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Civil Society versus Military Sovereignty

Cultural, Political, and Operational Aspects

Sapir College and Ben Gurion University of the Negev, ulebel{at}bgu.ac.il

From its inception and throughout the military sovereignty era, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) were endowed with a religious status. In Israeli society, bereaved parents of fallen soldiers enjoyed a special relationship with the army, and their bereavement afforded them a unique place in the shaping of public opinion about security policy. However, as this paper shows, after the first Lebanon War (1982) cracks began to appear in this special union. From the early 1990s, bereaved parents supported by new social movements and a symbiosis of the judicial arena and the media challenged the security-defense-military arena and its policies of commemoration of the dead, treatment of soldiers, accident prevention, secrecy, and even appointments. Using the High Court and the media to directly influence defense and security policy, civil society succeeded in changing the IDF's tactics, the treatment of Palestinian detainees, and thus elevated human rights and international law over security considerations.

Key Words: bereavement • military sovereignty • judicial-media arena • security policy • Israel Defense Forces

References

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• June 5, 1982, marked the start of "Operation Peace for the Galilee," whereupon Prime Minister Menachem Begin and Defense Minister Ariel Sharon ordered the IDF to enter Lebanon and wipe out the terrorist bases, the sources of missile fire into Northern Israel. Although the operation was defined as limited with regard to the amount of territory to be held by the IDF, in practice the Israeli military penetrated into Beirut. During the first week of the war the Israeli political consensus accepted the need for the operation, but opposition increased as casualties mounted. See Carmel, A Political Lexicon, 682.
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• When the Israeli government under Shimon Peres decided to end the war in Lebanon (1985), it was decided to leave the IDF in a security zone—a buffer zone between Israel and Lebanon. Eventually, because the Hizbollah organization concentrated in that area, the zone became the center of gravity of Israeli military power, resulting in numerous casualties.
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• This step was far-reaching in Israeli democracy: A non-elected body, whose composition was beyond public reach, exploited a judicial lacuna and placed itself above an elected body that represents the people's choice.
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• For instance, in 1962 the "convention" was denied to a war correspondent working for the journal HaOlam HaZeh on the grounds that the IDF disapproved of his views and the tone of his columns. The Military Advocate General stated that the journal "steadfastly acted in a direction contrary to the spirit inculcated by the IDF" and therefore "betrayed a tendency to put government policy in a negative light and to disturb the faith that enlisted men have in the IDF and their commanders." HaOlam HaZeh petitioned the HCJ but its plea was denied (Cohen v. the Minister of Defense, HCJ No. 29/62 [Hebrew]). The Court declared that the right to receive information was not anchored in any law (HCJ No. 29/62: 1029-30). Furthermore, one of the presiding justices noted that at the time, in his opinion the role of the HCJ was not to acknowledge the existence of any public interest in receiving such information. This attitude reflected the basic view that the military could release information as it saw fit. The Court ignored the patent self-interest behind this position. The IDF was, of course, quite content to deny access to any "subversive" journalist critical of it. Such decisions were interpreted to mean that the IDF could do as it pleased with the information it controlled and that the media's access and, in effect, the public's access to information about the military was a privilege, not a right.
• Emergency Defense Regulations (1945), para. 87(1) and 97(1) [Hebrew].
• At its peak, Channel One's daily news broadcast was viewed by 70 percent of the population. Israeli television inhibited trends toward individualism, promoted national values, and became an outlet for collectivism. See D. Shenar and M. Moshe, " Multiplication of Channels and Privatization of Broadcasting in Israel: Rhetoric and Reality" in The Media and Democracy in Israel, ed. D. Caspi (Tel Aviv: Hakibbutz Hameuchad, 1997): 71-96 [Hebrew].
• One year later, the government approved Channel Two's Board of Directors; trial broadcasts began in 1993.
• This was boldly expressed during the first Intifada in which the media exposed incidents of unwonted brutality on the part of soldiers, accentuated these behaviors, and as a result instigated legal proceedings to be brought against individual soldiers.
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• S. Meirovitch, From Politics to Therapy: The Reflexive-Therapeutic Dialogue Conducted in the Education Department of the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (Haifa, Israel: Haifa University, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, unpublished M.A. thesis, 1999) [Hebrew].
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• On the social movement founded by Shula Mellet, see G. Doron and U. Lebel, "An Institution on Trial: The Defense System Against Bereaved Parents," Plilim 9 (2000): 285-369 [Hebrew].
• Shmuel and Hannah Wikselbaum v. the Minister of Defense et al., HCJ No. 5688/92 [Hebrew]. 103. Article 18.2 of the petition; Efrat Shpiegel et al. v. the Minister of Defense et al. Case still under review, awaiting publication.
• G. Doron and U. Lebel, " The Politicization of Bereavement: Public Redefinition of Private Problems," Panim 11 ( 1999): 22-39 [Hebrew].
• Another significant example occurred in September 2000. The public was exposed to the details of an act of negligence that happened during regular operations of the Duvdevan unit in the Arab village of Iasiraa-a-Simaliya. In the assault, soldiers were caught in crossfire with a number being killed. The head of the negligent organization—in this case, the Chief of the General Staff—unexpectedly responded with the appointment of a commission of inquiry, which investigated the event in depth. The media widely publicized the commission's harsh conclusions, which led to the dismissal of two senior officers, the Division Commander and the Unit Commander.
• Massud and Aliza Shoshan v. the Chief of the General Staff et al., HCJ No. 4537/96 [Hebrew].
• G. Mosse, The Battle Casualties (Tel Aviv: Am Oved, 1993) [Hebrew].
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• On the movements' successes in their efforts to change defense policy through petitions to the Supreme Court, see A. Meydani and S. Mizrahi, Public Policy between Society and Law (Jerusalem: Carmel Publishing House, 2006), 157-210. On their myriad successes in the media arena, see U. Lebel, ed. Security and the Media—A Dynamics of Relations (Beersheba, Israel: published by the Ben-Gurion Institute at Sde Boker, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, 2005), 45-89 [Hebrew].
• Association of Civil Rights in Israel et al. v. Prime Minister, Defense Minister et al., HCJ 7959/04.
• Public Committee against Torture in Israel v. Government of Israel, HCJ 510/94.
• Ma'ariv, April 18, 2000.
• Ma'ariv, May 17, 2005.
• Figures taken from U. Ben-Eliezer, "Is a Civil Society Emerging in Israel?" in Israeli Sociology 5, 8 (1998): 45-90 [Hebrew].
• M. Landau, "Legal Activism," Hamishpat 7 (2002): 536 [Hebrew].
• A. Barak, "The Rule of Law" in Innovations and Developments in Legislation and the Law (1997), ed. S. Sheetrit (Proceedings, 1996 Judges' Symposium, 15), 25 [Hebrew].
• G. Doron and U. Lebel, " Penetrating the Shields of Institutional Immunity: The Political Dynamic of Bereavement in Israel," Mediterranean Politics 9, 2 (June 2004): 69-84.

This version was published on October 1, 2007

Armed Forces & Society, Vol. 34, No. 1, 67-89 (2007)
DOI: 10.1177/0095327X07302581


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