“Subversive,Unannounced Non-Compliance”: A Pacifist-Soldier’s Poetic (Auto) Ethnography of Experiences in the Israeli Defense Forces

Introduction

The societal and personal act of making a private citizen into a soldier is not achieved by law alone, but rather it requires a pervasive, recurrent, and powerful set of public discourses to validate, praise, and promote such a transformation. These public discourses are structuring and quite definitive: the enemy, the hero, self-sacrifice, patriotism, and maleness. Using a range of rhetorical resources, armies are discursively constructed. Historically this has been through the ideologies of patriotism, masculinity, and patriarchy (Israeli & Rosman-Stollman, 2015; Mann, 2012), but more recently, neoliberal positions of economic opportunity and self-fulfillment have been added to these prior ideologies (Weiss, 2016). In this sense, the making of a military and the becoming of a soldier is a rhetorical act propagated by politicians, the military, and the media that is replicated in public consciousness and discourse.

Ironically, or perhaps as a direct act of political camouflage, the popular image of the soldier as an active agent, heroically defending the collective through selfless acts and acting in a self-fulfilling manner, actually obscures the reality of a soldier as an object unthinkingly fulfilling the will of a distant political actor (Wasinski, 2011). In a Foucauldian analysis, Wasinski (2011) points out that all soldiering and by extension war are underpinned and facilitated through a particular grand-narrative present across the centuries of the nation-state that situates soldiers in geographic terms as pawns moving across a map in strategic ways. Central to this narrative is the requirement that soldiers loose individuality and become undifferentiated members of a strategic unit. Military discipline is, within this analysis, designed primarily to facilitate this diminution of personal identity, its replacement with a fixed identity structured within a hierarchy of agency and under the concealing veil of close unit comradeship. It is crucial for war to be facilitated that soldiers perform in strategic units directed by a chain of commands from above. As stated by Wasinski (2011) “. . . men (and women) were transformed into objects of power, their bodies becoming real political tools used in attempts to impose an actor’s will through the use of instrumental power” (p. 58). Personal agency is directed through an extensive bureaucratic and legalistic system of rules and regulations and enforced through elaborate rituals, observation, and punishment. As such, military obedience is primarily a Foucauldian power structure designed to strip civilians of their individuality, identity, and agency and make them unquestioning and disposable members of a unit.

To veil the required loss of individual identity and agency inherent in the military social system, the army makes a conscious effort to foster close comradeship among soldiers (Bartov, 1991; Clark, 2013). This sense of comradeship and belonging is explicitly designed to encourage soldiers to act for the group either out of fear of shame or care for “brother” soldiers overcoming natural fears for self-preservation. In military terms, this sense of comradeship is seen as central factor leading to military effectiveness and success (Siebold, 2011). To further enhance the possibility of close identification with the unit, using neoliberal practices and ideologies, entrance to the different units is competitive creating the illusion of assigned value in belonging (Weiss, 2016). In this framework, “getting-in” is an achievement and something to be personally proud of. Thus, the making of a soldier is dependent on a macro-level self-identification with the ideological aspects of being a soldier (patriotism, masculinity, self-fulfillment, and patriarchy), facilitated by identity diminution enforced through military regulatory practices and the micro-level bonding with peers, unit leaders, the organization, and the institution.

But what happens when a person living the experience of being drafted into the army does not actually believe the macro or micro narratives directing his resocialization into a soldier? The poetic (auto) ethnography presented here deals with a situation of this kind. It is the narrative of a self-identified pacifist drafted into the Israeli Defense Forces against his will. Told soldier narratives tend to deal with extreme experiences of war and conflict (Hanauer, 2015; Kendall, 2007; Stallworthy, 2014); less is said about those who struggle within the structures of the army itself. The reality of soldiering and soldiers is different from the publicly propagated narratives of heroic self-sacrifice and self-fulfillment and as with any human activity there is variation. According to news outlets, up to 100,000 U.S. soldiers left the army under the heading of the “Under Other Than Honorable Conditions Discharge” which is given to soldiers when they exhibit a “pattern of behavior that constitutes a significant departure from the conduct expected of Soldiers of the Army” (Peñaloza, 2013). The current poetic (auto) ethnography aims to contribute to the literature of soldier experiences and explicate one individual’s response to being drafted against his will into an army he did not identify or agree with.

Israel, the Military, and Its Detractors

All personal experiences are constituted within the specifics of place, time, history, and discourse. The current poetic narrative is no different and takes places within the context of Israeli culture in the 1980s. Israeli culture, like all cultures, is complex, and this is not the place to fully delineate all its aspects. But there are several important components directly relevant to the current soldier narrative that do require explication. In particular the way the military, its supporters, and detractors are constructed within public Israeli discourses.

The army since its very inception has had a special position within public and political discourse in the State of Israel (Weiss, 2014). The State of Israel rose against the backdrop of centuries of persecution against the Jewish people and the attempted genocide of all Jews during the Second World War. As a nation building ideology, Zionism desired to build a homeland for the Jews through a reversal of the stereotypical positioning of Jews in Europe. Specifically, the aim was to counter the perception of Jews as weak and passive and accordingly, the “New” Israeli Jew would be a farmer, a builder, and a warrior (Gluzman, 2007; Yosef, 2010). The identity of the new Jew was infused with extreme masculinity, the bearing of arms, self-protection, self-sacrifice for one’s country, and heroism (Israeli & Rosman-Stollman, 2015). Being a citizen of Israel and being a member of the army were indivisible aspects of the early state with the combat soldier viewed and presented as a national hero to be admired, aspired to, and emulated.

Beyond ideologies, the realities of the initial stages of the formation of Israel meant that the country faced wars from the very beginning of inception and felt constantly on the brink of annihilation. The need for soldiers meant mandatory conscription for all Israeli civilians including newly arrived immigrants and wide participation by the whole of the population in military activities. Kimmerling (1993) defined the situation in Israel as “civil-militarism” in which the boundaries between the military and civilian arenas of action are blurred. Using extensive state resources, the importance of the military has been reinforced for decades through the education system, national holidays, and political discourse. This discursive onslaught combined with the presence of extended military conflicts has led to the normalization of war and the military in Israeli society (Dloomy, 2005). The outcome of these forces is the collective admiration for the Israeli soldier seen as a hero, a patriot, and the manifestation of good citizenship (Israeli & Rosman-Stollman, 2015).

While this situation shifted somewhat following the Lebanese War in the 1980s and subsequent civilian military conflicts of the First and Second Intifada, the Israeli military still holds a special position in the collective consciousness of Israelis and is seen as an essential response to potential annihilation. Unsurprisingly, the idea of nonparticipation in the military is seen by the vast majority of Israelis as a form of treachery and the rejection of a basic aspect of participation in Israeli society (Gur-Arieh, 1988; Helman, 1993). Serving in the army is seen as the basic criterion for acceptance in Israel and not to participate is controversial and stigmatized (Dloomy, 2005).

This does not mean however that there have not been distracters to military action within Israeli society. First, there are within Israel populations who do not historically serve in the military. The Arab-Israeli community is not required to join the Israeli army, and the Ultra-Orthodox Jewish community is exempt from serving (although there is deep unrest in the majority secular population about this exemption). Second, ever since the 1967 Six-Day War and the occupation of the West Bank with its civilian Palestinian population, some Israelis have opposed serving in the military on ethical grounds (Weiss, 2014). Several groups such as Yesh Gvul (translated as There Is a Border), Ometz LeSarev (translated as Courage to Refuse), and Shovrim Shteka (translated as Breaking the Silence) have all arisen as a response to expansionist military endeavors of the Israeli forces whether in Lebanon in 1982 (Yesh Gvul), the occupied West Bank (Ometz LeSerav), and Gaza (Shvorim Shteka). These groups consisted primarily of reservists and serving soldiers who announced their unwillingness to serve as a result of ethical doubts over the legitimacy of the military action.

In addition to these groups consisting of soldiers objecting to military service out of concern for the ethical nature of the specific operations, there have been groups and individuals who have objected to military participation on pacifist lines. Two early cases of conscientious objection to forced conscription exemplify the underlying ideological approach of Israel to this response to militarism. Joseph W. Abileah, an Austrian-Jewish migrant to Palestine, received and refused a draft notice to protect the emerging State of Israel in 1948 on the basis that he could not condone the use of violence (Simoni, 2013). He was put on trial for his refusal and received a verbal admonishment and a fine, but significantly he was also not discharged from the army. Following his trial, he was sent to “sanatorium for nerve diseases” and found to be “chronically soul-sick” and as such the imposed fine was never collected (Simoni, 2013, p.79). Because the 1949 National Service Law does not recognize conscientious objection as a reason to avoid compulsory military service and the ideological orientation of the country is based on creating Jews who fight, pacifism is primarily handled as a mental illness and soldiers, following criminal proceedings, are discharged on “health” grounds.

In the 1950s, a second and more famous case of conscientious objection occurred. In 1953, Amnon Zichrony was drafted into the Israeli army, but he refused to take an oath to the Israeli Defense Forces or to carry a weapon (Simoni, 2013). He was offered a noncombatant medical role which he also refused. Before being put on trial for his refusal to serve as a result of his pacifism, he went on a hunger strike for 23 days. The military judges did not accept his proclaimed pacifism as a reason not to serve and sentenced him to 7 months in prison. He was injured while departing from the courtroom and hospitalized before starting his sentence. While in hospital he continued his hunger strike and was subsequently sent home for rehabilitation. In 1955, he was partially discharged from the army but remained on the army’s roster as a reservist. As with the previous case of Abileah, both the legal and ideological construction of militarism in Israel did not leave the authorities many options for handling pacifists drafted into the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).

More recent documentation of the IDF’s response to individuals with pacifist orientations follows a similar pattern as at the very beginning of Israel’s foundation. Weiss (2016) reports on the case of drafted female soldier who upon refusing to serve was not sent to prison but rather discharged on the basis of “a nonexistent anxiety disorder” (p. 92). The model response is to define pacifism as a mental health issue and discharge on health grounds. Weiss (2016) situates this response within a neoliberal approach to handling dissent. As such, by discharging pacifists on health grounds and not imprisoning them, their dissent based on ethical grounds does enter public discourse. The discharge is not presented as a political act and as such there is no public protest or entry of dissenting voices challenging the military in public discourse.

In Israel, refusal to join the army is a criminal offense that can involve a prison sentence. But beyond the potential legal punitive aspects of refusing to join the army, the deep entrenchment of military service in Israeli society manifests a much wider set of sanctions on those pacifists who refuse to serve in the military. Historical evidence shows that early conscientious objectors were subjected to denial of exit permits for travel abroad, access to higher education in Israel, work, and in the days of food rations actual access to food for survival (Simoni, 2013). While these restrictions have now been lifted, the core objection to pacifist ideologies is still present within Israeli society where right-wing politicians and writers have defined the refusal to serve as an act of treason that supports the enemies of Israel (Issacharov & Harel, 2004). On a different level and within current neoliberal ideologies, in Israel nonparticipation in the army can carry the “punishment” of lack of access of advanced technological training, decreased economic opportunity, as well as the stigma of having a low evaluation from the army (Weiss, 2016). Being a pacifist in Israel and objecting to military service in the IDF historically and currently does result in negative social ramifications.

Method

The poem presented below was created as part of a broader poetic-ethnography project designed to elicit soldier narratives concerning their war experiences (Hanauer, 2013, 2015) and conducted according to the ethical guidelines of Indiana University of Pennsylvania institutional review board (IRB) (IRB#13-021). A poetic-ethnography project is usually constructed using the tri-part process of narrative elicitation, transcription and poetic organization and member checking and poetry revision in a form of dialogic co-construction between the researcher and participant (Hanauer, 2015). The process of production of the poetic autoethnography presented below involved a slightly different version of this methodology. The participant of the current had experience of actually writing poetry and asked to produce the poem himself following the transcription process. As an initial stage, a narrative elicitation interview was conducted. This process involved specifying 10 significant moments from the participant’s experiences as a soldier in the IDF. Each of these experiences was named and written out in a notebook. Following this, the participant was given the instruction to think carefully about each of these experiences and to “relive” them in his mind. Then each of the moments was described verbally and discussed with follow-up questions. The interview was recorded and then transcribed. Following some initial discussion of lining techniques in poetic-ethnography, the participant organized the transcription into a poetic (auto) ethnography. The resultant poem was read and discussed and went through several permutations until reaching the form presented here.

Drafting a Pacifist Into the IDF: A Poetic (Auto) Ethnography

Personal Postscript

The soldier who performed this poetic (auto) ethnography said that he had waited nearly 30 years to tell his personal story and he felt that now was the time to tell someone about his experiences. He felt that the soldier narrative project was an opportunity to tell someone what he had never told before. He explained that that the story was personally painful and he worried that his children would not understand. I asked at the end, when the poem was finally written and on paper and he had reread it—what was it like now that he had told the story. He considered the question and told me that the pain had not rescinded as a result of the telling, but he recognized the violence and injustice he had suffered that was not his fault or desire, that he acted in ways which were thoughtful but not thought out at the time, and that he had retained his integrity and not participated in violence. He told me that he still believed that he would rather die than kill another. He also said that he still did not want to publicly own the story while recognizing that it is his own. He did want it to be told.

As seen in this autoethnographic poem, the experience of being a soldier, especially one who is drafted into an army and societal position that he does not agree with, can be one of subversive agency. Not every act of resistance involves the media and public presence; perhaps the most important acts of resistance are silent, unannounced, and private. No act of resistance is selfless or without a price; compliance, in the army and beyond, is a ubiquitous force directing belief and action. Noncompliance can bring with it shame and silence and societal distancing especially in a place like Israel where the military has such a prominent role. While not described in this piece, a price was paid here by this soldier for his actions in the army.

The idea of subversive, unannounced noncompliance as a response to situations in which one is forced into actions that are against one’s moral sense by large societal and discursive forces is important. It is a strategy for agency in places where there seems to be no agency. Modern states are by definition bureaucratic and require the participation of individual agents within the system. Announcing resistance can be far less effective than just unannounced noncompliance. In fact, with enough noncompliance the whole of the bureaucratic state breaks apart. It is the blind compliance of multiple actors that allows civil atrocities to occur. As I write, I am thinking of a recent newspaper report about a U.S. immigration agent who just resigned his post because he did not want to deport migrants and potentially split families under racist directed Trumpian policies. This is an act of defiance publicly reported. But perhaps he should have stayed and just gone continually to the wrong address to pick up people who were not there, or perhaps accidentally lost or erased the files holding identifying information. Perhaps his acts of noncompliance, unannounced to the world or his employers, would have been an act of greater defiance and of greater benefit in the long run.

For myself, just like the soldier in this narrative, I want to be able to say privately that I acted with integrity and lived with the personal consequences, that I did not transgress what I believe, and that I did not bow to the power of the state or the public when it is unjust. The act of subversive, unannounced noncompliance is an option that we all have even in the most rigid of social structures; not to act in this way is to support the actions that you are performing and to be responsible for the consequences. The response, like German soldiers in the Second World War, that one is just following orders or doing one’s duty is not a defense. What you do or don’t do will be your responsibility and you will have to live with the consequences.