Book Review Essay

Security and Suspicion: An Ethnography of everyday life in Israel by Juliana Ochs

This book is an ethnographic study to suggest that national discourses of security in Israel
aim to permeate certain practices in an individual’s life so that the state can preserve itself.
Also, Israel has a specific state initiated narrative about security, not to neutralize security
threats but to maintain ethnocracy in the society. The review will talk about the summary of
the book followed by a critical analysis which will help the reader conclude whether they
should read this book. Starting from the state and the military industry to breaking the
narrative down to everyday life in Israel, this account will highlight how the state uses
security as a medium to dominate an Israeli’s daily experiences.
Before enlisting the communal experience in Israel and people’s everyday routine aligned
with national ideologies, the author brings forth the economic incentives for the state. Not
only that the defence budget of Israel is huge, but its private industry also flourishes from the
military-industrial complex. Security discourse on a societal level has given rise to huge
consumption of security services in Israel. Creation of an ethnocratic society fosters it. For
instance, volunteering at security borders is only allowed for permanent citizens but
exceptions are made for Jews from other countries (Ochs, 2013, p. 29). Israel only has ID
cards to differentiate between Jews and other people, there is no ID that distinct between
Israelis and non-Israelis (Ochs, 2013, p. 85). Later the author enlists the social stigma
attached to being a non-Jew and lifestyle of Israeli Jews as a repercussion of these practices.
People started avoiding public places, to start with (Ochs, 2013, p. 101). This conditioning
moves on adapting cynicism and skepticism in daily life. Israelis have embodied suspicion in
their everyday life (Ochs, 2013, p. 105). States narrative of security creates a certain image of
the terrorist and is emotive in nature. This gives rise to militarized thinking that dictates their
decision like which bus to catch, where to eat or whom to meet (Ochs, 2013). However, the
author also justifies these projections of a terrorist by mentioning some personal accounts that
reflect that these notions do not come from nowhere or only governments narrative. Personal
narrations in the book suggest that individuals have been scarred either through loss of a
loved one in a suicide attack or experience in IDF service (Ochs, 2013, pp. 105-118).
Through these experiences, their fear, mental image of a terrorist and need for perpetual
alertness becomes rationalized. Later she discusses how ethnography is legitimized by
politicians. Terms like “demographic threat” and “visual domination” are used by politicians
to justify these narratives and initiatives like building walls of separation. She finally
concludes that these measures that entrenched in daily life of Israelis have not resolved the
issues but only enhanced the tensions. Meanwhile, this essay will argue that state also aims to
establish an ethnocratic society through these measures.
Before keeping an argument, this book also depicts a picture that readers might disagree with,
or rather find biased. All territorial disputes are based on perspectives of each side. While
describing her account, the author is some ways portrays Israel as a “territory-hungry” nation
state or an invader (Ochs, 2013, p. 165) in every dispute, which should be, ideally, subject to
reader’s interpretation. Since Israel is a state that was founded by victims of the holocaust and
anti-Semitism, it will have certain principles that other states might not relate to.
Coming back to the argument about Israel’s security measures leading to an ethnocratic
society also involves daily life decisions. Expanding this argument beyond Israel, answering
a simple question, “Why are ghettos formed?” or “Why are ethnic minorities concentrated in
one area?”, will justify this argument which is not just limited to Israeli context. A very
normal decision of renting a house or selling house is dictating by perception of security,
where securitization displaces insecurities from battlefield to social milieus (Hyusmans,
2014). In many countries, whether due to discrimination or xenophobia, people are hesitant to
rent their property to someone stereotyped as a security threat. This perception depends on
the state’s portrayal of these communities. Thus, these people get concentrated in an where
their community is has a dominant presence. This, further, results in isolation of those places
since they are stereotyped to be “unsafe neighbourhoods” and blaming multiculturism
(Ragazzi, 2016). Isolation of Palestinians in Gaza is an extreme example of this gesture. But
these practices exist even in the Global North to some extent where leaders have called for
‘muscular liberalism’ to ‘save’ their identity. Thus, politicization of these issues leads to
creation of “vote banks” for politicians, those representing minority and those representing
majority, creating huge cleavages in the society. Leaders also try to create an ethnocratic
society by creating an identity. (Mbembe, 2018) explains how ‘European’ as an identity was
created, which did not exist before, by European leaders to design their campaigns around
‘Gold Rush to Europe’ or ‘Migrant Crisis’. (Ochs, 2013) helps the readers understand how
Jewish identity is has gone beyond religious context in Israel through securitization.
(Ochs, 2013) provides a comprehensive analysis to how security is not limited to just warfare
or conventional methods. Finally, introduction of national security in civil life leads to
fantasies of security and discrimination being indistinguishable, further leading to
xenophobia and racism being a cultural practice. The argument that this essay keeps before is
also justified by the author throughout her rhetoric.

Bibliography
Hyusmans, J., 2014. Insecurity as an Exception. In: J. Hyusmans, ed. Security Unbound. Enacting
Democratic Limits. Abingdon: Routledge, pp. 59-67.

Mbembe, A., 2018. The Great Riddance, Johannesburg: Mail & Guardian.

Ochs, J., 2013. Security and Suspicion: A Ethnography of everyday life in Israel. 1 ed. Philadelphia:
Univeristy of Pennsylvania Press.

Ragazzi, F., 2016. Suspect community or suspect category? The impact of counter-terrorism as
‘policed multiculturism'. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 42(5), pp. 724-741.