A Nation-In-Arms: State, Nation, and Militarism in Israel's First Years Author(s): Uri Ben-Eliezer Source: Comparative Studies in Society

and History, Vol. 37, No. 2 (Apr., 1995), pp. 264-285 Published by: Cambridge University Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/179282 Accessed: 12/10/2008 12:55
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A Nation-in-Arms: State, Nation, and Militarismin Israel's First Years

URI BEN-ELIEZER Tel-AvivUniversity Like many other states, Israel was forged throughthe struggle of a national liberationmovementthat likely drew inspirationfrom an ethnic past and that certainly worked to establish a political framework.1Once the state existed, however, its leaders did not regardthe ethnie as an objective category that would in large measuredeterminewhethera nation would emerge.2 Instead, they viewed the ethnie as a subjectsusceptible,in varyingdegrees, to manipulation, invention, domination, and mobilization.3As the prime minister of Piedmont said, "We have made Italy, now we have to make Italians";or as Israel's first prime minister, Ben-Gurion, put it in April 1951 during the election campaign:"I see in these elections the shaping of a nation for the state because there is a state but not a nation."4 This essay deals with the firstyearsafterthe foundingof the Israelistate. My main concern is to examine the way in which the state constructedan ethnic populationinto a fighting nation, a nation-in-arms.Usually, states construct nationsthroughvariousmeans, such as the school system, the media, and the (Knesset),Ben- Gurionclaimedthat army.In a speech to the Israeliparliament of was all the the reason, among possibilities, for the reconstruction efficiency the Israeli nation, primarilyby the army: I havebeen a Zionistall my life andI do not denythe existenceof Israel,heaven
forbid . . . but . . . even the English nation was not always that nation . . . but was

Anthony D. Smith, "State-Makingand Nation-Building,"in John A. Hall, ed., States in History (Oxford:Basil Blackwell, 1986), 251. 2 An ethnic community,or ethnie, shares a common myth of origins and descent, a common history, elements of distinctive culture, a common territorialassociation, and sense of group solidarity.A nationis much more impersonal,abstract,andovertly political thanan ethnic group. It is a cultural-politicalcommunity that has become conscious of its coherence, unity, and interests. See, AnthonyD. Smith, "Ethnieand Nationin the Moder World,"Millenniparticular um, 14:2 (1983), 128-32; Peter Alter, Nationalism (London:EdwardArnold, 1989), 17. 3 John ManchesterUniversity Press, 1982); Breuilly,Nationalismand the State (Manchester: Eric J. Hobsbawm, Nations and Nationalism Since 1780 (Cambridge:CambridgeUniversity Press, 1990); Ernest Gellner, Nation and Nationalism (New York: Cornell University Press, 1983); Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities(London:Verso, 1983). 4 Hobsbawm,Nations and NationalismSince 1780, 44-45; Ben-Gurionin Mapai's meeting, from Eyal Kafkafi,A CountrySearchingForIts People (Tel-Aviv:HakibutHameuchad,1991), 3.
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composed of differenttribes . . . fighting one another.And only after a development of hundredsof years did they become one nation. ... We do not have hundredsof of the army ... we will not soon be a nation .... years, and without the instrument We must guide the progress of history, accelerate it, direct it. ... This requires a frameworkof duty . . . a frameworkof national discipline.5 Israeli military sociologists have accepted Ben-Gurion's rationalization. Relying on theories of nation building and modernization that perceive the army as an agent of development and integration,6 these sociologists wrote on "the many and varied functions of the Israeli army" and on its expanding role in the civil sphere. The army was said to contribute to immigrant absorption, act as a melting pot for Jewish ethnic groups, help in conquering the wilderness and in further settlement, educate for good citizenship and for love of country, and foster culture. Virtually no area of life seems to have escaped the eyes of the scholars who probed "the non-military use of the military."7 As for the army's involvement in internal politics or the chances of a military coup, this possibility, most scholars claimed, was not real, since Israel is a nationin-arms.

The nation-in-arms was portrayed as a model of relations between the civil and military sectors, in which the boundaries between the two are fragmented.8 These permeable boundaries, some scholars believed, allowed the two sectors (and the two elites) to interact across a wide range of situations and to benefit from reciprocal influence after agreeing on the rules of the game. It made it possible, on the one hand, to conceive of expanding the army's role and intervention in building the nation, a phenomenon that Horowitz and Lissak termed (partial) militarization of the civil sector. At the same time, it was said to bring about "civilianization," in which civilians increase their influence and involvement in the military sector, for example, through Israel's unique system of service in the reserves, which transformed
Kneset Protokol, August 19, 1952. John J. Johnson, ed., The Role of the Military in UnderdevelopedCountries (Princeton: PrincetonUniversityPress, 1962); LucianW. Pie, "Armiesin the Process of Political Modernization," in Johnson, The Role of the Militaryin Underdeveloped Countries, 69-89; Moshe Lissak, Military Roles and Modernization(California, Sage, 1976). 7 Moshe Lissak, "The Israel Defence Forces as an Agent of Socialization and Education,"in M. R. VanGils, ed., The PerceivedRole of the Military(Rotterdam: Rotterdam UniversityPress, 1971) 325-39; Dan Horowitz and Baruch Kimmerling, "Some Social Implicationsof Military Service and the Reserve System in Israel,"Archieve EuropeanSociologie, 15 (1974), 262-76; Amos Perlmutter, TheMilitaryand Politics in ModernTimes(New Haven:Yale UniversityPress, 1977), 251-80; Idem., Militaryand Politics in Israel: Nation Buildingand Role Expansion(New York:FrederickA. Praeger, 1969); Victor Azarya and BaruchKimmerling,"New Immigrantsin the Israeli Armed Forces," ArmedForces and Society, 6:3 (1980), 22-41. 8 A. R. Luckham, "A ComparativeTypology of Civil-MilitaryRelations," Governmentand Opposition, 6 (1971), 17-20; David Rapoport,"A Comparative Theory of Militaryand Political Types," in Samuel Huntington, ed., Changing Patterns.of Military Politics (New York: Free Press, 1962), 71-100; Adam Roberts, Nation in Arms, The Theory and Practice of Territorial Defence (London: Chatto and Windus, 1976).
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the army into a "people's army"imbuedwith the democraticand civil (some of the general society.9 added, egalitarian)spirit characteristic these studies tended to focus on the army's integrativemission, Overall, its instrumental role of ignoring wielding the means of organized violence. The integrativeapproach,doubtfulenough in researchon the third world,10 was wholly inappropriate for Israel, which had experienced plenty of wars with violent confrontationsin the intervalsbetween them. Interestingly,even the few scholarswho went beyond the civil role of the Israeli nation-in-arms and dealt with its military, instrumentalaspect, preferredto stay within the and to write abouthow the nation-in-arms functions"as a integrativeapproach means to survive in a hostile strategic environment."11 These scholars addressedneitherthe crucialrole the armyplayed in controllingthe Israeli-Arab citizens throughthe militaryadministration duringthe 1950s and early 1960s nor theirexclusion from participating in the nation-formation process because were from service.12 they military exempt The question that should be asked is whether it makes sense to view the nation-in-armsas a functional mechanism for avoiding military coups, as a responseto needs of survival, or as a meansof modernizing; perhapsit should be seen as a political meansthatconscious political actorsuse to legitimize the idea of solving political problems by military means throughthe attemptto make the business of the militarythe preoccupation and concern of the entire nation.
THE FORMATION OF THE NATION-IN-ARMS

Ever since the nation-state became the centralorganizingprinciplein Europe, both in principleand in practice, this system has producedboth internaland externalwars.13 More frequentwars meantthatthe nation-state was forced to tax the populationmore heavily, mobilize citizens for combat, and demand

9 Dan Horowitz and Moshe Lissak, Out of Utopia (Albany: SUNY Press, 1989), 195-230; Dan Horowitz, "The Israeli Defense Forces: A Civilianized Military in a Partially Militarized Society," in RomanKolkowicz and AndreiKorbonski,Soldiers, Peasantsand Bureaucrats(London: George Allen and Unwin, 1982), 77-106; EduardLuttwakand Dan Horowitz, The Israeli in Israel,"InterPartnership Army (London:Allen Lane, 1975); YoramPeri, "Political-Military national Political Science Review, 2:3 (1981), 303-15. 10 Vicky Randall and Robin Theobald, Political Change and Underdevelopment (Durham: Duke University Press, 1985), 67-98. 11 Dan Horowitz, "StrategicLimitationsof A Nation in Arms," Armed Forces and Society, 13:2 (1987), 277-94. 12 On the tendencyto ignore the Palestiniansin the IsraeliSociology, see BaruchKimmerling, The Palestiniansand their Meaning in Israeli Soci"Sociology, Ideology, and Nation-Building: ety," AmericanSociological Review, 57:4 (1992), 446-60. 13 F. Gilbert, ed., The Historical Essays of Otto Hintze (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1975), 159-77; Michael Howard, "Warand the Nation-State,"in his The Causes of Wars(London: Unwin Paperbacks,1984), 23-35.

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absolute loyalty.'4 It was within this context that the nation-in-armswas formed. France after the revolution, Prussia following its defeat by Napoleon, and Japanin the early years of the Meiji Era (1868-1912) are examples of states which constructed a nation for the purpose of war. The wars that France waged for more than twenty years had one distinctive featurethat its adversaries lacked: nationalpassions. France'swars were those of a nation, a fact given legal affirmationby the levee en masse, in which the entire male would later extend this idea, populationwas conscripted.The nation-in-arms in the form of the moraland materialcontribution of the home frontto the war effort and of the blurringof differencesbetween soldiers and citizens.15 Napoleon, who inheritedthe Jacobin nation-in-arms,exploited it craftily for the purpose of waging war. Half a century later, the 1870s humiliating defeat to PrussiaturnedFranceagain into a nation-in-arms, ready for revenge throughthe Reveil national of the years 1910-14, a rediscoveryof patriotic ideals and vocabularywithin large segments of Frenchsociety.16Even more than France, Prussiais an historicalexample of how a nationwas constructed or inventedfrom above with the conscious aim of winning wars. The cardinal expressionof the new concept was the reformscarriedout within the Prussian army after Napoleon defeated it in 1807. These included a gradualtransition from a standingarmy composed of mercenariesand foreign troops to a mass army which included a nationalmilitia.17 The Prussianarmy's reformsdid not reflect a surrender by the government to nationalist, radical, or liberal tendencies but were, even more than in the Frenchcase, a calculated manufacture of nationalfeeling to help in winning wars. Vagts labels the Prussian generals who fomented the changes in the army and in the general conception of war Prussia's militaryJacobins. And aptly so. Total mobilization enabled the state to indoctrinatethe conscripts with a nationalist-militaristoutlook which, after their discharge, they transferred to the rest of the population. GraduallyPrussia-Germanybecame a
14 Samuel E. Finer, "State and Nation-Buildingin Europe: The Role of the Military,"in Charles Tilly, ed., The Formationof National States in WesternEurope (Princeton:Princeton University Press, 1975), 84-163; RichardBear, "Warand the Birth of the Nation State," The Journal of Economic History, 33 (1973), 203-21; Anthony Giddnes, The Nation State and Violence (Berkeley: University of California Press), 1987; Karen A. Rasler and William R. Thompson, Warand State Making (Boston: Unwin Hyman, 1989). 15 Carlton J. H. Hayes, "JacobinNationalism,"in his The Historical Evolution of Modern Nationalism (New York, Russel and Russell, 1931), 43-83; Hans Kohn, Nationalism, Its Meaning and History (Malabar:Robert E. Kreiger), 65, 82, 27-29; Alfred Vagts, A History of Militarism (New York, Meridian Books, 1959), 104-28; Richard D. Challener, The French Theory of the Nation in Arms (New York:Russell and Russell, 1965). 16 David B. Ralston, The Army of the Republic, The Place of the Military in the Political Evolution of France, 1871-1914 (Cambridge,MA: M.I.T. Press, 1967); Douglas Porch, The March to the Marne, The French Army, 1871-1914 (Cambridge:CambridgeUniversity Press, 1981). 17 Gilbert, TheHistorical Essays of OttoHintze, 208; Vagts,A History of Militarism, 129-52.

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state almost constantlyat war, blurringthe boundarybetween civil and military to the point where war became everyone'sproject. All that remainedwas to spur the nation to war, a goal that GeneralBaron ColmarVon Der Goltz, for example, set himself, at the turn of the century. "Wars,"the general
noted in his book, The Nation in Arms, "are the fate of mankind . . . in our

day not only the rulers must be familiarwith the art of war: wars are of the nation."18 The aim of Japan'sleadersat the adventof the twentiethcenturywas to turn their country into an empire able to stand on an equal footing with the Europeanempires. Warwas one avenueto thatgoal, albeitnot in the traditional sense. A Japanesemilitary academy reportexplained:
A characteristicof moder war is a fight with the total strengthof nations. War in earliertimes was decided by the side with the strongestmilitarypower. In modem war, fighting is on the level of financialwar, ideological war, and strategicwar, in addition to the military war.19

In the years following the Meiji Restorationof 1868, Japanhad the ambitions of a great power but the resources of a small power. By applying universal conscription,Japan'sleadersembraceda plan to use the army as a school for the population,a means to inculcatenationaland militaristicvalues. The vast reserve system applied from that time on turned Japan into a "nation-inreserve."20

The FrenchJacobinsand then Napoleon, the Prussianreformers,the imperial Japaneseleadersare all paradigmatic examplesof a moder phenomenon: no the are Wars nobility or by mercenariesbut by mass longer fought by armies imbued with a nationalist spirit and backed by active civilian support. The nation-in-armsmodel ascribes an importantplace to the state in creating-or exploiting-nationalist sentiment, and in linking it to the need for war and then to the army as the state's instrumentfor waging war, thus placing the armyin a position of no longerbeing consideredalien and separate
18 MartinKitchen, The German OfficerCorps, 1890-1914 (Oxford:ClarendonPress, 1968; Emillio Willems, A Way of Life and Death, Three Centuries of Prussian-GermanMilitarism (Nashville: VanderbiltUniversity Press, 1986) 49-112; Geoff Eley, "Army, State and Civil Society: Revisiting the Problemof GermanMilitarism,"from his Unificationto Nazism (Boston: of EuropeanSociety 1870Allen and Unwin, 1987), 85-109; Geoffry Best, "TheMilitarization World(New York:RutgersUniver1914", in J. R. Gillis, ed., The Militarizationof the Western sity Press, 1989), 13-29; Colmar Von Der Goltz, The Nation in Arms (London: Hugh Rees, 1913), 470-71. 19 Theodore F. Cook, "The JapaneseReserve Experience:From Nation-in-Armsto Baseline Defense," in Louis A. Zurcherand Gwyn Harries-Jenkins, MilitaryForces (LonSupplementary don: Sage, 1978), 265. 20 Ibid, 259-73; HakwonH. Sunoo, JapaneseMilitarism,Past and Present(Chicago:NelsonHall, 1975), 1-65; Meirion and Susie Harries, Sheathing the Sword: The Demilitarizationof Japan (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1987); J. B. Crowley, "FromClosed Door to Empire:The in BernardS. Silbermanand H. D. Harootunian, Formationof the Meiji MilitaryEstablishment," eds., ModernJapaneseLeadership:Traditionand Change (Tucson:Universityof ArizonaPress, 1966).

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from society at large. For that reason, perhaps, the nation-in-armsdoes not excel in military coups; but it is certainly not immune to militarism, which makes wars a normativeand legitimate solution for political problems.21 was formedas a way to Whatfollows is an analysis of how a nation-in-arms of the solution legitimize political problems by military means. The first section deals with two causes, partypolitics on one side and nationalpolitics on the other, that induced the state's leadershipto develop the new mode of mobilization. The second section deals with the practices that have built the nation-in-armsconstruct, and the third section illustrateshow this construct was culturallylegitimized. The last section examines the relationsbetween a fighting nation and the possibility of war.
A STATE ARMY CONSTRUCTS A NATION

A state is not a legal entity thatderives its existence solely from a declaration (in this case, May 14, 1948). In the seminal period of Israel, variouspolitical actions were carriedout in an attemptto constructthe state. One such action involved the transition from a militia and an undergroundforce to a fullfledged army fighting a war. Beginning in December 1947 and reaching a peak the following summer,this change was markedalso by mobilizationon the basis of order and duty.22Israel still did not resemble a nation-in-arms. When that idea was first raised in a small forum by the acting chief of staff, cannot be trusted, we need Yigael Yadin, it was rejected. "A nation-in-arms trainedpeople," Yadinwas told. And: "Youcannot make a commandoforce out of vendors from the market."23 Statism (mamlakhtiut)was the principle of action that the state's leaders invoked in orderto transferto the state the responsibilityand control of most functions from the voluntarybodies usually attachedto political partiesin the pre-state era. The state would thereby concentratethe bulk of power in its hand. The process included, for example, the attemptto eliminate the different educational tracks; the formation of an independentstate bureaucracy; and, most crucial, the placementof a monopoly on the means of violence, so cardinalto every state.24 The process of forming one army,however, encounteredserious obstacles.
21 On the concept of militarism, see Volker R. Berghahn, Militarism: The History of an InternationalDebate, 1861-1979 (Cambridge:CambridgeUniversity Press, 1981), 31-36; Michael Mann, "The Roots and Contradictionsof Modem Militarism," in his States, War and Capitalism (New York: Basil Blackwell, 1988), 166-87; Kjell Skejelsbaek, "Militarism, its Dimensions and Corollaries:An Attemptto ConceptualClarification," in AsbjornEdie and Narek Militarism(New York:St. Martin'sPress, 1980), 77-105. Thee, eds., Problemsof Contemporary 22 Yoav Gelber, "Ben-Gurionand the Establishmentof the IDF," Jerusalem Quarterly, 50 (1989), 56-80. 23 Ben-Gurion's Diary, March 17, 1948, Ben-GurionArchive. 24 PeterY. Medding, TheFoundingof Israeli Democracy 1946-1967 (Oxford:OxfordUniversity Press, 1990), 134-37; Charles Liebman and Eliezer Don-Yehiya, Civil Religion in Israel (Berkeley: University of Berkeley Press, 1983), 81-122.

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before the Many of those who had set the tone in the militaryinfrastructure state's establishmentand during the war were identified not with the ruling party, Mapai (Israel Labor party) but with the more left-wing opposition, Mapam. Attemptsby Mapai, led by Ben-Gurion, to obtain influence in the army before and duringthe war were not always successful. The army was rife with partyfactionalism,even in the war's darkestdays, which often left it unable to act.25Now, citing the creationof the state and his authorityas its elected leader, Ben-Gurionaspiredto form a state armynot saddledby party politics. Naturally,Mapamobjected. In August 1949, when the government submittedto the Knesset a law on security,Mapamsaid it fearedthat such an elite estrangedfrom the nation's armywould producea militarist,technocratic an a As needs. alternative,Mapamproposed militia stronglyresembling the forces of the pre-stateperiodthatwould drawits strengthfrom the people, not that operatedby law and fiat.26 Mapam, in the state bureaucratic apparatus idea of a had raised the fact, people's armybased on the notionthatthe people would determinethe use of arms. Unlike the nationnot the state, themselves, the in-arms, people's army implies that the state's authorityis weakening or being rejected.27Mapam'sunderlyingrationalewas obvious. If its proposals were accepted, the party would gain a huge political advantageand would dislodge Mapai's foothold in the army. But even many in the ruling party, why Ben-Gurionwas so eagerto tamperwith the Mapai, could not understand in their which centers party wielded influence and to transfer full power the state. Ben-Gurion's to politicalview was clear. The develpolitical weight life in had not necessarilyaccordedhis party of opment political parties public a superior position and during the pre-state period had often paralyzed its ability to act. It was this inclusion of political parties in public life that enabled Mapam to influence security forces. Statism, Ben-Gurion hoped, would give a tremendouspower advantageto those who headed the state and controlled its centralistand autonomousmechanisms. Thus, to the query of Mapai activists-"Is it conceivable that the party will not be active in the army?"-Ben-Gurion replied, "It is for the good of the state and not to the detrimentof the party."28 the effortsby state'sleadersto form a supraThe controversiessurrounding party mass army recalled disputes generatedby the Junkers'attemptsto reform their army. They, too, ostensibly acted against their own interests by demandingsuch reforms. But their calculationwas clear. A strong Prussian
25 Anita 1948, Ben-Gurion'sStrugglefor Control(Tel-Aviv: Shapira,The ArmyControversy, HakibutzHameuchad,1985; YoavGelber, Whythe PalmachWasDissolved (Jerusalem:Shoken, 1986). 26 August 15, 1949, Kneset Protokol(Israel's parliament); Mapai Center, February2, 1950, Mapai Archive. 27 Roberts, Nation in Arms, 37. 28 Mapai Secretariat,August 7, 1949, Mapai Archive.

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army under indirectJunkercontrol would serve Junkerpolitics better than a weak and depleted Junkerarmy, which would risk defeat in a war.29 The analogy between the Prussianand Israeli cases is even more comprehensive. If Ben-Gurionhad established a strong professional standing state army,he would have played into the handsof the Mapamoppositionby giving a basis for theirfear thatthe armywould be isolatedfrom society's needs. The formula for avoiding this potential critination-in-armswas the appropriate cism. This is a formulaof an army that is not a militia but exhibits the elements of a militia: an army controlledby the state, not by the people, but in which the people participate.Likewise, in orderto neutralizeliberal and leftwing criticismagainsta strongstandingstatearmy,the Prussianreformersdid not stop with generalconscriptionto form an hierarchical,regimental,formal mass army, the Landstrum,but combined with it a militia element, the less rigid and more populist Landwehr.This enabled the Prussiansto presentthe reformed army as representingthe people and the modem, ratherthan the traditional,political order.30 Party politics was only one reason for the nation-in-arms.Neither the Prussian, Japanese, nor French model of the nation-in-armswas built in routine times. Japanfaced a change of leadershipfollowing the defeat and overthrowof the TokugawaShogun. Intrusionsby Westernnations into Japanese internalaffairs were crucial in triggeringthe Meiji Restoration.France was under threatof invasion and facing a desperatemilitary situation, while Prussiahad been defeated in a war, and its leadersdefined reality in terms of national catastrophe.These vicissitudes were appropriate for the leaders to for mobilizing the population. establish new social arrangements Israel, too, was facing tremendousupheaval. The 600,000 PalestinianArabs who had left the country during the war were waiting for permission to return, and those who had remained were placed under military government.31 This situation could threatenIsrael no less than the fact that most states did not recognize the new state's borders, which did not follow the United Nations 1947 partitionresolutionbut were redrawnaccordingto war gains. Underthese circumstances,the leadershipwantedto preparethe population for the possibility of a second round. The formationof a strong mass ethnic army was the main means to achieve that goal, although it was not enough by itself. Almost concurrentlywith the Arab's mass exodus, about
Vagts, The History of Militarism, 59-60. Ibid, 138-9. As for the Frenchcase, Challener'sbook, TheFrenchTheoryof the Nation in Arms, provides an excellent discussionof the connectionbetweenpartypolitics and the nation-inarms. 31 Benny Morris, The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem, 1947-1949 (Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press, 1989); Ian Lustick, Arabs in a Jewish State (Texas:University of Texas Press, 1980).
30

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200,000 Jews streamedinto Israel at a rate of 15,000 to 30,000 per month; and within a few years the country's population more than doubled.32The immigrantsturnedIsraelinto a state in which one ethnic groupconstitutedthe majority.But was it a nation? The Jewish immigrantscame from every corer of the world. They brought a babel of languages, a bewildering array of customs and outlooks. Some were Ashkenazi (like the majorityin the pre-stateperiod), but most of them were Sephardi(from NorthAfrica and the Middle East). Few were acquainted with the Zionist movement and its realizationin the pre-stateperiod. When the prime minister visited a battalion commanders'class in the army, he describedhis impressions,saying thathe saw only "one race, Ashkenazis.""I see no greaterdanger,"he added, "thanif the commandersare from a 'noble' race and the rank and file from a low race."33 Ben-Gurionresisted the possibility that the Sephardiand Ashkenazi communities would become focal points of identification.The Israeli leadership partof both designatedthe armyas the means for makingthe new immigrants the nation and its ethnic army.A case in point was the army's involvementin the ma'abarot,the squalidcamps in which the majorityof the new immigrants were housed in that period. Beginning in 1950 the army assumed responsibility for many of these camps. Its involvement-teaching, looking afterthe children, doing maintenancework, dispensing medical aid, and supplying for laundryor for food and clothing-extended even to makingarrangements communicationsfacilities in the camps.34 drew it closer to the new immigrants The army'spresence in the ma'abarot and preventedthe creationof a possible barrierbetween the two groups. As
the journal for the Israeli Defense Force stated, "The army's help . . . will

teach the new immigrantthat the army and the uniform he sees are in fact his." And, again:"Thearmy'shelp is furtherproofthatthe soldieris really the right-handof the civilian."35The army,then, was not depicted in terms of its primaryfunction, as the instrumentof organizedviolence in the society, but was given a civil image of an intimate friendly force. Newspapers of the period ran numerousfeaturestitled, "SoldiersTakeGood Care of the Kids," "Female Soldiers Teach Hebrew,"and the like.36 This intimacy attested not only to an ethnic sympathybut, morebroadly,to the immigrants'mobilization to the security missions of the new state.
32 July 5, 1949, KnesetProtokol;Tom Segev, TheFirst Israelis (New York:Free Press, 1986); VardaPilovski, ed., TransitionFrom 'Yishuv'to State 1947-1949 (in Hebrew) (Haifa: Haifa University, 1988); MordechaiNaor, ed., First Yearto Statehood, 1948-1949 (Hebrew) (Jerusalem: Yad Ben-Zvi, 1988). 33 Mapai Secretariat,June 1, 1950, Mapai Archive. 34 Bamachane (IDF's Bulletin), November 23, 1950; Kneset Protokol, January29, 1951, Bamachane, September20, 1951; Kneset Protokol, December 20, 1951. 35 Bamachane, November 23, 1950; Bamachane, April 5, 1951. 36 Bamachane, September20, 1951.

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Now the army was involved in civilian tasks, just as the immigrantswould soon take part in the military.Ben-Gurionleft no doubt about the purposeof the institutionalaffiliationsforged between the new immigrantsand the army. The They would learn, he said, "not armyHebrewbut Hebrew soldiering."37 army's involvement in educating the new immigrants was part of a vast projectmeantto turnthe IsraeliJewish populationinto a fighting nation along the lines of the classic Frenchexamplepresentedin the Frenchassembly in the following terms:The young men were to go forth to battle;the marriedmen would forge arms;the women were to make tents and clothing; and the aged were "to preach hatredof kings and the unity of the Republic."38
THE PRACTICES OF A NATION-IN-ARMS

On August 23, 1793, the Jacobinstate gave organizationalexpression to the aim of creatinga strong army.The levee en masse made it mandatoryfor all Frenchmales to enlist. Three hundredthousandwere mobilized immediately. Within little more than a year the army would number over one million soldiers.39The Israeli military service law of August 1949 and a numberof subsequent amendmentsgave legal validity to the special arrangementsintended to establish a strong, professional, mass army in Israel. Particularly notablewas the decision to createa four-tiermilitarysystem: a careerarmy,as well as a regular army; the reserves; and the border settlements. The army comprised men and women alike, even those in the age group of fourteento eighteen years old were placed within a security framework(Gadna) to prepare them for militaryservice by means of a few hoursof activity each week. The durationof compulsoryservice for males, in those days consideredvery lengthy, was two years; from 1952, it was two and a half years.40 The suppositionsof some scholarsnotwithstanding, the purposeof Israel's extensive reserve corps was not to introducecivilian patternsinto the army.41 The historicalexample can be helpful here too. Prussianswho completedtheir five-year stint in the army(threeyears as a conscriptand two of reserve duty) were transferred to the Landwehrmilitia, which had no professional officer corps and lacked the severe discipline of the regulararmy.Nevertheless, the Prussian militia was an extension of Prussianmilitarism, not its antithesis. The armywas backedup by the first Landwehr,then by the second Landwehr, and in the last resort by the entire remaining male population, the Land37 Kneset Protokol, August 18, 1952.
38

CambridgeUniversity Press, 1988), 55-66. 40 Kneset Protokol, August 29, 1949. 41 Lissak, "The Israel Defence forces as an Agent of Socializationand Education"; Horowitz and Kimmerling, "Some Social Implications of Military Service and the Reserve System in Israel";Horowitz, "TheIsraeli Defense Forces:A CivilianizedMilitaryin a PartiallyMilitarized Society."

39 Pierre Birenbaum, States and Collective Action: The European Experience (Cambridge:

Challener,The French Theoryof the Nation in Arms, 3.

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sturm.42In Japan, too, where leaders wanted to create a nation capable of standingon an equal footing with the West, an efficient conscriptsystem was and the Germanmilideveloped. The example of the Frenchnation-in-arms tarymodel were never far fromthe mindsof Japan'sleaderswhen they backed up the men in active service with an extensive system of organizedreserves. After two years of service the soldierpassed into the FirstReserve for a period of five years and four months, then to the Second Reserve for ten years. This amountedto seventeen years and four months of militaryobligation.43 The patternrecurredin Israel, where the aim was to establish a mass army of conscripts, called up by state order, combined with professional officers, for whom being a soldier was their only job. This was backed up by the reserve army of citizens trained to be soldiers in every respect and who demonstrated excellence, among other ways, by their ability to shift, quickly and efficiently, whenever called upon, from civilian to soldier status.44Such an armyhad one purposeonly: to win in a war. Hence, Ben-Gurion'sreply to the left-wing Mapam'sidea of a voluntarymilitia:"Wemust forget the romanticism of the army. . . . We will make war not with a local militia but with an army of rapid movement and heavy firepower, activating large formations, various corps . . . in combined operations . . . with uniform planning and command."45 In 1952 Ben-Gurion used this same spirittojustify the government'sdecision to extendcmilitaryservice by an additionalsix months. Israel's security, he stated, was based on trainingthe entire nation-people of all ages capable of declaredthatif Israelwas Ben-Gurion bearingarms-to fight when threatened. not wiling to be a fightingnation,it could not be a living nationandcertainlynot an independentone.46 The Israeli prime ministeraspiredto constructa new Israeli, even as the Jacobinstate had constructeda new Frenchman.The ideal was describedby Barere,the strongman of thatJacobinstate, in his memoirs: "In France the soldier is a citizen, and the citizen a soldier."47 Moreover, Ben-Gurionexplained, when he offered reasons for prolonging army service, "quantityis also decisive." It was a comment in the style of Napoleon's "God walks with the big battalions."Not surprisingly,the overwhelming majorityof the Israeliparliament,includingthe right-wingopposition Herut party,led by MenachemBegin, supportedthe proposal to extend armyservice by six months. The vote was seventy in favorand eleven against, thatthe people's elected representaa very impressivemajoritydemonstrating for Israel.48 tives unequivocallysupportedthe idea of a nation-in-arms
42 Gilbert, The Historical Essays of Otto Hintze, 208; Finer, "State and Nation-Buildingin Europe," 153. 43 Cook, "The JapaneseReserve Experience,"260-2. 44 Kneset Protokol, August 29, 1949. 45 Kneset Protokol, November 9, 1949. 46 Kneset Protokol, August 18, 1952. 47 Hayes, The Historical Evolution of ModernNationalism, 43-83. 48 Kneset Protokol, August 18, 1952.

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The governmentlost no time in implementingthe law of August 1949. In March 1950 the daily press reported that citizens would be called up for reserveduty. This was explainedas anotherimportant step in deploying all the branches of the Israeli security forces to meet any situation. And just to preventself-satisfactionon the partof those not yet called up, the newspapers explained that until now these people had been given "a kind of break"but would henceforthshare in responsibilityfor the state's security.49 In July 1950, Phase Two of the mass call-up began. Initially,all those who had already served in the IDF were assigned to the reserves. Now came the turnof all males below the age of fifty who had not yet done militaryservice (mainly new immigrants). The military reserve system then encompassed almost the entireJewish male population.The armyjournalnoted:"Onething is clear to us all-that the main strength of our state, in addition to the conscript army and the staff of the career army-is the army of the nation, was the motif of participating in the namely, the nation itself."50So important nation-in-armsthat the army bulletin boasted about the reserve call-up of mules every year and described the way in which the poor animals were processed and incorporatedin their military unit. The implied message was clear: If livestock could be drafted, so could the new immigrants.51 GeneralYadinfirst describedthe Israeli citizen as a soldier on ten months' leave. In Japan,TanakaGi'ichi', one of the foundersof the ImperialMilitary Reserve Associate, commented in 1911 that "all citizens are soldiers."52In both cases, the idea went beyond serving in the armyunderlegal obligation:It implied civil virtue and a non-formalcriterionof citizenship. The organizational arrangements,which guided all Israelis who would be, directly or indirectly, involved in military affairs, formed the social basis for Israeli militarism. The concept also entailed a singulardefinition of reality.
A BROAD CONCEPT OF SECURITY

Immediately after the end of the 1948 war, in reply to a question from the truce." army's journal, Ben-Guriondescribed the situation as a "temporary During the Knesset debate on the militaryservice law he spoke of an "armed peace." No one should harborillusions about the future, the prime minister asserted, warning about the dangers of a "false peace."53On anotheroccawas being conductedbetween Israel sion, Ben-Gurionsaid that a "mini-war" and its neighbors, for which the blame lay with those states in the region that were caught up in a maelstromof disturbances,coups, political chaos and political assassinations-a volatile situation with unknowableconsequences which could spreadanywhere. The Knesset listened in silence to the demoni49 Haaretz (daily newspaper),March 12, 1950. 50 Bamachane, July 20, 1950. 51 "Draft-Cards for Mules," Bamachane, July 31, 1952. 52 Cook, "The JapaneseReserve Experience,"271. 53 Bamachane, October 17, 1949; Kneset Protokol, August 29, 1949.

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zation of Israel's neighboring countries, and only one member, from the CommunistParty,called out: "This is a preludeto the order,it is preparation for war."54 Ben-Gurionpresented a broad concept of security. Security, he had explained in 1949, meant more than the army.It entailed stepping up the birth rate and populatingempty areas.55With the passing of time, Ben-Gurion's definition of security would be broadenedstill further;and the civil sphere would shrink correspondingly. Militarism became something universally sharedwhen Ben-Guriondeclaredin 1955: "Securityis not possible without
immigration . . . security means settlements . . . the conquest of the sea and

air. Securityis economic independence,it meansfosteringresearchand scientific ability . . . voluntarism of the population for difficult and dangerous

missions."56 One of the means resortedto by the leadershipto create a broaddefinition of securitywas Nahal (the acronymfor FightingPioneerYouth).This special and land settlementwith combat unit combinedcivil missions like agriculture roles. The civil missions, however, were part of the broad definition of security. Whenever a dispute arose between the Defense Ministry and the kibbutzmovementsover settlementsites for the youth movements'graduates who comprised Nahal, the ministryhad the last word. To prevent such friction, the he'ahzut, the security settlement, was created. Its purposes were The he'ahzutwas the most complete based entirelyon militaryconsiderations: expression of using settlementfor militarypurposes.57 Nahal, thus, reconstructedsettlementand army into Siamese twins, never to be separated. If a certain civilian image was attached to Nahal in the soldiers' dress, their lax discipline, their loose sexual mores, in the informal, communal relations within their units-and if the army made no effort to reverse such tendencies, the goal was clear. The statist professionalarmy in uniform was likely to arouse opposition in a country in which the socialist ethos prevailed, labor partiesruled, and ideology strove as much to create a voluntaristicsociety as to form a new state. The special arrangementsand practices that brought about the nation-in-armsconstitutedthe leadership's formulafor reconciliationand effectively merged voluntaristicwith coercive elements. The IDF was not to be a classic state armybased on coercion only but was to display elements of voluntarism,emotion, pioneering, comradeship, and a militia-like ethos, all imputed to the nation's needs. Ben54 KnesetProtokol,August 19, 1952;Davar (daily newspaper),August 19, 20, 1952. See also Baruch Kimmerling's article about Israel's conception of peace ("ExchangingTerritoriesfor Peace: A MacrosociologicalApproach,"TheJournalof AppliedBehavioralScience, 23:1 [1987], 13-33). 55 Mapai Center, January12, 1949, Mapai Archive. 56 Kneset Protokol, November 7, 1955. 57 Asnat Shiran, The Policy of SettlementDuring the IndependentWarand After (in Hebrew) (Tel-Aviv:M. A. thesis, Tel-Aviv University, 1992), 197-98.

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Gurion called it "statist pioneering"(halutziutmamlakhtit),explaining that of manifoldperformance, even though Israelpossessed a powerful instrument still needed the it state, pre-statepioneer endeavors.58Nahal was, meaning then, an extreme example of the general pattern, a fusion of the statist, coercive, bureaucraticmechanism of mobilization with an emotional and communal element, a synthesis that helped to mobilize the Israeli Jewish population.59 Mass maneuvers were another means that served to construct a broad concept of security. "Every exercise has its own mission," the daily newspaper, Ha'aretz, informed its readers in the autumn of 1953, going on to describe how that year's maneuversdifferedfrom previous ones of 1951 and 1952. Nor did the paper pass up the opportunityto publicize the army's slogan: "Andyou, the citizen, sharein theirmission and theirsuccess."60The large-scale maneuvers, like the reserves system, were the handiworkof the chief of staff, Yigael Yadin. Throughthem Yadinwantedto test the idea of a nation-in-arms.To dramatizehis point, Yadinin 1950 sent militarypolice to arrestthe secretaryof the Finance Ministry,who had the impressionthat his position exempted him from service. Yadin also demandedthat at least one exercise be held with 100,000 troopsparticipating-virtually the entire army that Israel would put into action in the event of a war.6' The mass maneuvers blurredthe distinction between two types of time: peace and war. The press provideddaily reportson the exercises: "A surprise attack by the 'Reds' on the 'Blacks' in the air force maneuvers,"one paper from the countryof the 'Yellows' "were wrote. A few days later "paratroops of the 'Blacks."' And three days afteron the to" have landed soil reported ward readers learned that "effortsby the 'Greens' to breach the lines of the 'Blues' were thwarted."The entire population was involved, as befitted a nation-in-arms.While the maneuverswere in progress, a numberof incidents occurredon the Egyptianborder,blurringthe line between trainingexercises was heightenedwhen Israeldenied, at first, and real attacks. The uncertainty thatits soldiers had enteredthe demilitarizedzone, ascribingeverythingto the Egyptians' over-vivid imagination.The press wrote that travelersin the Galilee (where the maneuverswere being held) were caught up in a war atmosphere. The country'spresident,escortedby the chief of staff, touredthe area of what were labeled battles. The day after his visit the IDF raided the Jordanianvillage of Qibiyeh, this time "for real," killing some fifty inhabitants and blowing up about forty houses. The United Nations and the Great Powers were outragedat the scale of the operation, its brutality,and Israel's
58 Mapai Council, June 19, 1948, Mapai Archive. 59 Uri Ben-Eliezer, "Israel'sMyth of Pioneeringand the Elusive Distinction between Society and State," in Megamot (forthcoming, 1995). 60 Haaretz, September28, 1953. 61 Shabtai Tevet, Moshe Dayan (Tel-Aviv:Shoken, 1971), 355.

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violation of the armisticeaccords. The government,in contrast,continuedto hold what it called "thoroughdiscussions on security."62 The Arab states had difficulty in acceptingthe idea that Jewish state could exist in the Middle East. They, too, preparedfor a second round. Concurrently, Palestinians continued to infiltrate into Israel. At first these were refugees seeking to return to their homes, and then they were sabotageand-murder squads. The Israeli sense of security,however, cannot be understood as the direct result of an objective situation. Rather, it was the product of a politics that presentedmilitary action as the only viable alternative to the Arab threats.Throughout the early 1950s, borderincidents-triggered of the armistice agreements, the stamainly by conflicting interpretations tus of the demilitarizedzones, and the exact location of the boundariesoccurredwith Syria, Jordan,and Egypt. The governmentdecided to reactvigorously. After Moshe Dayan was appointedchief of staff, at the end of 1953, Israel opted particularlyfor reprisal, usually using the paratroopsto carry
it out.

Reportersfor the army weekly accompanyingthe fighting forces on their missions acquaintedevery family in Israel with the daring bravery of the soldiersthroughfirst-person articlesandauthenticphotographs.63 The reprisal raids graduallyspawned a myth of heroic warriors;the nation esteemed its militaryemissaries and made them symbols of the new Israel. Every youngster who was draftedinsisted on joining the Red Berets (the paratroops),and those who were accepted became the pride of the family or neighborhood.64 In themselves, the borderdisputes and the infiltrationsdid not attest directly to an imminent war but legitimized the creation of a crisis atmosphereand justified the possibility of war as a means of solving political problems, a phenomenonwhich is defined as militarism. for the armyintensified,the presscontinuedto demonAlthoughadmiration ize the enemy anddownplaythe Israeli-Palestinianconflict. The armyjournal, for example, rana series of articlesby a Dr. Sasson Ashrikiwhich were meant to enlighten the readerabout "the Arabproblem."In them the refugees were and as "thejoker in the hands of the Arab states." describedas "abandoners" There was no refugee problem, the writerclaimed, stating that the refugees were not interestedin returningbut were being incited by their leaders. Dr. Ashriki also had a scoop: "Fortypercent of the abandonerswho receive aid fromthe U.N.-do not even exist."65By the mid-1950s the Jewishpopulation was given the opportunityto demonstrateits nationalcommitment.
62

64 Teveth, Moshe Dayan, 399; Uzi Benziman, Sharon, an Israeli Caesar (New York:Adama Books, 1985), 50; Uri Milstein, By Blood and Fire (in Hebrew;Tel-Aviv:Levine-Epstein, 1975) 176-93. 65 Bamachane, October 5, 12, 1955.

63 Bamachane, September18, 1956; October3, 1956.

Haaretz, October7, 12, 15, 21, 1953.

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At the end of September 1955, the arms deal between Czechoslovakia and Egypt was made public; and a wave of popularvoluntarismswept the country in the form of contributionsfor arms purchasesthroughwhat was called the DefenderFund (KerenHamagen). The new immigrants,the so-called Second Israel, now shared in a collective effort aimed at supplying the army with funds. The press published the amounts donated and described the donors, noting "the generalenthusiasmand manifestationsof mass voluntarismnever
before seen in the country."66

On October 21, the newspaperspublishedprice lists of weapons; and the public began buying them. The Teachers'Association contributedan amount sufficient to purchase one warplane and one tank. The Haifa City Council decided to contributea torpedo boat to the navy. The Artisans' Association purchaseda warplane. The City of RamatGan bought a transport plane and one hundredparachutes. Discount Bank collected enough for a tank. The town of Ramle's elected representativesdecided to purchase a tank to be called "Ramle 1." At the same time the popularmanifestationscontinued. As the cabinet was deliberatingthe Defender Fund, an elderly woman appeared and donatedan ancientVenetianglass vase. A second womanturnedup at the Prime Minister's Office with a heavy bracelet made of pure gold. Lydia Balulu, motherof ten, who had received a childbearingprize of 100 pounds sterling, donatedit to the fund. Schoolchildrenorganizedstreetparades, and Yadin, the formerchief of staff, made an emotional appeal:"Parents,buy a suit of iron, a suit of armorfor the defense of your children."67 The spontaneousorganizing attested to a sense of partnership,to protonationalbonds.68The leadershiplost no time in directingthis outpouringof feelings into channels it found desirable. Paradesand mass demonstrations were organized,booths for donationsand special offices were set up; information pamphlets were distributed;and two former chiefs of staff headed a public committee which declared that it intended to raise $25 million for purchasingweapons. This intense activity was based on both the leadership's guidance and the public's active commitment.69This activity indicated the success of a political method that sought to blur any distinction between manifested politics from above and from below. This was the nation-in-arms not only as a policy of the leadershipor any other state agent but as a project of all.70 Anotherexpressionof the "nation'sfinest hour"at that time was Operation Wall (MivtzaHoma). The army did not want to budget funds for obviously defensive purposes, such as developing civilian supportor fortifying settleDavar, October 21, 23, 1955. 67 Davar, October24, 25, 1955; November 5, 6, 1955. Hobsbawm, Nations and Nationalism, 10-11. 69 HistadrutPolitical Committee, December 28, 1955, HistadrutArchive. 70 Hobsbawm, Nations and Nationalism, 46.
66
68

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ments. The result was that non-governmentcompanies belonging to civil Federationof Laborandthe Jewish Agency, institutions,such as the Histadrut rallied to the cause of improvingthe defenses of bordersettlements. Workers from the big cities volunteeredto help in the construction.The operationwas made viable, thanksto the cooperationtypical betweenthe civilian companies and the army,a clear indicationthatsecuritywas no longerpurely a projectof the state and its bureaucracybut an enterpriseof the people. Gradually,the campaign gatheredmomentum, becoming a mass movement that ultimately encompassed more than 100,000 volunteersand 300 settlements.71 The Jacobinsin Francespoke of the need to turnhouses into fortresses.72 In Israel a similarnotion was put forward.As early as March 1951, Ben-Gurion had stated in the Israeli parliamentthat it was essential for every settlement and locality to be strengthenedand trainedto face the enemy.73A few years later a Defense Ministryofficial, Shimon Peres, explainedthe significance of to the nation-in-arms model. Peres OperationWall in termsof its contribution noted that, until the nineteenthcenturywars had been fought by professional soldiers whose goals were military strongholds. However, as national sentiment developed and as nations emerged, wars ceased to be a matter for mercenariesand militarystrongholdswere no longer theironly target. Nowadays, he noted, soldiers and civilians were interchangeable.Today's soldier would be tomorrow's civilian, and vice versa; today's civilian settlement would be tomorrow'smilitarystronghold, and vice versa.74 The Jacobin state endeavoredto keep its citizens in a state of permanent activity. Something of the same sort was also discernible through the mass participationelicited by the Defender Fund and OperationWall in the new Israel. This state of constant mobilization also led to the dominance of a conceptionthatfound advantagesin the special situationof "neitherpeace nor war."It was Dayan's formulation,and aroundthe same time the newspaperof the ruling party published an article explaining that this should be regarded not only as a descriptionof the actual, but also of the desirable, situation.The absence of peace, the articlestressed, was not entirelya negative condition:It highlightedthe nation and its mobilization, underscoredthe success of Israel and the IDF as the "melting pot" of the exiles, and helped reduce class, communal, and even party disparities.75 In the state's first years, the leadershipdescribedreality in terms of non71 MordechaiBar-On, The Gates of Gaza (in Hebrew) (Tel-Aviv:Am-Oved, 1992), 86-97; MordechaiBar-On, Challenge and Quarrel, The Road to Sinai 1956 (in Hebrew) (Beer-Sheba: Ben-GurionUniversity, 1991). 72 Hayes, The Historical Evolution of ModernNationalism, 43-83. 73 Kneset Protokol, March 5, 1951. 74 HistadrutCentralCommittee, July 19, 1956, HistadrutArchive. 75 Chagai Eshed, "No Peace-No War,"Davar, October26, 1955.

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28I

peace. Now, however,thatrealitywas definedin the affirmative.In the professional literature,a frameof mindlike thatunderlyingthe news articleis known Its manifestationsin thatera were manifold. Thus, as "positive militarism."76 the Actions Committee of the Histadrutlabor union felt that the emergency situationand the warpreparations would radicallyboost the economy, increase tax collection, and lead to the total eliminationof corruptionand speculation while motivating the young generationto new heights of voluntarism.77 The existence of positive militarismindicatedthat the nation was ready for war. Ben-Gurionwas well-awareof this situationwhen he decided, on October 23, 1955, that Israel must go to war. Dayan supported the decision The clock ran out quickly. enthusiasticallyand began preparingthe army.78 The IDF launched OperationsDetonation in order to provoke Nasser into startingthe war.79During the springand summernearlyall the IDF's reserve units were called up for trainingexercises. The deputy chief of staff, Major GeneralHaim Laskov, issued a set of stringentnew orders, which became the talk of the army, to streamline the mobilization of the reserves in a war situation.80 In Jacobin France, Lazare Carnotwas able to put the economy on a war footing in orderto armand equip the troops. Coaches and horses were nationalized; artisans'workshopswere convertedto sewing uniforms;even church bells and ritual objects were supposedly donated. Even writers and artists rallied to the cause.81In Japan,as well, readinessfor war involved the whole population. When the China Incident occurred, in the summerof 1937, the purpose of the massive call-up was quite clear. A military academy report described it: "National mobilization is intended to control and utilize all human and materialresources in order to concentrateall available power in the most effective manner. ... Humanresourcesinclude not only the actual numberof soldiers, but also the spiritualpower, technicalability,and laborof the nation."82Similarly, in Israel, the home front now also was readied for war. The governmentset up two civilian committees to consider placing the economy on an emergency footing, while the Knesset passed a law for the mobilizationof civilian vehicles andheavy machineryfor militarypurposes.83 In June, Moshe Sharet, the moderate, left the government. "Once again I
and Western "Militarism,"in Kerning,Marxism, Communism Society. Berl Reptur,HistadrutCentralCommittee, November 10, 1955; HistadrutArchive. 78 Kneset Protokol, November 2, 1955. 79 Bar-On, The Gates of Gaza, 59-67; Bar-On, Challenge and Quarrel, 47-50. 80 Bar-On, Challenge and Quarrel, 82. 81 Albert Soboul, The French Revolution, 1787-1799 (New York: Vintage Books, 1974), 268-9. 82 Cook, "The JapaneseReserve Experience." 83 KnesetProtokol,June4, 1956; Bar-On,The Gates of Gaza, 103-4; Bar-On,Challenge and Quarrel, 83-84.
77
76

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asked myself," he wrote in his diary,"whetherthe emergenceof the assumption that we are on the brinkof war and instilling [thatidea] in the minds of the masses may not by itself become a factor which will finally bring about WasSharet'sconcernjustified?The presentarticleset out not to count war."84 causal variablesfor warbut to deliniatethe way in which a fightingnationwas constructedwith the idea of war as a reasonable,justifiablemeans for solving for political problems if there were no other choice. However, preparations war, certainly if they consist both of a massive callup of reserves and of mental adjustment,might operatenot only as a conditionfor waging war but also as one of its causes.85 The Prussian-German case is very interesting in this regard, as the Blitzkrieg, Carl von Clausewitz'sfamous militarystrategy,turnedinto a politics of war through his loyal pupils. Count Helmuth von Moltke's idea of of his military successor, "people's war," or that of the "nation-in-arms" GeneralBaronColmarVon Der Goltz, provedhow narrowthe gap was indeed between a strategicmeans and a political end. Totalwar became the ultimate to it, even in and only possible option;the whole of society was subordinated peacetime; and Prussia-Germanybecame a warfarestate.86The Israeli case and the Prussian-Germancase are so dissimilar that it is precisely their common elements that are interestingand worth examining. When the Israeli-Egyptian war finally broke out, it was the hour of the whole nation. Jewish citizens were quickly mobilized, with the help of civil institutions,like town halls or the bus company.Soon, no men of militaryage came to a were to be seen on the streets. Many left work;publictransportation with considernation-in-arms halt. The highly oiled machine of the operated war. and successful able efficiency to wage a quick, offensive, The victory was not only ascribedto the entirenationbut linked to its past. Fourteenhundredyears earlier,Ben-Guriontold the Knesset, Jewish independence had existed on the island of Yotvata(Tiran),south of Eilat, which had two days before. Articles began to appearin the press about been "liberated" Israel's historic right to the Sinai Peninsula. Davar, the newspaper of the leading party,describedthe city of Gaza and the Sinai Peninsulaas "thecradle into a nation and harbingersof hopes for the future." of our transformation The nation's historical attachmentto Mount Sinai was also reiterated(notwithstandingthat its exact location is unknown). But no one outdid BenGurion, who in a message to a militaryceremonysummingup the fighting at Sharm e-Sheikh, wrote that the soldiers had "stretchedout a hand to King
84 Moshe Sharet, Personal Diary (in Hebrew) (Tel-Aviv:MaarivLibrary,1978), 1385 (April 3, 1956). 85 This was also provenin the waitingperiodof July 1967 thatprecededthe Six-Days War.See Horowitz, "StrategicLimitationsof 'A Nation in Arms,'" 285. 86 E.g., Stig Forster,"Facing'People War':Moltkethe Elderand Germany'sMilitaryOptions after 1871," The Journal of Strategic Studies, 10:2 (1987), 209-29; V. R. Berghahn,Germany and the Approachof Warin 1914 (London:Macmillan, 1973).

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Solomon" and that the occupied areas would become part of Israel, part of "the third Jewish kingdom." The message was replete with biblical expressions and images, including a quotation from the Song of the Sea, which warns other nations that Israel is strong and triumphant because the Lord is with them.87Thus, the nation'spast, or its interpretation of thatpast, was also mobilized in order to justify war and conquest. In short order, however, Israel was forced to withdrawfrom Sinai under pressurefrom the United Nations and an ultimatumof the superpowers.It is possible that Ben-Gurionlearned a lesson from Sinai, as his views became more moderateafterward.88 But the mechanismof the nation-in-arms,to the creation of which Ben-Gurioncontributedso powerfully, continued to function decades later.
CONCLUSION

Based on the literaturewhich emphasizes the centralityof the state and the state's elite in the making of a nation, this essay dealt with the way in which an ethnic populationwas constructedas a nation-in-arms.Following the historical precedentsand the data on Israel, the nation-in-arms should be seen as a form of militaristicpolitics characterized the to by attempt turnthe affairsof the militaryand the imminenceof war into the business of the whole population, making them the nation's occupationand concern. In contrastto the 1948 war, which was characterized by insufficientpreparations and the lack of a plan for activating the entire population, the 1956 Sinai Campaignwas the resultof lengthy preparations by the state. It included not only the creationof a strongmass armybut also practicesthatblurredthe distinction between civil and military,a broad definition of security, and the inculcation of the ideas that war is not always the less-preferredchoice and that peace is not always worth the price. Scholarsof Israelimilitarysociology have tendedto cite the nation-in-arms as a mechanismthat enables regularcivilian life to proceed underconditions of war. It does not preventdemocracyand does not encouragemilitarycoups because it provides a link between the needs of the nation and the interestsof the army in a situation of war. These scholars continued the traditionthat started perhaps with FrederickStern's famous, but politically biased 1957 book, The CitizenArmy,and continuedwith Janowitz,Rappoport,Luckham, and others89;all can be labelled under the category of the "civil-military paradigm."This article describes the Israeli nation-in-armsdifferently-as
87 Davar, November7, 1956; Bamachane, January18, 1957;Bar-On,Challengeand Quarrel, 328. 88 Yonatan Shapiro,TheRoad to Power,HerutPartyin Israel (New York:SUNY Press, 1990), 153-9. 89 Fritz Ster, The Citizen Army,Key to Defense in the Atomic Age (New York:St. Martin Press, 1957). See also note 9.

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one in which the populationwas constructedas a fighting nation, not for the sake of a liberal democracybut for the purposeof war. Although the current theory claims that since the modem state requiredthe population to underwrite its expendituresas taxpayersor to serve in the wars as conscript soldiers, it was forced to pay attention to the opinions of its subjects and, therefore, gave them a voice-in the Swedish expression:"one soldier, one rifle, one vote"-generally throughvarious kinds of elected bodies.90 I sugdescribed here, the gest a different model. According to the nation-in-arms and thrust for involvement, partof Israel's political participation population's to non-liberal collectivistic of serving is channeled culture, patterns political in the army for the sake of the nation.91 In analyzing Israel as a nation-in-arms,in historical and political, rather than in functional terms, I intended not to demonstratea case of an exceptionally high degree of manpowermobilizationfor a possible war but, rather, as a mechanismcomposed of both rationaland to presentthe nation-in-arms emotionalelements, therebyblurringthe differencebetween civilian and military institutionsand turningthem into one entity. Thus, the business of war becomes something embedded within the spirit of the nation, a part of the orderof things. In this respect, the Israelicase resemblesFrance,Prussia, and Japanduringcertainhistoricalperiods. Anothersimilaritylies in the fact that in these cases the nation-in-armsis the result of both party and national politics. It is in fact the combinationof these two variables, the internaland an important the external,which makesthe nation-in-arms model, not perhaps as an explanatoryvariablefor wars but certainlyas a variablefor describing the culturalconditionsthatmake war a legitimate, even necessary,possibility. Ever since the Sinai Campaign, Israel has been a nation-in-armsas the resultof an institutionalprocess thatbegan with a deliberatepolicy and ended with a mechanism that embodies "the will of the nation"no less than "the not only because it continuesto power of the state."Israelis a nation-in-arms, in is involved wars but because its wars and have a mass national army that the carried out are not territorial army alone. In practice, this by occupations are that various means that supposed to be civil-such as the organizations bus monopoly (Egged), the civilian armed settlers and the Civil Administration in the occupied territories,the Society for the Preservationof Natureare all engaged in security missions and tasks. Israel, as a nation-in-arms,displays as well, social institutions that are located on the seam between the civil and the militaryand functionto fuse the two spheresinto one entity. To enumeratesome of them: Galei Zahal, a radio station staffed by both civilians and soldiers;voluntaryassociations, like the
90 S. E. Finer, "StateBuilding, State Boundariesand BorderControl,"Social Science Information, 13 (1974), 79-126; Hobsbawm,Nations and Nationalism, 80. 91 Uri Ben-Eliezer, "The Meaningof Political Participation in a Non-LiberalDemocracy:The Israeli Example," ComparativePolitics, 25:4 (June 1983).

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Civil Guard (HamishmarHae'zrahi) that de-emphasize differences between the soldier and the citizen and between civilian supportandthe military'sfront line; and KerenLibi, a fund for raising money from the public for the army. A nation-in-arms means, as well, retiredgenerals, affiliatedwith eitherleftor wing right-wingpolitical parties, setting aside their political differencesto fight together against the "ultra-Orthodox shirking"of military service or in order to demonstrate organizing comradeshipwith one of theirnumberwho is attackedin the media for not ever taking part in a combat war.92It means also the parentswho take an active part, with the army's encouragement,in their children's military service.93Despite some changes within the last few years, one could still find many more examples in Israelof social institutions and arrangements that contributeto a situationin which the entire nation is preoccupiedwith, and mobilized in, matterspertainingto organizedmeans of violence and places this preoccupationat its center.

92

YediotAchronot (daily newspaper),November 29, 1988. 93 YediotAchronot, May 12, 1992; Davar, May 15, 1992.