Israel's Materialist Militarism

Israel's Materialist Militarism PDF Author: Yagil Levy
Publisher: Lexington Books
ISBN: 9780739119082
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 298

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Book Description
Israel's Materialist Militarism examines the decade of fluctuations in Israel's military policies, from the peace period of the Oslo Accords to the al-Aqsa Intifada, when the military's use of excessive force led to the collapse of the Palestinian Authority, and on to the Second Lebanon War of 2006, which reversed the moderating tendencies of the withdrawal from Gaza a year earlier. These dynamics of escalation and deescalation are explained in terms of materialist militarism, the exchange between social groups' military sacrifice and their social rewards, which in turn increases or decreases the level of militarism in society. Levy thus lays down a theoretical framework vital to tracing the fluctuating levels of militarism in Israel and elsewhere. Israel's Materialist Militarism is recommended for those interested in the Arab-Israeli conflict and military-society relations in general.

Israel's Materialist Militarism

Israel's Materialist Militarism PDF Author: Yagil Levy
Publisher: Lexington Books
ISBN: 9780739119082
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 298

Get Book

Book Description
Israel's Materialist Militarism examines the decade of fluctuations in Israel's military policies, from the peace period of the Oslo Accords to the al-Aqsa Intifada, when the military's use of excessive force led to the collapse of the Palestinian Authority, and on to the Second Lebanon War of 2006, which reversed the moderating tendencies of the withdrawal from Gaza a year earlier. These dynamics of escalation and deescalation are explained in terms of materialist militarism, the exchange between social groups' military sacrifice and their social rewards, which in turn increases or decreases the level of militarism in society. Levy thus lays down a theoretical framework vital to tracing the fluctuating levels of militarism in Israel and elsewhere. Israel's Materialist Militarism is recommended for those interested in the Arab-Israeli conflict and military-society relations in general.

Israel’s Death Hierarchy

Israel’s Death Hierarchy PDF Author: Yagil Levy
Publisher: NYU Press
ISBN: 0814738338
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 272

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Book Description
2012 Winner of the Shapiro Award for the Best Book in Israel Studies, presented by the Association for Israel Studies Whose life is worth more? That is the question that states inevitably face during wartime. Which troops are thrown to the first lines of battle and which ones remain relatively intact? How can various categories of civilian populations be protected? And when front and rear are porous, whose life should receive priority, those of soldiers or those of civilians? In Israel’s Death Hierarchy, Yagil Levy uses Israel as a compelling case study to explore the global dynamics and security implications of casualty sensitivity. Israel, Levy argues, originally chose to risk soldiers mobilized from privileged classes, more than civilians and other soldiers. However, with the mounting of casualty sensitivity, the state gradually restructured what Levy calls its “death hierarchy” to favor privileged soldiers over soldiers drawn from lower classes and civilians, and later to place enemy civilians at the bottom of the hierarchy by the use of heavy firepower. The state thus shifted risk from soldiers to civilians. As the Gaza offensive of 2009 demonstrates, this new death hierarchy has opened Israel to global criticism.

Militarism and Israeli Society

Militarism and Israeli Society PDF Author: Gabriel Sheffer
Publisher: Indiana University Press
ISBN: 0253004209
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 396

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Book Description
Challenging the established view that the civilian sector in Israel has been predominant over its security sector since the state's independence in 1948, this volume critically and systematically reexamines the relationship between these sectors and provides a deeper, more nuanced view of their interactions. Individual chapters cast light on the formal and informal arrangements, connections, and dynamic relations that closely tie Israel's security sector to the country's culture, civil society, political system, economy, educational system, gender relations, and the media. Among the issues and events discussed are Israel's separation barrier, the impact of Israel's military confrontations with the Palestinians and other Middle Eastern states -- especially Lebanon -- and the impact of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Israeli case offers insights about the role of the military and security in democratic nations in contemporary times.

Practical Soldiers: Israel’s Military Thought and Its Formative Factors

Practical Soldiers: Israel’s Military Thought and Its Formative Factors PDF Author: Avi Kober
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004306862
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 210

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Book Description
The book offers a framework for the analysis of formative factors in military thought: an account of the Israel Defense Force’s state of intellectualism and modernity; and an analysis of the realist and non-realist factors that have shaped Israeli military thought.

Israel's Death Hierarchy

Israel's Death Hierarchy PDF Author: Yagil Levy
Publisher: NYU Press
ISBN: 0814753345
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 270

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Book Description
2012 Winner of the Shapiro Award for the Best Book in Israel Studies, presented by the Association for Israel Studies Whose life is worth more? That is the question that states inevitably face during wartime. Which troops are thrown to the first lines of battle and which ones remain relatively intact? How can various categories of civilian populations be protected? And when front and rear are porous, whose life should receive priority, those of soldiers or those of civilians? In Israel’s Death Hierarchy, Yagil Levy uses Israel as a compelling case study to explore the global dynamics and security implications of casualty sensitivity. Israel, Levy argues, originally chose to risk soldiers mobilized from privileged classes, more than civilians and other soldiers. However, with the mounting of casualty sensitivity, the state gradually restructured what Levy calls its “death hierarchy” to favor privileged soldiers over soldiers drawn from lower classes and civilians, and later to place enemy civilians at the bottom of the hierarchy by the use of heavy firepower. The state thus shifted risk from soldiers to civilians. As the Gaza offensive of 2009 demonstrates, this new death hierarchy has opened Israel to global criticism.

Israel and Its Army

Israel and Its Army PDF Author: Stuart A. Cohen
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134146418
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 223

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Book Description
The Israel Defense Force (IDF) plays a key role in Israeli society, and has traditionally been perceived not only as the guardian of national survival, but also as a 'people's army' responsible for the custody of national values. This volume analyses the circumstances currently undermining these perceptions, and explores both the changes occurring in Israel’s military framework, and their potential implications. The book highlights the influence exerted by massive shifts in both Israel's external strategic landscape and in the country's domestic and cultural environments, which have compelled the IDF to undertake major programmes of structural reform, technological adaptation and doctrinal revision. This book argues that these changes have lead the public to subject the armed forces and their conduct to unprecedented critical scrutiny. The way in which Israelis and their army resolve these tensions is of crucial importance not only for Israel, but for the Middle East as a whole.

Israel’s Civil-Military Relations and Security Sector Reform

Israel’s Civil-Military Relations and Security Sector Reform PDF Author: Ian Westerman
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1003850596
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 166

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Book Description
This book examines Israel’s civil-military relations (CMR) in order to explore alternatives to orthodox Western models of security sector reform (SSR) in post-conflict societies. This book argues that the guidelines of SSR have always tended to draw on theoretical work in the field of CMR and focus too heavily on Western, liberal democratic models of governance. Consequently, reform programs based on these guidelines, and intended for use in post-conflict and conflict-affected states, have had, at best, mixed results. The book challenges the necessity for this over-reliance on traditional Western liberal democratic solutions and instead advocates an alternative approach. It proposes that by drawing on an unconventional CMR model, that in turn references the specific context and cultural background of the particular state being subject to reform, there is a significantly higher chance of success. Drawing on a case study of Israel's CMR, the author seeks to provide practical assistance to those working in this area and considers the question of how this unorthodox CMR model might usefully inform post-conflict and conflict-affected SSR programmes. This book will be of interest to students of military studies, security studies, Israeli politics, and International Relations.

Israel's Foreign Policy Towards the PLO

Israel's Foreign Policy Towards the PLO PDF Author: Amnon Aran
Publisher: Apollo Books
ISBN: 9781845194833
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 196

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Book Description
Now in paperback, this detailed examination of Israeli foreign policy towards the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) - between the 1967 war and the 2005 withdrawal from the Gaza Strip - focuses on the impact of the process of globalization on the Israeli state's politics, economy, society, and culture. In order to determine how interfacing developed between foreign policy and globalization, a theoretical framework is presented that brings together two established approaches that hitherto have been advanced in parallel: Foreign Policy Analysis and Globalization Theory. Causal relationships underpinning Israeli foreign policy - involving government, the state, the economy, social stratification, and the media - are linked to globalization by specific example. Conventional accounts of this relationship strip military and political factors of any significance, in terms of the conceptualization of globalization and its causes, in favor of spatio-temporal and economic dimensions. The state is viewed as being compelled to transform in response to the pressures of globalization. But in the case of Israel, the state acted proactively by using foreign policy towards the PLO as a key site of action to capture the opportunities and cope with the challenges presented by globalization. This study shows that the increasing impact of military and political globalization during the Cold War on the Arab-Israeli conflict resulted in Israeli foreign policy towards the PLO becoming entwined from the early 1970s.

Israel’s Armed Forces in Comparative Perspective

Israel’s Armed Forces in Comparative Perspective PDF Author: Stuart A. Cohen
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 113516956X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 254

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Book Description
This edited book constitutes the first detailed attempt at a comparative international analysis of the transformations that are currently affecting the composition of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and their place in Israeli society. Focusing primarily on deviations from the traditional norm of universal military service, the book compares the emergence of a new type of "citizen army" in Israel with the formats that have in recent decades become evident in other western democracies. In addition, these essays correct the conventional tendency to concentrate almost exclusively on the influences stimulating military institutional change in the West, and thereby to overlook the equally important factors that retard its momentum. By contrast, this volume deliberately highlights the brakes as well as the accelerators in current processes, thereby presenting a far more faithful picture of their complexity. This book will be of much interest to students of Israeli politics, military studies, Middle Eastern politics, security studies and IR in general. Stuart Cohen is a senior research associate of the BESA (Begin-Sadat) Center for Strategic Studies and also teaches political studies at Bar-Ilan University, Israel. His most recent book is Israel and its Army: From Cohesion to Confusion (Routledge, 2008).

The Normalization of War in Israeli Discourse, 1967-2008

The Normalization of War in Israeli Discourse, 1967-2008 PDF Author: Dalia Gavriely-Nuri
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 0739172603
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 179

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Book Description
The Normalization of War in Israeli Discourse, 1967-2008, by Dalia Gavriely-Nuri opens a window to how Israelis talk, write, and think about war. In the post-World War II period, Israel has taken part in eight wars, more than almost any other western democracy. In addition to "official" wars, Israel has experienced two Intifadas and repetitive long periods of bombings of its border-settlements. This book argues that such an intensive involvement in military actions provides a natural arena for a uniquely fertile war discourse. Gavriely-Nuri identifies a special war discourse: a "war-normalizing discourse" (WND). WND as a set of linguistic, discursive, and cultural devices aims at blurring the anomalous character of war by transforming it into an event perceived as "natural"-- a "normal" part of life. Moreover, the WND is served as a unique rhetorical compass and illuminates one basic organizing principle underlying the Israeli war discourse. WND has been in use throughout Israel's history, in periods of war as well as in periods of relative peace. It has become a fundamental part of the Israeli public discourse concerning both peace and war and an integral part of Israeli identity. The Normalization of War in Israeli Discourse, 1967-2008, is an essential investigation into how nations use rhetoric and tactical discourse to normalize their conflicts.