From ‘Fighting Family’ to ‘Belligerent Families’: Family–Military–Nation Interrelationships and the Forming of Israeli Public Behavior among Families of Fallen Soldiers and Families of MIAs and POWs

Abstract

The army–family relationship is vital for control by a state aware that the family is the central agent influencing their son to enlist. A historically ‘affectionate’ relationship prevailed between Israel's army and families. During and after the Yom Kippur War, families of captive and missing soldiers, and bereaved families, adopted ‘new’ social behaviors. They organized in an institutionalized manner, clashing with the establishment. Our research highlights the changing behavior patterns. Previously, Israel's ‘fighting family’ had applied a ‘hegemonic behavior model’. Families could process their loss privately, or publicly – as cultural agents committed to state values. After the war, many spurned that model and entered the public space, calling senior government officials ‘enemies’, ‘guilty’ of their plight. The new behavior fell on fertile ground: the declining traditional ‘network of elites’ and the burgeoning social-civil arena. Families of captive and MIA soldiers, and of fallen soldiers, adopted the trailblazing model. We first address theoretical aspects of ties between state and society, parenthood and family. Next we explore the ‘hegemonic model’ describing the pre-Yom Kippur War relationship between families and the establishment. We describe the ‘new’ behavior of two groups: families of captive and missing soldiers, and families of fallen soldiers. The state's co-opting of the family appears to be a regressive process, and the two institutions have begun operating competitively.

Keywords:

• Israel
• bereavement
• MIAs
• POWs
• families
• protest
• movements
• war

Notes

 1. People who undergo trauma perceive the world as less safe, have lower self-worth, and find less meaning in the world (Lebel 2006a).

 2. School counselors, as well as helping students regarding success in acquiring an education, also help prepare students for army service (Yisraelashvili, 1992).

 3. This, as part of the dynamic of army-society relationship (Cohen, 2008).

 4. Particularly regarding research into memorialization and shaping public memory (Azaryahu, 1994; Lebel, 2005).

 5. We note that the division was founded under this name only after the Yom Kippur War.

 6. The concept has been rendered as an ‘oversight,’ ‘lapse,’ or ‘omission.’ A better definition is “…culpable failure resulting from inadequate preparation and inaction” (Dean Godson, Now recriminations begin in Israel, The Times, 17 August 2006).

 7. Goffmann defined that distinction between the behavior of organizations and entrepreneurs as reflected in public on “front-stage,” and endeavors unfolding on what he called “backstage,” unseen by the wider public. For usage in this context, regarding an army unit's activity, see: José, 2007.

 8. Letter written by fathers of IDF war-dead.

 9. http://www.inn.co.il/News/News.aspx/173360

10. Most members of Almagor are parents whose children were killed in terror attacks, not in the army. In the public discourse, their status differs from that of the parents of army casualties. The dispute presented possibly has inherently contradictory perceptions representing different identities of national bereavement.

11. The campaign is described on the organization's homepage http://www.al-magor.com/.

12. As our research elicits, parents of POWs and those of the war-dead preceded Ashkenazi in organizing anti-government protest movements, after the war.