Sebastian Junger has a new book out called Tribe, about the tribal pull inside human societies, the need to belong to a subgroup to derive meaning in life. Much of his book involves the bonding and closeness that soldiers experience by being together in armies, in which people are equal, and everyone suffers the same fears and privations.
Junger was on Leonard Lopate’s show ten days ago, and I can’t let this pass, Lopate asked him about his belief that veterans don’t like special treatment– say, boarding first on airplanes — when they reintegrate into American society. And Lopate injected that Israelis would never grant such privileges to veterans.
Lopate: It’s different in Israel because everybody, or almost everyone, serves.
Junger: Everyone serves in the military, they’re not letting vets go first on airplanes because everyone’s a vet. And no one says, thank you for your service, because it’s like saying thank you for paying your taxes. I mean everybody does it. So what you want from veterans is to reincorporate them into the society.
Just a casual moment, yes, but Junger’s an impressive American storyteller, so it’s worth correcting the record here. Palestinian Israelis do pay taxes, but they are exempted from serving in the Israeli army, though they constitute roughly one-fifth of the country’s population. That’s because they are not considered sufficiently loyal to the country, for obvious reasons: Israel is constituted as a “Jewish state,” and many of its enemies are Palestinians, people who were forced off their lands to permit the state’s establishment, or who now live under occupation with no rights, right alongside Jewish colonists who have full rights, and have to serve in the army. So the Israeli army is overwhelmingly Jewish (though many Druze serve).
Junger’s misstatement is understandable in that most Americans surely share his view of the Israeli army. But it’s just not the case that everyone serves. The United States has not had a situation anything like this in generations. Blacks served in segregated units during World War II. The army was integrated in 1948.
Americans ought to be asking, Why would you want to have a society that one-fifth of the population wouldn’t want to defend? Because the definition of citizenship overlaps with a tribal definition that is highly exclusive, and not at all equal, is why. And that is a big reason that the Palestinian solidarity movement is intent on reforming that society.
Thanks, Phil. I read a review of his book in the Chicago Tribune (http://www.chicagotribune.com/lifestyles/books/ct-prj-sebastian-junger-tribe-20160602-story.html) yesterday, and I thought that perhaps his premise applies primarily to US and other western militaries that embark on foreign soil to engage or start wars. It certainly cannot really apply to the ca 80% of Israelis who serve in the IOF. From wiki:
“Tribe[edit]
In Tribe (2016) Junger studies war veterans from an anthropological perspective and asks how “do you make veterans feel that they are returning to a cohesive society that was worth fighting for in the first place?”. Junger’s premise is that “soldiers all but ignore differences of race, religion and politics within their platoon,” and upon return to America, find a fractious society splintered into various competing fragments, many of them hostile to one another.[53]”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sebastian_Junger
O/T, but interesting article about another author that you have written about (“Chabon calls occupation ‘the most grievous injustice I have ever seen in my life’ and says he is ‘culpable’” – See more at: https://mondoweiss.net/2016/04/chabon-calls-occupation-the-most-grievous-injustice-i-have-ever-seen-in-my-life-and-says-he-is-culpable/#sthash.mQU7SKrt.dpuf) appeared in Haaretz:
“The power couple of American literature wants to save Israel from itself
The dissonance generated by a visit to Hebron and a dinner in Tel Aviv jolted Israeli-born writer Ayelet Waldman. It also sparked the genesis of a project with her husband, writer Michael Chabon, and Breaking the Silence: enlisting world-famous writers to document life under occupation. …”
read more: http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/culture/leisure/.premium-1.722818
In the US media “Israeli” practically always means “Israeli Jew”. In my observation the same tends to be true among Israeli Jews themselves.
This is something to bear in mind when defenders of Israel go on about Israel’s supposed multicultural society.
Why did Lopate raise the issue (seemingly off the topic of “Tribe”) of Israeli soldiers? Just couldn’t help himself, hmm?
BTW, I sense that I have not been a “member of a political tribe” until Sanders showed that there was a way. It’s a bad thing, but I nearly take offence from my friends who (proudly?) proclaim that they voted for Clinton and will do it again. Tribes. Justice. Maybe those friends feel tribal about corporate governance.
Don’t forget the Haredim too.
Through the Haredim into the mix and about 1/3 of Israelis are exempt from compulsory military service.