Part I
Recent incidents of adolescent violence and murder in Israel
have prompted concern within the Israeli society. Suddenly
many secular Israeli parents are waking up to a terrifying
reality, one in which they cannot be sure that their child on
his way to school will not be a victim of some young murderer
or alternatively be the murderer himself.
Israel's educational system is shocked to the core by these
occurrences. Fathers and mothers, teachers and principals,
community representatives and psychologists, are trying to
deal with this new reality. They want to find an answer to
the big question: What element in their social infrastructure
induces teenagers to take the lives of others?
In the last few weeks many answers to this troubling question
have been offered. One straightforward columnist, Yaron
London of Yediot Achronot, offered an explanation that
many secular Jews hide in their hearts and are afraid to
express publicly. He said frankly: "Our youth are so violent
because of the conditions in which we are forced to live."
Yaron London believes one of these conditions is the fact
"that Israel is a fighting society, one that cultivates
institutional violence as a way of assuring its existence.
The `justified' violence is eventually expressed in their
interrelationships."
Anyone privy to the feelings of young Israeli boys prior to
their being drafted into the IDF, or to have overheard
conversations of secular teenagers, is fully appraised of the
problem.
The young Israeli boy's dream, who from childhood has been
fed with persistent messages from close to home, is his
becoming a "good soldier." He waits impatiently for the day
he will be able to carry weapons, shoot and to show his
military prowess. He knows that in his society the summit of
aspirations is to become a "combat soldier," to shoot with an
Uzi submachine gun and brandish a "commando knife." In
addition, politicians, the television, radio, and newspapers
constantly sneer at those who have "never even learned how to
hold a gun in their hands." The boy reaches the obvious
conclusions.
With being a fighter and wielding lethal weapons turned into
sort of an "ideology," it is not surprising that such values
are also felt in improper places. There are those who use
their "combat skills," guns, and knives during a skirmish
against an enemy for means other than self-defense. The
results are, as the secular writer sketches: "Israel is a
fighting society, one that cultivates institutional violence
as a way of ensuring its existence. The `justified' violence
is eventually expressed in the character of their inter
relationships."
Seven years ago Anita Shapira, researcher and
historian, printed an interesting research study on the
question of "Zionism and Power." Shapira searched for the
roots of aggressiveness and militarism in the Zionist
Movement. Her research study (The Sword of the Dove,
published by the Am Oveid Publishers) points to Zionist
leaders' aspirations for power.
She writes that Theodore Herzl (d. 1904), the founder of the
organized Zionist movement, dreamed about a "new Jew." To
promote this aim he enlisted ideas borrowed from the German
Nationalist Movement: patriotic songs emphasizing the concept
of "honor" and depicting images of "past heroes" and tales of
their bravery. From that same train of thought was fashioned
the plan of Max Nordau (a German physician and author who was
a Zionist leader in Europe, d. 1923) summarized in the title
of his essay, "Judaism of Muscles."
The spiritual talents of Jews, Nordau argued, are regarded by
antisemites as Jewish traits and denounced as being a Jewish
stigma. Consequently, the Zionist Movement encouraged
worshiping power and force. "The Zionist journal De
Welt announced with pleasure that young Zionists in
Vienna fought with their fists and sticks against those who
had humiliated them. Herzl saw in a duel a means of fighting
intended for `honorable people,' an expression of cultural
refinement, and a way of educating `real officers,' and
therefore decided it should be permitted in the new country
which was to be established."
In short, Anita Shapira points out, their aspiration was to
see a generation rise who "would entirely shed its spiritual
characteristics and distinguish itself by its desires, its
might, and its fighting capability."
These aspirations were put into practice during the Second
Aliya (1903-1914, an immigration made up of young secular
Zionists and socialists from Europe who called themselves
chalutzim -- pioneers). Gradually militancy began to
spread among the Eretz Yisroel settlers.
At that time (1907) a quasi-military organization called Bar
Giyora was founded. This group had far-reaching plans and was
inspired by the Russian revolutionary atmosphere. Those of
the Hashomer group (the Ben Giyora group in 1909 changed its
name to Hashomer) also wanted to promote a heroic image of a
Jewish fighter. Many who lived on the moshavim copied the
Bedouin way of dressing, rode majestic horses, and carried
guns and cases full of bullets the way their Arab neighbors
did.
Hashomer members saw in the Bedouin an individual to be
idolized, a superior person. Anita Shapira writes: "They even
saw in the Bedouin attitude to reality a model to be
duplicated. He symbolized the free man, a man who accounts
for his acts to no one. The Bedouin was the brave nomad, a
sort of Israeli cowboy.
"[Hashomer members] were also overwhelmingly charmed with
wielding weapons. After all, what could further illustrate
the change in the Jew's status than the holding of such an
instrument of destruction?
"The symbols of a secret organization, with oaths of
allegiance until death, a hierarchy and membership
ceremonies, and weapons filling a major capacity, added a
personal touch of importance and halo to the prosaic task of
a guard. The Shomrim intentionally acquired unrefined
mannerisms, in a way duplicated partially from the Arabs
around them and from how they thought the Cossacks (another
prototype that they adopted for imitation) behaved."
The culture of worshiping power and military force as an
ideology infiltrated into Israeli consciousness. "The image
of a fighter was converted into an educational model and
cultivated among all segments of Israeli society. It created
a common denominator around which both the Left and the Right
could unite. The vast prestige of those belonging to the
branches of the national security system freed them from
accepted public criticism and awarded its members partial
immunity from the law, unlike run-of-the-mill people.
`Security' was the sacred cow of the young state."
Military service is not required only because it is necessary
due to security considerations forced upon Israel because of
its surrounding enemies. No; serving in the IDF is a moral
value in itself for secular Israeli society. Serving in the
IDF molds a person's soul in the way they want it to be, and
creates the New Israeli.
"Ben Gurion, already in his days, referred to the Israeli
Army as a `melting pot,' and saw it as a means of educating
the people."
This view of the military forces as an ideological object
stems from fascist theories that turned militarism into a
value to be aspired towards. Such tenets as these laid the
foundation for normative behavior in Israeli society. Army
service is a badge of honor, and only thanks to it can a
citizen be considered a cultured person. This Zionist outlook
cultivated serving in the army as a principle test in
evaluating a person's character (and for that reason this
topic is always used as the main criticism against yeshiva
students). It is as if the ability to kill and to use weapons
is the most important way of measuring a person's
personality. Competence in the arts of warfare is valued far
above a person's intellectual ability or his moral level.
This is also reflected in the special treatment that retired
high-ranking army officers receive. These people become
sought-after characters in the political sphere and in
economic and social forums. If you are a soldier, you are a
human being. If you are a one star general, then you are
really worth something. If you have more stars than one on
your shoulder, then you are the "crown" of creation.
One newspaper columnist wrote a fearless
article a week after Yitzchak Rabin's assassination, in which
he dared to openly admit that the root of Yigal Amir's
murderous act should be searched for first where he studied
his beloved murderous profession, and not in his religious
background. This was written by a Golani alumnus called
Avichai Boker, who, in an article published in
Ma'ariv, pungently wrote the following:
"Until the end of the shiva, at least, I do not belong
to the Golani Brigade. I am hiding my brown beret in the
closet. Only a month ago, after the events in Lebanon in
which nine Golani soldiers were killed, we were described as
being one family. That is what the newspapers wrote. I too
come from that village; I am an old comrade. I too was proud
of the brigade's spirit, that praised courage and valor, that
talked about unity. Everything is true. That is what we were.
However, it now becomes clear that while improving our
prowess in warfare something else was also growing within
us.
"It didn't grow in the backyard but in the heart. It has
proven to be a character whose presence we cannot ignore,
even if we wish to. We will never be able to revoke his club
membership. The title `Golani Family' fits him too. He does
not have fewer privileges than we in it. The murderer I can
immediately identify as being an exceptional fighter, the
sort that our officers are proud of. His exact performance of
the murder in Malchei Yisrael Square near the steps shows
that the hothouse in which he gained his skill and his daring
is, as we always knew, the most professional of them all. It
was among us that he learned to be deadly and efficient. This
shows that we have succeeded in training him. The fact that
he pointed his weapon in a direction that we did not point
him does not free us of responsibility. It is woeful that he
grew among us. This thought will not leave me, even though
generations separate me from him. I remove my brigade pin
until my soul calms down. The solitary cedar tree, the symbol
of the Golani Brigade, has dried up this week."
Indeed Yigal Amir is "a club member," a child of the "Golani
family," as Avichai Boker described it. He did not grow up in
the backyard of the IDF "but in its heart"; he was "the type
that officers are proud of." He learned there to be "deadly
and efficient." If he eventually pointed his weapon in a
different direction, Boker admits that this does not free his
military educators from responsibility. After all, "he
learned among us to be deadly," and his precise execution of
the assassination in the Malchei Yisrael Square shows that
"we succeeded in training him." We cannot, therefore, ignore
the fact that "he grew up among us."
End of Part I -- Next week: modern violence
