Summary
Baruch Kimmerling’s term, as presented by Zionist Israel and the Question of Palestine, for the cognitive dimension of Israeli militarism: military approaches, worldviews and mindsets systematically internalised by decision makers and the broad public, so that the military, as warrantor of “national security”, is granted priority over almost all other areas of life as an organisational principle of the polity (Zionist Israel and the Question of Palestine, PDF p.103-104 / printed p.94-95).
Details
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Kimmerling distinguishes three dimensions of militarism — the political-violent, the cultural, and the cognitive — and defines the third as “civilian militarism”, in which structural and cultural militarism are internalised to the point of becoming a general state of mind, taken for granted and no longer questioned (PDF p.103).
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Its pillars are the civilian government, the academic, legal and economic elites, and Israeli society itself; the military need not stand at the centre of political power to be influential (PDF p.104).
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Kimmerling reads Dayan’s April 30, 1956 eulogy for Ro’i Rotberg as carrying seven codes of Israeli society, among them that existence can only be secured “with the fist and the sword”, the dominance of security, and perpetual mobilisation (PDF p.104-105).
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Amar-Dahl’s Chapter 3 conclusion uses the cognate “civil militarization” for the process by which the security apparatuses, stylised as “guardians of the nation”, come to set the tone of security policy as “security experts”, with security depoliticised and removed from public debate (PDF p.99-100).
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In Zionist Israel and the Question of Palestine part 4, the Chapter 4 conclusion roots civil militarism in the depoliticization of security: the state and its apparatuses claim exclusive decision power in security matters, excluding the public and the Knesset, a procedure laid down by Ben-Gurion’s small Ministry of Defense circle and reinforced by Peres — in 1956, in the secrecy of the nuclear programme under the Policy of Opacity, and in 1982, when Peres as opposition leader smothered public debate about the Lebanon war’s aims before it began (PDF p.154-156).
Related pages
Baruch Kimmerling, Nation in Arms, Elite Illegalism, Zionist Israel and the Question of Palestine