Can the Israeli academia replace mandatory conscription?

Amir Meital

pp. 291-300

in: Nimrod Bar Am, Stefano Gattei (eds), Encouraging openness, Berlin, Springer, 2017

Abstract

In 2015, Israeli President Reuven Rivlin launched a new civic initiative: "Israeli Hope". The main thrust of this initiative was to establish a new Israeli civic order based on mutual recognition and cooperation between four different "tribes," in Rivlin's words, that are in an ever-increasing state of mutual hostility. These are: the secular tribe, the Arab tribe, the ultra-orthodox tribe, and the national-religious tribe. President Rivlin presented a dire picture of a conflicted Israeli society but stated his belief that it is possible to generate consensus around four pillars: "each sector's feeling of security, a shared responsibility for the fate and future of the state of Israel, fairness and equality, and the creation of a common Israeli identity". This brings to mind Joseph Agassi's view that any Israeli political initiative is tantamount to crossing the Rubicon, since it challenges the Jewish "ghetto mentality" and the passive tradition of diaspora Jewry (Agassi 1993, 208, fn. 56). In his speech, President Rivlin emphasized the fact that two out of four of these "tribes' do not serve in the Israeli military, but that all of them can find themselves side by side in the academy and in the workplace. Needless to say, the Israeli army, which is commonly referred to as "the people's army" cannot live up to this title if only two of four of its tribes are eligible for service. In the absence of a substitute for this function in Israeli society, can the academy become the site for the formation of an Israeli national identity?

Cited authors

Agassi Joseph