Civilian ‘soft’ militarism through informal education in Israel: learning to protect and connect to the land

ABSTRACT

The civil society organization HaShomer HaChadash (The New Guard) attempts to fill a security gap in Israel’s periphery by tackling the continuous threat of what it frames as ‘agricultural terrorism’ by securing farms in combination with a wide array of educational activities that emphasize the importance of agriculture, and simultaneously include the teaching of military themes (such as leadership, heroism, and sacrifice) and military skills training (guarding, navigation, and Krav Maga). The proposed paper investigates the nexus of militarism and informal education as manifested in Israeli civil society through the activities of HaShomer HaChadash. While the entanglement of militarism and education has deep roots in Israeli political culture, it has usually been nurtured by the government and not by non-state organizations. We argue that the combination of security and educational activities can be interpreted as a renaissance or evolution of Israeli civilian militarism, which we term ‘soft militarism’ in the margins of the state.

KEYWORDS:

• Soft militarism
• militarization
• informal education
• civil-society
• Israel

Introduction

Imagine a triangle. At the top end, you put ‘land’, at the right corner, you put the word ‘patrol’, and at the left corner, you put the word ‘heritage’. Now take one side and write the concept of ‘land and agriculture’; on the other side, put the concept of ‘civil society and education’, and now let’s start to get going. (Yoel Zilberman, our translation)

This quote from Yoel Zilberman, the founder of the Israeli civil society organization HaShomer HaChadash (The New Guard, from now on TNG), summarizes clearly what this group wants to achieve: secure the land by protecting farms, doing agriculture, and educate people about the importance of this land regarding Jewish heritage. TNG does so by organizing volunteer guarding of farms in Israel’s periphery and educating a wide range of audiences about the importance of the Jewish connection to the land. In this article, we will analyse this ‘triangle’ as Zilberman calls it, to understand the deeper meaning of how securitized educational activities (such as the ‘patrols’ in the quote above) by civilian actors can become part of the development of a civilianized, soft militarism, which corroborates more general militarization processes in society.

Various scholars in social sciences use the notion of ‘militarization’ to describe the growing influence of the military and other statist security agencies on social dynamics in democratic countries (Davis 2017; Enloe 1983; Lutz 2002). Generally, social scientists refer to situations in which societal institutions are configured in preparation for and the conduct of war and violence (Sørensen and Ben-Ari 2019, 2–3). This fairly limited approach has shifted in the last decades, and as Lutz argues, ‘Militarization is simultaneously a discursive process involving a shift in societal beliefs and values in ways necessary to legitimate the use of force, the organization of large standing armies and their leaders, and the higher taxes or tribute used to pay for them’ (Lutz 2002, 723). Anthropology, in particular, has contributed to this shift and ethnographically captures the everydayness and ‘the multiple ways in which “things military” … are entangled with “things civilian”’ (Sørensen and Ben-Ari 2019, 12).

Although the militarization of society may involve non-governmental agents, such as veterans’ organizations (Uesugi 2019) and the media, most scholars continue to focus on the role of state actors in promoting the legitimization of using military force and war (Mann 1987). Hence, militarism is mostly portrayed as a state-centric issue. Within this trend, scholars have explored different kinds of civil-military interfaces (or entanglements) (Sørensen and Ben-Ari 2019) in politics (Ben-Eliezer 1997; Peri 2006, 2020), economy (Levy 2007), culture (Adi and Stein 2015; Basham 2016; Ben-Ari and Frühstück 2003), and education (Altinay 2004; Ben-Amos 2015; Eastwood 2016; Gor 2010). But are processes of militarization really restricted to questions of war, (political) conflict, and peace? Do they always revolve around the military and other state security institutions, or can they emanate from and be nurtured by new domains in society that are not exclusively state-centric or associated with the military?

In this article, we use the case of HaShomer HaChadash, one of the largest civil society organizations in Israel, and its educational initiatives to demonstrate how militarism may re-emanate in civil society, in the margins of the state where it can, nevertheless contribute to the state’s (soft) power. We focus on the ways militarized activities in the realm of education led by non-governmental organizations can nurture a civilianized and populist form of militarism, which we call ‘soft militarism’. This militarism does not exclusively revolve around the (legitimate) place of the military in society but around broader social issues of civility, solidarity, and inter-group relations. We describe how informal education initiatives nurture this soft militarism that maintains an essence of nationalism but expands into new social domains, obscures the violence inherent in militarism and coats it with civilian connotations. Furthermore, the emergence of militarization from within civil society, especially through militarized education, also creates new meanings for the militarization of society. Acknowledging these trends is important in order to disclose the traits of contemporary militarism, both in the Israeli context and more generally. As such, we argue that this case shows an evolution in Israeli militarism that is still understudied, but that we contribute to here.

Our research and analysis are derived from an ongoing ethnographic project that began in 2018. Our primary research methods include participant observation in the organization’s events and activities, interviews, and the analysis of secondary materials, such as online footage of the organization, its social media outlets, news items and collective and personal artefacts. We participated in TNG public events such as ‘The Guard Day’ honouring the organization’s volunteers, Independence Day celebrations, and fund-raising events. We, including our research assistants, also joined agricultural volunteering and guarding activities. In addition, we conducted in-depth, open-ended interviews alongside casual chats with the organization’s senior and ground-level personnel and volunteers. Both authors and the research assistants are Jewish Israelis. Being Jewish Israeli citizens (most of us with military service backgrounds) was an asset when approaching our respondents and establishing rapport with them.

This article is structured as follows: we will discuss civilian militarism and soft power to understand the relationship between the state and civil society. Then we will discuss the interaction between education and militarism and the influence of this process on the militarization of society, in general, and more specifically in Israel. We then proceed to present our analysis of TNG’s educational programmes and discuss how they put forward a soft militarism nurtured outside the state’s boundaries and in which violence is largely obscured. The organization does so through the overlap of agriculture and security themes in its education and by reframing historical narratives connecting them to the present.

Civilian militarism and soft power

Scholars often depict civil society as a socio-political arena that corroborates liberal values and advances democratization. Following Jürgen Habermas and others, it is often conceptualized as an anteroom of the political centre and a sphere of deliberation – which is the public negotiation and consultation about the common good, in which all those affected by it should be equally involved; in which social problems from the individual sphere get absorbed, condensed, and loudly transmitted to the public and infused in the political system (Hummel 2022). This view perceives civil society organizations as a counterforce to centralized governmental politics, which strives to promote democracy and ensure good governance (Fisher 2013; Kevin 1997). From this perspective, it seems unlikely that civil society organizations and spontaneous civilian activism associated with humanitarian aid and volunteering may in fact promote an anti-liberal ethos of militarism and neo-nationalism. However, in situations of democratic erosion, one should also take into consideration that civil society may become a space of political activity that promotes such trends. This possibility, especially in the fields of security and education, raises important questions regarding the boundaries and relations between state and civil society.

Recently, we have seen major political shifts in many countries – democratic regression and shrinkage of civic spaces (Strachwitz and Toepler 2022). While this development is often depicted in non-liberal democracies, such as Poland and Hungary, it also exists in liberal democracies such as Austria (Strachwitz and Toepler 2022), Greece (Strachwitz and Toepler 2022), and Israel (Strachwitz and Toepler 2022; Katz and Gidron 2022). A central manifestation of this process is an active encroachment by governments on civil society, particularly on its liberal elements. At the same time, this development also advances a growing re-politicization of civil society that increases social polarization which is exploited by right-wing populism (Hummel 2022). Consequently, democracy and liberal values no longer form an undisputed paradigm. Given that some of such political initiatives are sponsored by governments, it should be asked if and to what extent they correspond with the state’s interests.

Here we wish to demonstrate how recent civil society initiatives promote ideas of civilian (soft) militarism that in turn infuses the state’s ‘soft power’, not through the state’s formal institutions, such as the military and the formal education system, but rather in its margins. In politics, and particularly international politics, the notion of ‘soft power’ refers to the ability of state and governments to ‘ … affect others through the co-optive means of framing the agenda, persuading and eliciting positive attraction in order to obtain preferred outcomes’ (Nye 2011, 20–21; Otmazgin 2012). In the international arena, this lies in the ability to change the behaviour of states by cultural or economic means rather than using physical force (Nye 1990). However, amid the proliferation of research on soft power in international relations, some scholars also point to its importance in local contexts. Edney (2015), for example, discusses the discourse and policies of ‘soft power’ in China to build national cohesion and domestic legitimacy, in response to security challenges. Similarly, Karunaratne (2014) examines the role of the military in establishing soft power in the aftermath of the conflict between the government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam in Sri Lanka. These studies give significance to power relations within the state and to ways governments use cultural mechanisms to increase their internal legitimacy, especially in non-liberal regimes. From this perspective, any nationalized and militarized educational indoctrination may be perceived as a tool for creating domestic soft power. Such efforts are often enacted by official state actors. Yet, and as we show here, they can also be enacted by non-state actors.

By using ‘civilian militarism’ or ‘soft militarism’, we refer to the ways pseudo-military themes are interwoven into civilian cultural frameworks around issues of military and security. As we shall present, while this may undermine the state’s monopoly in the field of national security, it is in fact by proxy contributing to its domestic soft power. Before we present our findings, we wish to discuss the relationship between education and militarization, in general, and particularly in Israel.

Militarized education

In modern liberal democratic countries, the realms of education and the military are usually separated, as militaristic ethos and culture are often seen as contradictory to the cultivation of democratic values associated with education. However, educational systems in democratic states may include militaristic themes. Recently, scholars have started to draw attention to the growing involvement of military personnel and the increased prominence of militaristic themes in civilian educational systems, both in democratic and non-democratic countries.

Many of these works on the military-security-education nexus focus on the role of civilian education institutions in promoting a nationalist ethos. For example, Pennell (2016, 2018) investigated how day trips of British school pupils to First World War battlefield sites in Europe work as state-sponsored commemorative projects, predominately emphasizing narratives of British remembrance shaped around values of sacrifice, duty, and loyalty. These tours, Pennell concluded, potentially contribute to the convergence – or even replacement – of history education with a military-centred concept of citizenship.

Other works describe the fundamental role of military ideology in fortifying contemporary nationalism through education involvement. Kancı and Gül Altınay (2007), for example, examined how the convergence of the military and education system cultivates the ideology of national militarism in Turkey. They demonstrate how the centrality of military and militaristic themes in schools’ curricula, such as the danger from outside enemies, are used to solidify the Turkish modern national identity among the students. Hence, the militarization of education is prominent in the Turkish ongoing state-building project.

Another direction of studying education militarization focuses on the recruitment efforts of the military in schools and militaristic vocational programmes for youth that are meant to promote military service (Abajian 2013; Friesen and Eddy 2019; Goldman et al. 2017; Kershner and Harding 2019). These efforts are the result of the military’s manpower needs and its wish to strengthen its legitimacy in society by inserting military values and a military way of thinking into civilian schools and academies (Levy 2016). Not surprisingly, such efforts may raise opposition by activists calling against military involvement in schools and militarism in public academies (Caltekin 2020; Johnson 2019; Therese and Meiners 2019).

While all these studies focus on how the militarization of the education system contributes to the militarization of society and nurtures the centrality of the military in society, others are more interested in the broader social implications of such processes. For example, Victoria Basham (2016), examined the political and social impact of elevating military values in society in the context of austerity in the UK. Her analysis demonstrated how military socialization targeting boys from disadvantaged backgrounds to turn them into ‘productive’ members of society contributes to the ‘raising’ of working-class boys and a class-based Army. Characterizing the military as a core institution of society and its values as ‘morally good for children’, such educational initiatives obscure the military’s violent functions, normalize violence, and militarism in everyday life – especially among disadvantaged sectors of society. Hence, the military’s influence on the production and reproduction of inequality between sectors of society can also occur before actual conscription (Levy 1998, 2007). As Levy and Sasson-Levy (Levy and Sasson-Levy 2008) demonstrated, militarized indoctrination and socialization for meaningful military service in the education system, prior to military employment, influence pupils from various strata of society differently. They show that military service does not simply reproduce ethnic and class inequalities. Rather, by moulding social conceptions of citizenship, it is a powerful mechanism of legitimizing a hegemonic, militarized, and class-differentiated social order.

What has not yet received much attention from social scientists are the entanglements between militarist themes and education that go beyond direct government or military involvement. Several studies in the past, especially by historians, have acknowledged the existence of military themes among global youth movements such as the Boy Scouts in America, Britain, and Germany. Mechling (2014), for example, suggests that the Boy Scouts of America may be characterized as a paramilitary organization, given the rifle training, the image of brownshirts, marching drills and the of practicing violence with firearms conducted by the young members in association with the National Rifle Association (NRA). The military-like character of the Boy Scouts goes back to its notable founder, Baden-Powell (1908), who claimed it is necessary to ‘make a man out of a boy’. In fact, he chose to call the movement ‘Scouting’ because it was a military term that also contained a hint of the romance of the frontier. As part of this, he helped train Scouts in the Royal Army, and the war was, for Baden-Powell, the supreme test of manhood (Meinhart 2009; see also: Pryke 1998). In some ways, the militarization of masculinity is even more pronounced in today’s Boy Scouts of America, as National Jamborees have moved from National Parks and Historic Sites to military bases and include an around-the-clock military recruitment environment (Pryke 1998, p. 123). The association between youth movements and the military is not limited to the US and the UK and it has existed in many Western and non-Western countries (Herold and Vaz 2015), including Israel.

Zionist youth movements, such as Hashomer Hatzair, Hanoar Haoved and Beitar, which were established in the early 20th century, were strongly influenced by the military themes of the global Boy Scouts. Many of their activities known as ‘Tzofiut’/scouting included youth guarding bonfires in shifts at night, hierarchical orders, and practising military exercises during hikes such as ‘Pazatzta’ (Military acronym in Hebrew Fall, crawl, observe, range, fire) (Bar-Yosef 2009; Gledhill 2015; Sheffer and Barak 2010).

Hence, the increasing dominance of militaristic and security themes in education programmes thus may take place in various contexts, not only through the involvement of formal state operatives but also in activities of non-state, armed and non-armed organizations, and groups that are increasingly involved in formal and informal education. The above-mentioned studies illustrate that civilian militarization is not a new phenomenon, yet most of them fail to account for its social implications. TNG, as we shall present, is strongly influenced by the militaristic character of other Zionist youth movements. However, unlike the above-mentioned movements, it was founded as a security organization from the outset. We suggest, further, that this organization exemplifies a different kind of securitized indoctrination that we term ‘soft militarism’. This evolution of militarism includes an intense critique of state performance in the field of security, the expropriation of state monopoly over the use of violent means, and the idealization of civilian security. Thus, ‘soft militarism’ flourishes in the margins of the state and does not revolve around the military perse.

Militarism and education in Israel

Several scholars have pointed out that the magnitude of militarism in Israel is dynamic and that we can identify periods that it has been more dominant than others (Ben-Eliezer 1998; Levy 2007; Lomsky-Feder and Ben-Ari 1999; Sheffer and Barak 2010). Others have suggested that while there is a decline in militaristic sentiments in some social sectors, they may increase in others (Ben-Eliezer 2003). These studies mainly refer to the status of the military in society and militaristic views regarding war and peace. On the other hand, here we wish to emphasize how informal education in civil society may nurture a new version of civilianized ‘soft’ militarism that crosses traditional sectorial lines and is inserted into new social domains. We further suggest that the role of such educational initiatives in promoting civilian militarism may not be exclusive to Israel. While the context of militarization and securitization in other countries may differ, civil society seems to play a key role in the flourishing of civilian security and militarist discourses and practices (Gazit and Grassiani 2023).

At the beginning of 2022, a new educational programme was announced in Israel, which would recruit 14 to 15-year-old high school students for a specialized elite programme to develop autonomously guided weaponry. These youngsters are expected to commit to this programme for 12 years and live in a remote boarding school. The programme was initiated by the Ministry of Defense and it cooperates with all different secret services and the IDF (Israeli Defense Forces).¹ This is only one example of the dominance of the convergence of militarism and education in Israel. As a nation founded by war and in which the processes of militarization and nationalization have overlapped since its independence, Israel seems a fitting case for examining the military-education nexus. Furthermore, and as the saying goes, Israel is a ‘nation in arms’ (Ben-Ari, Rosenhek, and Maman 2001; Ben-Eliezer 1998; Kimmerling 1993; Levy 2007; Lomsky-Feder and Ben-Ari 1999; Sheffer and Barak 2010). This means, that most Jewish adults in Israel are (or were at a certain period of their lives) members of the national security establishment. Furthermore, due to the centrality of war in Israel’s history and current circumstances,² Israel provides an ideal case study of the tensions between the military, the state, and society that may be found in advanced industrial democracies involved in ongoing conflicts.

Interestingly, although the military has always been central in Israeli society, it was only in the 1990s that scholars started to characterize it as a ‘militarist society’. The political sociologist Baruch Kimmerling (1993) was one of the first to indicate the unique character of Israeli militarism. In contrast to classic militarism commonly found in non-democratic states, which tends to be formal and ceremonial, Kimmerling characterizes Israeli militarism as a ‘militarism of civilians’ (Vagts 1937, 451–83) or ‘cultural militarism’. He further coined the term ‘cognitive militarism’, emphasizing the process of normalization of ‘things military’, which also happens in our minds (Kimmerling 1993). Instead of being based on a strict separation between the military and society, on military governance, and exclusive military traits and official culture, militarism, in this view, is integrated into everyday civilian life. It is maintained through cultural, political, and educational mechanisms.

The dominance of militaristic themes in Israeli culture and public discourse has led scholars to systematically explore the ‘militarization of education’ in Israeli society. Much as the general tendency in studying this topic, most research on the military-education nexus in Israel has focused on the role of formal education in nurturing Israeli militarism and nationalism and on their convergence. However, some work has also investigated the broader social implications of this tendency. Levy and Sasson-Levy (2008, 350), argue that ‘militarized education in Israel is still the prime form of political socialization’. Children are exposed to militarized indoctrination from a young age to the point where their eventual enrolment in the military is not only perceived as normal but is socially expected. In an earlier study, Katriel and Nesher (1986) demonstrated the penetration of military jargon into classrooms in ways that trivialize the military discourse and mode of thinking. This ideological, and perhaps more importantly, cultural indoctrination is further exacerbated in pseudo-military memorial services to fallen soldiers in schools (Ben-Amos, Bet-El, and Tlamim 1999; Lomsky-Feder 2004), elementary and high school students’ excursions to military sites and bases, and by a growing involvement of soldier-teachers and retired officers in schools’ personnel (Schneider 2004; Schneider and Barkol 2007).

The focus of these works has been on the cultivation of nationalism and militarism in formal education by emphasizing the military’s centrality in guaranteeing Israel’s independence as a Jewish state and its security. They demonstrate how the civilian educational system in Israel operates as a prime agent of the security establishment in reproducing the centrality of the military in the lives of Israelis and promotes the value of ‘meaningful military service’ (Hoffman 2022), which essentially means the enrolment of Israeli youth in combat units or other elite units of the military.

These works are essential as they demonstrate that the militarization of society can also develop through educational initiatives outside the state’s formal education system (although they often do enjoy governmental financial support). However, comprehensive research on militarized education by civil society actors is still missing. The fact that these programmes are not subjected to governmental control raises a set of questions: First, does the curriculum in such initiatives correlate with the official Israeli education, or does it promote alternative ideological views that undermine official Israeli nationalism (mamlachti’ut)? Is it identical to the militaristic themes we find in formal educational systems where the state is involved? Second, what kind of militarism is cultivated in these programmes? And third, what does the militarization of non-formal education teach us about the general relations between civil society, the magnitude of militarization, and what impact it has on relations between different social sectors in Israel? To answer these questions, we analyse the educational programmes of TNG, one of the largest civil society organizations in Israel.

Learning to secure our lands

The Israeli social organization HaShomer HaChadash was established in 2007 by a group of young veterans from Israel's elite military units. The organization, which at first might look like a typical vigilante movement, attempts to fill a security gap in Israel’s periphery by tackling the continuous threat of what it frames as ‘agricultural terrorism’ – the theft of animals and arson of framers’ crops. Furthermore, and in a more general sense, it contests the erosion of the agriculture sector and civilian solidarity in Israel. The organization then strives to offer a solution to what it sees as both a ‘security problem’ and a ‘moral, societal problem’.

This convergence of solutions for significant societal issues is encapsulated in the organization’s founding story, which is told during practically every TNG event and carries almost mythical significance. As the story goes, TNG was founded when Yoel Zilberman, a farmer’s son and an officer in Flotilla 13 (Shayetet 13 - one of the Israeli acclaimed commando units) and whom we quoted at the beginning of this article, decided to set up a tent on his family’s land after his father announced that he was going to quit farming because of all the thefts he had endured. Young Yoel, still serving in the military, returned to his father’s land, planted a flag on a hill, and stayed to protect it with some of his comrades. This story symbolizes the ethos of Zionist realization through the practice of securitized volunteering, which the organization is trying to create and nurture (Gazit and Grassiani 2023).

Notably, the threat that TNG frames as the key to the necessity of its existence is different from ‘national’ security threats, which are part of Israeli militarism. Traditionally, Israeli militarism’s focal theme has been the existential threat to Zionism posed by the Arab/Palestinian population in and outside the country. Since the pre-state days, and to a larger degree during the first decades of independence, it has been constructed around the Arab-Palestinian violent opposition to the Zionist enterprise and the imminent danger of invasion of the Arab countries’ armies that might eradicate the Jewish State. Accordingly, Israeli militarism has been constructed around the centrality of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF). However, the actual security threat conveyed by TNG is different. Instead of focusing on an external threat posed by foreign militaries, the organization revolves around a civilian threat from within.

As mentioned above, in the organization’s discourse, the prime threat is ‘agricultural terrorism’. It is essential to dwell briefly on the term ‘terrorism’. This term is frequently used in Israeli public discourse concerning politically motivated or ‘nationalist’ (leu’mani) attacks by Palestinians against Israeli soldiers and civilians. In the context of TNG, ‘terrorism’ is discursively positioned in the civilian sphere and criminalized. The organization’s activists use this notion to describe both acts of vandalism against the agricultural property of Jewish farmers and thefts of agricultural products. Yet, by using the term ‘terrorism’, the organization maintains the context of national conflict with the Palestinians and stigmatizes the Israeli-Palestinian population as criminal. As a result, the assaults and the acts of protection are simultaneously civilianized and remain associated with the field of national security (in Hebrew Bitachon). The historical-contemporary framing of the threat discussed below, the association with the agricultural sector, and its civilianization laid the ground for the involvement of civilians and pupils in security that is not exclusively associated with the military or the state.

TNG, which started by operating an informal network of volunteers, has gradually developed into a conglomerate that operates dozens of volunteering and educational programmes. The educational activity, which started as a secondary initiative of the organization, turned out to be fundamental in its raison d’etre, as indicated in the description on the organization’s webpage³:

HaShomer HaChadash is a Zionist social-educational organization … with the goal of safeguarding the land, assisting farmers and ranchers as well as strenghtening the Jewish people’s connection to the land, Jewish values and Zionist identity. HaShomer’s broad range of activities focuses on agricultural volunteering programs alongside educational activities emphasizing the value of work, mutual responsibility, civic courage and love of the land. HaShomer HaChadash sees itself as a developing stream of active Zionism operating in the pioneering spirit inspired by the original HaShomer organization which operated during the early days of the Zionist movement.

The critical value of ‘safeguarding the land’ and the reference to HaShomer, a pre-state armed security organization point to militarist themes that are nurtured and dispensed through the organization’s educational activities. These include direct learning in classes, learning circles, and experiential educational activities that operate as mechanisms of indoctrination and socialization into neo-national heritage, patriotism, and militarization.⁴ TNG’s educational initiatives span across the Israeli formal educational system (i.e. schools and the military), the private sectors (business corporations), and civil society. The target audience is diverse and includes pre-teens, teenage school pupils, young people before their military service, soldiers, and older civilian volunteers. In that sense, the larger scale, and the diverse character of the participants exceed the activity of the Israeli youth movements. The participation of these people in voluntary agricultural work and security activities is considered an essential part of their normative education. All these educational initiatives revolve around a threefold ethos: the merit of volunteering, the value of agriculture, and (national) security. Here we show how the intersection of these themes nurtures a soft, civilian militarism in civil society. This process is deeply immersed in Jewish historical and cultural contexts and Zionism, but it is also influenced by more contemporary trends. We first begin to briefly lay out how we use the term ‘soft militarism’, after which we show how it features in TNG’s educational programmes.

Blurring boundaries between military and civilian militarisms

The dominancy of the military and military themes in the Israeli formal educational system has blurred the lines between the military and the civilian sphere and fused militaristic themes and the moralization of society. Any involvement in security (bitachon) is morally charged and accordingly rewarded in material and symbolic rewards that are valuable both in the military and civilian life (Levy 2007). Hence, fulfilling a ‘meaningful’ service in the military, particularly in a combat unit, is considered a civic virtue. As we saw before, formal education in Israel is vital in nurturing this social principle. The Israeli Ministry of Education rewards schools and teachers for effectively encouraging their pupils to serve in the military, and schools, in cooperation with the military, put much effort into increasing recruitment rates, for example, by inviting senior officers and soldiers to lecture their pupils (Gazit and Levy 2016). These efforts contribute to the naturalization of militarism in Israeli society and the linkage between security and moral education.

The militarism in informal education, led by TNG, builds on this naturalization but expands it to new domains and gives it new contexts. While it maintains a military flavour in its activities and organizational culture, the governing idea is security for civilians by civilians that is not subjected to a governmental rationale. Indeed, the military is certainly not absent from TNG’s activities. The organization, for instance, invites military units to participate in its volunteering activities, often together with adult and young civilians (Shachar 2022). Furthermore, all TNG’s senior personnel and most of its educational team served in IDF elite units. This chapter of their biography is expressed openly and explicitly during educational excursions, learning circles, and lectures. The fact that many guides carry their personal weapon (usually a pistol) regularly not only highlights their military past but also contributes to the overall militarization of the activities.⁵ Yet, the militarism expressed by the guides is civilianized, we argue. An example is the ‘pruning shears march’ for high school pupils of TNG’s high schools, which is directly derived from the important military ‘beret march’ (masa kumta). Here, soldiers perform long marches at the end of their military (combat) training, often with heavy packs and stretchers. At the end, they receive the beret of their unit, which signifies their acceptance as combatants in the IDF. In the case of the high schools of TNG, the pupils receive a field hat and pruning shears to use for the agricultural work they will be doing during their time in school. Importantly, although TNG thus does use military jargon and habitus, for example by using military slang and diction and semi-military ceremonies, their members wear civilian clothes and emphasize their role as educators rather than security actors.

This civilianized or soft militarism is also rooted in the Israeli military culture that tends to be less formal and less ceremonial than other cases of militarization where formality is critical. This informality enables TNG to maintain an association with the IDF and simultaneously construct militaristic themes in a civilian context. These themes are expressed both in the organization’s culture and educational curriculum. For example, the slogan written on TNG’s ‘uniforms’ – a blue T-shirt with the organization logo is ‘Shomer Achi’ (My brother’s Keeper).⁶ This slogan has a double reference: first, it draws on Israeli soldiers’ slang who call their comrades ‘Achi’ (roughly translated as ‘bro’), also referring to the well-known military ideal of being ‘brothers in arms’. TNG’s t-shirts further echo the informal tradition in the IDF of wearing unique t-shirts with distinct units’ emblems and slogans. This is a militaristic folklore of soldiers organized by themselves outside the military. At the same time, the slogan on the ‘uniforms’ also refers to the Biblical story of Cain and Abel (Genesis 4:1–13). While the original message of the biblical verse was of antagonism, TNG reverses its meaning to nurture the values of security and solidarity among civilian comrades. Hints of Israeli military culture are also evident in other informal activities, such as sitting together around a campfire all night, drinking bitter black coffee, singing patriotic songs, and telling jokes. Occasionally, the pupils experience more typical pseudo-military practices, such as navigation, long hikes with heavy equipment, Krav-Maga training, and working in military-like operational rooms.⁷

Thus, we see that the kind of militarism that is part of TNG’s programmes is less ‘military-like’ and materializes in traditions and language, which for the Israeli public is very much connected to military culture, but, importantly, in no way to its violence. The violence inherent in militarism is actively obscured here, by normalizing military language, and by framing all acts of security in terms of ‘protection’ without mentioning aggression or violence. In the following, we will show how this soft militarism is promoted in TNG’s educational programmes through the integration of agriculture, volunteerism, and care or connection for the land with security themes and by reframing historical, nationalist narratives.

Pre-military education

TNG has declared the preparation for the military as one of its prime educational goals. While this has become increasingly trendy in Israel and is not unique to TNG, the organization has its own successful, pre-military (Shnat Sherut) programme. The programme is titled ‘A year of service: The leadership program’ and offers two tracks – ‘Leadership in the Hilltop Settlements’ and ‘Leadership on the Ranches’. In this programme, Israeli high school graduates postpone their military service for a year that combines preparation for military service, learning and teaching, and agricultural work. The message underlying this combination is that these components are closely associated and in fact inseparable. Avner, a member of the organization’s board, explained:

More than anything, TNG is an educational organization. It is like Unit 101⁸ that operated only a few years and made a huge impact on the military, on the country. In Israeli society. HaShomer HaChadash does exactly the same in education. This is one thing. The second thing is helping the farmers. People ask me, ‘do you want to make them [the pupils] farmers?’ The answer is no. We want to open up this opportunity for them. We want agriculture to influence their life. Many of the important people in this country, people like Moshe Dayan, Yigal Alon, Yitzhak Rabin,⁹ learned in agricultural high schools. All of the IDF [senior] chain of command that were pilots, in Sayeret Matkal [an elite unit], come from the Kibbutzim [from the agricultural sector]. Agricultural work has always been part of their life. Today it is different …

In the Hilltop Leadership programme, the young volunteers are mainly allocated to farms in the Negev and the Galilee in Israel's periphery. In this programme, the day begins early in the morning with work on the farm. This work can consist of picking fruit, herding cattle, milking and more. In the afternoon it is time for ‘enrichment study’, while during nightshifts guard duty is being carried out on the farm. TNG stresses that the pupils (the shin shinim) will learn ‘meaningful content that deals with personal values and identity and the love of the land’ (website TNG, our translation). One of them writes about her impressions: ‘ … to wake up every morning before sunrise, get out of the trailer with an “army” pants, dirty work shoes, a dry fit shirt, a hat in my pocket and a smile on my face, ready for another day of work’ (TNG Facebook page, our translation). In this short passage, a few themes arise, such as a deep, romantic connection to the outdoors and a connection to nature. We further detect an idealization of (hard and physical) work from the early hours of the morning. This volunteer also writes in her testimonial about her friends, who are like family, her development as a person, and learning to take responsibility. Most of all, the post speaks about the virtue of such a learning environment. Another participant testified that this was a year in which she ‘opened her mind’ and got to know herself.

This programme, in its combination of educational activities with agricultural work and guarding, introduces the youngsters to the military and the service they will engage in at the end of the year. As we can sense in the testimonial above, an idealistic picture is painted of the work on the farms and guarding their lands, ignoring the reality and hardship of military service. Here again, militaristic themes are coated with a strong normative discourse not limited to the classic Israeli security ethos.

Celebrating Israel with TNG

The boys and girls we met sitting in a learning circle in the small grass grove in Upper Galilee were weary. They had an intense two days behind them that started with hard agricultural labour, continued in educational treks, and included dozens of talks and lectures. These activities were part of a two-day event organized by TNG to celebrate 70 years of Israel’s independence under the slogan ‘Our Way to Connect’. The first day started very early. The pupils, coming from secular and religious schools across the country, met soldiers from the nearby military base in a small deserted agricultural field. Together they carried heavy boulders and cleaned the garbage left by previous picnickers in the nearby deserted grove. After a joint light breakfast, the students and soldiers started to hike the nearby hills. One group, which we joined, was led by TNG’s education coordinator Sara,¹⁰ who from time to time, stopped to give us quick educational talks. In one, she told her audience the following:

There were very few [Jewish] settlements in the area. Migdal, Kfar Tavor, Deganya, [but] most of the territory was empty. There was no communication … So every person who went out to cultivate his field was at risk. Every attempt to go outside was life-threatening. A lot of people were just killed, assassinated by … Initially, the only ones to protect them [the Jews] were the offenders [the Arabs]. The Jewish settlers had no one else to protect them. And then, Alexander Zaïd and his friends decided to establish their own militia. Initially it was an underground [operation] to offer guarding services to Jewish farmers. Gradually it became HaShomer. An organization that protected all of the Jewish settlements across the country. It was a cognitive breakthrough – Jews should protect Jews. At first they called themselves Bar Giyora, after the military commander of the Bar Kokhba revolt [132–136 CE]. Here we have the same situation. We follow the same logic. The idea of HaShomer is of protection. At first without using a weapon. But if you don’t have a choice, you use a club or a gun …

At first, the listeners seemed puzzled. It was not clear to them what time in history Sara was referring to. Did she talk about distant historical times, centuries ago? Or was it about early Zionism only decades ago? Or did she refer to present-day Israel? What exactly is ‘HaShomer’? What relation does it have to HaShomer HaChadash (literarily in Hebrew, The New Shomer (guard))? And why do civilian Jews need to carry weapons and guard, if independent Israel has an army? Although Sara’s teaching initially seemed confusing, the narrative and the message it bared became much more evident as she continued:

When the Hagana [Jewish underground during the British mandate in Palestine] was created, most of its soldiers were children of your age, in seventh grade … Maybe a bit older, 14–16 years old, like you. They secretly gathered them. Taught them to fight and use weapons. Prepared them. This is how our security infrastructure was established. We won’t stay passive when facing attacks!

The silent crowd of listeners, young pupils, and soldiers echoed the message – nothing has changed since the pre-state days – civilian Jews must stay on guard and protect their land. Thus, Sara explained, the connection between historical and contemporary threats is encapsulated in the organization’s name and logo. TNG positions itself as a contemporary incarnation of the historical HaShomer militia. Its logo features the famous monument of the mystical figure Alexander Zaïd (1886 − 1938), mentioned above. By relating itself to these pre-state militaristic Zionist symbols, TNG positions itself as an organization that continues and commemorates this legacy and sets an agenda of returning to and reviving this pre-state period. It then refers to a time when the nation’s security and the land were based on volunteerism and individual sacrifice rather than on (failed) statist institutions.

As illustrated above, this principle is conveyed by creating an association between the Jewish past and the present. We identified this process the following day as well when the school children continued their journey with TNG in an excursion to the remains of Yodfat, an ancient Jewish city in the Lower-Galilee. Yodfat, which fearlessly withstood a Roman siege during the Great Revolt of the people of Judea against the Romans two thousand years ago (67 CE), is a symbol of Jewish heroism and patriotism. During the educational talks, the martial context of the teaching was more straightforward. Uzi, the guide, a former commander in an Israeli elite unit and martial arts specialist, started by lecturing the pupils about the history of the place and how peaceful it was until the Roman occupation. Very quickly, he turned to teach the children about the principles of guerrilla warfare tactics and the importance of national resilience. He told them:

What [was] happening here in the Galilee, they [Romans during the kingdom of Herod the Great] realized that the people of the land, the people of agriculture, are the hardcore, they are the invincible core. The person holding on to the ground, holding a plow… Okay? That is why the Romans decided … the first blow would be on this [Jewish] city.

In his narrative, Uzi emphasizes the importance of agriculture and protecting the land against (foreign) enemies. He connects this to the geographical site where he stands with his young audience. The farmers in this story are the Jewish people of the Galilee region fighting for survival against the Roman enemy. He continues: ‘The unity of the people. I mean what is happening here in an amazing way, a very large group of brave farmers is gathering here, we are not giving up, we will fight to the bitter end’. He then connects this history in one swoop to the present day:

This area also suffered greatly [in Roman times] mainly because of so-called robbery, looting, and taking into slavery. Things we know to this day, right? But this time it is not in front of any occupying army but in front of someone who lives with us and we will have to deal with it legally.

This ‘internal enemy’ is the Arab other, as became clear from the rest of Uzi’s narrative. We see here how history is reframed in such a way that it makes sense to the young people and their current (political) reality while at the same time softening the militarist discourse of war by emphasizing the importance of agriculture, farming, and the role of these young people for their country.

These intensive two days were summarized in learning circles, in which the pupils discussed the values of leadership, social solidarity, and civility. On a hilly lawn, groups of pupils with trainers from TNG gathered around different themes, sitting on large blankets. Everyone chose one theme that interested them the most. In all groups, the students were asked to reflect on the theme and their experiences. The conversations were guided towards heroism, Zionism, and the importance of solidarity.

The evening was concluded with a visit from the parents of a soldier who was killed in Lebanon in 1998. They came to share their story: They were migrants from France who came to Israel as Zionists. Their son, who loved the land and to be outside, they told the pupils, sacrificed his life protecting the country. Their story was about loss, but mostly about heroism and was tightly connected to the experiences of the pupils from the last two days: love of the land is a higher cause. The message was clear – this land needs to be protected, and you (the young pupil) are here to take upon this task with TNG and in a few years as soldiers in the IDF.

The organizing logic of all these educational activities, which also included a military ceremony of soldiers finishing their basic training on the first day, was to emphasize a strong link between historical and present-day threats to Israel, its people (Jews), and the land. Moreover, the message was, although the Jewish people have achieved independence, civilians must continuously carry the burden of securing the land and those living on and tending it.

Conclusion

Militarism comes in many shapes and forms. Commonly, we think about it within the context of the state and its ideals. Militarism is then directly connected to the military institution and its influence on society. In this article, we have demonstrated how militarism can be nurtured and spread outside the realm of the state and its educational system. Through the analysis of the TNG and its educational programmes, we showed how a very specific ‘soft’ or civilianized militarism is propagated and reaches a large part of society.

This soft militarism can be traced back to pre-state militarism, in our case, when the Israeli state was not yet in existence. It consists of romanticized ideas about the connection to the land, the need to protect it, and the Jewish heritage that is part of it. Importantly, this soft militarism is cleansed of violence and political realities. We have shown that TNG softens its militarized messages by connecting them explicitly with this ‘romantic’ past and even narrating events that go back centuries. Furthermore, it does so by attaching its messages to agriculture and volunteering activities, which are linked to ideals such as solidarity and togetherness. At the same time, and through this softening, this organization obscures the violence inherent in militarism.

One broader and important consequence of such a trend is the expansion of militaristic indoctrination to civil society through (informal) educational initiatives, which play an integral part in legitimizing the discourses of militarism in our time. While these discourses may be interpreted as improper and illegitimate in democratic societies as they contradict liberal values and, thus, might be rejected in formal educational systems, they may flourish in informal educational settings. Coating militaristic values and security practices with strong normative ideals of civilian solidarity, genuine patriotism, and voluntarism softens the traditional negative image of the military and security domains while charging it with new legitimacy.

These trends delineate the boundaries between the state and civil society anew. In modern nation-states, security and education are considered the domain and responsibility of the state. In Israel, this principle stands at the core of the republican ideology and political culture (mamlachti’ut). The dissemination of the security and education nexus to civil society indicates a mesh or new phase of civil-military entanglement and evolution of this nexus.

In recent months, since we wrote the first draft of this article, and particularly since the outbreak of the Gaza War (7 October 2023), Israel has witnessed a surge of civilian security initiatives: dozens of local armed groups and emergency response teams were formed in Israeli cities and villages, thousands of Israeli civilians acquired a licence to carry arms and purchased personal weapons. While seeing armed soldiers in Israel’s streets was always a common sight, now numerous armed civilians flood the public sphere. Many of these initiatives involve TNG and its graduates. Israel is becoming a nation of civilians in arms.

The fact that ordinary civilians, instead of officials of the state apparatus, teach and practice security and militarism challenges the state’s monopoly in such matters. What does it mean that security and public education are no longer restricted to statist frameworks and institutions and characterized by soft militarization?

In recent years, we have seen growing worldwide trends of democratic deconsolidation, backsliding, regression, and erosion. Countries such as Hungary, Poland, and, more recently, Israel seem to be going through a process of de-democratization as their governments gradually dismantle democratic institutions and norms (Bogaards 2018; Cianetti, Dawson, and Hanley 2018; Jezierska 2022). While they formally maintain a democratic regime, they retreat from liberal principles and values. Such ‘illiberal democracies’ are caused by an asymmetry in societal resources and by ‘problems with state-ness’ that are presented as a crisis that justifies urgent authoritative governmental measures. Hence, the involvement of civilians in militaristic securitized indoctrination may be interpreted as a sign of the weakening of the democratic state. Moreover, it contributes to processes of de-democratization through the normalization of violence, the nurture of populist patriotism, and the idealization of civilian nationalized security practices that undermine liberal principles. Hence, the indoctrination of soft militarism in civil society should be understood as an important ingredient of democratic erosion that also takes place in parallel to states’ official policies.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-israeli-military-intel-agencies-to-enlist-students-for-weapon-development-program-1.10542360 accessed 20-01-2022.

2. According to the BICC’s Global Militarisation Index (GMI), which presents the relative weight and importance of a country’s military apparatus in relation to its society, Israel is ranked first as the most militarized society globally. See: https://www.bicc.de/uploads/tx_bicctools/BICC_GMI_2020_EN.pdf.

3. See: https://eng.hashomer.org.il/המשימה-שלנו/ accessed 20-01-2022.

4. Experiential learning is generally defined as learning through experience, i.e. by doing, but with the added element of learning through reflecting on this doing. The learner thus gets actively involved instead of passively listening to or watching a teacher or guide (Bryfman 2008; Kolb 1984; Kress 2014; Zehavit and Rutland 2017). In the context of the research discussed in this article, experiential learning refers to experiencing Jewish culture (songs, ceremonies) and engaging deeply with security and militaristic experiences.

5. In Israel, to be allowed to carry a weapon, one practically must have a military chapter in his or her background and most of the civilians who receive a licence to carry a personal weapon were officers in the military.

6. Recently a feminine version of the uniforms was created, maroon t-shirts with the slogan ‘Shomeret Achoti’ (My sister’s protector).

7. Krav Maga (literally ‘contact combat’) is a military self-defence and fighting system developed for the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and Israeli security forces.

8. Unit 101 became a very famous elite combat unit active in the 1950s and was founded by former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. It exclusively invited Kibbutz and moshav members (both agricultural settlements) to join its ranks.

9. These men were all important military and state figures in Israel’s past.

10. All names of informants we use are pseudonyms.