Survival Motivation Survival motivation is when the soldier is convinced he has no alternative but to fight to stay alive. This motivation applies to struggles for survival by a society or country. The Jewish community in the British mandate of Palestine had to struggle for existence immediately after the United Nations approved the establishment of a state in 1947 and during the war of independence the following year. The entire community then felt a threat to its existence. The primary trait of survival motivation is total dedication to the struggle.
Individuals join the fight because they feel it is a matter of life and death.
The feeling is so pervasive that the exceptions are de-legitimized. Those who dodge the draft are regarded as traitors. Induction is not selective. This type of recruitment was conducted by the partisans during World War II and by the Palmach and Haganah before Israel's independence. Another trait of survival motivation is that it subordinates the individual's interest to that of the collective.