![Sample our Politics & International Relations journals, sign in here to start your FREE access for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5947/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Politics-International-Relations.jpg"})
ABSTRACT
For decades, soldiers in Israel’s elite naval commando unit trained in the highly polluted waters of the Kishon River without conducting any prior examination of its suitability as a training site. Following a high incidence of disease and even death among these soldiers, a national enquiry commission was set up. The thick descriptions in the commission protocols provided the factual infrastructure for this qualitative case study of an organizational phenomenon: how generations of senior officers enabled activities that directly contravened the declared code of ethics of the Israel Defense Forces regarding the risking of lives. The findings question the assumption that ethical decision-making is affected mainly by the traits and mindset of the individual. They show that the values, symbols and beliefs of a senior peer group mold a unique sub-culture and climate that can undermine the ethical ethos, even in a highly bureaucratic organization such as the military. The findings expand research knowledge about the impact of organizational contexts and group processes on ethical behavior, and extend applied knowledge regarding the instilment of ethics in organizations.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes on contributor
Tzippi Gushpantz holds a PhD from Tel Aviv University, and is a lecturer in management at The Israel Academic College in Ramat-Gan. She has taught management and applied managerial ethics in various academic programs and institutions, such as The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Open University Israel, Mishkenot Sha’ananim Center for Ethics, the Israeli Ministry of Education, Tel Aviv University and Ben Gurion University of the Negev. She has also lectured to senior officers of the Israel Defense Forces and worked on projects for the implementation of ethics in the business sector.
Notes
1 Quotes are from the protocols of the Inquiry Commission (Shamgar Commission Protocols Citation2000–Citation2001) on the consequences of military activity in the Kishon River and the surrounding waters on the health of IDF soldiers who were active there. The Commission was headed by Judge Meir Shamgar. Statements or references to the report itself (Shamgar Commission Report Citation2001) are denoted R, followed by the page number. Statements or references originating in the Commission’s protocols (the latter dating from the year 2000) are denoted P. with the date and month and then the page number(s) of the Hebrew transcript. The two quotes here are from testimonies taken on 27 December (P. 27.12) and 9 November (P. 9.11) respectively; both are found on page 28 of the protocols.
2 According to the testimony of the UMI Commander, dives continued until 2000. A committee was set up to find technical solutions to diving in polluted waters.
3 The assumption here is as follows: the material provided by the informants, in this case senior officers testifying before the Commission, reflects a narrative truth (Bruner Citation1990), each utterance constituting a microcosm of their consciousness (Seidman Citation1991) through which to understand people’s motivations for their actions and grasp their key values and beliefs.
4 Brief quotes from this document are given here without mention of the page number. See IDF (Citationn.d.).
5 Commission head, Judge Shamgar, noted that some 400 scientific articles have been published about the industrial waste and the metal content of the Kishon (P. 31.10, 10).
6 In 1980 this course was relocated following soldiers' complaints. This had no effect on other units training there (P. 9.11, 4).
7 Reference is to the instruction from the Corps CMO issued in February 1989 and later that of the IDF CMO from September 1989.
8 This is a reference to the instruction from the medical officers to stop diving in 1989.
9 This was written by experts on water microbiology and quality of the environment units (P. 22.11, 46).
10 Navy Command, head of field security, deputy CMO, Corps CMO, Flotilla 13, and senior battalion MO.
11 P. 26.11, 46. In his testimony, the Navy Commander stated: “this is a glitch that was not supposed to happen. I blame myself as a deputy.” At that time, in 1989, he was the deputy commander of the Navy.
12 From my interview with Judge Meir Shamgar, former High Court Judge, 9 November 2007 (Gushpantz Citation2013, Appendix 1).