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Eastwood, James (2015) The ethics of Israeli militarism : soldiers‘ testimony and the formation of the Israeli soldier-subject. PhD Thesis. SOAS, University of London http://eprints.soas.ac.uk/23668 Copyright © and Moral Rights for this thesis are retained by the author and/or other copyright owners. A copy can be downloaded for personal non‐commercial research or study, without prior permission or charge. This thesis cannot be reproduced or quoted extensively from without first obtaining permission in writing from the copyright holder/s. The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders. When referring to this thesis, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date of the thesis must be given e.g. AUTHOR (year of submission) "Full thesis title", name of the School or Department, PhD Thesis, pagination. The ethics of Israeli militarism: soldiers‘ testimony and the formation of the Israeli soldier-subject James Eastwood Thesis submitted for the degree of PhD 2015 Department of Politics and International Studies SOAS, University of London Declaration I have read and understood regulation 17.9 of the Regulations for students of the SOAS, University of London concerning plagiarism. I undertake that all the material presented for examination is my own work and has not been written for me, in whole or in part, by any other person. I also undertake that any quotation or paraphrase from the published or unpublished work of another person has been duly acknowledged in the work which I present for examination. Signed: ____________________________ Date: _________________ 2 Abstract This thesis argues that ethics plays a crucial role in sustaining Israeli militarism. It shows how ethics has become important both in motivating soldiers to participate in military service in Israel and in constraining political activism against Israel's military engagements. The research is based on several months of fieldwork in Israel/Palestine, comprising interviews with key informants and participant- observation. Ethics and war are often intuitively understood as existing in antagonism with each other. The argument of this thesis, however, is that ethics can very easily facilitate the use of military violence, especially when ethical activity is used primarily as an opportunity to shape soldiers as subjects. This gives rise to a situation of militarism, in which processes of subject formation and military preparation intertwine and soldiers‘ experience of themselves as subjects depends on their ethical performance in war. The thesis draws on existing literature concerning militarism – both in the study of Israel and in International Relations theory – which it combines with theoretical insights developed from the later work of Michel Foucault and psychoanalysis. The thesis offers several empirical studies to demonstrate its argument. It analyses the ethical code of the Israel Defence Forces (IDF), the teaching of military ethics in the IDF, and the role of ethical pedagogy at Israeli pre-military academies. It also investigates the work of the Israeli veterans‘ activist group, ―Breaking the Silence‖, which attempts to use a moral critique voiced through the testimonies of soldiers in order to campaign for the end of the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. Throughout it draws attention to how ethical practice, and especially testimony, contributes to militarist subject formation. 3 Acknowledgments I knew that I had incurred many debts of gratitude while writing this thesis, although I had not appreciated quite how many until I came to recount them here. My first thanks must go to those friends who initially got me interested in Israel/Palestine, without whom I might never have had the idea to start this research – Ben Jacobs, Zach Eilon, and Rachel Cohen. I also thank Glen Rangwala for supervising the Masters dissertation which would eventually develop into this thesis. This research was funded by a three-year scholarship from the Economic and Social Research Council and a one-year doctoral fellowship from the Israel Institute. I am immensely grateful to both organisations for giving me the opportunity to pursue it. My Hebrew would never have developed without the help of several amazing teachers, especially Daphna Witztum, Rachel Williams, Mazal Cohen and above all Tamar Drukker, who also did a great deal to help shape and improve my research. I am extremely grateful to all those colleagues and students at SOAS who have given me support, participated in intellectual exchanges, and shown solidarity in struggle over the last few years. I would like to thank the staff of the Department of Politics and International Studies, and especially Meera Sabaratnam, Felix Berenskoetter, Matt Nelson, and Mark Laffey for their support, feedback, and advice. I also thank all those fellow PhD students in the department who participated in workshops and discussions, and particularly those who read and commented on a draft of one of my chapters. I am further grateful to participants in the Centre for Palestine Studies research seminar series for their presentations and for their questions and comments about my work. While on fieldwork I was lucky enough to have the help and support of the wonderful staff at the Kenyon Institute in Jerusalem. My thanks go to Maida Smeir, Sami Salah, Hussein Ghaith (Abu Hani), Josephine Abu Sa‘da, and especially to its endlessly good-humoured and indefatigable director, Mandy Turner. I was also fortunate to find friendship and intellectual companionship among other ―inmates‖ during my stay there, especially Oscar Jarzmik, George Cregan, Avi Raz, Yoni Furas, Una McGahern, Toufic Haddad, Francesca Burke, as well as Julie Trottier and her daughter Talia-Aïsha. Many pleasant hours were also spent practising Hebrew and discussing my research in the company of Ora Ardon. I thank all of these friends for making my fieldwork more enjoyable and its difficulties more bearable. I was assisted in my fieldwork by Eitan Diamond and I received helpful advice from Edna Lomksy- Feder at the Hebrew University and Michal Givoni at Ben Gurion University. I am grateful to all those who granted interviews but especially to the activists of Breaking the Silence, who did a huge amount to facilitate my research and tolerated my presence and questions with the utmost patience. I am particularly indebted to Nadav Weiman for sharing his excellent photograph, which he generously allowed me to reproduce in this thesis. A number of friends and colleagues read drafts and in other ways contributed to the development of this research. In particular, I would like to thank Craig Jones, Leila Stockmarr, Chris Rossdale, Tarak Barkawi, Louiza Odysseos, Carl Death, Helle Malmvig, Sharri Plonski, and Alasdair Churchard. The friendship, feedback, and support of Nivi Manchanda have been constant features of the research process. I have had the privilege of working with three incredible supervisors during my studies – Laleh Khalili, Yair Wallach, and Charles Tripp. As second supervisor, Yair continuously challenged me to improve 4 and refine my work, providing a sympathetic but critical ear which proved especially useful in the closing stages of the write-up. His detailed and thoughtful comments did much to enhance this thesis. Above all, Laleh has been an inexhaustible source of enthusiasm, energy, and wisdom since I first proposed this research to her. I thank her for placing trust in me, for the inspirational example she sets to young scholars, and for the innumerable improvements she has made to this project through her continuous curiosity and questions. Her hard work and support made this thesis possible, and her contributions have truly transformed it. I thank my parents, Haidee and Ken, and my whole family for their support during this research. Tessa Buchanan has offered companionship, support, confidence, and intellectual engagement ever since I began this project and must take enormous credit for helping me bring it to its conclusion. I thank and love her with all my heart. This thesis is dedicated to the memory of my grandfather, Eric John Woods, who passed away while I was writing it. He did and gave so much to make me able to do this. 5 Table of Contents Declaration .............................................................................................................................................. 2 Abstract ................................................................................................................................................... 3 Acknowledgments................................................................................................................................... 4 List of figures and tables ......................................................................................................................... 9 Introduction ......................................................................................................................................... 10 Approaching Israeli militarism ................................................................................................... 17 Militarism in International Relations theory ............................................................................... 23 Militarism, ethics, and subject formation ................................................................................... 29 Defining ethics ................................................................................................................

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