In Israel, following the July 1984 elections, the Government of National Unity was set up. First Shimon Peres, then Yitschak Shamir, became prime minister. Whereas Peres was an excellent diplomat who did much to improve Israel’s international status, Shamir was an introverted, ever suspicious former LECHI member who had risen through the ranks of Mossad and served as minister of foreign affairs under Begin. Whatever their differences, both supported Yitschak Rabin as minister of defense: Peres because he had no choice—as number two on the Labor list Rabin had almost as many adherents as himself—and Shamir because he was aware of his own inexperience in military affairs and because he greatly respected the former chief of staff’s abilities.5 Later, having spent two years in the opposition—during 1990 to 1992—Rabin took over as prime minister while acting as his own minister of defense. Thus, with the exception of those two years, Rabin dominated Israeli defense for a full decade.
As before, Rabin’s ability to get along with the Americans on whom so much depended was an important asset and represented a welcome change from the time when Ariel Sharon, trying to get his way in Lebanon, pounded the table in front of Reagan’s secretary of defense, Caspar Weinberger. As before, by and large Rabin and Peres used this renewed goodwill to the best effect, obtaining first an extra $1.5 billion in aid to fight inflation (in 1985) and then no less than $10 billion in loan guarantees approved by Congress (in autumn 1992). Assisted by falling oil prices from 1986 on, economic growth resumed. In particular, high-tech industries were given a tremendous boost; by the early 1990s the sixty-mile corridor between Tel Aviv and Haifa boasted the second largest concentration of software firms in the world. By 1996, GDP stood at $99.3 billion and per-capita income had reached $16,980. A strong shekel, held up by the U.S. loan guarantees as well as high interest rates, encouraged a flood of imports. For the first time Israel began to feel and look more or less like a Western developed country. Compared to events in neighboring countries, Israel’s economic transformation was dramatic. It produced more than Jordan, Syria, and Egypt combined; the gap in per-capita product stood at 9: 1, 14: 1, and 15 : 1 respectively.6
As the economy expanded, the military budget was cut. Its share of GNP fell from 21.8 percent in 1985 to 19.4 percent in 1987, 16.4 percent in 1988, and 14 percent in 1989. Since then it has continued to decline until it leveled out at approximately 11-12 percent during the early 1990s.7 The share of defense imports went down from 8 percent to 1.5 percent of GNP,8 that of military pay from 40.4 percent of all public salaries (1980) to 34 percent (1995).9 To be sure, these figures tend to underestimate the true cost because they exclude “hidden” factors such as the cost of servicing military debts and the pay of reservists, which is provided by Social Security; it is also not clear if, and where, the cost of the nuclear establishment is tucked in. By international standards the share of defense in GNP and per-capita military expenditures have remained rather high, the latter at $1,300 (1992), roughly equal to the U.S. figure and twice that of a typical West European country.10
Against this background, the breakneck expansion that characterized the military from 1973 to 1982 could not be sustained. Relative to its neighbors the size of the IDF declined somewhat as progress toward peace lessened the threat of war; in absolute terms, the size of the ground forces steadied as did the number of major formations.11 The air force order of battle also stagnated as older aircraft (Skyhawks) were sold or put into storage. 12 The end to growth was accompanied by a spectacular rise in the sizes of the age groups available for service. Between 1960 and 1974 the Jewish population grew by a third, from about 2.2 million to 2.9 million. During the same years the annual birthrate per thousand increased from 22.9 to 36.3.13 Assuming all other factors remained unchanged, this meant that the class of 1992 was twice as large as that of 1978. This does not even account for some 750,000 immigrants who entered the country from 1989 on, about 20 percent being of a military age.
As a result, during the late eighties the manpower shortage that existed during the seventies was transforming into a glut. Though there are no published data, presumably standards rose as it was no longer necessary to scrape the bottom of the barrel and conscript the unwilling, the mentally marginal, and the physically unfit.14 Obtaining a discharge became much easier, and some of the social stigma attached to it lessened as did various restrictions incurred by those who are exempt. Entire groups that used to be called up no longer were (for example, male and female immigrants more than twenty-four and seventeen years old, respectively).15 Moreover, the surplus of young people made it possible to release older classes of reservists, leading to a rejuvenation of the army.16
The increase in the number of youths inducted each year has had certain negative consequences. From the sixties on, most developed countries have been moving away from universal service toward some form of all-volunteer army because their security was guaranteed by nuclear capability and because such a force structure is more suitable to a modern world where high technology requires lengthy training.17 On the face of it both considerations apply to Israel. On the one hand it too is a nuclear country whose ultimate security rests not with the IDF but with a very few technicians who sit at consoles, fingers on the keys or triggers or whatever. On the other hand the conventional technology is becoming much more sophisticated and tends to demand better training. Although the question has been extensively debated,18 so far a change has been prevented by the desire to retain a large force of trained reservists.
Cynics would add that from the army’s point of view both reservists and conscripts have the extra advantage of being cheap. The fact that reserve pay is provided not by the military but by Social Security has often come under critical fire; it means that IDF commanders do not have to worry about financial consequences when calling up men for duty. Most conscripts so long as they live are paid only around $90 per month. Should they die during active service, rarely are there widows or orphans to support. Apart from the expense of burial—a plot of land, a headstone, and a platoon firing blank cartridges—the state’s cost is substantially limited to $17,000 or so in life insurance. Thus a conscript’s life is valued at two months’ pay of a major general (without benefits); the premium is even deducted from their pay.19
In theory the problem of surplus manpower could have been met by switching to selective service, a system used by many countries particularly during the nineteenth century. Alternatively, the conscript service period could be cut, as in 1964-1965. Against a background of declining willingness to serve, in practice the first alternative is impossible thanks to the need to maintain “the equality of carrying the burden”; the second is impossible thanks to the lopsided relationship between training time and operational utilization that follows. Unable to escape the dilemma, the IDF during the late eighties and early nineties became enormously wasteful of manpower; its supporting services (the combat units, as we shall see, are a different story) are overflowing with conscripts without work. Judging from the fact that in 1995 it was proposed to cut the period of service of soldiers in noncombat units from three to two years, the surplus may be on the order of 30 percent. That proposal having been rejected, some soldiers spend as much as nine of fourteen days at home—a system colloquially known as “5/9.” Apparently it is welcomed by the IDF because it shifts the burden of supporting them to their parents.
The basic training that most troops receive is pared down to one month or less, which at one time was not even considered sufficient for women; while it lasts, they might fire perhaps one hundred rounds from small arms. Next they take assignments in a very large variety of slots, such as administrative or guard duty. Many of these positions probably could be better filled by regulars who stay longer on the job and can master it thoroughly. Others, such as construction, dental treatment, psychological testing, and looking after medical stores, could and should be civilianized as in other countries around the world .20 From 1994 on, the surplus has been so great that some recruits are transferred into the pol
ice and the border guard, thereby making those services younger and less professional—just the opposite required for coping with the Intifada, where self-control and discipline count for everything.21 Had it been up to that great democrat, Yitschak Rabin, conscripts would have fulfilled active duty working for either the Frontier Guard or for Shin Bet, without their consent. Only protests in parliament prevented him from instituting such an arrangement.
Once completing conscript service, IDF soldiers are assigned to reserve units. Here the surplus of second-echelon troops is even greater than in the standing army; as much as 40 percent of those on the rolls never serve .22 Yet those who are called up for their annual stint often find themselves assigned to low-level “current security” tasks such as patrolling the border and mounting guard, even though they are not really suited for combat duty. As long as nothing untoward happens these assignments pass without comment; the men, having spent time with comrades in something like a holiday camp, go home happily enough. From time to time, however, some unexpected incident takes place. For instance, in February 1992 three Arab terrorists armed with knives and axes entered a base in the center of the country, killing three soldiers and wounding three others before making good their escape. In July 1996 a patrol of reservists was ambushed along the Jordan border, losing three killed and two wounded. This time reinforcements were summoned but failed to arrive on time; the guerrillas escaped with the squad’s .50-caliber machine gun .23 Each time a fashla (blunder) occurs a furor arises, and the troops’ low state of training, particularly refresher training, is blamed. The incident is soon forgotten—until the next one.
Traditionally the IDF avoided assigning women to combat areas and evacuated women serving in field units as soon as hostilities flared up. However, during the later stages of the Lebanese adventure the IDF confronted growing unwillingness among male reservists to serve in a conflict with neither purpose nor end. To prevent discontent from spreading, female conscripts were sent into the breach. For the first time since the days of PALMACH, women could be found serving in combat zones as communicators, medical orderlies, and administrators; the IDF, aware of the public-relations disaster that could ensue, ensured that none became casualties, and in fact no woman is known to have been killed or wounded .24 To CHEN proponents the experiment constituted more proof that the army had been underutilizing women all along.25 Perhaps a more correct interpretation would be to say that when morale began to falter the IDF, with the connivance of its female commanders—who remained safely in the rear—took the path of least resistance. It turned to its pool of defenseless girls, making them do work older men were increasingly reluctant to perform.
Reaching Israel a decade or so late, feminist pressures started during the eighties, a possible reason being that as en brera faded away, society felt it could engage in all kinds of experiments. From 1980 to 1991 the number of MOS formally open to female soldiers was increased by an additional 60 percent, from 296 to 500.26 The number of those working in intelligence, communications, military police, the medical professions, and training rose, though each of these fields separately only accounted for less than 10 percent of all women. The number of women working as secretaries dropped, though at 39 percent secretaries still remained by far the largest group of female soldiers .27 As before, using women who would never see combat to instruct men expected to do so gave rise to problems. In some instances it created a situation whereby commanders no longer knew how to instruct, or instructors to command .28
In practice, as of 1991, women occupied only 234 out of the 500 MOS open to them. Feminist commanders steered females away from such jobs as truck driving, which, partly because of their low prestige and partly because they required physical force, were supposed to be more suited to males.29 The discrepancy led to a vast surplus of female recruits. Efforts to solve the problem by cutting the period of service (now around twenty-one months) tend to make it worse; understandably the army is reluctant to train personnel who will spend only a brief period applying skills before being released.30 The upshot is that many female conscripts are even more underemployed than male counterparts; a chief of manpower/planning put the surplus at 50 percent.31 Many acquire no useful skills and spend the better part of two years marking time. Others are used as cheap labor in civilian-type jobs, controlling passports, minding pilots’ children, and serving under what has been called “semiservile” conditions.32
The increased presence of female soldiers also changed the face of the officer corps. Whereas from 1983 to 1993 the number of male officers increased by only 29 percent, that of female ones doubled. Rank by rank, the percentage of female captains rose from 14 percent to 23 percent of the total; that of majors, from 13 to 18 percent; and that of lieutenant colonels, from 6 to 11 percent.33 Many of these newly promoted women were said to be overqualified for their jobs.34 Take the lieutenant colonel who acts as secretary to the Command and General Staff College. Factoring in benefits, separation pay, and pension, the cost of filling the slot must be three or four times as high than if the IDF, following the example of other armies around the world, had filled it with a civilian.
The IDF’s use—or, depending on one’s point of view, abuse—of female personnel stands out more strongly against the background of Israeli labor law and the experience of Western armed forces. At least on paper, Israel’s labor law is among the world’s most advanced; it prohibits discrimination (except for some forms that work in women’s favor, such as tax breaks and shorter hours for working mothers) and imposes near-complete equality on the sexes.35 Western armed forces have gone far to integrate women in the various MOS, including use aboard ships and as combat pilots. Not so the IDF, which had to be forced in court to accept women pilot trainees. The IDF also retains CHEN as a separate women’s corps, though recently its significance has been reduced as commanders, in what is officially described as a sign of trust, were given greater disciplinary authority over female subordinates. Although some women who are assigned to the border guard now receive combat training, they are assigned to such rear echelon duties as patrolling the streets of Israeli cities, guarding shopping centers, and the like. The result is to unfairly increase the burden on men; women who run the risk of contacting the enemy (such as those policing Jewish settlers in Hebron) remain sufficiently exceptional to be known as “the eleven viragoes.”36
The IDF’s tendency to fall behind civilian society is not limited to its treatment of women. To cite just two examples: In Israel as in many other Western countries public education is slowly giving way to private schooling. Teachers in private schools are paid more, and attendance is voluntary; since there are virtually no disciplinary problems, often they are able to provide a superior education and even to pass students through the staterun exams ahead of public-school counterparts. Perhaps because Israel has been a socialist country for so long, however, the IDF manpower division adheres to the old idea that “public” is good and “private” is bad, a fallback for those who could not make it under ordinary circumstances. When they join the army the graduates of so-called extramural schools automatically lose points in the exam that determines a recruit’s KABA (kvutsat echut, or “quality group”); this results not only in discrimination but also inefficient use of manpower.
The second example, which took place at the end of 1996, is even more interesting. In Israel as in many other developed welfare states the institution of marriage has been losing ground in favor of other forms of cohabitation, formal and informal. Thus, when an Israeli woman decided to marry her non-Jewish boyfriend by means of a so-called Paraguay wedding—in fact the only way in which she could have done so, given that Israel’s rabbinate would have refused to perform the ceremony—she was doing nothing very exceptional. The IDF manpower division refused to recognize the marriage, however, so when the young woman in question claimed to be exempted from service she found herself behind bars. She was released within twenty-four hours after the matter became public, but the IDF’s inability or un
willingness to adapt to changing social norms had been put on display for all to see.37
The most flagrant failure to adapt to new social realities concerns the education of officers. Unlike armed forces elsewhere, the IDF never maintained a military academy; a few special groups apart, the great majority of future commanders enter officer training school straight from the ranks without benefit of higher education. As long as officers were regarded as an elite and Israeli society at large remained comparatively backward, this did not present a disadvantage. For example, as late as 1969 only 10 percent of Israelis twenty to twenty-four years old studied, far behind the United States (43 percent) and Japan (36 percent).38 As in other developed countries, though, Israeli higher education has exploded. By 1992 the percentage of high-school graduates who went on to some kind of higher education stood at 47.1 percent (Israel), 64.8 percent (United States), and 54.9 percent (Japan).39
During most of the IDF’s history, only those officers who went through the Academic Reserve received a full university education before being commissioned. The rest either attended an institution of higher learning during their period of keva service or, particularly if they were members of the combat arms, remained without. Now it can be argued that as far as military qualifications are concerned a lieutenant in command of a platoon does not really need a college degree.40 After all, as victories have proved, the quality of Israel’s junior officers has been superb. However, by and large the higher that one rises the more difficult the problems. This is even more so in the IDF than elsewhere, for its professional officers are much less well educated than reservist comrades. Almost all of the latter attend university after the end of their conscript service. Regardless of whether they work for government or for business or in the professions, they will represent the flower of Israeli society.
The Sword And The Olive Page 42
