Israel can't just rely on economic prosperity to legitimize its "ethnic exceptionalism".... That's why warfare will likely remain Israel's core business for a while.
jpost.com
Excerpt:
A man of seemingly endless energy, Duvdevani warns that if steps are not taken now to insure that Israel's changing society continues to fulfill its unchanging national missions, when peace comes the IDF will implode and Israel's whole existence here will crumble.
Duvdevani sounds like a walking anachronism, repeatedly using words like "national mission" and "love of the homeland."
"Ben-Gurion used to say that the national missions branch needed to change with the seasons. [But] love of the homeland and the Jewish nation and Zionist values are things that can't be changed.
"The moment they are changed we will, in effect, have to ask 'Who are we? What is our identity? What is the identity of the Jewish people? What's the identity of the people living in Zion today?
"If we lose this then we lose the whole Third Temple," Duvdevani says, using the term as a metaphor for the modern state of Israel.
So what are the goals in Duvdevani's eyes? Settlement. Absorption. A healthy society. Links with Diaspora Jews.
Duvdevani's remarks at first sound like warmed-over Palmah dogma served up in modern lingo.
"Will the Negev bloom? Will the Galilee not be Jewish? These are existential questions for us," he says over a cup of coffee in a Tel Aviv cafe.
Last week, Duvdevani held what he said was a crucial meeting with Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Shaul Mofaz, urging the military commander to set up teams to draw up contingency plans for the IDF in an era of peace. Considering Duvdevani's record, Mofaz might do well to pay attention.
[...]
BUT that is a small concern compared to the changes the IDF will have to cope with as Israel moves into an era of peace.
In the IDF's Manpower Branch, senior officers are nervously trying to figure out how to maintain high motivation once the IDF carries out Barak's stated intention to withdraw from southern Lebanon, Israel's last active front.
The time is not yet ripe for moving over to a professional force, says Duvdevani.
"The moment there will be peace, people will ask 'why do I have to be drafted to the army? What's our goal? So we have to start giving them direction and presenting them with our national missions. If we don't know how to explain our goals clearly, as Ben-Gurion did in his day, then this will be the end for us here," he says.
"Today we are a country at war which is united by the IDF. The existential threat to us from the Arab states is a fundamental thing right now, but the moment there is peace all our [internal] rifts will grow. You can already see this today. Once the existential threat is lifted, then the internal rifts will rip us apart," Duvdevani says.
"So, just like the IDF has prepared contingency plans for conquering Damascus or defending the Golan Heights, the army has to set up teams of the wisest people - including rabbis and educators and military people and industrialists - who will define the directions and make suggestions to the chief of General Staff and the prime minister, so that he can set the goals of the national missions for our youth," says Duvdevani.
[snip]
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On Israel as a Stratocratic Utopia:
jajz-ed.org.il |
