Democratic Palestine : 32 (ص 29)
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- Democratic Palestine : 32 (ص 29)
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law makes it almost impossible to have college education
before being drafted» (ibid). Traditionally, the Israeli air force
gets first crack at high school graduates, selecting the top 10%.
There is also the Talpiot program whereby the brightest high
school graduates get military and scientific training to prepare
for defense research. This program has been in operation for
several years, but only recently did the censor permit publica-
tion of details about it (Jewish Week, September 13, 1985).
Completion of military service carries with it a range of
privileges, including access to housing and scholarships - a
system that serves to exclude Palestinian Arabs who are Israeli
citizens, since they do not serve in the army. In addition, it is
only after completing military service that soldiers get cer-
tificates allowing travel abroad. Educational standards may
even be tampered with in relation to military needs. For ex-
ample, following two years of almost full mobilization to pur-
sue the war and occupation in Lebanon, the Technion (the
main Israeli technical teaching institute) decided to assist can-
didates who had completed military service by awarding an
additional three points to their final marks for each year of
service they had done (Haaretz, August 21, 1984).
Jewish religious values are also eroded by the needs of the
militant settler society. One example concerns the Hesder
Yeshivot, religious students who were previously ‘closeted
away’ to pursue their religious training. With the increasing
militarization of the Israeli society and the evocation of
religion to serve extreme right-wing goals, these students are
now in paramilitary ‘religious’ settlements from the Gaza Strip
to the Golan Heights. They combine military service with
religious instruction, signing up for four to five years rather
than the required three. They spend five months annually in
the army and the rest in their settlement where they are on call
for emergency mobilization; most of them are constantly arm-
ed. According to top army people, «We are getting some of the
best material in the army today from the Hesder Yeshivot»
(Jewish Press, September 19, 1986).
‘STATE WORSHIP’
In this study, we have focused on the material factors which
predispose ‘Israel’ to play its aggressive role, meanwhile forg-
ing a consensus in the population at large to the same end. Ac-
counting for this latter phenomenon would require a thorough
review of the racist Zionist ideology itself, and how it has
permeated Israeli social and cultural life, including the school
curriculum and the media. This subject is too extensive to be
included here, despite its importance in maintaining a settler
population which is constantly ready to go to war for the sake
of the state and imperialist aims. The social stability and
reliability of the Israeli society are, of course, a main asset to
imperialism.
Raphael Shapiro gives a number of reasons for what he
terms «state worship» which accounts for the lack of dissent in
Israeli society and general willingness to participate in the
state’s designated goals: «First, the organization of the pro-
cesses of immigration and colonization gave rise to a huge
Democratic Palestine, March 1989
bureaucracy, accustomed to manipulating large population
groups. Second, the constant conflict with the Arab world has
tremendously boosted the prestige and power of the military; a
large and growing part of the social, bureaucratic and political
elite is made up of retired generals...» (Forbidden Agendas).
Shapiro poses the question of why ‘Israel’ has until now
«shown only partial symptoms of fascist tendencies» and at-
tributes this to the lack of serious internal opposition as well as
the blunting of internal contradictions due to external aid. On
the other side, one can conclude that the chance for change in
Israeli society is fundamentally bound up with the advance
of the Palestinian liberation movement, rather than to internal
Israeli factors left to themselves.
THE POLITICAL—MILITARY ELITE
For ‘Israel’ the early eighties were marked by the invasion of
Lebanon, an aggravated economic crisis and the rise of the
supposedly autonomous armed settler movement. In this
situation, there was much speculation about the possibilities of
a military coup and/or the rise of fascism. We would contend
that outright implementation of these two options is
superfluous, for they already exist in forms especially geared to
the needs of the Zionist project. A military regime is not need-
ed in view of the existence of a closely integrated political-
military elite; it would only harm the Zionist state’s interna-
tional image, and thus complicate its alliances and foreign aid,
etc. Semi-fascist control is already exercised against the inter-
nal enemy in the form of the military dictatorship which exists
in the 1967 occupied territories, and when needed against
Palestinians living in the state itself. On the other hand, main-
taining a democratic facade for Jewish citizens is an integral
part of fully mobilizing their capacities for the Zionist project.
Those who were shocked by Israeli conduct in the 1982 war
in Lebanon cited in particular the role of Defense Minister
Sharon and Chief of Staff Raphael Eitan who directed the ad-
vancing army way beyond the geographical and time limits
approved for «Operation Peace for the Galilee.» However, a
deeper historical perspective reveals that similar «manipula-
tion» of adopted objectives by the military leadership have
often occurred before. For example, in the 1967 war, the ap-
proved military plan called for penetrating the Sinai without
conquest of the Gaza Strip or reaching the Suez Canal. There
were those in the political leadership, notably then Labor
Minister Yigal Allon, who disagreed with this plan, because
they favored controlling the canal. In any event, ‘Israel’ went
to war on June 4th, and on June 8th, the army had reached the
canal, not to mention occupied the Gaza Strip. According to
Haim Benjamini, retired brigadier general, «The Israeli
military elite, being ‘how’ decision-makers, made a crucial
contribution to the overturning of the process (of civilian-
military decision-making). However, Benjamini also notes that
some in the political leadership advocated the military advance
that was implemented, so his other conclusion is more to the
point: «A narrowing of the structural differentiation between
the political institutions and the military elite nucleus, usually >
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