men
willing to sacrifice their lives for the state4.

Such ideas endow the experience of war

and military service with meaning in terms of maturation and achieving manhood. In
Israel this connection seems to be especially strong 5. The ideal of man-the-warrior isanchored in the central image of the Zionist revolution: the native-born Israeli as the“New Jew”6. The "New Jew" was an answer to the imagery of the weak, effeminatebody of the Diaspora Jew that had haunted common perceptions of Jews and Jewish selfperceptions7.
During the last two decades, these ideals have been challenged 8.

Many groups withinsociety pose questions about what were previously taken for granted matters as
motivation to serve, evasion of military service, or the idea of “man-the-warrior”. Yetat the same time, acceptance of demands to be a man-soldier is still perceived to be aprecondition for “full” Israeli membership 9. Combat service is still seen as superior toother kinds of service, and to a great degree, military service is still accepted as part of4

George L. Mosse, Fallen Soldiers: Reshaping the Memory of the World Wars, Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1990.
5
Eyal Ben-Ari with the assistance of Galeet Dardashti, “Tests of Soldierhood: Trials of Manhood:
Military Service and Male Ideals”, Daniel Maman, Eyal Ben-Ari and Zeev Rosenhek, eds., War,
Politics and Society in Israel: Theoretical and Comparative Perspectives, New Brunswick, N.J.:
Transaction Publishers, 2001; Liora Sion, “Images of Manhood Among Combat Soldiers: MilitaryService in Israel's Infantry Brigades as a Rite of Passage”, MA Thesis, Department of Sociology andAnthropology, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 1997 (Hebrew).
6
Almog, Oz, The Sabra: The Creation of the New Jew. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000
7
Daniel Boyarin, Unheroic conduct: The Rise and Fall of Heterosexuality and the Invention of theJewish Man, Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1996.
8
Orna Sasson–Levy, “Identities in Uniform – Masculinities and Femininities in the Israeli Military”,
Jerusalem: Hebrew University Magnes Press, 2006 (Hebrew).
9
Edna Lomsky-Feder and Eyal Ben-Ari, eds., The Military and Militarism in Israeli Society, Albany:
State University of New York Press, 1999.

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Chapter 4 — Psychological Discourses and the Military in Israel [Ben-Ari]

the normal and normative life-course. The former Chief Psychologist of the IDF
expressed the ‘natural’ link between adulthood, manhood and the military during a
conference on the influence of war on Israeli soldiers:

I see a parallel between sex, pregnancy and birth and wars. In Israel being
in the military and going through war is natural like becoming pregnant andgiving birth in the regular pattern of mature sex life10.

Building on his professional authority as a psychologist, this officer poses a resemblance
between sex, pregnancy and birth as the most fundamental processes of life and the‘naturalness’ of war in the lives of Israeli men. Indeed, in Israel the discourse on war
and military service as a “natural” stage in the (especially male) life-course is central inroutinizing them into individual lives. This process is based on a universalistic modelof individual psychological development according to which life is a sequence ofdevelopmental stages characterized by particular psychological profiles and specificdevelopmental tasks. Accordingly, in this “universal” psycho-developmental model,
youthhood is differentiated from stages coming before and after it and said to be
characterized by emotional turmoil, a “natural” attraction of men to danger and adventure,
and a concurrent attraction to ideals and a search for identity11.

Moreover, according to the universalistic developmental model, adolescence ischaracterized by a search for meaning and total, uncompromising social participation.
Hence participation in war, according to soldiers’ accounts, is often perceived as an
expression of commitment to the values of society and loyalty to the state. These
expressions often take on a romantic, naïve character that allows no space for critique.
One example is an article about an officer who was killed in Lebanon during a skirmish
with Hizbullah.
about death:

In the account, one commander relates a conversation he had with him

All during my military service I was in dangerous activities and I scrapedwith death. The role necessitates this. You have to take this into account.
Uri looked at me and answered without hesitation, "I tell my family and my
10

Quoted in Helena De Sevilia, et.al., What do the Wars Do to Us?, Zikhron Yaakov: Israeli Center
for Military Studies, 1992 (Hebrew), pp. 5-6.
11
J. Fornas, “Youth Culture and Modernity”, J. Fornas and G. Bolin, eds., Youth Culture in Late
Modernity, London: Sage, 1995.

Chapter 4 — Psychological Discourses and the Military in Israel [Ben-Ari]

girlfriend that I will never be hurt, but I know that I may die.
for this, but if it happens, I want to be killed in battle" 1247

I am ready

The harsh experiences of war in many men’s stories are, moreover, often interpreted by
the developmental model as an ‘identity crisis’ within the process of maturation. The
fact that a war is interpreted as an identity crisis in becoming an adult and not as a “disaster”
or “psychological calamity” softens its impact. Because a crisis of identity is not adeviation or anomaly in adolescence, a crisis brought on by war is thus seen as “normal”
and not related to the specific historical context of Israel13. This kind of conception is a
product of the wider context in which military service is seen as an arena for maturation,and more important, as an arena within which youngsters can face the central
developmental tasks of creating individual autonomy, separation from parents and the
crystallization of identity14.

The perception of military service as such an arena is also created outside the family.
Thus for example, these messages are explicitly transmitted in graduation ceremonies inJewish high-schools when adults – teachers and parents – talk about the upcoming
recruitment of the graduates15. Furthermore, various programs for preparing youngsters
for military service (within and outside the educational systems), expose youngsters toideas centered on maturity, the importance of service and the army as a place forexpressing and achieving personal aims16. In other words, the developmental discourseof maturation has become a central interpretive frame for the naturalization of military
service as part of a key scenario in contemporary Jewish-Israeli society.

The developmental model then, forms a key cultural mechanism through which thepowerful experiences of war and military service are turned “normal” and even normative
things. It normalizes war into the life-course through stabilizing the experience, toning
down the crisis, and anchoring both in models that are a-contextual. Maturation becomespart of the social order and a defined stage in a developmental course that is known,

Shlomo Abramowitz, “A legend in His Time”, Yedioth Aharonot, November 1, 1996.
Edna Lomsky-Feder, As If There Was No War: The Perception of War in the Life Stories of Israeli
Men, Jerusalem: Magnes, 1998 (Hebrew).
14
Amia Lieblich, The Spring of Their Lives, Tel Aviv: Shocken, 1987 (Hebrew).
15
Edna Lomsky-Feder, “The Bounded Female Voice in Memorial Ceremonies”, Qualitative
Sociology, Vol. 28-3, 2005, pp. 293-314.
16
Limor Even-Ari, “Programs for Preparing Israeli High-School Pupils for Military Service”, Master
Thesis, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 2004.
12
13

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Chapter 4 — Psychological Discourses and the Military in Israel [Ben-Ari]

explained and regulated (among other things through scientific theories). In this way,the effects of war can be constructed between the “natural” and the expected (the processof maturation) and the arbitrary and the uncontrolled (the reality of war).
said that war disrupts maturation while maturation stabilizes war 17.

It can be thus

PSYCHOTHERAPY: PATHOLOGIZING AND TRIVIALIZING THE EFFECTS OF
VIOLENCE
The second discourse – the therapeutic/traumatic one – has gained force since the 1970s(especially in the wake of the Vietnam War) 18 . At its beginnings, this discourse
contained critical elements focusing on the morality of war and in Israel it oftenemphasized private suffering rather than collective mourning 19 . Here, however, wewish to show another side of this discourse; its normalizing variant.

SOCIAL BOUNDARIES, HIERARCHIES AND TRAUMA
In every war, soldiers undergo hardships and may carry traumatic memories. It is social
factors, however, that decide whether these voices will be heard: traumatic memories
result not only from individual experiences but can only be articulated by people whohave received social sanction to do so. Lomsky-Feder 20 illuminates these dynamics
through narratives of veterans of the 1973 war that reflect the absence of social approval
to express private traumatic memory. The social imperative voiced was ‘business as
usual,’ that is, going on with their lives as if the war had not occurred. According to herinterviewees, coming to terms with the war implied proper behavior during battle and not
being affected by battle at war’s end. This perception reflected a dominant cultural
assumption linking one’s performance in war and its effect on one’s life: that is, bymeeting the expectations of the Israeli fighter’s ethos, one is not affected by war and thus
considered a real man.

This ethos underlies the complex perception of post-trauma in Israel.

Until the 1970s

such reactions were silenced by state authorities, but since then individuals suffering
17

Lomsky-Feder, As If There Was No War.
Keren Friedman-Peleg, PTSD and the Politics of Trauma in Israel, Toronto: The University ofToronto Press, 2017.
19
Yoram Bilu and Eli Witztum, “War-Related Loss and Suffering in Israeli Society: A Historical
Perspective, Israel Studies, Vol. 5-2, 2000, pp. 1-32.
20
Lomsky-Feder, As If There Was No War.
18

Chapter 4 — Psychological Discourses and the Military in Israel [Ben-Ari]

49

PTSD have been much more present in the public eye and treated within and outside thearmy. Only in the past years have they been awarded benefits similar to those given thephysically wounded (although significant gaps between the groups remain) 21 .
Additionally, the right of veterans to criticize, for instance, defense policy is seen belegitimate because they fulfilled the ultimate call for personal sacrifice and because invoicing their pain and critique they do not undermine the fighter’s ethos – the hegemonic
masculinity. In fact, only those men who epitomize the ethos, proven themselves duringwar, are entitled to be affected by it.

The intense cultural preoccupation with the experience of warriors (always a minority ofsoldiers) is part of how war is “naturalized” in Israel. Emotional stories about wars may
ironically allow non-participants to take war out of their lives because they often lead tothe ventilation of emotions, yet rarely to examine the implications of being perpetrators
or victims of violence. This cathartic function is most evident around Remembrance
Day or anniversaries of wars. There are many newspaper articles and television andradio programs stressing the pain and suffering brought about by war. The intense
debates about the price of war taking place during such occasions allow individuals tofeel purified and continue their lives “as usual”.

EVERYONE TRAUMATIZED

Within the IDF there is a vast research literature rooted in psychology and psychiatry
examining battle reactions 22 . These investigations concentrate on the therapeutic
practices by which soldiers suffering such reactions are returned to active duty and theirorientation is recuperative and restorative (and pertinent to a minority of soldiers). Whathas happened in Israel during the past three decades is that this discourse has been
generalized and “civilianized” to apply to all (mainly Jewish) Israelis. For example, theidea of conceiving of Israeli society as traumatized is a passage from a booklet dealing
with children in emergency: “We live in difficult and confusing times, under the constantAmnon Barzilai, “Ministry of Defense Has Formulated a New Process of Detecting Post-Traumatic
Disorders among Battle-Shocked Veterans”, Haaretz, February 23, 1998 (Hebrew).
22
Zeev Lehrer and Sarit Amram-Katz, “The Sociology of Military Knowledge in the IDF: From
‘Forging’ to ‘Deciphering’”, Israel Studies Review, Vol. 26-2, 2011, pp. 54-72; Yehudith Sher andHadass Ben-Eliyahu, “Looking Out from the Tent: Internal Social Research at the IDF”, Israel Studies
Review, Vol. 26-2, 2011, pp. 99-108; also K. McLaughlin, “Psychologization and the Construction of
the Political Subject as Vulnerable”, Annual Review of Critical Psychology, Issue 8, 2010, pp. 63-79;
and in a different way Nitzan Rothem, Suicide and Our Shared Fate: Soldiers’ Suicide in Psychology,
Law and Modern Hebrew Literature, Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University Press, 2018 (Hebrew).
21

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Chapter 4 — Psychological Discourses and the Military in Israel [Ben-Ari]threat of crisis and tragedy – and this theme takes on many forms… everyone is perforce
a victim”.

And indeed, more and more groups define themselves or are defined by others as being
traumatized. Plotkin-Amrami’s23 work is especially interesting in that she shows how
the Jewish settler community has mobilized this discourse to bring relief to their distressand to seek empathy from the wider public by constructing the disengagement from Gaza
as a national trauma. The point, as Nolan 24 suggests, is that as “the therapeutic
perspective has spilled into culture more broadly, so has the belief that a growing numberof human actions represent diseases or illnesses that need to be healed”. From ourperspective, as war is seen to breed ailments, it must be treated through psychologicalmethods. The fact that so many groups are seen to be “traumatized” thus banalizes theexperience. From being a phenomenon that is unique to certain individuals or groups,
trauma has become a concept that characterizes a whole, a public.

THE SOLDIER: FROM HEROIC IMAGERY TO THERAPEUTIC DISCOURSE

The culture of bereavement in contemporary Israel has increasingly turned into a
psychological-traumatic one. Rather than focusing on soldiers as heroes, memorial
ceremonies now concentrate on the bereaved, grieving family. Pictures of victims,
weeping soldiers, and stunned or screaming family members accompany such events, andare prominently displayed in the media. War and war-making continue to be at thecenter of public attention not through tales of heroism but through accounts of suffering 25.
The stress on individual vulnerability is related to how soldiers have been infantalized inmany discussions about the IDF. In the past few years, an array of protective
representations of soldiers have emerged alongside the ethos of the young hero. Tworecent autobiographies 26 depict military service as characterized by suffering anddepression (in a television program devoted to the books they are described as
documenting “trauma”).
Galia Plotkin-Amrami, “On the Moral Boundaries of a Traumatized Community: The
Disengagement and Construction of Self of Religious Zionism”, Paper Presented at the Annual
Meeting of the Israel Anthropological Association, 2006.
24
James L. Nolan Jr., The Therapeutic State: Justifying Government at Century’s End, New York:New York University Press, 1998, p. 9.
25
A. Klingman, A. Raviv and B. Stein, eds., Preface to Volume 3 – Descriptions of Treatment forStressful Situations, Jerusalem: Ministry of Education, 2000.
26
Boaz Neumann, A Good Soldier, Tel-Aviv: Zmora Bitan, 2001 (Hebrew); Orr Spivak, My Golani.
Tel-Aviv: Prague, 2001 (Hebrew).
23

Chapter 4 — Psychological Discourses and the Military in Israel [Ben-Ari]

51

Furthermore, the weeping of soldiers has become a subject for public debate.

Presenting

opinions from military men, academics, and psychologists one finds competinginterpretations of soldiering and manhood in this debate. As one correspondent in rather
cynical terms describes it “The stress on ‘hitting at them’ and ‘we’ll break their bones’ is
now replaced by weeping… Spartan emotionality is transformed into exaggerated
expressions”27. One illustration of the dominant voice among psychologists is found in
an article in which the chief mental health officer of the IDF is described as saying that“the IDF has turned from a body that automatically spits out weak people to anorganization that extends its hand and gives legitimacy to tears” 28.

TRAUMA, CRITICAL FORMULATIONS, AND MORAL RESPONSIBILITY

Psychological language, especially one turning people into passive victims ofcircumstances, is often used to defuse criticisms. One example is the reaction to amother who harshly criticized the IDF when her son was killed in a game of Russianroulette 29 . Through turning her into a “crazy” person because of her intense
bereavement, the IDF attempted to silence her condemnation. Indeed, the fact that she
committed suicide on her son’s grave only strengthened the attribution that it was mental
instability that lay at bottom of her disparagement of the IDF. An institutional
expression of this pattern is related to the fact conscientious objectors are very rarely
recognized by Israeli authorities and it was only in the late 1990s that special committees
were established to grant such referrals. Yet even after establishing these committees
the IDF still makes great efforts to reduce the number of conscientious objectors. The
most common pattern is for these individuals to receive exemption via a psychiatricdischarge: a psychological reason is substituted for an ideological one.
Notice how similar these processes are to how the “therapeutic motif” contained
American Vietnam veterans as political opposition. This motif “renders veterans
harmless by casting them in terms of metaphors of psychological dysfunction, emotionalfragility, healing and personal redemption; it effectively silences the voice of the veteran
as a source of legitimate knowledge about the nature of contemporary warfare, thus

Aviehai Becker, “On a Clear Day You Can See Me Dead”, Haaretz, September 25, 1998 (Hebrew).
Ariella Eilon, “The Man Who Made You Mad”, Bamahane, July 13, 2001 (Hebrew).
29
Rosenthal, Ruvik, Is Bereavement Dead? Jerusalem: Keter, 2001 (Hebrew).
27
28

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Chapter 4 — Psychological Discourses and the Military in Israel [Ben-Ari]

subverting a potentially effective challenge to discourses advocating the use of ‘legitimate’
state-sanctioned violence”30. By drawing attention to the suffering of individuals the
motif distracts us from wider concerns about the uses of war. But while in America,
large parts of society recognized collective wrongdoing, faced up to old accounts andmade amends for past wrongs by asking for forgiveness 31 , the dynamic in Israel isdifferent because of the ongoing conflict. While there is an individualization andvictimization of soldiers, there is also a move – during the last two Intifadas and theSecond Lebanon War – to traumatize and treat the (predominantly Jewish) population.
Sentiments of victimhood and the memory of trauma are basic elements in national
identity and the creation of solidarity. Thus, placing the self-as-victim at the center ofattention blinds many Israeli Jews from seeing the ‘other’ and how another people areoccupied. In an ironic manner, the therapeutic discourse has not only equalized theIsraeli and Palestinian cases but in fact inverts them by turning (Jewish) Israelis into
victims.

ORGANIZATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY: RATIONALIZING VIOLENCE
The third discourse is rooted in organizational psychology. It too has rather substantial
historical roots although its concrete manifestations in Israel are more recent. Historically,
psychology in the military first developed out of a confluence of therapeutic care for shellshocked soldiers and organizational sorting of recruits to different units and arms andlater began to encompass other areas such as training or psychological warfare. In
Israel32 military psychology began to be institutionalized in the War of Independence andtoday can be found, as in the American armed forces, in a variety of guises in all branchesof the military as well as the IDF’s School of Leadership.
A DIVISION OF “PSYCHOLOGICAL LABOR”
A good starting point is the “psychological” division of labor in the IDF marked by adistinction between “mental health officers” (kabanim) and “psychologists”
Peter Ehrenhous, “Cultural Narratives and the Therapeutic Motif: The Political Containment ofVietnam Veterans”, Dennis K. Mumby, ed., Narrative and Social Control: Critical Perspectives,
Newbury Park: Sage, 1995, pp. 78, 81.
31
Ibid.
32
Uzi Ben-Shalom and Shaul Fox, “Military Psychology in the IDF: A Perspective on Continuities
and Change”, Manuscript, Bar-Ilan University, 2006; Motty Safrai, “In the Spirit of the Army Lies
Victory: The Beginnings of Military Psychology in the IDF”, Psychological Tsavait, Issue 3, 2004, pp.
53-105.
30

Chapter 4 — Psychological Discourses and the Military in Israel [Ben-Ari]

53(psichologim). The former term is used for therapists while the latter designates
professionals who administer psychological tests or are organizational consultants. In fact,over the past decade hundreds of these consultants have entered the various branches of
the IDF. The difference between the roles is institutional: the mental health officers areunder the command the Chief Medical Officer and the organizational consultants areunder the Department of Behavioral Sciences. No less important, while the former arecommitted use the therapeutic discourse, the latter are devoted to the organizational
discourse focused on improved effectiveness and efficiency.
The manner by which the two roles reason about war-making is instructive. Within the
discourse of the organizational psychologists one does find reference to combat. Yet,rather than formulating the problem of combat in terms of violence, their emphasis is on
finding ways to improve performance given the severe pressures it entails. Indeed,
violence, or its synonyms, does not appear at all in this discourse. Take a typical article
about leadership which develops a model of stress placed on soldiers in fire-fights33. In
this model violence is “translated” into pressures on individual soldiers and through thatlinked to such variables as control or efficiency of the military organization.
Violence does come up in the therapeutic discourse of mental health officers. The titleof a book drawing a causal link between war and its psychological implications is “TheStress of Combat, The Combat of Stress: Caring Strategies Towards Ex-Service Men and
Women” 34 . Whereas in battles violence is wrought on others and experienced bysoldiers themselves, in the post-traumatic literature the stress is almost wholly on thelatter aspect. Accordingly, what is of interest is the violence inflicted on soldiers, or its
long-term implications for the soldiers themselves. The problematics of effecting
violence are individualized by turning soldiers into victims rather than perpetrators. In
this way the division of psychological labor is put into practice: the behavioral sciences
departments deal with danger and a general model of stress while the psychiatric units
deal with the effects of violence on soldiers as victims. While the key question in theorganizational literature is that of combat effectiveness in the therapeutic literature it thatof recuperation.

Reuven Gal, “Leadership in Battle”, Itzik Gonen and Avihu Zakai, eds., Leadership and Leadership
Development: From Theory to Practice, Tel-Aviv: Ministry of Defence Publishing House, 1999
(Hebrew).
34
Roy Brook, The Stress of Combat, The Combat of Stress: Caring Strategies Towards Ex-Service
Men and Women, Brighton: The Alpha Press, 1999.
33

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Chapter 4 — Psychological Discourses and the Military in Israel [Ben-Ari]

SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT
Psychology has been central in the two major twentieth century approaches tomanagement: scientific and humanistic management. While the former attempts tomeasure and coordinate the activity of employees through statistical information, thelatter centers on motivating employees through leadership and human relations. Bothvariants exist in the IDF.
As in other militaries, so in the IDF, scientific management
is part of “co-optive rational control” 35 carried out by matching soldiers to machines
through testing, and the precise measurement of performance so that it can be predicted 36.
The underlying idea is to gauge to what extent people can be recruited to effectively
perform military roles (for instance, the motor skills necessitated by pilots or theemotional stamina needed by sea commandos).
Another example concerns motivation that was a burning issue during the 1990s andcomes up every few years. What is interesting is that psychological explanations were
mobilized to account for the purported lack of motivation among some groups in the IDF.
For example, a former head of the IDF’s Behavioral Sciences Department was the first toraise the issue and to pronounce that “[t]he change is from a notion in which the individual
serves the establishment and ideology to one in which the role of the ideology and theestablishment is to serve the individual” 37. In phrasing the matter in this way, this expert
formulates the problem as one centering on what impels soldiers to serve: selfactualization or ideological commitment. From our perspective, framing the issue as
one of “motivation” draws attention away from the fact that this is an organization
specializing in violence.
HUMANISTIC MANAGEMENT: “SOFT” SOLDIERING
An example of humanistic management is the new system instituted in Paratroopers’
basic training which offers strong contrasts to the older one that included degradations
and humiliations. Gone, according to the article reporting on the new system38, are themortifications, the shouting NCOs, and the incessant physical and emotional burdens.

35

Lawrence Radine, The Taming of the Troops: Social Control in the United States, Westport, Conn.:
Greenwood Press, 1977, p. 90ff.
36
Ibid., p. 89.
37
Udi Lebel, “Rejected by the Army Because of Lack of Suitability”, Yediot Aharonot, April 4, 1997
(Hebrew); G. Hermoni and U. Lebel, “Politicizing Memory: An Ethnographical Study of a
Remembrance Ceremony”, Cultural Studies, Vol. 26-4, 2012, pp. 469-491.
38
Alex Fishman, “After Me to Summer Camp”, Haaretz, September 10, 1999 (Hebrew).

Chapter 4 — Psychological Discourses and the Military in Israel [Ben-Ari]

55

In its place soldiers are trained according to systematically gradated programs of exertion.
They are explicitly told about pressures facing them and the difficulties of entering themilitary from civilian life. Enlistees know their individual rights and plans for thecourse of training. Moreover, the system is accompanied by tests and questionnaires
focusing on ‘morale’ and attitudes. The idea, again part of humanistic management, isthat practices like questionnaires and interviews give soldiers (workers) a feeling that
their needs and anxieties are being recognized and met.
“JUST LIKE ANY OTHER ORGANIZATION”
Common to the practices of organizational psychology is an assumed similarity between
the army and other organizations. Organizational psychologists and consultants rarely
direct their attention to the uniqueness of the military, its specialization in effecting
violence. In other words, the military is treated within this discourse in the same manneras schools or businesses. In the American context, one commentator has called this the
MBA approach to soldiering 39, an approach in which bloodless euphemisms are used like“servicing” rather than “killing” the enemy. The discourse of organizational psychology
thus obfuscates the fact that this is an organization specializing in violence.
To be sure, there is a much self-reflection within militaries but it to focus on managerial
problems. Violence is trivialized again because a focus on such issues often means noreal grappling with the price of violence and its victims, and the historical context
perpetrating aggression. The primary aim of organizational psychology in the military(as in other organizations) is to aid in rationalizing performance, making troops more
effective and efficient. Being mobilized for organizational aims and devoting attention
to performance, the violent acts of the soldiers themselves are not scrutinized, they are
sanitized and hidden away.

CONCLUSION: SOME WIDER IMPLICATIONS
Our contention is that the therapeutic, developmental and organizational discourses
regarding military service and war are “effective” in normalizing war. By way ofconclusion we deal with three normalizing mechanisms that cross-cut these discourses.

39

Fred Downs, “Death and the Dark Side of Command”, Washington Post, August 16, 1987.

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Chapter 4 — Psychological Discourses and the Military in Israel [Ben-Ari]

SOCIAL SOLIDARITY
Because Israel is torn by dissent and many of the hegemonic ideals are no longer
automatically accepted, the common denominator linking many social groups has become
human suffering associated with war. Along these lines for example, the Holocaust is
now remembered less in heroic terms than through a stress on traumatic suffering. Morewidely, many Israelis emphasize universal aspects of human experience – pain andmourning – to escape contention and circumvent ideological splits. Suffering andmourning as bases of social solidarity create sentiments of equality in terms of dangers,
fears, and the pain accompanying war. By placing individuals at its center and assuming
universalistic criteria for assessing their pain, the therapeutic discourse silences thepolitics of identities, reproduces existing power relations, and reinforces the strength of
the state.
Commitment to the state, moreover, is strengthened through thedevelopmental discourse which constructs a link between the individual life-course andmilitary service as natural and taken-for-granted and validates the connection between
maturation, adulthood and war.
In addition, our argument has been complex: while atfirst glance, the discourse of trauma appears to de-militarize sources of social solidarity,
it actually strengthens the idea of war as fate and the centrality of the national state.
SOCIAL HIERARCHY
While the traumatic discourse produces social solidarity around suffering and mourning
it also creates an unquestioned hierarchy between those who have “paid” the price andthose who have not. The contribution of psychological discourses to the stratificationof men is expressed most clearly around the construction of military masculinity. Military
service creates a hierarchy in which combat roles are defined as the apex for the
inculcation of citizenship and membership. According to this conception, to be an
Israeli in the “full” sense of the word implies that one has to be Jewish, male, serving in
the military and then granted full membership in the Israeli collectivity. The threepsychological discourses sustain the “superiority” of the combat soldier and define his
version as hegemonic. The developmental discourse does this through granting scientificvalidity to the “natural universality” of this masculinity. The organizational discourse
does this through stressing the functional improvement and professionalization of thismasculine version. And the therapeutic discourse does this by establishing the social“authorization” given to it to voice the pain of war and express criticism.

Chapter 4 — Psychological Discourses and the Military in Israel [Ben-Ari]

57

NEUTERING CRITICAL DISCOURSEAt the same time as the traumatic discourse grants social sanction to voice criticism, allthree discourses also neuter critical expressions about war and the military 40 . The
developmental discourse does this through de-contextualizing war while theorganizational discourse neutralizes the violent dimension of the military organization.
But it is chiefly the traumatic-therapeutic discourse that does this through defining(Jewish) Israelis as victims of power and not the wielders of power repressing anotherpeople. This discourse blurs the unequal power relations between Israel and its enemies
and especially the Palestinians.
It thereby situates Israelis and the Palestinians as
equals in a manner that turns them into competitors for suffering as a symbolic resource.
In an era in which the name of the game is the politics of victimhood, the traumatic
discourse is, for many Israeli Jews, very effective in normalizing war and breaking down
the dichotomies of good and evil, and of strong and weak. In this manner thepsychological discourses that we have examined variously blur, conceal, sanitize, as wellas naturalize issues related to violence thereby “normalizing” the reality and effects of
war and war-making.

A. J. Gordo-Lopez, “On the Psychologization of Critical Psychology”, Annual Review of Critical
Psychology, Issue 2, 2010, pp. 55-57.
40

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Chapter 5 ― MAMDA: Areas of Responsibility, Structure and Challenges [Ishai]

CHAPTER 5

MAMDA: AREAS OF RESPONSIBILITY, STRUCTURE AND CHALLENGESOFRA BEN ISHAI1
MAMDA - The Human Behavioral Science Department of the IDF

BACKGROUND

The Human Behavioral Science Department in the IDF (MAMDA) is an intra-militaryunit. The professional members of the department are attached to IDF units alongside theregular military echelons, reaching from combat field units to the GHQ. The IDF is the
only military in the west that has such an intra military unit. In other security forces, thesocial behavioral science unit either belongs to the MOD or the military staff use civilian
expertise on an ad hoc basis2.

In Israel, the department was established in 1936 prior to the declaration of Israel’s
statehood and prior to the establishing of the IDF. At its inception the unit was called
Israel Institute of Applied Social Research and had two main missions: the first mission
was to help the military that was at the moment of its birth, to choose and select its staff.
The second mission was to create a survey unit that would monitor the civil population’s
resilience and readiness in preparation for the struggle for independence 3 .

Theprofessional staff was based on Jewish psychologists and sociologists that immigrated tothe emerging state of Israel from the US and the UK. Their professional knowledge and1

Dr. Col (res.) Ofra Ben Ishai. The Open University of Israel. Formerly the Head of the Human
Behavioral Science Dept. (MAMDA), IDF and the Chief Instructor of the Israeli National Defense
College (INDC), IDF. Benishai@post.bgu.ac.il
2
G. Caforio and M. Nuciari, “Social Research and the Military”, G. Caforio, ed., Handbook of theSociology of the Military, Boston: Springer, 2006, pp. 27-58.
3
R. Gal, “Morale, Cohesion and Military Readiness”, Presented at the Open University Seminar on
the Sociology of Military Knowledge”, Raanana, October 2010 (Hebrew).

Chapter 5 ― Areas of Responsibility, Structure and Challenges [Ishai]

59

practice were based mainly on their experience as officers in the American and British
army. As a result, the unit was built under the strong influence of the positivism andstructural functionalism of American Sociology and Western occupational psychology4.
The theoretical basis which was used, mostly relied on Socialization Theory, Nation andState Building Theories and on Industrial and Organizational Psychology Theories5.

With the establishment of the IDF in 1948, the unit changed its name to the psychology
unit and was placed as part of the manpower directorate6. The head of the unit, the chief
psychologist (rank of lieutenant colonel) was the chief advisor to the GHQ in matters ofhuman behavior 7. The professional members of the unit were responsible for designing
the selection process for the IDF and the assessment process of the conscripts during theirservice. They also developed, based on the survey unit that existed in the pre-statehood
period a very wide scale motivation monitoring system. This system was aimed at
helping the military staff in adapting the young recruits to become soldiers. The system
was also used to give the civil education authority and the citizens in general a kind of
feedback about the motivation rate of the youth to become soldiers, warriors and officers
in particular 8.

After the 1973 War a government committee was appointed to investigate the weakness
and the poor performance of some of the IDF units during the war9. They recommended
adopting a significant change in the structure and mode of action of the psychology unit.
The committee members were bothered by the fact that a few of the battle field units
collapsed in light of the shocking surprise of the Yom Kippur War breaking out. In
addition, the youngest commanders especially, lacked the ability and the experience toreconstruct the cohesion that was needed to get the unit quickly back to fighting 10. The
4

J. Zeidner and A. J. Drucker, Behavioral Science in the Army: A Corporate History of the Army
Research Institute, Fort Belvoir: Army Research Inst for the Behavioral and Social Sciences, 1988.
5
E. Ben-Ari, “Social Science Academic Knowledge about War and Military in Israel”, Presented at
the Open University Seminar on the Sociology of Military Knowledge, Raanana, October 2010
(Hebrew); Z. Rosenhek, D. Maman and E. Ben-Ari, “The Study of War and the Military in Israel: An
Empirical Investigation and a Reflective Critique”, International Journal of Middle East Studies, Vol.
35-3, August 2003, pp. 461-484.
6
J. E. Rasmjssen, Military Psychology in Israel, London: Office of Naval Research, 1967.
7
J. T. Lester, Israeli Military Psychology, London: Office of Naval Research, 1973.
8
Gal conceptualized MAMDA’s responsibilities in this period as a “responsibility for social
engineering”. Gal, “Morale, Cohesion and Military Readiness”.
9
The Agranat Commission (Hebrew: Vaadat Agranat) was a National Commission of Inquiry set up
to investigate failings in the Israel Defense Forces in the Yom Kippur War.
10
Agranat Commission Final Report, Tel Aviv: Am Oved, 1975, pp. 1468-1480 (Hebrew).

60

Chapter 5 ― MAMDA: Areas of Responsibility, Structure and Challenges [Ishai]committee indicated the need to place next to the command chain social psychology
advisors that are expert in developing and sustaining military fighting cohesion11. As aresult, the psychology unit evolved from a small HQ unit into a professional corps.
Human Behavioral Science Officers were placed in all the military units, regular andreserve12, to enable them to act in a close direct relationship and work daily and hand inhand with the chain of command 13.

The implementation of the committee recommendations brought about an unprecedented
expansion of the unit. From a small body that contained a few dozen professional experts,
the unit has become a large department with a few hundred human behavioral science
officers. From that time on, its members have been enjoying a very close connection withthe chain of command, with the soldiers themselves as well as a very high accessibility
to the operational practice and to the battle field itself 14. As a result, in 1980 the unitchanged its name from psychology unit to the Human Behavioral Science Department (inHebrew, MAMDA) and the head of MAMDA is from now on a full Colonel and a full
member of the general staff.

Throughout the years MAMDA maintained close relationships with the civil academic
sphere15. The Department has done many joint ventures with sociology and psychology
researchers. The mutual relationship that exists between MAMDA and the universities
works to the benefit of both sides: on one hand, the academic experts tutor the young
officers on a regular basis and on the other hand the civilian researchers gained a greater
accessibility to the military in comparison to the militaries in other countries. By thismutual relationship MAMDA ensures and empowers its high professional nature basedon an updated theoretical knowledge and the best reliable practice.

U. Ben-Shalom, and H. Kones-Fonte, “Seagulls in a Storm: Military Psychology in the Yom Kippur
War”, H. Golan and S. Shai, eds., Battle Studies of the Yom Kippur War, Tel-Aviv: Maarachot, 2003,
pp. 252- 273 (Hebrew).
12
This phase was called “The Decentralization Phase”, U. Ben-Shalom and S. Fox, “Military
Psychology in the Israel Defense Forces: A Perspective of Continuity and Change”, Armed Forces &Society, Vol. 36-1, 2009, pp. 103-119.
13
Ibid.
14
C.W. Greenbaum, I. Rogovsky and B. Shalit, “The Military Psychologist during Wartime: A Model
based on Action Research and Crisis Intervention”, Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, Vol. 131, 1977, pp. 7-21.
15
Z. Lehrer and U. Ben-Shalom, “Military Sociology and Sociologists in the Military”, Sociology,
Issue 31, 2004, pp. 6-8 (Hebrew).
11

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61

MAMDA publishes two professional journals, each of them 3 times a year. The first oneMilitary Psychology of Ground Warfare is dedicated to the social psychology dilemmas
which are derived from the nature of army warfare and from the need of creating jointness
between the army and the other branches of the service. The second journal Between theSpheres is dealing with sociological and psychological dilemmas which concern the GHQ
and are focused mainly on strategic issues. From time to time MAMDA is publishing abook which summarizes its sociological and psychological understanding and main
research findings about a specific issue that has deep influence on the IDF’s mode ofaction or legitimacy. The last one was a book that was published recently and has
discussed the sociological and psychological aspects of military operations that are
involved with an intensive friction with civilians as part of the asymmetric warfare16.

AREAS OF RESPONSIBILITY AND STRUCTURE

MAMDA has six areas of professional responsibility. In each of them the department isin charge of the knowledge development process, the creation of practices and tools aswell as the development of the professional staff.

The first area of responsibility is the selection processes of the manpower to the military.
The selection process includes cognitive and emotional evaluation, intelligence tests andeducational classification, personality questioners, psychological testing, stress resistancesimulations 17 and occupational tendencies tests. The last ones have just been added
recently 18 . In addition, the candidates for military service undergo motivation rateinterviews which aims to indicate who has the desire and the resilience to become awarrior and a commander19. According to the law in Israel every teenager, boy or girl
who is 17 years old receives a draft notice and is required to do all the tests20 . If a
“Military Operations in Civilian Environments: Sociological and Psychological Perspectives”,
Meytal Eran–Jona, ed., Military Operations in Civilian Environments: Sociological and Psychological
Perspectives, Tel Hashomer: IDF BSC, 2013 (Hebrew).
17
R. Gal, A Portrait of the Israeli Soldier, New York: Greenwood Press, 1986.
18
A. Dahan, “Equal Opportunities in Occupational Selectin Era”, Maarachot, Issue 442, 2012, pp. 2329 (Hebrew).
19
State Comptroller and Ombudsman of Israel, Annual Report 67A, 2016, pp. 1153-1157 (Hebrew).
20
The Israeli Defense Service Law, 1986 regulates conscription into military service for citizensof Israel. Paragraphs 3-12 of the law deals with the legal requirement to complete all the medical,
physical,
psychologicalandmentaltests.
https://mfa.gov.il/mfa/mfa-archive/19801989/pages/defence%20service%20law%20-consolidated%20version--%205746-1.aspx.
16

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Chapter 5 ― MAMDA: Areas of Responsibility, Structure and Challenges [Ishai]candidate does not achieve the threshold which is needed he/she will be exempt fromservice. The achievement rate also determines if the person could become a candidate
for the officer academy after one year in service.

Due to the mandatory service, the selection process in the IDF gives high priority tomeasures, which are derived mainly from the candidates’ biography before becoming
soldiers21. In other than volunteer militaries, which are dependent mainly on the supply
and demand in the labor market and therefore often meet manpower shortages and havedifficulties in filling the needs with suitable manpower, the mandatory service provides
the IDF with all kinds of skills and qualifications 22 . However, in recent years thissituation is changing in Israel23.

Based on a traditional political arrangement that was accepted in 1950 there are twogroups of citizens in Israel that get collective exemption from service: the ultra-orthodox
religious Jews (Haredim) 24 and the Palestinian Israeli Arab minority25. Because of thehigh birth rate that characterizes these two groups26 the total amount of candidates thatare exempt from mandatory service has now reached approximately 40% of the total
potential recruits27. This rate is quite high and is expected to reach 50% of the total
recruits by 202028. As a consequence, public debate has opened in Israel in recent years,
about whether it is time to change the recruiting model29 and to move from a people’s
G. Cohen, “After 60 Years Israeli Military to Replace Biased Classification Systems”, HAARETZ,
December
9,2015.
https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-idf-to-replace-biasedclassification- system-1.5434388.; M. Safrai, “The Social and Organizational Roots of Selection
Process in the IDF”, Military Psychology, Issue 5, 2006, pp. 275-304 (Hebrew).
22
Y. Lifshitz, “Conscription versus Recruitment through market economic consideration”, S.A. Cohen,ed., The New Citizen Armies: Israel’s Armed Forces in Comparative Perspective, Abingdon Oxon:
Routledge, 2010, pp. 132-144.
23
Cohen, “After 60 Years Israeli Military to Replace Biased Classification Systems”.
24
Y. Govni, “The Debate over Ultra-Orthodox Jews’ Draft to the IDF: Philosophical and Cultural
Aspects”, Iyunim Batekumat Israel, Issue 19, 2009, pp. 449-462 (Hebrew).
25
D.B. Green, “Arabs in Israel: No Service?”, Tablet, June 13, 2012.
https://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/102377/arabs-in-israel-no-service.
26
Amir Alon, “Stats show Israel has highest fertility rate in the West”, March 13, 2018.
https://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-5163331,00.html.
27
Y. Schoenfeld, “Barak: IDF army became half the people”, MSN, July 31, 2007 (Hebrew).
https://web.archive.org/web/20080420072502/http://news.msn.co.il/news/StatePoliticalMilitary/Military/200707/2007073019217.htm.
28
Y. Yehoshua, “Number of the IDF Recruits to hit 20-year low in 2013”, November 1, 2013.
https://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4331273,00.html.
29
E. Ringler, “Israelis divided over military drafting of Ultra-Orthodox Jews”, Reuters, March 3, 2018.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-israel-politics-mood/israelis-divided-over-military-drafting-ofultra-orthodox-jews-idUSKCN1GP25J.
21

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63

army based on mandatory service to a professional military30. The debate also brought
about a few legislative attempts to set limits to the numbers of exemptions that the ultraorthodox religious Jews would get31. Even though the debate has not come to an end yet,it has already had a vast influence on the IDF selection process of manpower. The
selection process has come lately to more and more resemble the occupational process inthe civilian labor market32. In other words, the IDF has been forced in recent years to
adopt and develop occupational techniques which aim to raise its attraction for different
groups and for particularistic sectorial values, aspirations, interests and beliefs 33 .
MAMDA is required to change the selection policy and to develop new methods and tools
based on competitive and innovative occupational strategy34.

The second area of responsibility is the assessment processes of the recruit and of themilitary staff during their service. The IDF has adopted a system of evaluation called
360-degree system35. The logic of this system is to observe each officer and NCO fromthe lowest rank to the highest rank during their military career36. The system is compiledof 5 different sources of evaluation. Each of them, except the last one, is collected oncea year37: the first component is the top – down evaluation i.e. Field commander evaluationand corps commander evaluation38. The second component is the peer evaluation39 i.e.
J. Dunnigan, “Morale: Israel Considers Cancelling Conscription”, Strategic Page, January 15, 2015.
https://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htmoral/articles/20150115.aspx.
31
I. Kershner, “Israel’s Military Exemption for Ultra-Orthodox Is Ruled Unconstitutional”, New YorkTimes, September 12, 2017.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/12/world/middleeast/israel-ultra-orthodox-military.html
32
Y. Levy, “Soldiers as Laborers: A Theoretical Model”, Theory and Society, Vol. 36-2, 2007, pp.
187-208.
33
A. Fishman, “The IDF in 2020: A ’people’s army alongside a professional army”, Ynet, August 2.
2017. https://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4995217,00.html.
34
A. Kedem, S. Fond and I. Noam, The Occupational Selection Process: follow up report no 1, Tel
Hashomer: MAMDA Publications, 2007 (Hebrew).
35
M. R. Edwards and A. J. Ewen, 360° Feedback: The Powerful New Model for Employee Assessment& Performance Improvement, New York: AMACOM American Management Association, 1996; T.
Maylett, “360-Degree Feedback Revisited: The transition from development to appraisal”,
Compensation and Benefits Review, Vol. 41-5, September/October 2009, pp. 52–59.
36
M. Druk, Evaluation and Promotion in the IDF and in Other Militaries: A Comparative Perspective,
Tel Hashomer: IDF BSC, 2006 (Hebrew); Y. Hayman, Promotion Process by Appointment
Committees, INDC: The center for Strategy and Policy, IDF, 2007 (Hebrew).
37
https://www.idf.il/%D7%90%D7%AA%D7%A8%D7%99%D7%9D/%D7%96%D7%A8%D7%9
5%D7%A2-%D7%94%D7%99%D7%91%D7%A9%D7%94/%D7%A7%D7%A6%D7%95%D7%
A0%D7%94-%D7%94%D7%93%D7%95%D7%A8-%D7%94%D7%91%D7%90-2/ (Hebrew).
38
https://www.idf.il/media/16644/320101.pdf (Hebrew).; M. Cook, and B. Cripps, Psychological
Assessment in the Workplace, West Sussex: John Wiley & Sons, 2005, p. 135; R.L. Mathis, J.H.
Jackson, S.R. Valentine and P.A. Meglich, Human Resource Management, Boston: Cengage Learning,
2017, p. 379.
39
https://www.idf.il/media/16773/320221.pdf (Hebrew).
30

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Chapter 5 ― MAMDA: Areas of Responsibility, Structure and Challenges [Ishai]

mutual evaluations of officers of identical rank who evaluate each other40. The third
component is the subordinates’ evaluation i.e. how the soldiers and officers in one’s
charge perceive their leadership style and managerial skills including their willingness tofight under their command and follow them into battle.

The fourth component is theachievements assessment i.e. The scores that the units under one’s command got in
professional inspections and of the unit’s results in periodical tests and various
investigations. The last component of the 360-degree system is the future potential
assessment i.e. The evaluation score that an officer has achieved in an assessment centertest that checks his ability to advance in the ranks. Each officer is required to do two
assessment center tests during his military career - the first one is to check his potential
to become an intermediate level officer at a rank of lieutenant colonel and the second one
is to check his ability to become a senior officer at the rank of full colonel41.
In the promotion discussions which are taking place every year, the human behavioral
science officer presents the 360-degree evaluation for every officer and a comparativeevaluation between several officers who compete for a specific job42.

The third area of responsibility is sociological research, especially research that examines
the relationship between the IDF and civilian society43. The sociological research unit isroutinely monitoring the main trends, opinions and attitudes among the Israeli citizens,the media and the soldiers themselves toward the military.

The survey includes

monitoring, both on a routine basis and during times of war, the rate of trust the people
in Israel express toward the senior command and the depth of the public belief in thelegitimacy of the military operational mode of action44.

40

https://www.idf.il/%D7%90%D7%AA%D7%A8%D7%99%D7%9D/%D7%94%D7%9E%D7%A
4%D7%A7%D7%93-%D7%99%D7%A9-%D7%9C%D7%99- %D7%A9%D7%90%D7%9C%D7%94/%D7%9E%D7%94-%D7%96%D7%94-%D7%A1%D7%95%D7%A6%D7%99%D7%95%D7%9E%D7%98%D7%A8%D7%99/ (in Hebrew).
41
S. Fox, and S. Haboucha, “Assessment Centers in Israel: Some Practices and Perspectives”, N.
Povah and G.C. Thornton, eds., Assessment Centers and Global Talent Management, New York:
Routledge, pp. 453- 470.
42
Druk, Evaluation and Promotion in the IDF and in Other Militaries.
43
Y. Sher, and H. Ben –Eliyahu, “Looking out from the Tent: Internal Social Research at the IDF”,
Israel Studies Review, Vol. 26-2, 2011, pp. 99-108.
44
M. Eran-Jona, Israelis’ Perception of the IDF, GIIS Institute for Israel Studies, Research Paper No.
15, 2015.

Chapter 5 ― Areas of Responsibility, Structure and Challenges [Ishai]65

The fourth area of responsibility is concerned with the organizational development
intervention and models and in trying to meet the challenges of implementing them in theunique military culture45. Human behavioral science officers posted in each division andbrigade, implement all kinds of organizational interventions that are needed46, such asorganizational diagnosis, team building processes, mental preparation workshops before
and after fighting, resilience and cohesion building 47 , managerial tools and systemicplanning methods and so on.

The fifth area is concerned with the military leadership development knowledge andpractices. The IDF has a unique military leadership school that is specialized in thecreation of unique models of military leadership48 that fit different command ranks anddiverse missions49. The school is subordinate to the Educational Chief Officer but its
professional staff – i.e. the social psychologists that constitute the school’s staff areappointed and are tutored by MAMDA. In the beginning of every new session on the
training bases, the training instructors and their soldiers are coming for a 3 to 5-day
workshop in the leadership school. The workshop is providing them with leadershiporientation, skills and tools50.

The last area of responsibility is training development. In each corps and in each training
base, there is a human behavioral science unit which is responsible for developing thetraining plan theoretically and practically. The training unit is designed to develop the

E. Salas, R.G. DeRuin and A.P. Gade, “The Military’s Contribution to Our Science and Practice:
People, Places and Findings”, L.L. Koppes, ed., Historical Perspectives in Industrial andOrganizational Psychology, New York: Psychology Press, 2007, pp. 169-193.
46
R. Lifshitz, M. Popper and S. Oz, “Building Learning Organizations: The Design and
Implementation of Organizational Learning”, Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, Vol. 32-3, 1996,
pp. 292-305.
47
U. Ben- Shalom, Z. Lehrer and E. Ben-Ari, “Cohesion during Military Operations: a Field Study on
Units in the Al-Aqsa Intifada”, Armed Forces and Society, Vol. 32-1, 2005, pp. 63-79.
48
K. Amit, A. Lisak, M. Popper and R. Gal, “Motivation to Lead: Research on the Motives for
Undertaking Leadership Roles in the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF)”, Military Psychology, Vol. 19-3,
2007, pp. 137-160; T. Dvir, D. Eden, B.J. Avolio and B. Shamir, “Impact of Transformational
Leadership on Followers Development and Performance”, Academy of Management Journal, Vol. 454, 2002, pp. 735-744; M. Popper, O. Landau and U.M. Gloskinos, “The Israeli Defense Forces: An
Example of Transformational Leadership”, Leadership & Organizational Development, Vol. 13-1, pp.
3-8.
49
E. Ben-Ari, “Israeli Military Leadership”, 2009/2010. https://eyalbenari.com/the-israelimilitary/israeli-military-leadership/.
50
B. Shamir, and Y. Lapidot, “Shared Leadership in the Management of Group Boundaries: A Studyof Expulsions from Officers Training Courses”, C.L. Pearce, ed., Shared Leadership: Reframing theHows and Whys of Leadership, Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications, 2003, pp. 235-249.
45

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Chapter 5 ― MAMDA: Areas of Responsibility, Structure and Challenges [Ishai]training knowledge and methods and instill the crucial training skills into the training
staff51. The unit is subordinate to the Corps Chief Officers, but its professional personnel
is appointed and tutored by MAMDA.

MAMDA’S PERSONNEL – CHARACTERISTICS, MODE OF ACTION AND
TRAINING

MAMDA’s personnel includes 3 different types of manpower: the first type includes theprofessional human behavioral science officers who have at least an MA in sociology orsocial /occupational psychology.

The second type are human behavioral scienceassistants who have at least a BA in human behavioral science52. The last type are NCO
research and diagnostic apprentices. The apprenticeship is usually based on very highquality soldiers who are doing their mandatory service as psych technical and research
apprentices. To do so, they undergo a special training program which trains them incarrying out a psychological diagnostic interview and in implementing researchmethodology practices. The Human Behavioral Science Assistants and the Apprentices
can work only under close and direct supervision of the Human Behavioral Science
Officers and only as part of a professional framework.

Although the Human Behavioral Science Officers are subordinate to the regular militaryhierarchy, they are direct advisors to all ranks above them. As such they enjoy a relatively
unlimited freedom to intervene according to their independent professional judgement
without limitation caused by their junior military rank.

The Department recruits its Human Behavioral Science Officers mainly from the social
science departments in the universities or from the professional labor market. Master's
degree graduates who were officers in their mandatory service are preferable because of
their familiarity with the military culture. Their previous experience as officers eases
their adjustment to the military requirements and makes them more efficient and
G. Ariely, “Operational Knowledge Management in the Military”, D. Schwartz, ed., Encyclopediaof Knowledge Management, Hershey: Ideas Group, 2006, pp. 713-720.
52
This type of officers is part of the program which is called in Hebrew ATUDA ACADEMIT. Thisis a program of the Israeli Defense Forces which enables high school graduates to defer the draft, andinstead allows them to attend university prior to their military service. After they complete theirstudies, they join the military and serve in a position that fits the professional knowledge they gained
during their studies.
51

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67

successful, especially in the battle field units. However sometimes their over familiarity
with the military norms and habits becomes an obstacle because they are too obedient andare used to acting as conformists. To avoid and overcome these obstacles MAMDA has
developed a unique military human behavioral science officer course and an obligatory
six years training program that each of its officers must take. During the officer courseand during the training program the Human Behavioral Science Officers permanently
practice the logic of defamiliarization53. The Human Behavioral Science Officers are
required to explain and present the habits and the norms that are widespread in the military
units and among the commanders in an unfamiliar or new way. The aim is to develop
organizational awareness for the importance of keeping open minds and using innovative
thinking on the battle field. In addition, during his first 4 years in service each Human
Behavioral Science Officer is accompanied by a senior Human Behavioral Science
Officer that tutors him and helps him to develop his professional ability and ethics.

MAMDA’S STRUCTURE
MAMDA’s structure is parallel to the military organizational structure. The department
has 3 types of units: the first one is based on the territorial location and it is parallel to themilitary regional commands. There are Human Behavioral Science Units in The Northern
Command, in The Central Command, in The Southern Command and in the Home Front
Command. At the head of each regional unit is a Human Behavioral Science Officer withthe rank of major except for the Human Behavioral Science Officer of the Home Front
Command, who is at a rank of LT. Colonel. Under the command of each of the regional
Human Behavioral Science Officer serve a few dozen Human Behavioral Science
Officers which are placed among the regular and the reserve regional divisions andbrigades.

53

In literature and other forms of artistic production: the effect or technique of disrupting the reader'sor audience's habitual perception of the world and making familiar elements in a text, play, etc., seem
strange and fresh, especially by means of drawing attention to the language or formal devices used.
Later also more generally: the fact or process of rendering something unfamiliar. T. Eagleton, How
to Read a Poem, Oxford: Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 2007, pp. 49-52.

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Chapter 5 ― MAMDA: Areas of Responsibility, Structure and Challenges [Ishai]

The second kind of units are the Human Behavioral Science Units in the 3 arms54 and in
the 8 directorates55 of the IDF. In each arm and in each directorate, there are 3 kinds of
Human Behavioral Science Units: The General Human Behavioral Science Unit, The
Training Development Unit and The Manpower Selection and Evaluation Unit. The headof each unit is a lieutenant colonel and under his command serve a few dozen Human
Behavioral Science Officers which are placed in every corps as well as in the arm and in
the directorate headquarters.

The last kind of units are the Expert Units. There are 5 Expert Units that are parallel tothe professional areas that MAMDA is responsible for: The Military Organizational
Development Unit, The Military Sociological Research Unit, The Military Manpower
Selection Unit, The Military Assessment and Evaluation Unit and The Military
Leadership School. The head of each unit is a Human Behavioral Science Officer withthe rank of lieutenant colonel and under his command serve a few dozen researchers andexperts. Each of these Expert Units determines the policy in its area of expertise anddirects the military on how to deal with issues concerning their expertise.

MAMDA’s challenges

Over the years MAMDA has faced many professional challenges and among them I havechosen to shed light on 3 main challenges. I specifically chose these three for a few
reasons: first, they all have been caused by the intra – military identity of MAMDA.
Second, they have enormous influence on MAMDA’s mode of action and on therelationship MAMDA maintains with its partners within the military and within theprofessional community. And finally all those 3 challenges cannot be treated by a simple
clear-cut solution.

Through the years they came to be issues that MAMDA must

permanently deal with.

The first challenge is caused by the conflict that was developed two decades ago between
the gender of many MA Graduates in human behavioral science and the masculine nature

54

Navy, Army, Air and Space.
Special Operations, Operations, Planning, Manpower, Intelligence, C4I & Cyber Defense,
Technological and Logistics, Military Academies.
55

Chapter 5 ― Areas of Responsibility, Structure and Challenges [Ishai]69of the military organization. Since the 1990s most of the MA social science graduates at
the universities are women56. Traditionally the military culture norms and habits tend to
be masculine and the organizational values advance and cherish the masculine attributes57.
Even though the military culture has changed over the years 58 and become much more
open and friendly toward a female’s considerations and needs, there is still a deep gap
between the women’s expectations and the willingness of the military authorities to fulfill
them59. For example, the officers are expected usually to work from early morning untillate at night. Essentially, they are expected to be on call 24/7 including on their vacation
time. Female Human Behavioral Science Officers especially if they are mothers, express
great difficulties in meeting these expectations.

I will try to illustrate the conflict by giving an extreme example: in 1991 during the First
Gulf War Israel was attacked by Iraqi rockets and Israeli citizens were instructed by thehome front command to remain near shelters and to keep their gas masks at hand. The
civilian educational system was shut down, the pupils stayed at home and many
workplaces stopped operating since their employees had to stay at home and watch after
their children’s safety. The military bases were also targets for the Iraqi rockets. Even
though the IDF had not taken any active participation in the war, the GHQ decided toraise the operational alertness of the military to its highest level60. Therefore, all officers
were told to stay on their bases for a very long time without seeing their families. At thattime on one of the military training bases a female Human Behavioral Science Officer
was serving. She was a mother to new born twins 5 months old. She was very anxious
as to the ability of her husband to take care of the twins by himself during the bombing,so she asked for permission to go home every evening. The base commander, a woman
by the way, refused the request and ordered her to stay. Her reasons for the refusal weredouble: The commander thought that during war time there is a real necessity for a Human
U. Naftalovitz, S. Liplevski, M. Shukrun, S. Horovitz, and A. Krenzler, “Higher Education in Israel:
Selected Data on Recipients of Academic Degrees (2016/17) on the Occasion of the End of the
Academic Year”, Jerusalem: Central Bureau of Statistics, 2018 (Hebrew).
http://go.ynet.co.il/pic/news/haskala123.pdf
57
O. Sasson-Levy, “Feminism and Military Gender Practices: Israeli Women Soldiers in ‘Masculine’Roles”, Sociological Inquiry, Vol. 73-3, 2003, pp. 440-465.
58
O. Sasson-Levy, “Research on Gender and the Military in Israel: From a Gendered Organization toInequality Regimes”, Israel Studies Review, Vol. 26-2, 2011, pp. 73-98.
59
O. Hauser, “Doing Army or Feeling Army? What Makes Women Feel Organizational Belonging in
the Israeli Defense Forces?”, N.M. Karakatsanis and J. Swartz, eds., Political and Military Sociology:
An Annual Review 40, London: Routledge, 2013, p. 77.
60
A. Shlaim, “Israel and the Conflict”, A. Danchev and D. Keohane, eds., International Perspectives
on the Gulf Conflict, 1990-91, London: St Martin’s Press, 1994, pp. 59-79.
56

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Chapter 5 ― MAMDA: Areas of Responsibility, Structure and Challenges [Ishai]

Behavioral Science Officer’s presence and advice. In addition, during war time theofficers are required to set an example to the soldiers by overcoming their personaldifficulties. The Human Behavioral Science Officer decided to defy the order and left
the base without permission. The base commander intended to sentence her to militaryprison but in the end after the head of MAMDA had intervened, the officer was released
from her duty. The release was accompanied by a formal decision to immediately fire
her and terminate her service.

Even though it was an extreme case, it helps us to figure out the difficulties MAMDA
must overcome to mediate between the military norms and the characteristics of
MAMDA’s personnel. The clash is prominent especially in matters of working times,night rosters, and the comprehensive obligations that any officer must obey, including therequest to exhibit total responsibility that in many times and cases exceeds theprofessional obligation’s boundaries.

The second challenge that MAMDA must deal with is connected to the conflict that wasdeveloped between the changing nature of the war and the political orientation thatusually characterized the sociological and psychological communities. Since 1987 Israel
and the IDF have been engaged in an asymmetric warfare with the Palestinians 61. In
contrast to previous no choice wars perception that was common among Israeli citizens
between 1948 to 198262, the asymmetric war against the Palestinians inflames a deep
controversy in the Israeli society63.

While the right-wing supporters perceive the war

against the Palestinians as a part of the continuous existential struggle of Israel to maintainits sovereignty, the left-wing supporters perceive it as a war of choice64. The leftists preferto give preference to the political negotiations and to put the main efforts in advancing
peace dialogue. The deep controversy penetrates to the military and arouses difficult

G. Gallo and A. Marzano, “The Dynamics of Asymmetric Conflicts: The Israeli-Palestinian Case”,
Journal of Conflict Studies, Issue 29, 2009.
https://journals.lib.unb.ca/index.php/JCS/
article/view/15231/19943.
62
E. Inbar, “Attitudes toward War in the Israeli Political Elite”, Middle East Journal, Vol. 44-3, 1990,
pp. 431-445.
63
B. Mollov and C. Lavie, “Culture, Dialogue and Perception Change in the Israeli-Palestinian
Conflict”, International Journal of Conflict Management, Vol. 12-1, 2001, pp.69-87.
64
D. Waxman, “From Controversy to Consensus: Cultural Conflict and the Israeli Debate overTerritorial Withdrawal”, Israel Studies, Vol. 13-2, 2008, p. 80.
61

Chapter 5 ― Areas of Responsibility, Structure and Challenges [Ishai]71

dilemmas about the necessity of the military actions as well as their efficiency and mostof all their morality65. The political debate is widespread particularly in the reserve units66.

These influences are much more salient among Human Behavioral Science Officers. The
majority of the Human Behavioral Science professionals in Israel belong to the centralleft wing67 and in general prefer to solve conflicts by peaceful means and dialogue. They
are much more critical of the use of military aggression68 and many of them take part inthe current pacifist protests69. MAMDA must face again and again situations, especiallyamong its reserve officers, that the tension between the missions demands and theirpolitical views reduce the ability to provide a proper professional service. Moreover, thereserve Human Behavioral Science Officers that were called to active service in theoccupied territories have conditioned their willingness to serve by the request to maintaintheir right of freedom of speech. They insist on having the right to share with the publictheir impressions of the far flung implications that the military mode of action in theoccupied territories creates70.

Again, I’ll try to illustrate the tense situations by giving an extreme example. In 1989
during the first Intifada71 MAMDA sent two of its senior reserve officers to monitor thesoldiers’ attitudes and motivations toward their missions in the occupied territories. Afterthey had analyzed the survey's findings they concluded that the military operations among
civilians in the occupied territories caused the soldiers deep emotional damage andharmed their fighting readiness and morality 72 . Even though the conclusions were
presented by MAMDA to IDF Chief of Staff, the two officers stood by their right to
S. Cohen, “Towards a New Portrait of the (new) Israeli soldier”, Israel Affairs, Issue 3, 1997, pp.
77-114.
66
Y. Peri, The Israeli Military and Israel’s Palestinian Policy: From Oslo to the Al Aqsa Intifada,
Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace, 2002.
67
U. Ram, The Changing Agenda of Israeli Sociology: Theory, Ideology and Identity, Albany: State
University of New York Press, 1995.
68
D. Bar-On, “Why Post-Zionism not provide a paradigm shift in Israeli Social Sciences”, Journal of
Political Psychology, Vol. 22-2, 2001, pp. 331-345.
69
U. Ram, “Israeli Sociology: Social Thought amidst Struggles and Conflicts”, Irish Journal of
Sociology, Vol. 23-1, 2015, pp. 98-117.
70
D. Bar-On, Tell Your Life Story: Creating Dialogue among Jews and Germans, Israelis andPalestinians, Budapest: Central European University Press, 2006.
71
The first uprising of the Palestinians against the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. The
uprising lasted from December 1987 until the Madrid Conference in 1991.
72
C.W. Greenbaum, and Y. Elizur, “The Psychological and Moral Consequences for Israeli Societyof the Occupation of Palestinian Land”, D. Bar-Tal and I. Schnell, eds., The Impact of Lasting
Occupation, New York: Oxford University Press, 2013, pp. 380-437.
65

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Chapter 5 ― MAMDA: Areas of Responsibility, Structure and Challenges [Ishai]

publish their findings in the media to raise public awareness to the implications of themilitary occupation. They claimed that the publication is an inherent part both to theirmoral commitment as citizens and to their professional ethics as social psychologists.
Despite having been forbidden, right after they had finished their active duty they
published their report in the newspapers. The publication inflamed a public turbulence
and the military was attacked by all sides of the political continuum.

The public

turbulence aroused deep anger and criticism toward MAMDA's Officers and against what
was called their lack of loyalty. A call was even heard to dismantle the whole department.
At the end, The Chief of Staff commanded the Head of MAMDA to permanently release
the two psychologists from service 73.

Even though the case was apparently ended by that decision, its bad implications neverdisappeared. From that time on, a hidden suspicion was created toward MAMDA bothin the military and in the professional community. On the one hand a latent suspicion
was planted among the GHQ toward MAMDA's loyalty and on the other hand thesociology and psychology communities became skeptical about MAMDA’s autonomy tomaintain professional principles and ethics. Over the years the conflict calmed down and
MAMDA succeeded in rehabilitating its relationship both with the military and with theprofessional community.

But whenever a dispute arises regarding publication ofmaterials from MAMDA's research or in regards to the participation of MAMDA's
officers in professional civil conferences, the latent suspicion is awakened and MAMDA
must be very sensitive and put vast efforts into containing the conflicts and mitigating thetensions.

The last challenge I'm going to address is concerned with the deep disciplinary changethat has occurred in the human behavioral science departments at the Israeli universities.
Since the nineties, critical sociologists have started to move from the fringes of theacademic establishment to the center74, and their views have come to dominate the social
sciences75. The critical sociology became a powerful engine of radical ideology on Israeli

T. Litvak-Hirsch and J. Chaitin, “Introduction”, T. Litvak-Hirsch and J. Chaitin, eds., Intersecting
Paths in Dan_Bar-On’s Footsteps Psycho-social Ways of Reflecting on Israeli Society, Beer-Shiva:
Ben Gurion University Press, 2011, pp. 13-20 (Hebrew).
74
M. Lisak, “‘Critical’ Sociology and ‘Establishment’ Sociology in the Israeli Academic Community:
Ideological Struggles or Academic Discourse?”, Israel Studies, Vol. 1-1, 1996, pp. 247-294.
75
U. Ram, Israeli Sociology: Text in Context, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018.
73

Chapter 5 ― Areas of Responsibility, Structure and Challenges [Ishai]

73

campuses 76 and the theories that were advanced by its supporters, which include postcolonialism77, neo Marxism78, radical and liberal feminism79, post modernism80 and mostof all anti-militarism81, have become the new academic political correctness82.

The new Human Behavioral Science Officers that joined MAMDA since the nineties,
replaced their traditional functionalistic theoretic basis with a critical world view83. The
critical Human Behavioral Science Officers perceived themselves as an agency of humanrights and social equality and they aspired to use their profession as a voice for the benefitof the under privileged groups in the IDF and for helping the disadvantaged people ofIsrael84. It was just a matter of time until a deep conflict broke out between the Critical
Human Behavioral Science Officers and the conservative mainstream command. The
dispute has also split MAMDA to 2 camps around many fundamental questions like who
its main client is- the military organization or Israeli society? To whom are MAMDA’s
officers obligated – to the military organizational interests or to the public good? Whatshould MAMDA do whenever the two clash?

From these complicated questions a range of conflicted issues arose regarding thepreferable military model, to the ways to implement social equality in the military withoutharming the operational ability, to the dilemmas about women’s integration on the battle
field, to the attitude of the military toward minorities and LGBT members, to the military
policy against conscience and political refusal and many more.

E. Ben-Rafael, “Critical versus Non Critical Sociology: An Evaluation”, Israel Studies, Vol. 2-1,
1997, pp. 174-193.
77
Ram, Israeli Sociology, pp, 125-145.
78
U. Ram, “Sociology in the Age of Netanyahu: Critical Trends in Israeli Sociology in the Beginningof the Twenty-First Century (1996-2016)”, MEGAMOT, Issue 2, 2017, pp. 13-68 (Hebrew).
79
A.D. Epstein, “The Decline of Israeli Sociology”, Azura, Issue 16, Winter 2004, p, 5764.
http://azure.org.il/include/print.php?id=232.
80Ram, Israeli Sociology, pp, 105-124.
81
S. Carmi and H. Rosenfeld, “The Emergence of Militaristic Nationalism in Israel”, International
Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society, Vol. 3-1, 1989, p. 5-49; U. Ben-Eliezer, The Making of
Israeli Militarism, Indiana University Press, 1998.
82
Epstein, “The Decline of Israeli Sociology”.
83
Z. Lehrer and S. Amram-Katz, “The Sociology of Military Knowledge in the IDF: From Forging toDeciphering”, Israel Studies Review, Vol. 26-2, 2011, pp. 54-72.
84
Y. Ben-Horin, S. Givoli, A. Vainer, O. Vinshel, A. Tuv, R. Tamir, Z. Yaffe, T. Peled, M. Rosenstein,
and Y. Sher, The New Military Human Behavioral Science expertize: New Logic and New Conceptual
Framework, Tel Hashomer: IDF BSC, 2002 (Hebrew).
76

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Chapter 5 ― MAMDA: Areas of Responsibility, Structure and Challenges [Ishai]

To restrain the conflict MAMDA had created in 2003 a new concept. The new conceptthat was called The Functional Critical Model85, offered the Human Behavioral Science
Officers a new middle way to bridge their commitment to advancing social values andtheir obligation toward the military organization. By the new definition the Human
Behavioral Science Officer is now expected to be an active agency who is striving to
influence the military mode of action by critical theories 86.

The attached comparative table (Table 1) is summarizing the main differences between
the new concept and the traditional one. It is important to emphasize that there isn’t a
black and white division between the two. Rather it is a continuum of thin nuances andemphasis.

Table 1: The Traditional Concept and the Functional Critical Model - A Comparison
The Functional Critical
Category

The Traditional Concept

Model(The new concept)

The Motive for Action(how MAMDA is choosing what

The military organization’s

to do and how it sets priorities)

rationale

The Mission

Acting on behalf of the military

Acting on behalf of the public(the purpose and the meaningorganization and command

good.

of MAMDA’s activity)needs and interests

Patriotism

Liberal and humanitarian values

Part of a virtual Human

The Belonging
How does MAMDA define its

The professional rationale

Part of the Military staff

Behavioral Science community

main identity and what is theY. Sher, “The Sociological Research at the IDF- An Internal Perspective”, Presented at the Open
University Seminar on the Sociology of Military Knowledge, Raanana, October 2010 (Hebrew).
86
Z. Lerer and S. Amram-Katz, “The Sociology of Military Knowledge in the IDF: From ‘Forging’to ‘Deciphering’,” Israel Studies Review, Vol. 26, Winter 2011, pp. 54-72.
85

Chapter 5 ― Areas of Responsibility, Structure and Challenges [Ishai]

75

nature of the relationship that
MAMDA maintains with theOrganic assimilation /symbiosis

Dissimilarity

military organization)

The Professional Intention Improving the military

Creating of new social future(what are the desired goals andoperational ability andhow does MAMDA evaluate its

maintaining the militaryTransforming the military andachievements)

legitimacy

Improving its adjustment tosocial changes

Respect toward the past

Deconstructing the past

Ontology

Functional and Institutional

Conflict Theory.

(what are the fields ofTheory. Socialization andSocial Stratification, Hegemony,knowledge MAMDA’s action isModernity Theories.

Power Relation and Elites.

based on)Melting Pot Approach.

Identity and Ethnicity

Social and Occupational

Feminism.

Psychology Theories.

Neo Marxism.

Organizational Development

Post Colonialism.

Approaches.

Multiculturalism.

Epistemology

Survey. Selection process.

Interpretative Approach.

(what are the main methods

Enterprise Consultancy.

Critical Analysis.

MAMDA uses for research andQuantitative methods.

Qualitative methods.

Intra- military

Military – civil interface

LanguageTranslating professional

Instill professional language into

(in which language does

language to military language –military language: discourse,

MAMDA think and operate andmotivation, readiness andnarratives, social protest,

how does MAMDA use thewillingness, resiliencemasculine hegemony, power

analysis

Influence Space(how does MAMDA define theright space to execute its
influence’s efforts)

language to achieve influence)

relations, identity culture,
periphery and center, thestruggle for hearts and minds

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Chapter 5 ― MAMDA: Areas of Responsibility, Structure and Challenges [Ishai]

Beneficiary(who gets the most benefits
from MAMDA’s activity)

The military

Both the military and civilsociety

I want to conclude the review with a case study that elaborates both the complexity andthe major contribution MAMDA’s new concept has brought and is still bringing to the
IDF. In 2005 the Israeli government decided to carry out a disengagement plan from the
Gaza Strip 87. The decision inflamed a deep controversial dispute in Israeli society88 .
There was even a fear of civil war between the supporters and the opposers89.

The plan contains two different missions: the first one was the withdrawal of the IDF
from inside the Gaza Strip 90 , and the second one was the dismantling of all Israeli
settlements in the area and evacuating the settlers91. Whereas the first mission was a
typical militaristic mission and the IDF was quite skilled and had long experience withexecuting such missions, the second mission was much more complicated.

The modern democratic national state usually maintains a sharp separation between the
military which is responsible for guarding the borders and to fight external enemies andthe police forces which are responsible for keeping civil order92. Usually the military has
no civilian jurisdiction within the civilian sphere 93 . This separation is much moresignificant when the military is based on mandatory service and therefore must keep its
87

The Israeli disengagement from Gaza (Hebrew: Tokhnit HaHitnatkut) also known as Gaza
expulsion was the withdrawal of the Israeli army from inside the Gaza Strip, and the dismantling of
all Israeli settlements in the Gaza Strip in 2005.
88
J. Rynhold and D. Waxman, “Ideological Change and Israel's Disengagement from Gaza”, Political
Science Quarterly, Vol. 123-1, 2008, pp. 11–37.
89
E. Lewin, “The Disengagement from Gaza: Understanding the Ideological Background. Jerusalem”,
Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, 2016. http://jcpa.org/article/the-disengagement-from-gazaunderstanding-the-ideological-background/.
90
https://mfa.gov.il/MFA/AboutIsrael/Maps/Pages/Israels%20Disengagement%20Plan-%202005.aspx
91
https://mfa.gov.il/MFA/MFAArchive/2005/Pages/Paying%20the%20Price%20for%20Peace%20%
20July%202005.aspx.
92
R. Branson, “When Soldiers Become Cops”, Foreign Affairs, Vol. 81-6, 2002, pp. 122-132; R.
Matic, “The Social Role of Military and Police Institutions in the 21st Century”, Polemos, Vol. 6-1/2,
2003, pp. 117-134.
93
M. Easton and R. Moelker, “Police and Military: Two Worlds Apart? Current Challenges in theProcess of Constabularisation of the Armed Forces and Militarisation of the Civilian Police”, M.M.
Easton, J. den Boer, R. Janssens, T. Moelker and T. van den Beken, eds., Blurring of Military and
Police Roles, The Hague: Eleven International Publishing, 2010, Chapter 2.

Chapter 5 ― Areas of Responsibility, Structure and Challenges [Ishai]neutral and apolitical image 94 .

77

Nevertheless, after long discussions the Israeli

government had decided that the mission of dismantling the settlements and evacuating
the settlers would be executed by the military. The IDF was in deep confusion – it wasordered to use its power against its own Israeli citizens. The GHQ was mainly troubled
by the call of the national religious leaders to their soldiers to oppose the evacuation
orders and to refuse to take part in the mission95.

MAMDA was asked to help the GHQ to build a strategy which would help the military
to accomplish the two missions without creating non-repairable fragmentation between
the state, the military and the national religious sector in Israel.

MAMDA built a think tank which was based on Senior Human Behavioral Science
Officers in regular and in reserve service. Among them there were well-known social
psychologists and sociologist that were experts in coping with social resilience, dealing
with civilian objection and resistance as well as coping with military refusal.

The think tank had created a strategy under a hybrid logic that was called – “withsensitivity and with determination” 96. The meaning of that strategy was to equip theforces with an operational consciousness that was based on a combination of twocomplementary contrasting principles. On one hand the mission commanders and theirsoldiers were instructed to treat the evacuated settlers as their brothers and sisters. On
the other hand, the obligation of implementing the government directive was presented
as the most holy and crucial obligation of any military in a democratic state97.

This Strategy was translated into operational logic and practices.

All the Human

Behavioral Science Officers who accompanied the fighting forces to their mission

A. Perlmutter, “The Military and Politics in Modern Times: A Decade Later”, Journal of Strategic
Studies, Vol. 9-1, 1986, pp. 5-15.
95
Y. Levy, “The Israeli Military: Imprisoned by the Religious Community”, Middle East Policy
Council Journal, Vol. XVIII-2, 2011.
https://mepc.org/israeli-military-imprisoned-religious-community.
96
In Hebrew it was a rhyme and therefore sounded much better. M. Elran, “Domestic Effects of the
Disengagement”, Strategic Assessment, Vol. 8-3, 2005.
http://www.inss.org.il/he/wp050content/uploads/sites/2/systemfiles/Elran_English_final_for%20site
816811991.pdf.
97
Y. Levy, “The Embedded Military: Why did the IDF Perform Effectively in Executing the
Disengagement Plan?”, Security Studies, Vol. 16-3, 2007, pp. 382-408.
94

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Chapter 5 ― MAMDA: Areas of Responsibility, Structure and Challenges [Ishai]

assimilated this logic among the commanders and among the soldiers as part of an
operational preparation process 98 .

Furthermore, following one of the think tank’s

recommendations the Israel national flag was stitched to the uniforms to show the settlers
and the soldiers the double logic they had to obey.

The soldiers were instructed to help the settlers by packing their belongings and carrying
them, as well as to help to alleviate the young children’s fears. During the operation,soldiers went into settlers' homes and presented them with removal decrees but at thesame time the IDF arranged crews of social nurses and psychologists to support thechildren. The soldiers shared with the children tabletop games, sweets and candies99.

One of the most effective recommendations MAMDA's think tank gave the GHQ wasconcerning the evacuation tactics. To avoid an escalation of refusal by the soldiers thatare coming from settlers’ families the think tank had suggested an evacuation cycles tactic.
According to that tactic the soldiers that were potential refusers were put in the lastevacuation cycle and essentially didn't have any direct contact with the settlers100.

Finally, and maybe the most prominent recommendation MAMDA think tank gave the
GHQ was concerned with the creating of a national crisis consciousness among the public,
the media and especially among the evacuated settlers. The evacuation zone was declareda closed theatre to the media or to people that were not residents of the settlements. By
that action the military expressed its readiness and determination to enforce thegovernment decision101.

98

R. Eisikowitch, G. Eshel, A. Dor, B. Haetzni, A.A Visoli, R. Tassa and M. Leibler, The Mental
Preparation for the Disengagement and its Aftermath in the IDF: Preliminary Report, 2008.
http://www.mentalpreparation.org/BRPortal/br/P102.jsp?arc=17534&kw=Mental,Preparation,Disen
gagement,Gadi,Eshel.
99
Ibid.
100
A.L. Oliver and Y. Kalish, “The Disengagement Process from an Organizational Perspective:
Applying Punctuated Equilibrium Theory, Game theory and Weick's Theory of Organizing to the
Disengagement”, 2009.
https://www.academia.edu/879422/The_Disengagement_Process_from_an_Organizational_Perspect
ive_applying_punctuated_equilibrium_theory_game_theory_and_Weicks_theory_of_organizing_to_
the_.
101
D. Weisburd and H. Lernau, “What Prevented Violence in Jewish Settlements in the Withdrawal
from the Gaza Strip: Toward a Perspective of Normative Balance”, Ohio State Journal of Dispute
Resolution, Vol. 22-1, 2006, pp. 37-82.

Chapter 5 ― Areas of Responsibility, Structure and Challenges [Ishai]79

In the end, although the process was difficult and even traumatic, the mission was
accomplished --there were only a few wounded people among the evacuated populationand the sovereignty of the government was safeguarded. Without being an organic andinherent part of the IDF and without acting according to its new concept MAMDA could
not have made such a crucial contribution to the ability of the IDF to achieve its mission102.

Summing up, during the Asymmetric Warfare and the Global War against Terror, themilitary’s missions have become much more complicated and controversial 103. Gaining
legitimacy for using military forces is quite often under deep dispute104 and it is frequently
torn between clashing liberals and nationalistic ideologies 105. In such a climate the abilityof the military to develop flexible and complicated operational doctrines and practices is
becoming a crucial challenge 106. Gaining international support and sustaining internal
legitimacy forces the military to adapt quickly to emergent social and political changes.
At the same time and for the same reason the military has become in recent years much
more cautious and suspicious toward external interventions 107. The presence of an inhouse human behavioral science unit which has a deep relationship with the chain ofcommand, is enjoying the commander’s trust and has long acquaintance with the military
problems and dilemmas, is almost the only way to influence the designing of military
policy and decision making process. Furthermore, the in-house presence raises the
Y. Amitai and H. Minka-Brand, “Now and in Other Times: Motivating Subordinates to Carry Out
Orders under Public Controversy”, Maarachot, Issue 429, 2010, pp 12-21 (Hebrew).
103
D. Smith, “Trends and Causes of Armed Conflict”, Berghof Research Center for Constructive
Conflict Management. 2004.
https://www.berghof-foundation.org/nc/en/publications/publication/trends-and-causes-of-armed
conflict/.
104
M. Shaw, “The Development of ‘Common Risk’ Society- A Theoretical Overview”, J. Kuhlmann
and J. Callaghan, eds., Military and Society in 21st Century Europe: A Comparative Analysis, London:
Routledge, 2011, pp. 13-26.
105
T. Cooper, S. Merz and M. Shah, “A More Violent World? Global Trends in Organized Violence”,
Berghof Research Center for Constructive Conflict Management, 2011. https://www.berghoffoundation.org/nc/en/publications/publication/a-more-violent-world-global-trends-in-organised
violence/; W. Von Bredow, “Re-Nationalization of Military Strategy? New Challenges for the Armed
Forces in a Changing Global Environment”, J. Kuhlmann and J. Callaghan, eds., Military and Society
in 21st Century Europe: A Comparative Analysis, London: Routledge, 2011, pp. 45-54.
106
C. Dandeker, “The Military in Democratic Societies: New Times and New Patterns of Civil
Military Relations”, J. Kuhlmann and J. Callaghan, eds., Military and Society in 21st Century Europe:
A Comparative Analysis, London: Routledge, 2011, pp. 27-44.
107
J. Callaghan, C. Dandeker and J. Kuhlmann, “Introduction: Armed Forced and Society in Europe:
The Challenge of Change”, J. Kuhlmann and J. Callaghan, eds., Military and Society in 21st Century
Europe: A Comparative Analysis, London: Routledge, 2011, pp 1-10.
102

80

Chapter 5 ― MAMDA: Areas of Responsibility, Structure and Challenges [Ishai]chance that the sociological and psychological updated knowledge and practices will
actually advance the military’s adjustment to the social needs and to the public will.

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CHAPTER 6

FAMILY SUPPORT AND GENDER POLICY IN THE JAPAN SELFDEFENSE FORCES —A CASE STUDY OF JGSDF FAMILIES1—

Hitoshi Kawano
National Defense Academy

INTRODUCTION

The Japan Self-Defense Forces has more than a quarter century of Family Support history.
Since 1992, the Japan Ground Self-Defense Force (JGSDF) has participated in UN
Peacekeeping operations in Cambodia, Mozambique, Golan Heights, Rwanda, East
Timor, and most recently in Haiti and South Sudan. The Japan Maritime Self-Defense
Force (JMSDF) and the Japan Air Self-Defense Force (JASDF) have also been involvedin the above mentioned UN operations by providing logistical support services. In total,
over 27,000 JSDF personnel have been deployed overseas. The initial focus for family
support by JGSDF was on during-deployment measures to support the JGSDF families
whose family members were sent overseas for 6 months on a UN peacekeeping mission.
In 2002, the first female SDF personnel participated in the UN peacekeeping operation in
East Timor.

After 9.11, JGSDF sent troops for humanitarian assistance operation in Iraq (2004-06).
That is when the family support program was enhanced, although the 3-month rotation in
Iraq was much shorter than the ordinary 6-month rotation for a UN peacekeeping
operation. As a result, the Family Support Section, Ground Staff Office, JGSDF
Headquarter in Tokyo, was established in 2007.

1

The views expressed in this chapter are those of the author and do not represent any official position
held by the Japan Self-Defense Forces or Ministry of Defense.

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Chapter 6 ― Family Support and Gender Policy in the Japan Self-Defense Forces—A Case Study of JGSDF Families— [Kawano]

After the Great East Japan Earthquake on March 11, 2011, JGSDF seemed to shift its
focus on peace-time family support. Due to the fact that more than 100,000 JSDF
personnel involved in the largest-ever domestic disaster relief operation in the history of
JSDF, and increased operational tempo in terms of both international and domestic
operations, as well, there were growing operational needs for family support.

In this chapter, the historical development process of family support programs is
examined first, and then, the current situation of implementation of family support
programs, its perceived family support needs, its issues of trust and self-efficacy, and theperception of effectiveness of the programs are explored based on the 2015 JGSDF family
survey and interview results. In addition, the historical process of gender policy
development, and the socio-cultural context of changing family structure are briefly
overviewed.

FAMILY SUPPORT PROGRAMS BY JGSDF

By observing the latest developments of the family support policies by JGSDF, it seems
to me that a sort of paradigm shift is taking place, from just a part of the welfare program
for the families of deployed personnel to more emphasis on operational readiness andeffectiveness. The 2013 National Defense Program Guidelines (NDPG) clearly states thatfamily support programs are to be enhanced. The new concept of ”Dynamic Joint Defense
Force2” requires “Creation of Tough & Resilient JGSDF.3” Also, the document publishedby Family Support Section, GSO, says, “Family Support” constitutes the basis forOperational Effectiveness by assuring the SDF personnel sense of family safety, enhanced
motivation, and comprehensive care from induction to retirement,” and they believe that“(t)he less worried the JGSDF personnel are, the more committed they are to their
mission.” However, there were limited public/self-help available a few years ago, andJGSDF is seeking further mutual help in collaboration with civilian or veteran SDF
support networks.
This concept of “Dynamic Joint Defense Force” proposed in the 2013 NDPG was replaced by the“Multi-Domain Defense Force” concept in the 2018 NDPG, which emphasizes cross-domain
operational capabilities including space, cyberspace and electromagnetic spectrum. See Ministry of
Defense, Defense of Japan 2019, Ch. 3, Section 2. https://www.mod.go.jp/e/publ/w_paper/
pdf/2019/DOJ2019_2-3-2.pdf
3
For further information, see the following site of JGSDF: https://www.mod.go.jp/gsdf/english/
roles/index.html.
2Chapter 6 ― Family Support and Gender Policy in the Japan Self-Defense Forces—A Case Study of JGSDF Families— [Kawano]83

JGSDF classifies 3 types of family support:
1) Self-Help includes family communication cards which include emergency contact
information, family support DVDs, information sharing through the JGSDF-Web pages,
and family support education at the unit-level.
2) Mutual Help includes civil-support by SDF-Family Assn, SDF Veterans Assn., etc. In
particular, SDF-Family Association is actively supporting JGSDF families by offering
support for ordinary life-support needs, safety-check of family members, elder-familycare, child-care, financial and other social support counseling in case of a major disaster
relief operation. Following the American idea of “family readiness group”, JGSDF has
started developing “Unit-Family Communities” based on the local JGSDF units’ own
initiatives by hosting BBQ parties, new family orientations, family visit days on base, andother public events involving their family members.
3) Public Help includes emergency call-up support (babysitting/child-care service by
JGSDF/local govt.), and other formal-institutional family support measures.
The point is, the program is to enhance operational effectiveness, not just an ordinary
family support welfare program.

On May 18, 2017, a landmark family support agreement was signed by Gen. Okabe, thenChief of Staff, JGSDF, and the Presidents of SDF Veterans Association and SDF Family
Association. Although there were some bilateral agreement with either association at a
local level in the past, this major agreement at the central level further promoted similar
agreements at the local level.

As a result, the number of Family Support Agreements by JGSDF bases and local
cities/towns is increasing. In case of a large-scale earthquake, or other types of natural
disaster including flooding, landslides, etc., JGSDF units would be mobilized for disaster
relief operations. In order to prepare for an emergency Humanitarian Assistance andDisaster Relief operation, the contents of agreement typically include:1) On-base temporary child-care facilities supported by local cities
2) Arrangement of civilian child-care services for the GSDF families by local cities
3) Municipal support for elder-care service4) Consultation for health care and medical treatment of the GSDF families

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Chapter 6 ― Family Support and Gender Policy in the Japan Self-Defense Forces—A Case Study of JGSDF Families— [Kawano]

For instance, Yokosuka City in Kanagawa Prefecture, also signed a family support
agreement in 2017 with all three JGSDF, JMSDF, and JASDF bases in town, in case of alarge-scale natural disaster. This is rather a rare case involving three services of SDF.
However, the scope of family support network is steadily expanding all over Japan.

THE 2015 JGSDF FAMILY SUPPORT STUDY: RESULTS AND CHALLENGES
A several years ago, we argued that family support programs offered by JGSDF were still
under development 4 . In recognition of necessity for a comprehensive andinterdisciplinary study on JGSDF family support programs, a social research was
conducted in 20155. In the following section, some of survey results are presented, andtheoretical and empirical implications are discussed.

Our research questions were as follows:
1) Is "Community Capacity Model 6 ” applicable to the Japan Ground Self-Defense
Force (JGSDF) families?
2) To what extent is "community capacity" developed? Is it functioning effectively?
Are there any regional differences?
3) JGSDF family support programs: How well are they working at the local level?
Are there any regional differences?

H. Kawano & A. Fukuura, “Family support and the Japan Self-Defense Forces: Challenges anddeveloping new programs,” R. Moelker et al. eds., Military Families and War in the 21st Century:
Comparative Perspectives, London: Routledge, 2015, pp. 302-318; H. Kawano, “Jjieitai no KazokuShien [Family Support by JSDF], M. Tanaka ed., Guntai no Bunkajinruigaku [Cultural Anthropologyof the Military], Tokyo: Fukyo-sha, 2015, pp. 95-135 (Japanese).
5This research was supported by JSPS KAKENHI (Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research) Grant
Number 26380660.
6
G. L. Bowen, J. A. Martin, J. A. Mancini & J. P. Nelson, “Community Capacity: Antecedents andConsequences”, Journal of Community Practice, 2000, Vol.8, pp. 1–21; G. L. Bowen, J. A. Martin, B.
J. Liston & J. P. Nelson, “Building Community Capacity in the U.S. Air Force: The Community
Readiness Consultant Model”, A.R. Roberts, ed., Social Workers’ Desk Reference (2nd ed.), Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2009a, pp. 912–17; G. L. Bowen, A. J. Huebner, J. A. Mancini & D. K.
Orthner, “Shadowed by War,” Family Relations, Vol. 58, 2009b, pp. 216-228; G. L. Bowen, J. A.
Martin, J. A. Mancini & D. Swick, “Community Capacity and the Psychological Well-being ofMarried United States Air Force Members,” Moelker et al. eds., Military Families and War in the 21stCentury, 2015, pp. 210-226.
4

Chapter 6 ― Family Support and Gender Policy in the Japan Self-Defense Forces—A Case Study of JGSDF Families— [Kawano]85

The premise of the Community Capacity Model is that in a given local community themore the community has “community capacity”, which consists of two major elementsof social capital7: shared responsibility and collective competence among the members of
the community, the better well-being of the community members, including militaryfamilies. Developing social capital through establishing formal systems of family supportand enhancing informal networks of social support is critically important factor inbuilding community capacity 8 . Our research interest is based on this premise, whileassuming that this model is valid for the case of JGSDF families and their living
communities.

1. RESEARCH METHODS
1) JGSDF Family Survey
JGSDF consists of 5 Area Armies: Northern, North-Eastern, Eastern, Central, Western
Armies. As for sampling, 200 families are stratified according to the overall ratio of
officers, non-commissioned officers, and private personnel, and randomly selected fromthe stratified groups within each Army. Each family received 2 questionnaires, one for
GSDF personnel and another for their spouse, parent, or sibling. In total, 2000
questionnaires were distributed in December 2015. By the end of March 2016, 1894 valid
questionnaires were returned, which means 94.7% of response rate.

2) JGSDF Family Interviews
We also conducted interviews of GSDF families from September to November in 2015.
In order to cover every Area Army district, we visited the following 15 camps, andinterviewed 55 families in total (see Figure 1):① Northern Army (Hokkaido): Okadama (Sapporo City), Higashi-Chitose (Chitose
City), Obihiro (Obihiro City)② North-Eastern Army: Aomori (Aomori City), Sendai and Tagajo (Sendai City)③ Eastern Army: Nerima (Tokyo), Omiya (Saitama Pref.), and Somagahara (Gunma
Pref.)④ Central Army: Okubo (Uji City, Kyoto Pref.), Fukuchiyama (Fukuchiyama City,
7

For definition of the concept of social capital, see R. D. Putnam, Bowling Alone: The Collapse andRevival of American Community, New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000.
8
Bowen et al., “Community Capacity and the Psychological Well-being of Married United States
Air Force Members”.

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Chapter 6 ― Family Support and Gender Policy in the Japan Self-Defense Forces—A Case Study of JGSDF Families— [Kawano]

Kyoto Pref.), Kaitaichi (Hiroshima Pref.)⑤ Western Army: Ogori (Fukuoka Pref.), Kita-Kumamoto (Kumamoto Pref.),
Kokubu (Kagoshima Pref.)Figure 1

GSDF Camps for Interviews

2. SURVEY RESULTS
1) Family Support Needs
To the question, “How important, do you think, the social support is for GSDF families?”,most families recognized the importance of family support by replying “very important”(49.6%), and “somewhat important” (42.1%). However, as to the formal family support
system of GSDF, only 7.7% considered that a “sufficient system is established”, while
40.1% replied “to some extent”, and 23.6% believed that it’s “not good enough.”
When they are asked “How often did you need family support?”, 6.9% replied“frequently”, and 40.9% needed it “sometimes.” When did they need the family support?
Most common answer is when their “GSDF spouses were mobilized for disaster relief
operations” for long (52.9%), and next common answer is when their “GSDF spouses left

Chapter 6 ― Family Support and Gender Policy in the Japan Self-Defense Forces—A Case Study of JGSDF Families— [Kawano]87

for a military exercise” for a while (30.9%), followed by the answer “when the family
was victimized by natural disaster” (25.7%). Wives of GSDF personnel are in need ofsupport when their husbands are away from home to take part in “professional militaryschooling” (31.7%; female: see Figure 2).

Figure 2

Family Support Needs

When a GSDF family needs support, what types of support do they need?
Figure 3 shows the answers to the question, “In your opinion, what types of family
support are needed?” Most needed type of support was “checking out family safety after
a natural disaster” (“very much” and “somewhat”: 96.4%), followed by “information
sharing and communication support during the GSDF overseas operations” (92.1%),“family support orientations before/during GSDF overseas operations” (89.0%),“(mental/civil) aftercare for the deployed GSDF personnel and families” (87.0%), and“childcare support during emergency call-up” (85.3%). On the other hand, the leastneeded type of family support was “unit-family community activities” (59.2%).

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Chapter 6 ― Family Support and Gender Policy in the Japan Self-Defense Forces—A Case Study of JGSDF Families— [Kawano]

Figure 3

Family Support Types Needed

2) Family Support Provider
When GSDF families need support, whom can they actually turn to for help?
Figure 4 shows the answers to the question, “When you are in need of help, whom canyou ask for help and family support?” Most likely, they would turn to “non-resident
family members (e.g. parents, siblings)” for help (“very easy [to ask for help]” and“relatively easy”: 80.1%), followed by “personal friends” (62.2%), and “colleagues atwork” (60.8%). This result suggests that, for GSDF families, needed support is most
likely provided by informal networks of their own family members and personal friends.
On the other hand, formal support providers, such as Ministry of Defense, SelfDefense Forces, local/municipal governments, as well as community/neighborhood or
SDF-related associations, remain much less likely to be counted on.

Chapter 6 ― Family Support and Gender Policy in the Japan Self-Defense Forces—A Case Study of JGSDF Families— [Kawano]

Figure 4

89

Family Support Provider

This fact suggests that the GSDF families’ sense of “particularized trust” far exceeds thatof “generalized trust.” As a series of social psychological experiments and social surveys
conducted by Yamagishi and others suggest, the Japanese people tend to have lessgeneralized trust than the Americans, and also the Japanese tend to maintain committed
relationship with reliable partners in order to avoid troubles caused by social
uncertainties9.
In fact, as Figure 5 shows the result of our survey question on “particularized trust”, the
GSDF families trusted “non-resident family members” highest (“[trust] very much”;
57.2%), whereas “non-work related friends” (24.2%), “work-related friends” (22.0%),“Ministry of Defense/Self-Defense Forces” (19.9%) are trusted much less, and further
less trusted are “local/municipal governments” (8.1%), “SDF-related associations”(7.1%), “community/neighborhood associations” (5.1%), and “volunteer/sports/civil
T. Yamagishi, “The Provision of a Sanctioning System in the United States and Japan,” Social
Psychology Quarterly, Vol. 51, 1988, pp. 265-271; T. Yamagishi, K. S. Cook & M. Watabe,“Uncertainty, Trust, and Commitment Formation in the United States and Japan,” American Journalof Sociology, Vol. 104-1, July 1998, pp. 165-194; M. A. Gheorghiu, V.L. Vignoles & P. B. Smith,“Beyond the United States and Japan: Testing Yamagishi’s Emancipation Theory of Trust across 31
Nations,” Social Psychology Quarterly, Vol. 72-4, December 2009, pp. 365-383.
9

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Chapter 6 ― Family Support and Gender Policy in the Japan Self-Defense Forces—A Case Study of JGSDF Families— [Kawano]associations” (3.8%).

Figure 5

Social Capital: Particularized Trust

3) Sense of Community
Contrary to the premise of Community Capacity Model, the following data suggest thatthe communities in which the GSDF families live do not share the sense of strong
commitment to improve their communities among the residents.
Figure 6 shows the answers to the question, “To what extent, do you agree or disagreewith the statement: there is a shared commitment to improve community amongresidents?” Only a few percent of respondents “strongly agree” to the statement, while
there are some generational and regional differences. In terms of gender, there is almost
no difference among the “strongly agree” response (4.6% male, 4.2% female), though
the positive answer including both “strongly agree” and “somewhat agree” shows that
men are slightly more positive than women (45.6% male, 42.0% female).

Chapter 6 ― Family Support and Gender Policy in the Japan Self-Defense Forces—A Case Study of JGSDF Families— [Kawano]91

As for the generational gap, the older generations tend to answer positively than
younger generations (60’s 62.2%, 50’s 51.1%, 40’s 49.7%, 30’s 39.7%, 20’s 36.5%).
However, this may be because of the difference in terms of length of residence in thesame neighborhood since the younger generations tend to frequently relocate due to the
GSDF personnel’s job assignments.

It is also interesting to note that there is regional difference, suggesting that the West
and Central areas share stronger sense of commitment to improve their communities
than the other areas. In particular, contrary to a common sense understanding of
supposedly higher degree of “community capacity” in the Northern Army area, thesurvey result shown below suggests it is not the case 10.

Figure 6

Sense of Community: Shared Commitment

4) Self-Efficacy of GSDF Families“Self-efficacy” refers to an individual's belief in his or her capacity to execute behaviors

10

In Hokkaido, where the Northern Army of GSDF covers, some local cities strongly supported the
GSDF units and their families while the units were deployed overseas for the UN peacekeeping
missions or humanitarian assistance operations in Iraq (H. Kawano, “Jjieitai no Kazoku-Shien [Family
Support by JSDF], 2015, Japanese).

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Chapter 6 ― Family Support and Gender Policy in the Japan Self-Defense Forces—A Case Study of JGSDF Families— [Kawano]necessary to produce specific performance attainments or desired effects 11 . As it wassuggested in the Family Support Provider section above, the GSDF families trust and relyon their own family members, most likely their parents, or grandparents of their children,
to take care of the children when they needed help. Figure 6 shows the answer to thequestion, “When you are called-up for emergency operation, who can take care of yourchild?” The overwhelming majority answers that “grandparents” take care of theirchildren. In particular, more than 70% of the GSDF families in their 20’s and 30’s would
ask the grandparents to take care of their children. This result is consistent with thefindings in other studies on military families that “service members’ parents are an
important component of military families, particularly among the younger military
personnel. 12”

Figure 7

Self-Efficacy: Who Takes Care of Your Child in Emergency

A. Bandura, “Self-efficacy: Toward a unifying theory of behavioral change,” Psychological Review,
vol. 84-2, pp. 191-215; A. Bandura, Social Foundations of Thought and Action: A Social Cognitive
Theory, Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1986; A. Bandura, Self-Efficacy: The Exercise ofControl, New York: W. H. Freeman, 1997.
12
M. Andres, G. Bowen, P. Manigart & R. Moelker, “Epilogue” R. Moelker et al. eds., Military
Families and War in the 21st Century: Comparative Perspectives, London: Routledge, 2015, pp. 319330; J. Bartone, “Missions alike and unlike: Military family support in war and peace,” R. Moelker etal., eds., Military Families and War in the 21st Century, pp. 193-209.
11

Chapter 6 ― Family Support and Gender Policy in the Japan Self-Defense Forces—A Case Study of JGSDF Families— [Kawano]93

3. GSDF FAMILY INTERVIEW RESULTS
1) Eroding Sense of Community and Importance of Self-Efficacy
In the following section, findings from the GSDF families are summarized. What we
found from the result of those interviews can be most effectively summarized in thesimple expression of “eroding sense of community” among the GSDF families 13 .
Contrary to the premise of Community Capacity Model, it seems that “community
capacity” is rather losing relevance among the GSDF families despite organizational
efforts made in order to develop effective family support system by GSDF. Unlike thecountries with frequent deployment for combat operations, Japan has not engaged in any
types of combat missions because of the Article 9 of the Constitution which renounces“war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settlinginternational disputes.14” As the “military of a nation that renounces war,” JSDF has nocombat casualty since its establishment in 1954 15 . Having engaged in mostly disaster
relief and civil engineering operations, as well as humanitarian assistance and other typesof military operations other than war, the post-war Japanese All Volunteer Force is not so“greedy institution” as the other nations’ military forces16. On the other hand, a family as
institution seems to have become “greedier” due to changing gender norms andempowerment of women in a post-modern society like Japan.

Among the 55 families we interviewed, 29 of them live in privately owned houses, 15families rent apartments, and 11 families lived in GSDF official residence. Among those
who live in official residence, there are networks of wives, or “mothers”, through various
voluntary activities and social groups, including women’s division of the official residents’association and/or local residents’ association, Parent-Teacher Associations of local
primary and junior high schools, and other sports/athletic/hobby clubs. While some wives
13

Frederic and Masson also suggest that the once strong sense of military community, or the notion
of “great military family” in the Argentine Armed Forces has been lost recently, while citing acomment by an Army officer pointing out that the notion of “one big family” has been lost. See S.
Frederic & L. Masson, “Profession and the Military Family in the Argentine Armed Forces:
Generational Differences and Socio-cultural Changes,” R. Moelker et al. eds., Military Families and
War in the 21st Century, pp. 73-83.
14
Article 9, The Constitution of Japan, promulgated on November 3, 1946, came into effect on May
3, 1947. https://japan.kantei.go.jp/constitution_and_government_of_japan/constitution_e.html
15
A. Sado, The Self-Defense Forces and Postwar Politics in Japan, Japan Publishing Industry
Foundation for Culture, 2017; R. Eldridge & P. Midford, eds., The Japanese Ground Self-Defense
Force: Search for Legitimacy, Palgrave Macmillan, 2017.
16
M. Andres et al, “Epilogue”, Military Families and War in the 21st Century, 2015; also see K. De
Angelis & M. W. Segal, “Transitions in the Military and the Family as Greedy Institutions,” R.
Moelker et al. eds., Military Families and War in the 21st Century, pp. 22-42.

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Chapter 6 ― Family Support and Gender Policy in the Japan Self-Defense Forces—A Case Study of JGSDF Families— [Kawano]enjoy keeping in touch with other wives living in their official residence, others feel
obliged to make commitment to the close-nit networks of GSDF family wives, and as aresult, tend to find off-base private housing so that they can get away from thepsychological burden of GSDF networks. In addition, relationship among the GSDF
families in the official residence is also changing, in particular in the urban areas. For
instance, a wife of GSDF officer told us that there is almost no relationship among theresidents of the GSDF official housing complex in the metropolitan Tokyo area, where
hundreds of families live. Although there is a formal official residents’ association,
personal relationship among the residents is “not so deep” compared to other official
residences in different areas. Another wife suggests that since “a close relationship” islimited to only a few among the official residents, she turned to her personal friend andlived with the friend when her husband, GSDF NCO, was away from home for 4 monthdue to his professional military schooling for obtaining a MOS (Military Occupational
Specialty) 17. In local cities, a GSDF family would move out of the official residence, andbuild their own home, or rent an apartment, near their parents’ house so that they could
get help when needed. As the survey result shown above suggests, their own parents are
the ones whom they would turn to for help.

Another aspect of eroding sense of community is the fact that most GSDF families are
skeptical about viability of the family safety check system in collaboration with the SDF
Family Association and the SDF Veterans Association. While some GSDF families
strongly support the idea of letting the members of those SDF-related associations go visit
private homes of GSDF families and see if the family members are OK when a largescale natural disaster occurs, others express concerns. The following cases show theirconcerns.
Case 1: Husband (40’s): GSDF Officer, Wife (30’s): GSDF NCO, 4 Children (Age 3-8)]This GSDF couple lived in the GSDF housing in Tokyo, but moved to their own newhouse 2 years ago. The husband is originally from Okinawa, and the wife is from Tokyo
where her mother lives. In 2011, after the Great East Japan Earth Quake, the husband wasmobilized for the disaster relief operation in Fukushima, which lasted for 9 months. He
could not come back to home for the first 30 days. The wife, with 3 small pre-school
children at home, kept working as GSDF enlisted woman at a unit in Tokyo. She asked

17

It was when she was pregnant with her first child. Since her parents had already passed away, herfriend was the one whom she trusted most when she was in need of help (Interview #8).

Chapter 6 ― Family Support and Gender Policy in the Japan Self-Defense Forces—A Case Study of JGSDF Families— [Kawano]95

her mother to take care of her 3 children. Her mother stayed at her GSDF housing for aweek, and her mother kept helping her afterwards. The mother-in-law in Okinawa also
helped her by sending diapers, toilet papers, milk, water, and other daily life necessities.
Other GSDF female personnel living in the same GSDF housing also offered some helpby sharing bottles of water, etc. However, based on their own experiences, the GSDF
couple doubts effectiveness of family support collaboration with SDF Family Association
and Veterans Association:[Wife] We wonder if it’s possible for them (SDF-related association volunteers) to do “safety
check” in a case like the 3.11 Great Earth Quake. We doubt it. In the end, a family takes careof its own family. Instead of asking someone else to do it, we’ve got to do it by ourselves.
We need to strengthen family ties with other family members and relatives of our own 18(emphasis added by Kawano).

The wife’s comment clearly shows the idea of “self-efficacy,” that is, “a family takes careof its own family” and a family needs to “strengthen one’s own family ties” in order tocope with family trouble. Although “collective competence” is an important element of
the “community capacity model,” what her comment suggests seems to be relevance of
the “family resilience” concept19.
Case 2: Husband (30’s): GSDF NCO, Wife (30’s): Civilian Part-time Worker,
2 Children (Age 3-10)
This family lived in a rented apartment room when they got married, and later built theirown new house in Hokkaido. Both of the couple are originally from Hokkaido, though indifferent cities. Their parents and families live mostly in Hokkaido. The husband agrees
the idea of collaboration with SDF-related associations, but he has some reservation aboutsharing personal information of his own family with the volunteers whom he doesn’tknow well:[Wife] I don’t know if it’s a good idea or not. The personal information could be used forother purposes, can be misused.”

18

Interview #34.
“Family resilience” is defined as “the ability of the family, as a functional system, to withstand andrebound from adversity.” See F. Walsh, Strengthening Family Resilience, New York: The Guilford
Press, 2016, p.14.
19

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Chapter 6 ― Family Support and Gender Policy in the Japan Self-Defense Forces—A Case Study of JGSDF Families— [Kawano][Husband] Yes, there are always mixed opinions about that20.

The above mentioned cases clearly show their concerns of their own family members’
right to privacy, and hesitation in trusting others whom they do not have personal
relationship with. The issue of “trust” is further underlined when the JSDF families,
especially their wives, are not aware of the GSDF family support system is underdevelopment in collaboration with the SDF Family Association and SDF Veterans
Association. Therefore, it remains a challenging task for GSDF to establish effective
formal system of family support by organizing efforts of those SDF-related associations.

However, there are some continued efforts in order to improve effectiveness of the formalfamily support systems. For example, in Hokkaido and other local areas, some GSDF
units conduct joint-exercises with those SDF-related associations in preparation for alarge-scale natural disaster. Learning lessons from those practical field –exercises, theSDF Family Association continuously update the Guideline for Family Support
Cooperation21. Listening to the voices calling for further improvement, the formal family
support systems provided by SDF and SDF-related associations seem to have developed
more effectively. Nonetheless, the SDF Family Association itself is suffering from overall
trend of decreasing social capital in contemporary Japan. In the past few years, while
14,000 to 15,000 new recruits joined the SDF, less than 30% of the new recruits’ families
joined the SDF Family Association, and in some Central Army areas, the percentage was
0-19% in 2018 22 . Institutional family support system is still struggling to establish
effective voluntary service.

20

Interview #45.
The Guideline for Family Support Cooperation was first published in 2017, and has been updated
annually. Over 9000 copies were distributed to the local groups of the Association. Contents of the
Guideline include frameworks of family support cooperation in peace time and in time of disaster,
how to organize the local support system and networks effectively, how to make safety check systems,
how to make a map for assigning individual volunteers to the GSDF families in need of help, how tokeep name list of the GSDF families while protecting private information and respecting their right toprivacy, how to set up family support cooperation command and liaison office in the area of family
support operation. <http://jkazokukai.or.jp/250-Kazokusienn/Tebiki.pdf> accessed on March 9, 2020.
22
According to the statistics of membership recruitment for SDF Family Association in 2018, Hyogo
19%, Kyoto 16%, Osaka 12%, Nara 9%, Wakayama 0%. In contrast, the highest new membershipareas are in Kyushu: Kagoshima 82%, Saga 69%, Nagasaki 55%. http://www.jkazokukai.or.jp/600Koukai/H31-jigyou-keikaku.pdf
21

Chapter 6 ― Family Support and Gender Policy in the Japan Self-Defense Forces—A Case Study of JGSDF Families— [Kawano]

97

GENDER POLICY DEVELOPMENT AND CHANGE OF FAMILY STRUCTURE
In the last two decades, gender policy in Japan has developed significantly. In 1999,
recognizing the political importance of “gender equality”, Basic Act for Gender Equal
Society went into effect23. The law in particular emphasizes the equal roles of both men
and women in family life as follows:

Compatibility of Activities in Family Life and Other Activities
Article 6 Formation of Gender Equal Society shall be undertaken with the aim for men andwomen who are members of families to be able to smoothly perform their roles as household
members with regard to taking care of children and other family members and other activities intheir home lives, through mutual cooperation and with social support, and for them to also beable to engage in activities other than these24.

The rationale behind the law includes structural change of labor force and family style inJapan. The increasing number of women who joined the labor force in the 1980’s and1990’s, and the previously predominant type of “Employed Husband and Housewife” hasbeen replaced by the “Employed Couple”, or double-income family type, since late1990’s25.
However, the policy development focusing on “gender mainstreaming” has spurred onlyin the last few years in Japan. Although the UNSCR1325 was adopted in 2000, it was
only in 2015 when the Japanese government established the National Action Plan for
implementing the gender mainstreaming stipulated in UNSCR1325. In 2016, thePromotion of Women in Workplace Act took effect, and Ministry of Defense issued JSDF
The law intended “to respond to the rapid changes occurring in Japan's socioeconomic situations,such as the trend toward fewer children, the aging of the population, and the maturation of domestic
economic activities, it has become a matter of urgent importance to realize Gender Equal society inwhich men and women respect each other's human rights and share responsibilities, and every citizen
is able to fully display their individuality and ability regardless of gender. In this context, it is vitalthat the realization of Gender Equal society is positioned as the most important issue in determining
the framework of 21stcentury Japan and those policies on the promotion of the Formation of Gender
Equal Society are implemented in all fields.” Basic Act for Gender Equal Society, Act No. 78 of June
23, 1999 http://www.japaneselawtranslation.go.jp/ law/detail_main?re=02&vm =04&id=2526
24
Ibid.
25
H. Kawano, “Gender Policy and Diversity Management in the Japan Self-Defense Forces,” G. E.
Torgersen, O. Boe & H. Kawano, eds., Gender, Diversity, and Military Leadership Development in
Norway and Japan: A Preliminary Seminar on Socio-Cultural Backgrounds and Current Issues,Center for Global Security, National Defense Academy, Yokosuka, Japan, 2019, pp. 41-53.
23

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Chapter 6 ― Family Support and Gender Policy in the Japan Self-Defense Forces—A Case Study of JGSDF Families— [Kawano]

Female Personnel Empowerment Initiative in April, 201726. This 2017 Initiative provides
current guidelines for gender policies in the JSDF. While the Initiative emphasizes thevalue of promoting more active roles of women in the JSDF, it also clarifies humanresource management policy for women focusing on improved work-life balance, in orderto make the JSDF more attractive workplace and committed to gender equality. The
Initiative also aims at increasing the percentage of female JSDF personnel, and opens
virtually all positions in the JSDF to women.
Given that the majority of the families is the “double-income” type, and the husbands of
the SDF female personnel are also most likely working for SDF, it is quite important toensure family support for the SDF families not only in case of a large-scale natural
disaster and other emergency situation, but also in everyday life situation. Although theMedium Term Defense Program (FY2019-FY2023), issued in December 2018,
underlined the importance of “family support” measures, as well as “improving living
and work environment” and “promoting work style reforms” in order to further increase
the proportion of female SDF personnel, it remains to be seen how effectively thesepolicies are implemented27.

CONCLUSION
In the sections above, we examined the quantitative and qualitative data regarding thefollowing research questions: 1) Is "Community Capacity Model” applicable to the Japan
Ground Self-Defense Force (JGSDF) families?; 2) To what extent is "community
capacity" developed? Is it functioning effectively? Are there any regional differences?;and 3) GSDF family support programs: How well are they working at the local level? Are
there any regional differences?
Our findings suggest that a “community capacity” surrounding the JSDF families is not
yet fully developed. In particular, the GSDF families live in some areas are witnessing
eroding “sense of community.” Thereby, “Community Capacity Model” cannot be
26

For further details of historical process of gender policy development in Japan and policy
implication for the SDF, see Ibid. Also, see Ministry of Defense, The JSDF Female Personnel
Empowerment Initiative: Toward More Attractive SDF Adapting to the Era and Environment, Tokyo:
Ministry of Defense, 2017. https://www.mod.go.jp/j/profile/worklife/keikaku/pdf/initiative.pdf.
27
See The Medium Term Defense Program (FY2019-FY2023), December 18, 2018.
https://www.mod.go.jp/j/approach/agenda/guideline/2019/pdf/chuki_seibi31-35_e.pdf.

Chapter 6 ― Family Support and Gender Policy in the Japan Self-Defense Forces—A Case Study of JGSDF Families— [Kawano]99

applied to the GSDF families. Instead, alternative model of “Self-Efficacy,” or “Family
Resilience,” should be considered as a more relevant model to explain the case of the
JSDF families. Although there are some perceived needs, and the formal GSDF family
support system is currently under development, the GSDF families trust their own family
members and relatives by far, compared to others in neighborhood or those who belong
to SDF-related associations.

Nonetheless, as recognized in the Medium Term Defense Program in 2018, the issue of“improving living and work environment” while institutionalizing effective family
support systems for SDF personnel remains to be one of the most challenging but
significant task for SDF in an age of gender mainstreaming and work style reform. In
essence, improving quality of life and well-being of SDF personnel and their families
result in higher level of unit readiness, morale, and retention28.

M. Schwerin, “Quality of Life and Subjective Well-being among Military Personnel: An
Organizational Response to the Challenges of Military Life,” T. Britt et al. eds., Military Life: The
Psychology of Serving in Peace and Combat, Vol.4: Military Culture, West Port, CT: Praeger Security
International 2006, pp. 145-179.
28

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Seminar Program

SEMINAR PROGRAM
Military and Society in Israel and Japan—Family Support, Mental Health and Public Support—
October 5, 2018
At the Conference Room No. 2, the HQ Building of National Defense Academy,
1-10-20 Hashirimizu, Yokosuka, Kanagawa 2398686 JAPAN

1310
Opening Remarks (Kawano)1315-1345
Micky Aharonson: The Strategic Position of Israel
1345-1415
Eitan Shamir: IDF Doctrine and Force Development1415-1445
Yagil Levy: Casualties and Israeli Society
1445-1500
Coffee Break
1500-1530
Eyal Ben-Ari: The Uses of Psychology and the IDF
1530-1620
Ofra Ben-Ishai: The IDF Behavioral Sciences Department
1620-1640
Hitoshi Kawano: Family Support and Gender Policy in the JSDF
1640-1705
Q&A and Discussion
1705-1710
Closing Remarks (Kawano)Contributors

101

Micky Ahronson is an expert in international relations at Jerusalem Institute forStrategy and Security. She was head of the foreign relations directorate of the National
Security Council in the Prime Minister’s Office (2006-2014).

Eitan Shamir is a senior Lecturer at the Political Science Department, Bar Ilan
University, and a Senior Research Associate with the Begin Sadat Center for Strategic
Studies (BESA Center).

Yagil Levy is Yagil Levy is a professor of political sociology and public policy at theOpen University of Israel. He was Strategic Advisor, Government of Israel (2005-2011),
President, The European Research Group on Military and Society [ERGOMAS] (20132015), and Vice President, Israeli Sociological Society (2018-2019).

Eyal Ben-Ari is Senior Research Fellow and Director, The Kinneret Center on Peace,
Security and Society in Memory of Dan Shomron, Kinneret College on the Sea ofGalilee. He was Professor, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, and Head ofHarry S. Truman Research Institute for the Advancement of Peace, the Hebrew
University of Jerusalem,

Ofra Ben Ishai is Colonel (res.), IDF, and researcher at the Open University of Israel.
She was the Head of the Human Behavioral Science Dept. (MAMDA), IDF, and theChief Instructor of the Israeli National Defense College (INDC), IDF.

Hitoshi Kawano is Professor of Sociology at Department of Public Policy, and Directorof Center for International Exchange, National Defense Academy in Yokosuka, Japan.
He was Special Coordinator, Human Resources Development Division, Bureau of
Personnel & Education, Ministry of Defense (2011-2013).

GLOBAL SECURITY SEMINAR SERIES

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