National Security and Public Opinion in Israel

Asher Arian, Ilan Talmud, Tamar Hermann

First published 1988 by Westview Press

Published 2018 by Routledge
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Copyright © 1988
Tel Aviv University
Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies

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ISBN 13: 978-0-367-00355-5 (hbk)

The Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies (JCSS)

The Center for Strategic Studies was established at Tel-Aviv University at the end of 1977. In 1983 it was named the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies in honor of Mr. and Mrs. Mel Jaffee. The objective of the Center is to contribute to the expansion of knowledge on strategic subjects and to promote public understanding of and pluralistic thought on matters of national and international security.

The Center relates to the concept of strategy in its broadest meaning, namely, the complex of processes involved in the identification, mobilization and application of resources in peace and war, in order to solidify and strengthen national and international security.

International Board of Trustees

Chairman: Melvin Jaffee

Immediate Past Chairman: Joseph H. Strelitz (deceased)

Robert H. Arnow, Arnold Y. Aronoff, Newton D. Becker, Jack Berlin, Henry Borenstein, Edgar M. Bronfman, Simon Ghilewich, Stewart M. Colton, Lester Crown, Joseph E. Eichenbaum, Danielle and Shimon Erem, Allan Fainbarg, Dr. Gerald Falwell, Jacob Feldman, Arnold D. Feuerstein, David Furman, Guilford Glazer, Eugene M. Grant, Vernon Green, Irving B. Harris, Robert M. Hecht, Betty and Sol Jaffee, Philip M. Klutznick, Max H. Kranzberg, Raymond Kulek, Max L. Kunianski, Mark Lambert, Rose and Norman Lederer, Fred W. Lessing, Morrisi L. Levinson, Edward Levy, Peter A. Magowan, Hermann Merkin, Stephen Meadow, Joseph Meyerhoff, Monte Monaster, Max Perlman, Milton J. Petrie, Gary P. Ratner, Raphael Recanati, Meshulam Riklis, Morris Rodman, Elihu Rose, Malcolm M. Rosenberg, Irving Schneider, Marvin Simon, Ruth Sinaiko, Walter P. Stern, Dr. Robert J. Stoller, Leonard R. Strelitz, James Warren, David Warsaw, Jacob D. Weiler, Marvin A. Weiss, Emanuel A. Winston, Bart Wolstein, Paul Yanowicz, Mortimer B. Zuckerman.

The research for this
study was made possible
through the generous
contribution of

Lawrence A. Tisch

Table of Contents

Summary

Chapter 1. Public Opinion and National Security Policy

Chapter 2. National Security Beliefs and Israel's Political Leadership

Chapter 3. The Distribution of Security Opinion

Chapter 4. The Structure of National Security Beliefs

Chapter 5. Army Service as a Societal Experience

Chapter 6. Social Location and the World of Security

Chapter 7. Conclusions

Appendix. The Questionnaire

Notes

Cover

Title

Copyright

Contents

Acknowledgements

Summary

Chapter 1. Public Opinion and National Security Policy

Chapter 2. National Security Beliefs and Israel's Political Leadership

Chapter 3. The Distribution of Security Opinion

Chapter 4. The Structure of National Security Beliefs

Chapter 5. Army Service as a Societal Experience

Chapter 6. Social Location and the World of Security

Chapter 7. Conclusions

Appendix. The Questionnaire

Notes

Series Page

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Guide

Cover

Title

Copyright

Contents

Acknowledgments

Summary

Start of Content

Appendix. The Questionnaire

Notes

Series Page

Tables

3.1 Mean Ladder Ratings, 1962, 1981, 1986

3.2 Political Knowledge

4.1 Constructs of the Model

4.2 The Extra-Rationality Construct and the Factor Analysis Loadings

4.3 National Security Constructs, Pearson Correlations

5.1 Aspects of Army Service for Respondents of Survey, by Sex

5.2 Scale of Army Service

5.3 Army Service by Security Attitude Constructs

5.4 Statistically Significant Pearson Correlations for Army Service and Attitude Constructs

6.1 Pearson Correlations for National Security Constructs and Selected Social Location Indicators

6.2 Security Attitude Constructs by Religiosity and Party Vote

6.3 Discrimination of National Security Constructs by Various Social Location Indicators

6.4 Relations Between Party Vote and the National Security Constructs Among Social Location Groups

Figures

4.1 Path Analysis of National Security Constructs

Acknowledgements

Our thanks to Dr. Michal Shamir for her help and advice and to Professor Avraham Ben-Zvi and Jose Bruner for their suggestions. Dr. Mina Zemach gave good counsel, and Amiram Nir originally initiated the research project. For their expertise with the computer, we are grateful to Yasmin Alkalai, Dubi Izak and Rafi Ventura; and for their general assistance, to Emily Biran and Doron Moral. We wish to express our gratitude to Mr. Lawrence Tisch for making the National Security and Public Opinion Project possible.

A. A.
T.H.
I. T.

A Note on Technical Terms

This study relies on the interpretation of statistical data of public opinion research. Technical terms that appear in the text are explained in the endnotes. Statistical analysis is structured so as to enable the lay reader to follow the interpretation of the data without delving into the statistical details.

Summary

Democratic states are necessarily concerned with public support for public policy, especially regarding national security policy. This study undertakes (for the first time) to depict the patterns of public opinion in Israel regarding national security policy.

The world-view of the leaders of Israel has had an enormous impact on the way Israelis relate to the world and to the policies followed in national security matters and foreign affairs. The four major areas of concern were studied by reviewing statements of political leaders; they were then probed using a public opinion survey. The areas of concern were: (1) perceptions regarding the international environment; (2) the orientation toward war and the use of force; (3) evaluations of military force, political flexibility, and freedom of action in the international arena; and (4) the emotional base regarding security and national destiny.

Based on a representative sample of 1,172 Jewisn respondents conducted in January 1986, the survey explored topics such as consensus, rationality, army service, and social class.

The survey showed that a large portion of the Israeli population felt that the country could withstand major threats. On the other hand, persistent feelings of being threatened were also evident. On the whole, respondents thought that the state of security had been better five years ago and would be better five years hence compared to the situation when the survey was conducted. Yet, while most of them supported war for defensive purposes, offensive war was generally not supported, nor was the use of nuclear weapons.

A broad consensus regarding security existed. Israelis tended to be confident that the "Guardian of Israel" would prevail. This guardian was most generally identified with the Israel Defense Forces (Israel's army), or the State of Israel, or the Jewish people; the strong core belief was in its potency. This is the basic feature of the way Israelis looked at the world. The leadership often employed symbols of the perils which had historically plagued the Jewish people, and of the Holocaust, and public opinion generally related these to the dangers the country faced.

There existed in Israel in the mid-1980s an over-arching concept of national security that permeated the system and structured the beliefs and behavior patterns of Israelis. There was broad consensus regarding this concept and it was within this consensus that partisan political differences occurred. Thus competition was not between two world-views, but rather between two plans of political action. Many Israelis seemed to blend two kinds of beliefs: about making definable efforts and thereby achieving observed ends, and about divine intervention and historical determinism.

An important finding was the slight impact of service in the military on attitudes toward national security policy. It was clear in the Israeli case that the consensus regarding the national core values developed from the earliest stages of socialization into the system. Patterns of support for the consensus were little affected by the extent of army service or, for that matter, by the very fact of serving or not serving in the army. In one sense, this finding argued against the notion of a militarized Israel; in another, it indicated how deeply the core belief of national security had permeated the society.

Public opinion was seen to be structured primarily along political rather than class lines. The social institutions that might mediate the public's views were less important in the Israeli case than was the role of political institutions, such as the party and the leader. Israeli politicians were able, accordingly, to channel different social groups into the same political camp and ideology.

This was the attitudinal backdrop that provided Israeli leaders with enormous leeway for flexibility in making Israel's foreign and defense policies. Public opinion must be seen as an important source of support for policymakers in the field of national security policy — but support which can be molded and transposed with proper leadership. While public opinion could have indirect influence on the policy process, generally the attitudes of the public set the parameters of national policy and the limits of elite behavior.

Chapter 1. Public Opinion and National Security Policy

The leaders of every state — and certainly every democracy — must be concerned with the support of the public for their policies. It is the public that will ultimately enjoy or suffer the fruits of the policy. The political leadership of any democratic regime will stand for election in the not too distant future. These factors make the leadership more attentive to public opinion than in other types of regime.

Yet, of the major policy areas, national security seems to be the one least influenced by public opinion. One major point of agreement in the vast literature on national security and foreign policy is that the role of public opinion is marginal compared to political, military and economic factors. Public opinion is often considered a residual category which must be kept in mind, but need not be made the center of attention.¹

Public opinion has played only a minor role in considerations of national security policy research. Yet politicians clearly respect and fear (and try to manipulate) public opinion. Academics and politicians alike seem to feel that the role of public opinion in security matters is of relatively minor import, but the pragmatic politicians are much more concerned with the general mood of the moment. In an indirect manner, this mood does influence policy decisions.

These generalizations are appropriate for the study of the subject in Israel as well. But while lip-service has often been paid public opinion by Israeli analysts and politicians, no systematic research about the role of public opinion regarding national security policy is available. The intention of this study is to begin the process of providing such research.

Not all the questions which we would want to deal with can be answered here. The body of this report is formed by a single national opinion survey with its attendant limitations. We can only analyze what the respondents told us; we have no evidence regarding processes over time; we have no direct information on the impact of these opinions upon the leadership or on the dynamics of a given decisionmaking situation. Hopefully, some of these issues will be addressed in later efforts of this project. For now, we shall content ourselves with beginning the process of depicting the orientations of the Israeli public on key national security policy issues, and of analyzing Israeli society in light of these findings.

Our central argument is that there existed in Israel in the mid-1980s an over-arching concept of national security which permeated the system and which structured the beliefs and behavior patterns of Israelis. There was broad consensus regarding this concept and it was within this consensus that partisan political differences occurred. Just as Israeli Jews identified with Judaism and at the same time argued vehemently about the proper way of expressing their religious ties, so too did Israelis concur about the centrality of security while disagreeing about the ways to achieve it. Two world-views are not in competition; two plans of political action are. We shall argue that the core belief of Israelis accepts the notion that "the guardian of Israel will neither slumber nor sleep" —- and that all the rest is commentary.

In considering public opinion as a factor of national security policy, two central issues emerge. The first is an empirical issue, the second a normative one.² The empirical issue asks whether there is a relationship between policies adopted by decisionmak-ers, and the values and attitudes of the public. Is it possible to measure these connections, to estimate their direction and their strength? The normative issue inquires whether it is desirable to have foreign and security affairs influenced by public opinion or whether, because so much is at stake, leaders (more experienced and better able to foresee likely developments than the general population) should have a relatively free hand in making policy. The two issues are of course interrelated.

Classical democratic theory posits the central role of the citizenry. The expectation is that public opinion will influence policy, including foreign and defense policy. While there is no categorical claim that the public can influence all aspects of these policies, the public is seen to play an important role in setting the agenda of the nation and in generating the atmosphere within which policy is made and implemented. Demonstrations and petitions, for example, are extreme examples of communication between the mass and the elite, and these are likely to have an impact.³

The truth of the matter is that policymakers are unlikely to ignore public opinion. Whether they do this because democratic theory demands this of them or because they want to be reelected is, for our purposes, unimportant. They may keep the public in mind because they know that elections are coming up soon or, more dramatically, because they know the public may be called upon to take up arms. Merritt cites the following examples of the West German government's concern for public opinion: the shift in the orientation toward the East and especially toward the Soviet Union, the recognition of the Oder-Niesse boundary, recognition of East Germany as a separate and sovereign state, and cancellation of the 1938 Munich laws.⁴ In the United States, the case of Roosevelt reporting that he felt there were limitations to his ability to lead the United States into World War II,⁵ or the case of the United States hesitating to support the French in 1954 after the fall of Dien Bien Phu due to public disquiet over the experience of Korea,⁶ indicate the concern of governments with public opinion. Daniel Ellsberg, in his book on the war in Vietnam, makes the same point in a different way: the American leadership kept the armed forces in Vietnam long after it understood that the war was lost, because of its conviction that the American people would punish the leadership at the polls for losing a war on the ground.⁷

The importance of public opinion can be seen in the boomerang effect felt by some leaders. Since leaders tend to formulate their foreign policy views in clear and concise language, the complexities of international relations are often hidden from the public. If a change in policy takes place, the public is often hard-pressed to come to grips with the shift.⁸ This happened in the United States in the shift from the cold war to detente. A similar difficulty was faced by the Begin government in Israel when the Camp David process led to the return of the Sinai and the abandonment of Israeli settlements there. For at least some members of the public the shift in policies from "not one inch" of territory returned and never abandoning Jewish settlements, to a policy of withdrawal from the peninsula and uprooting of settlements, was a sharp and difficult change.

Yet shifts in foreign policy do not seem to have dire electoral consequences. This is true even in Israel, in which foreign and defense policies are always prominent (if not often decisive) in election campaigns. The lack of consequences is probably explained by the fact that on the whole the policy differences on these issues between the major parties, as perceived by the electorate, are slight.

In addition to the classical democratic view expressed by those who analyze society in terms of its pluralism, there is a second dominant approach. Versions of this conception are to be found in the elitist and Marxist schools.⁹ These scholars argue that public opinion is irrelevant in foreign policy because it is the structural and material interests of the ruling groups that determine foreign and defense policy. Any pretense at including the public is to be seen as manipulation by the elite in order to achieve support for its policies. An example of this analysis that has had great influence on the way people think and talk about politics is the proposition that there exists a military-industrial power elite which really makes policy.

Regardless of the approach adopted, research has largely ignored public opinion in considerations of national security policy. Most research on foreign policy in general, and on the strategy of national security in particular, has focused on elite decisionmaking.¹⁰ There are good reasons for this focus:

1. The elite defines the national interest, a concept which is at the heart of discussions in these matters. It follows that in order to understand a nation's behavior in pursuit of its national interest, one must first understand the individual and group perceptions and cognitions of the elite.¹¹ In his work, for example, Alexander George has posited a "cognitive map" (the "operational code" in his terminology) which allows the systematic categorization of the beliefs of political leaders in order to determine likely decisions in international situations. The centrality of the map in this approach obviously relegates other considerations (such as public opinion) to a marginal status.

2. Participation of the population seems to be more illusion than reality. This is another reason to focus research on the elite. It is widely assumed that the public is apathetic regarding foreign policy issues, and that therefore its role in the parallelogram of forces which determines policy is unimportant. Science must overcome sentiments which may obscure reality. Almond formulates this in the following way:

The treatment of problems of public opinion and foreign policy in the United States has been obscured and distorted by ethical bias and inhibition. All political systems have their myths, and democracies are not exceptions in this regard. The democratic myth is that the people are inherently wise and just, and that they are the real rulers of the republic. These propositions do have meaning; but if they become, as they do even among scholars, matters of faith, then scientific progress has been sacrificed in the interest of a morally satisfying demagogy.¹²

In order to understand how misinformed is the approach which looks for public influence in these matters, according to Almond, one must merely look to political reality:

If we examine any problem of public opinion and public policy with this type of structural analysis, the shortcomings of the democratic myth immediately become apparent. For example, can any people in the mass grasp with justice and wisdom the complex issues and strategies of foreign policy in the present era? Can any people in the mass and in the modern era make foreign policy in the specific sense of that term?¹³

The role of the public, then, is that of a passive observer, who may or may not interact on these matters with other passive members of society, who are also watching from afar, as the drama of international relations unfolds.

Survey research strengthens the argument of those who characterize the public as apathetic regarding foreign and security matters. Surveys of the American public show that between 70 and 90 percent are not attentive to foreign matters and have limited knowledge and interest.¹⁴ Merritt found similar results for West Germany;¹⁵ this is significant: the perceived external threat in West Germany is much greater than in the United States, and we might reasonably expect higher levels of interest and information there than in the United States. The results of the research indicate that low levels of interest and knowledge are not uniquely an American problem but that they seem to be endemic to modern democracies.

Verba and Brody's research on the role of public opinion during the Vietnam War in the United States also supports the argument that public opinion plays only a slight role in policy formation. In 1967, they interviewed a national sample in the United States (some 1,500 respondents).¹⁶ Two-thirds of the sample reported that they thought the war in Vietnam was the most critical issue facing the nation. But only 13 percent reported that they had tried to convince someone else to change his or her view regarding the war, and only 3 percent had acted in any way to change national policy (e.g., by writing a letter to the editor or to a congressman, senator, or the president). Less than 1 percent reported participating in a demonstration. Considering the intensity of the political debate in the United States over the war at that time, and the effect reported by the politicians of their awareness of public opinion, these figures are lower than might have been reasonably expected.

As in many other matters, social class or social location is related to attentiveness and knowledge about foreign and security matters. Galtung divided the public into the following groups: (1) decisionmakers, (2) the social center — those socio-economic groups that enjoy the highest social payoffs, and (3) the social marginals who do not enjoy positive rewards and must at times even confront social rejection.

According to one theory that Galtung develops, those at the social center formulate policy and transmit it to those at the periphery. Those at the periphery have little knowledge, interest, or critical ability regarding foreign and national security policy, and therefore they accept wholly the positions of those at the social center. This tends to increase support for the status quo. A second theory that Galtung develops posits that those at the periphery are less affected by pragmatic considerations than are those at the social center. This is expressed in greater alienation from the system and support for revolutionary policies not supported by the social center.¹⁷

Almond's classification scheme is similar: (1) the nonattentive mass, (2) the attentive population — about 10 percent of the population which is knowledgeable, interested and has crystallized attitudes on foreign affairs, and (3) the leading elite. Members of the latter two groups tend to develop clear attitudes regarding questions of foreign and security policy, while members of the first group are concerned with foreign affairs issues only when there is some clear and immediate connection with economic or personal issues which affect them directly.

The summary of the research done on the topic indicates that higher education, urban dwelling and higher class membership are all positively associated with having more information regarding what is going on in the world and with being interested in what the country is doing in the world. Within each group, men are more likely than women to know more and to be more interested. The Verba-Brody, Merritt, and Galtung studies also showed that those who have more knowledge and interest regarding foreign affairs are also likely to be more liberal and internationalist in their attitudes.

3. A third reason why research on foreign policy tends to focus on elite decisionmaking is the perception that the impact of public opinion on sensitive topics of security and foreign policy is negative and should therefore be limited. The impact is negative because the public's mood is unstable and unpredictable.¹⁸ "Mood theory" thus argues against the primacy of public opinion. A public that gyrates capriciously between isolationism on the one hand, and involvement on the other, cannot be taken too seriously if a stable and reasonable foreign policy is desired. Moreover, the public seems to rally round the flag unfailingly in times of crisis. This is all a leader really needs to know; besides, the public's display of loyalty and cohesion takes place indiscriminately without determining whether the crisis is "real" or was provoked by the leadership for domestic consumption.¹⁹

In his The American People and Foreign Policy, Gabriel Almond concludes that the views of most Americans regarding foreign and defense matters are unstructured and lack any knowledgeable and intellectual basis. Miller and Stokes also concluded that in the realm of foreign and defense matters the American congressman is free to pursue the policy line of his choice without much fear of interference on election day from his constituency.²⁰ In this environment, a politician and statesman are really free agents who should be expected to formulate their own policy without giving much thought to the shifting preferences of the public.

4. At the normative level, it is thought desirable to have only limited public input into foreign and defense policies. Reasons of secrecy and experience are cited for this preference. Extraneous matters, such as elections and partisan politics, should be mini malized in decisions regarding these matters. The open and raucous nature of democratic politics does not lend itself to secret, professional and serious consideration of life-and-death issues. Wide-scale participation often makes foreign policy debates ideological rather than pragmatic, and characterized by a militant, rather than a compromising, mood. This is documented by Schneider for the United States.²¹

A slightly different emphasis is offered by those who see policy influencing public opinion more than public opinion influences policy. Goplin, for example, points out that saying that decision-makers in an open system are aware of public opinion is not the same as saying that public opinion affects policy. On the contrary, politicians know that they can influence public opinion rather easily, thereby generating positive feedback for the policies that they have initiated. Often public opinion is used to justify actions already taken rather than to prepare the public for future policies.²²

Naomi Keis is one of the few social scientists to have considered this issue in the Israeli context. She concluded that "Even when there is a difference of opinion on a given issue, Israeli public opinion tends to accept the government's position once a decision has been made."²³ The conditions that facilitate the government's influence on public opinion in Israel, according to Keis, include (1) the basic consensus regarding national goals; (2) a situation in which alternative proposals are shown to lead to uncertain results; and (3) an atmosphere of urgency in which the topic is presented as extremely important and the decisions as critical.

According to this point of view, public opinion may result from purposeful manipulation by the leadership. In that case, public opinion research faces the almost impossible task of penetrating the cycle of government-decision/action/manipulation-of-public-opinion/public-support. Here it may be noted that there are those who argue that it is easier to manipulate public opinion in democratic than in authoritarian countries since the level of skepticism in the latter case is already great and psychological mechanisms are in place to deal with suspected government manipulation of symbols and messages.²⁴

The conceptual framework or world-view of a nation must be understood if its behavior in the international arena is to be comprehended. It is therefore important to ascertain the Israeli world-view regarding key dimensions. Three aspects of national security policy will be the focus of our concern: (1) perceptions regarding the international environment; (2) the orientation toward war and the use of force in the culture; and (3) subjective evaluations of military force and political flexibility related to freedom of action in the international arena.

1. Every society is characterized by a world-view that forms the basis for its understanding of the international environment in which it operates. This conceptualization of the world is useful in that it provides the members of society a shorthand for identifying items relevant to them; it provides criteria for describing and judging events as they occur; and it presents guidelines for determining the strategy for grappling with problems that face the society. It is the filter through which all data are processed; without it, uncertainty reigns and contrasting world-views clash: some see constant threat, while others may perceive no threat at all.

A political system is characterized by both consensus and conflict. Generally, shared values and institutions are agreed upon within a polity, but there are also topics that provoke disagreement. The party system reflects both elements: that which is shared by most of the important political parties is a good definition of the consensus which exists in the country. That which divides the parties — the word party is derived from "part" and a party is intended to represent only a part of the whole — is the focus of political debate. A party's answers to policy issues are likely to be translated into law and organizational decisionmaking when it is in power.

Consensus indicates the degree of public agreement about the goals of foreign policy.²⁵ Consensus sets the outer limits for the goals that any government can strive to reach in its foreign policy. Consensus is the scope of domestic agreement regarding policy; consensus represents a limitation on policymakers just as do factors in the international and military spheres. Consensus reflects the set of domestic limitations that operate on foreign policy decisionmaking.

Policy, therefore, has two foci — the one internal, the other external. Our focus in this study is with the perceptions of Israelis regarding the external focus. The internal focus patterns expectations regarding relations among individuals, between individuals and groups, and among various groups in the society. The external focus relates to the state and its relations to other states and groups in the international system.

In the analyses that follow, we shall study both consensus and disagreement. On the whole, we shall find that issues of security policy are generally characterized by consensus and that issues of foreign policy — in the Israeli case of the 1980s, the territories — divide the population almost evenly.²⁶

The political conception held by the population of a state develops as a result of its experience with other states — including relations of war and peace. Foreign policy does not emerge spontaneously from the decisionmakers' heads, "but is rather the reflection of the experiences of the nation, of the political art and of certain ideologies."²⁷ Small increments have been known to effect long-term patterns. Bilateral relations have been known to change perceptions and expectations regarding the global system. In many cases it is possible to identify a collective mood regarding the international system, and xenophobic or xenophilic relations can change attitudes regarding the world based on specific international relations.²⁸

This is not to argue that the view toward other nations is solely determined by the emotional impulses of the collectivity. Generally behind the international orientation is also an assessment of the advantages and disadvantages of the system of relationships. As Cantril explains, "People in one nation are hostile towards another nation not because they have unfavorable stereotypes; rather, they develop negative stereotypes because they perceive that others are preventing them from achieving their self- or national-interest."²⁹ Defining the threat perceived by a nation entails labeling states that are trying to prevent the realization of one's national goals, as enemies, or those that are willing or able to aid one in one's attempt to achieve national goals, as allies.

Despite the fluid nature of international relations, a basic stability characterizes the public's orientation toward international relations.

It could of course be argued that this finding is associated with the public's apathy toward the subject of foreign affairs rather than with any deep reflection on the fluctuations of the international situation. But there are countries (Israel is an example) that have low levels of apathy and this explanation is therefore not completely satisfactory.

2. The role of power in relations among states is an additional aspect of a country's orientation toward the international system. In some cultures the use of force is well-founded and is part of the ideological baggage brought to the international sphere, whereas in other societies the use of force is frowned upon and, as an extension, the basic instinct is toward mutual accommodation in forming foreign and security policies. Boulding captures this difference when he writes that, "Peace, no matter its nature, is a feature of the social system and not of the physical or biological systems. Moreover, it is a feature of some social systems and not of others."³¹

There is no necessary correlation among the orientations of a state to its many objects. A state may take a conflictual stance in the regional system and a moderate and conciliatory one in the global system. Moreover, there is no necessary connection between the domestic political culture of a society and its international orientation. Democracies which place at the pinnacle of their domestic priorities values such as civil liberties and their defense against arbitrary state power, may be no less bellicose in their international behavior than autocratic or totalitarian societies.³² On the other hand, a significant difference was found to exist between domestic stability, regardless of type of regime, and international aggressiveness.³³ Domestic disturbance is often associated with international tension.

A measure of the orientation to force and power are the status and rewards given to the members of the society who are involved with these topics. For example, a comparison of Japan and China reveals two different orientations to the warrior. In Japan, until its defeat in World War II, the warrior classes and the samarai enjoyed high levels of social status and privilege. In contrast, the Chinese glorified those who could control their hostility and their aggressiveness and ranked the warrior below the scholar and the merchant in the social hierarchy.³⁴

The orientation toward force and power is a central ingredient in the definition of national character. "National character cannot fail to influence national power," wrote Hans Morgenthau. And then he added, "The observer of the international scene who attempts to assess the relative strength of different nations must take national character into account. Failure to do so will lead to errors in judgement and policies, as the depreciation of the recuperative force of Germany after the First World War and the underestimation of the Russian staying power in 1941-42."³⁵

Even if we regard Morgenthau's statement regarding national character as extreme, it is hard to dispute his generalization about the connection between the norms regarding the use of physical power and the likelihood of a state's becoming involved in international conflicts. The greater the perception of threat that is involved in armed conflict, the more likely it is for the decision-makers to reduce the probability of entering the type of conflict that can be decided by force of arms. On the other hand, the lower the cost in manpower and materiel projected to be expended by conflict, the more likely that force will be used.³⁶

3. Perceptions of military might are an important predictor of whether armed force will be used by a state. This leads to the convention of characterizing states as small, medium, big or super powers.³⁷ Yet in reality even small states that are closely linked with super powers have defied their providers and have been known to act without the approval of their larger-power patrons.³⁸ This indicates that objective assessments of military might are not sufficient indicators of strength in international relations. Also important are the subjective perceptions of the citizens of a country and of those responsible for defining and protecting the national interest of a country.³⁹

In order to be effective, public opinion must be united and not fragmented, active and not passive.⁴⁰ The more united and active the consensus, the less the government is permitted to stray beyond the bounds of the consensus. Passive opinion is not enough to prevent cracking the bounds of consensus. Organizational presence must be felt if public opinion is to be effective. The lack of such organization permitted the Begin-Sharon coalition within the Likud government to lead Israel into the Lebanon War of 1982; the existence of such organization brought hundreds of thousands of Israelis out on the streets to influence that same government (after its initial refusal) to establish an official committee of investigation about the role of the Israeli army in the Lebanese massacre of Palestinians in the camps of Sabra and Shatilla.

Organizations which attempt to mobilize public opinion for purposes of influencing foreign policy— such as peace groups — usually are faced with a very difficult job. The number of relevant policymakers is very small and access to them is usually difficult. These decisionmakers are frequently surrounded by secrecy and have in their possession information that is not available to the public.⁴¹

Our approach sees the public as having only indirect influence on the policy process. Although access to politicians is relatively easy in Israel, the ability of the public to influence policy is much more limited. Decisionmaking in Israel is highly centralized, yet public opinion does play a role. This role is usually to confirm decisions made and to lend support to policies already announced. Often the role of public opinion is passive. But it is both nourished and restrained by the difficult dilemmas faced by Israel's policymakers, by the high cost of a wrong decision, and by the nightmare of the Jewish past that has been part of the conceptual baggage of every Israeli decisionmaker since independence.

As Israel matures, questions about maintaining consensus surface on a regular basis. As new cohorts enter the public, new configurations of opinion may become dominant. The present study has two purposes: (1) to provide base-line data for later consideration of the dynamics of the phenomenon, and (2) to analyze as far as a single survey will allow some of the issues involved in the relationship between public opinion and the decisionmakers on national security issues.

The optimal research design would call for conducting the research over time, with regular observations and with special attention given to critical moments in the life of the nation, especially during international crises or at wartime. Regular observation provides the observer with the capability to make comparisons over time regarding differing situations, allowing the isolation of important variables by identifying those that are more influenced by episodic developments and permitting the retesting of hypotheses. Hopefully we shall be able to do some of these things in the future.

Chapter 2. National Security Beliefs and Israel's Political Leadership

The Israeli case is a fascinating laboratory for studying how the beliefs and orientations of a political leadership fashioned the way in which the bulk of the country's population viewed issues of national security policy. In the first decades of the twentieth century, the Jewish pioneers in Palestine were not only creating an economic, social, and organizational infrastructure for the state which would be established in 1948; they were also molding the ideological postulates which would give their movement strength and direction.¹ Their success, moreover, would also elevate these ideological postulates to the ranks of a basic belief system that would be used by leaders and masses alike to assess developments in the realm of security, defense and foreign policy. Just as the opinions of the adult are usually guided by the early values and attitudes that he internalized as a child, so too was the State of Israel influenced in its later years by the orientations that its leaders and public developed in the critical Yishuv (pre-state settlement) years of nation-building.

It is reasonable to look to the political leadership, especially in a nation's formative period, to identify the national security world-view of a country. We seek to understand the "attitudinal prism"² of the leadership, and through it, the belief patterns of the nation. Even those who do not accept an elitist or manipulative conception of the relations between the elite and mass opinion cannot deny that the perceptions of national leaders trickle down to the collective consciousness of the masses. This approach is especially reasonable considering the hierarchical structure of Israeli society.

Those who are at the top of the pyramid have enormous influence on the attitudes and norms of the general population. Winston Churchill's determination to stand up to Nazi Germany and his self-assurance that it could be done, undoubtedly influenced the behavior of his countrymen. Levi Eshkol's hesitant and stuttering appearance on the eve of the Six-Day War in 1967 heightened the anxiety of the Israeli populace. It is almost irrelevant if Eshkol himself was frightened or whether he was the victim of technical problems and fatigue; what mattered was that his appearance affected the perceptions of his audience because style and content are so closely intertwined.

The political opinions of the decisionmaker will provide us an important clue about public opinion. In this sense, a review of the leaders' views is also an indication of the attitudes of the public. Obviously the short overview provided here is selective and incomplete. Even among the elite there were differing views and varying assessments. Not all nuances can be covered nor can marginal group opinions be explored. We shall focus on the major points of view expressed by the major groups in the Israeli system.

Politicians and citizens usually emerge from the same political culture. The tone they set and the style they establish reflect the behavior and values of the citizens they lead. National traumas and collective memories are shared by all members of the group, including the leadership. At least at the level of general orientation when viewing international problems, if not at the level of personal experience, the same basic predispositions will be salient for the elite and the mass. When initial answers to questions of military strategy and national diplomacy are given, a national security conception has emerged. This beginning was complicated in the case of the Zionist movement because of the long history of the Jewish people in the Diaspora. After hundreds of years in this "unnatural" setting (from the point of view of the Zionist), the collective memory was of hostile or apathetic relations with governments and rulers, and with the Jews always in a subordinate position. This history had a powerful impact on the emotional and intellectual baggage of the early Zionists and sharply raised the issues of self-defense and the necessary and sufficient conditions which had to be fulfilled to ensure physical survival.

The nation-building elite is always crucial in this type of analysis since it is its world-view that dominates the society in its formative period. In the case of Israel, the fact that is most important in understanding later developments is that the members of the elite were Jews who tended to come from Eastern Europe, which was influenced by the Russian Revolution in a period when Bolshevism was on the rise and when pogroms against the Jews were rife.³

The relevant point of departure for us is the 1930s. Earlier events and incidents can be alluded to, but the most meaningful developments both organizationally and conceptually occurred then.⁴ In the 1930s there emerged among the Jews in Eretz Israel a crystallized conception regarding national security policy. This conception has persisted to a remarkable extent to this very day; obviously, such major developments as independence and the 1967 war have changed the details, but the themes have persisted.

The choice of the 1930s is not accidental. There was great flux in the Yishuv. Before that time there were competing ideologies among political parties which represented the conflicting preferences of Jews from different countries and from different waves of immigration. There were also competing forms of agricultural settlements (kibbutz and moshav) which reflected organizational and intra-elite conflict. However, in the pre-1930 period there were few structures that might indicate that the nucleus of a modern institutionalized state was emerging.

Moreover, until the 1920s the Zionist movement was generally oblivious to the basic conflict of interest between the Jews and the Arabs in Palestine. One exception, largely ignored at the time, was an article by I. Epstein, published in 1908, which argued that there existed a basic conflict of interest between the Jewish settlers and the Arabs in Palestine.⁵ Only when the waves of immigration grew under the British mandate and World War II came closer did the Jewish leadership begin to conceive of the Zionist effort as a zero-sum-game. The conflict finally penetrated the collective consciousness of the Jews after the 1929 Arab uprisings against them. Beginning in the 1930s, the feeling of common destiny among Jews in Palestine became much stronger and, inevitably, problems of national security policy gained salience at the expense of internal Yishuv issues.⁶

The security organizations were crystallized and institutionalized during the Arab uprisings in the mid-1930s. While predecessors had existed before that time, the political leadership tried to dominate and control their efforts. By the final years of the 1930s, however, these military groups sustained high levels of attention and commitment from the political leadership. In addition, more militant elements became active in these organizations and this too drew the attention of the politicians.

The political leaders realized that these organizations could fill functions beyond that of using force to combat Arab violence, and they made efforts to dominate the various militias. In order to decide how to best use these organizations, the elite had to sharpen its view of the international environment, it had to invest these military organizations with an ideology, it had to provide symbolic and material motivation to those who joined the ranks of these groups, and it had to ensure that these groups would act under orders of the leadership rather than work at cross-purposes.⁷

None of these tasks was easily accomplished. Those decisions made affected almost every aspect of pre-state and Israeli society. David Ben-Gurion struggled, once the state was created, to establish out of the party-dominated militias a single army under his command, and he was ultimately successful. And it was in these years that the trauma of the Holocaust befell the Jewish people. The sense of rebellion against the helplessness of the Jews of Europe, and the view of the Jew as a target for Gentile violence, reached a crescendo in the very years when the formative ideology of the Israeli defense effort was emerging.

In summarizing the major elements of the national security conception of Israeli leaders since the 1930s, we shall be concerned with two major dimensions: on the one hand, the philosophical dimension of the "operational code," which includes an assessment of the international environment and its conditions; on the other the instrumental dimension which concerns operational tactics. The latter is defined by the former and also stems from it.⁸

As we have seen, the disturbances of 1929 generated the first high-point of tension between the Jews and Arabs of Palestine in the modern era. From then on until the declaration of independence in 1948, the Yishuv perceived itself to be in a state of national emergency.⁹ This feeling had been given stark reality by the disastrous events which engulfed millions of Jews in Europe during the period of the late 1930s and early 1940s. This terrible reality demanded reexamination of some of the basic assumptions of the original Zionist ideology concerning the root-causes of Jewish persecution. After all, those who had seized power in Europe had done so under the flag of anti-Semitism and had managed to all but wipe out European Jewry. In fact, this feeling of threat had been a constant of the Jewish national experience even after independence, although with different emphases; between the Six-Day War of 1967 and the Yom Kippur War of 1973, for instance, the feeling of potential disaster was blunted.

The first assumption that demanded revision had to do with the causes of anti -Semitism and hatred of the Jews. After the massacre of Jews in Hebron in 1929 and the sporadic violence against Jews in the years which followed, it seemed naive to claim (as the old-time Zionists had) that hatred of Jews would disappear when the Jews would abandon their "unnatural" role among the nations of the world as a weak and dependent group. Bring them to their own land, the argument had gone, where these unnatural circumstances would no longer exist, and hatred of the Jew would vanish as well.¹⁰ It no longer seemed tenable to argue that the transformation of the Jewish people to a group that dwelt on the land, had a full spectrum of social roles, and had a "normal" division of labor and employment, would also bring a solution to the fear of attack and violence by others.

The 1930s seemed to prove that reality was very different. Although enormous achievements were made in social and economic terms by the Jews of Palestine, the major actors in the international environment seemed to react to the Jews in a manner similar to what Jews had experienced elsewhere and before. For the Jews who had come from Europe, the only difference seemed to be that the enemy was now Arab-Muslim instead of European-Christian; for those who came from Muslim lands, the behavior of the local Arabs seemed consistent with the hatred that they had often experienced in the lands they left. The high hopes of the early years of settlement vanished and by the 1930s, an immediate physical threat was felt by Jews in both Europe and Palestine. The new motif, which has become a lasting element in the Zionist ideology since then, was the basic similarity in the security threat faced by Jews everywhere, whether in their sovereign state of Israel or in the Diaspora.

In her autobiography, Golda Meir relates her fears as a child of a pogrom in her native Kiev - a pogrom that in the end did not take place. She felt that her conclusions based on that distant non-happening were relevant at all times and places:

That pogrom did not take place at all, but to this day I remember how frightened I was and how angry I was that the only thing my father could do to protect me as I waited for the bullies to come was to nail some planks on the door. And more than anything else I remember the feeling that this is happening to me only because I am Jewish .... That was a feeling which I felt many times in my life - the fear, the feeling of being downcast, the awareness of being different and the deep instinctive belief that a person who wants to stay alive had better do something about it.¹¹

When David Ben-Gurion resigned as prime minister in 1953 he stressed the total and constant hostility of the outside world:

We took upon ourselves a mighty three-pronged struggle: a struggle with ourselves, with our Diaspora mentality, unworthy habits and a weak structure of life of a nation without a homeland, scattered and dependent on the favors of others; a struggle with the nature of the land, its desolation, its poverty and its ruins by the hand of man and of God; a struggle against forces of evil and hatred in the world, far and near, that did not understand and did not want to understand the uniqueness and the wondrous mission of our nation since we stepped onto the stage of history in ancient times until these very days.¹²

Abba Eban - known as one of Israel's more moderate and less emotional leaders - describes the condition of Israel on the eve of the 1967 Six-Day War as follows: "The chilling wind of vulnerability penetrated to every corner of the Israeli consciousness. When we looked out at the world we saw it divided between those who wanted to see us destroyed and those who would not raise a finger to prevent it from happening."¹³ This from a man who knew well the diplomatic stage and its major actors, who could not be accused of chronic xenophobia or deep fear of the Gentile. We get a glimpse through Eban of the depth of the feelings of threat and persecution in the world-view of Israeli decisionmakers.

Even Meir Yaari, a leader of Mapam (a left-wing socialist party), whose platform called for coexistence with the Arabs, admitted that at least some Arabs were not interested in the continued existence of the State of Israel. In his book The Tests of our Generation he writes,

The Arab reactionaries in neighboring countries never accepted the existence of the state of Israel, just as they had never accepted the immigration of Jews to the country.... I repeat: none of us disagrees that the state of Israel is surrounded in the present, just as it has been surrounded during all the years of its existence, with provocations and aggressive schemes on the part of the ruling groups in the neighboring countries.¹⁴

The clear feeling of basic mistrust regarding the international environment is the basic feature of the foreign and security policy of Israel. There is a fundamental belief that in the final analysis the world will do nothing to protect Jews, as individuals, as a collectivity, as a state. This is why the Holocaust was possible and why, if it depended on the world at large, the Holocaust could happen again.¹⁵

Central to the ideology of groups on the right of the political spectrum was the role played by the Holocaust and the light it shed on the nature of man in general and the treatment which Jews in particular could expect from the Gentiles. In his book, The Revolt, Menahem Begin writes:

Ask the Jews: Is it possible to destroy a people? Is it possible to annihilate millions of people in the twentieth century? And what will the 'world' say? The innocent ones! It is hard to believe, but even in the twentieth century it is possible to destroy an entire people; and if the annihilated people happens to be Jewish, the world will be silent and will behave as it usually behaves.¹⁶

The operative conclusion based on this description is clear: "The world does not pity the victims; it respects the warriors. Good or bad - that is how it is."¹⁷ The motif of the Holocaust continued to play a central role in the conception and rhetoric of Menahem Begin, of the Herut Party which he founded and led, and of the Likud governments which he headed.¹⁸

It is interesting to note that when seen through their writings and their speeches in the early post-World War II period, the saliency of the Holocaust for Israeli leaders was relatively low. This was a period in which the horrors of the Holocaust were only beginning to come to light. As time went by, it assumed greater proportion in their public utterances.

Don-Yehiya and Liebman provide a functional explanation for this finding and associate the ignoring of the Holocaust in the early years of independence more with internal-political-ideological considerations and less with the leaders' having incomplete information about what had happened. They write:

In the selective treatment of the state authorities, the Holocaust and other evidence of Jewish suffering inflicted by the Gentiles were viewed as stemming from the Diaspora condition, a condition which was irrelevant to the conditions in the state of Israel....'Overstressing' of the Holocaust by the authorities, might lead to people missing the point: the creation and development of the state of Israel. It also might have harmed vital national interests of the state in its relations with other states, as in relations between Israel and Germany.¹⁹

With the changes in norms and the creation of what Don-Yehiya and Liebman refer to as the new "civil religion" in Israel, it became possible to relate openly to the Holocaust and the lessons to be learned from it without infringing on the ideological superstructure or the internal logic of the existence of the state. Now, as opposed to the recent past, they argue, "the Holocaust signifies in the new civil religion more evidence of the wickedness of Israel-hating Gentiles, and their permanent hatred of the Jews, as expressed in their relations toward the state of Israel."²⁰

The very persons who led the Yishuv during the years of World War II and who did not stress the Holocaust then, for the reasons mentioned above, became very agitated about the subject when they wrote their memoirs years later. In their books they do not minimize the effect of the tragedy of European Jewry on them. Golda Meir, for example, wrote:

I also think that the existence of the state of Israel is an insurance against the occurrence of another Holocaust. I am sorry that there are still those among us who do not realize that it is our responsibility to live and to act so that those Jews who died in the gas chambers will be the last Jews ever to die without defending themselves.²¹

Yitzhak Tabenkin, considered the founding ideologue of The Land of Israel Movement - the movement that desires to annex the territories captured in the 1967 war - explains his view as follows: "The danger of extermination threatens the state and the Jewish people since the days of the Nazis. But since the establishment of the state, it is the danger of the destruction of the state which is the sword through which the Diaspora Jews will also be destroyed."²²

The almost, obsessive use of the Holocaust image has made it a national legacy and not only a personal one. For the generation that lived through the catastrophe, even for those who were personally in no direct danger, there exists a persistent anxiety about their continued existence. This fear is passed on to the next generation.²³

The dual lessons about national security policy learned from the experience in Palestine and from the Holocaust were (1) military strength and (2) self-reliance. An enormous transformation occurred among the pioneers in Eretz Israel/ Palestine: they shifted from almost no capability for self- defense in the Diaspora, to one in which there existed a formidable armed force. Actually, the underground militia formed by the dominant leadership group, the Haganna, was established in 1919, but it occupied an important place in the internal life of the Yishuv only in the 1930s and especially in the 1940s. After independence, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) were established. In the transition, the feeling of personal vulnerability of the Jew was to disappear - no longer was he to perceive himself as a helpless lamb being taken to sacrifice. This stronger perception was enhanced, of course, by the military weakness of the other actors in the region and by the Arab inability to confront Israel successfully on the battlefield.

Power - and especially military power - became for many of Israel's leaders the only insurance policy available. It stemmed from this evaluation that the army was the "savior" of the people and that it was entitled to privileged treatment compared to other sectors of the society. Begin wrote:

Even after we are victorious in this battle [for independence] - and we shall be victorious - we shall have to make extreme efforts to retain our independence in order that we may liberate our homeland. First and foremost it will be necessary to enlarge and glorify the armed forces of Israel without which we shall not have a homeland, freedom or existence. The Jewish army must be the best trained and the best army among the armies of the world.²⁴

This point of view was prevalent on all sides of the political continuum in Israel. Very similar things about the IDF can be found in a book written after the 1967 war by Uri Avneri, a former Knesset member and Leftist ideologue and journalist. In describing the social role played by the IDF, he writes,

The IDF has become the center of the society, the expression of the national genius. It attracts the best people... Moreover, the IDF is the most liberal and moderate institution in Israel's public life. It is less chauvinistic than the government, than most of the parties and than the press. All of this has a simple explanation. In the other institutions of society, a man may err and later correct his errors. But a major mistake on the part of the IDF is simply the end of Israel. Like having a hand-grenade blow up in your hand while you are still holding it, it is an error which you will never have a chance to repeat.²⁵

The nature of the army that developed in Israel was different from the armies which generally existed in new and developing nations. It was a people's army in the authentic sense of the phrase. Chaim Herzog explains:

The state of Israel was born in battle.... When the War of Independence was over it became clear that the new state would have to live sword in hand for many years until peace would finally come, but it was also clear that Israel would not be able to afford to have a large standing army which would answer the military problems posed by Israel's neighbors....The logical answer was to create a large army of citizens and that the entire nation would in effect be the army.²⁶

The situation in fact is not quite that clear-cut. There is general participation in the army, with the exception of some groups who are exempt. Widespread service in the reserves prevents the emergence of an army caste of professional officers that might develop a separate value-system.²⁷ But while most are called upon to participate, this does not mean that influence on security and military policy is shared equally. The spheres of planning and decision, as opposed to active training and battle, were reserved for a chosen few. Only a limited number of individuals and institutions were deemed by the political elite capable of expressing their opinions or their opposition. The expression of opposing points of view was received very unfavorably by the elite. It was sometimes viewed as threatening the all-important consensus and sometimes seemed to border on treason, from their point of view. The dismissal of criticism also allowed the leadership to ignore the critics. After October 1973 and after June 1982 (the Yom Kippur War and the Lebanon War), the establishment did not confront the demonstrators against the policies adopted.

Despite the almost universal agreement regarding the role of the army to prevent the destruction of the state, there were disagreements about the role that military force would play in Israel's attempt to ensure its continued existence. These disagreements surfaced in the early years of the state and formed the backdrop to the tense and difficult relations between David Ben-Gurion and Moshe Sharett, Ben Gurion's first foreign minister, and between Ben-Gurion and Nahum Goldman, the president of the World Jewish Congress. The differences can be summed up in one question: Can real security for Israel be achieved through military prowess, or, in the long run, is it better to rely on patience and pragmatic politics?

Sharett saw Israel as part of the Middle East and tried to understand the Arab point of view. In the long run Sharett saw the Arabs as partners in a non-violent dialogue. Ben-Gurion, on the other hand, believed that no dialogue among equals could evolve; he therefore put his faith in military prowess as the only way to ensure the continued existence of the Jews in Israel.²⁸ Ben-Gurion, the champion of the security-minded activists, won the argument, and his opinion forged Israeli policy from that time on.

Consensus on security matters is a sacred ideal in Israeli politics.²⁹ The basic assumption is that it has been clearly shown that Israel cannot rely on outside help no matter how dire the straits of the country. Internal strength - through consensus - is the only weapon at the government's disposal. Golda Meir emphasizes this point when she recalls the discussion {which ended without a positive solution) in 1938 between Bevan and Roosevelt regarding the possibility of resettling Jews who fled from Germany in Palestine. "We all knew then what many had only suspected. Never would a foreign government be able to feel our pain as we feel it, and no government would ever value the life of Jews as we do."³⁰ At another point in her book Golda Meir writes, "I assume that there are only two logical or possible solutions for lawlessness among nations. One is to give up, to say that there is nothing that can be done. The second is to grit your teeth and to fight on as many fronts as you have to fight for as long as you have to fight - and that is exactly what we did."³¹

The Six-Day War of 1967, and the weeks of waiting for a political solution to the crisis which preceded it, brought back the feeling that Israel could rely only on itself - the feeling that had been the major lesson of the Holocaust. Tabenkin wrote after the victory: "This feeling of solitude which resulted from the threats of extermination was one of the 'secrets' of our victory, and we must imprint it in our memories as a consideration in our decisions in the future."³² The operational conclusion was to appropriate a very large part of the national budget to security, domestic development of arms and additional efforts that reflected on unwillingness to rely solely on international guarantees of any kind. The policy of self- reliance, wrote Dan Horowitz, meant the unending attempt to enlarge Israel's strength so that Israel would be able to defend by itself the vital interests necessary to achieve its continued existence.³³

This self-reliance does not mean that Israel's leaders are unaware of the importance of coalitions with other international actors in order to defend Israel from the threats of its enemies. Since the beginning of the modern Jewish settlement in Eretz Israel, with the exception of the period between 1946 and 1950, the political leadership has always opted to look to one of the world's great powers to ensure that its national interests are secure; first, to the German Empire, then to the mandatory government of Great Britain, to France in the 1950s and since 1967, to the United States.

Zionist leaders, from Herzl to Weizman, understood the political and moral support to be gained from close relations with superpowers.³⁴ While most of the new states which emerged after World War II preferred neutralism between the two post-war superpowers, Israel's neutralism was very short-lived. While the inclination was always to be connected with a major power in order to achieve and preserve independence, it was also considered important to secure a large group of supporting nations within the international community. The independence period provided the background to going it alone in the international arena. Britain's mandatory policies were strongly opposed and the Soviet Union surprisingly offered political and diplomatic support in the earliest periods. This left Israel between the two major camps and allowed for reflection regarding the wisdom of being too closely tied to either one of them. Indeed, in 1947 Ben-Gurion declared non-alignment and neutrality; this policy was short-lived: in July 1950, at the start of the Korean War, Israel aligned itself firmly in the western camp.

Not all of Israel's political parties were pleased with this development. Mapam, for example, saw this as a disastrous turn in Israel's foreign policy. Meir Yaari explained:

We demand of the leadership of the nation to save our souls by avoiding one-sided relations of dependence, just as do the leaders of Switzerland and Austria. Especially since the threat to our continued existence between the two superpowers is so great. The threat is to our existence and our future. We are willing to be more modest. We will continue to fight for neutrality for our country while we fight for the neutralization of the entire region. But immediately we demand from the leadership to refrain from involving us in the fight between the two major camps of the world.... The threat to our existence from being overly dependent on American policy and strategy in the Middle East is so severe and dangerous that any possible advantages which we can possibly gain from such a relationship are not nearly as much as what we have to lose.³⁵

But most of the leadership - and most Israelis evidently thought differently. Siding with the West was considered understandable in terms of the Soviet Union's very cool treatment of Israel and in light of the economic and political support of American Jewry. Israel's participation in defense arrangements that the United States was setting up in the region was rejected as much because the Americans did not want to strain their relations with the Arab states of the region - who were seen as important American strategic assets - as due to Israeli reasons. Israel then sought relations with Europe, and France became a staunch ally and supplier of military equipment from the 1950s until the mid-1960s, when deGaulle closed supply lines because of disapproval of Israeli policy.

The post-1967 period brought close relations with the United States; these reached a pinnacle during the Yom Kippur War, when an American airlift provided needed materiel to the Israeli army. Although there have been periodic crises in bilateral relations, the basic theme of Israeli foreign affairs since 1967 has been to maintain close relations with the United States government, regardless of which party was in power in Washington or in Jerusalem. Israeli participation in the American Strategic Defense Initiative ("Star Wars") was basically another manifestation of this policy; it allowed Defense Minister Rabin to state that Israel's participation made it similar to other NATO countries vis-a-vis the United States.

The obverse of Israel's warm relations with the West are its very cold relations with the Soviet Union. This is primarily a reflection of the negative role, from Israel's point of view, that the Kremlin plays in the Middle East. On the eve of the Six-Day War, points out Abba Eban, "The Moscow-Damascus equation was the heart of the Israeli dilemma. The most wild and aggressive enemies of Israel operated under the giant shadow of Soviet defense."³⁶ There are additional reasons, besides ongoing Soviet policy, for the Israeli leadership to be ambivalent regarding the Soviet Union. There is a clear feeling that the Soviets are the beneficiaries of a long legacy of anti- Jewish agitation in Russia. There is also little support for the Soviet Union's brand of communism and atheism. As of 1986 there was considerable antipathy in Israel toward the Soviet Union, to the extent that periodic reports of anticipated closer relations were usually based on leaks from within the establishment by people who were anxious to have a possible thaw in relations freeze again. Against this backdrop it is easy to see why the Soviet Union often plays a star role in the pantheon of Israel's enemies as portrayed by senior decisionmakers.

To evaluate the intensity of belief regarding the national security policies under discussion, it is necessary to characterize Israeli leaders' orientations toward the Arabs and Arab states the principal antagonists. While there is variation among leaders regarding some of the other issues we have discussed, regarding the Arabs and the Arab states the views among decisionmakers do not vary much. Heradstviet researched the mutual perceptions of the Israeli and Arab (mostly Egyptian) leaderships in 1974.³⁷ First he asked the Israeli respondents about their assessment of the goals of the Arab world. The answers were in general that the Arabs had not destroyed Israel not because they had not wanted to or had not tried, but because they were not able to. When asked what would happen if Israel lost on the battlefield, the general answer was that most of the Jews would be exterminated. The study found that the Israeli elite clearly believed that there was a great gap between the Israelis and the Arabs in their desire for peace: whereas the Jews were peace-loving, the Arabs were perceived as war-loving. The evidence for this belief was that the Arabs not only fought the Israelis, they also fought each other.

This 1974 study revealed a high level of consensus among the elite, cutting across party lines. The low level of agreement regarding Egypt had to do with specific arguments which were outstanding at the time of the research regarding the disengagement agreements. The other two elements that showed low levels of consensus - the costs and benefits of an agreement and the relative strength of forces in the Arab world interested in a peaceful solution - led the researcher to the conclusion that there are two competing strategies among the Israeli elite: the soft strategy that favors a political solution, and the tough strategy that favors military strength as the only way to deal with the conflict. While the acceptability of the two varies according to the political mood of the moment, in the long run the tough line is dominant. This was certainly the case in the survey which we discuss in the following chapters.

Chapter 3. The Distribution of Security Opinion

A strong sense of security was the basic characteristic of the Israeli public's view of the country's situation in 1986. Israelis believed by a very large margin that their country would be successful in overcoming the threats it faced. Our analysis, based on a 1,172 person representative sample of adult Jews interviewed in January 1986,¹ concentrated on a number of security-related issues, including national consensus, the legitimacy of initiating war in various situations, feelings of threat to Israel on the one hand, and belief that Israel would overcome, on the other.

There was overwhelming agreement that Israel would be able to handle a wide range of security challenges. Assurance in that ability ranged between 92 and 94 percent of respondents for problems considered close to home. They said that Israel would overcome when asked if it would be able

- to win a war against Syria;

- to cope with a revolt by Arabs in the territories which have been under Israeli control since 1967;

- to successfully control rebellion by Israeli Arabs; and

- to contain terrorism.

There was some slippage - but still the levels of assurance were very high — regarding matters that might be regarded as more global. "Only" 75 percent of the sample thought that Israel would be able to cope in war against all the Arab states. Even if the United States were to decrease its aid to Israel, 69 percent thought that Israel would overcome. Two-thirds believed that Israel would be successful even if the Soviet Union were to supply massive aid to Arab states at war with Israel.

Public support is a necessary staple of democratic governments.² The Israeli case is impressive because public support for security policy remains firm despite war and the emotions of the country's politics. There were assessments that Israel's problematic excursion into Lebanon in 1982 tore the fabric of support for Israel's policies, and that the consensus that had characterized Israel in the past, and was listed as one of its strategic strengths, had been compromised.³ Yet the 1986 survey did not lend credence to that interpretation. Lebanon obviously polarized the polity regarding the appropriate government policy, but on the level of fundamental system consensus the older patterns of broad agreement seemed to prevail. A very high 88 percent of the sample reported that in their opinion it is vital to support the government in times of security crisis and war. More than a third claimed that it is never justified to criticize the government during war, while more than half the respondents agreed that it is permissible to have reservations about government policy, but they may be expressed only in a quiet and controlled manner. Only 9 percent said that open opposition, including street demonstrations and expressions of no-confidence in the government, is permissible during war.

This finding has a parallel in the American experience regarding the Vietnam War and public opinion. In the late 1960s there existed a sizable discrepancy between the impression of dissatisfaction with the war generated by the activists, and the reality of how public opinion at large reacted to the war. The opinion polls did not show widespread activity in opposition to the war; activity opposing the war was limited to only a small fraction of the population.⁴

In Israel something similar was evidently going on during the Lebanon War. The massive turnout in the early fall of 1982 at the demonstration calling for an investigation of the massacre at the Sabra and Shatilla Palestinian refugee camps is widely cited and remembered. But this happened long after the campaign had begun and when public support for the war lagged. During the beginning stages of the 1982 Lebanon War, public support for the government and its interpretation of the situation that led up to the operation was widespread; only a small but vocal segment of the population initially opposed the war.⁵ Much of the public debate at that stage concerned the appropriate limits of criticism during times of crisis.

The belief that something fundamental changed after Lebanon 1982 in the way Israelis perceive security matters, seems to be incorrect. One way of examining this is to consider the mean (average) responses generated when the population was asked to rank the position of Israel on a nine-rung ladder in terms of national security today, five years ago and five years from now. The higher the response, the more confident was the respondent's assessment of Israel's security. In 1986 Israelis graded their national security position as 5.6 (based on the mean ladder rating); regarding the situation five years ago, they ranked it as 6.1; and they also set a 6.1 mean ladder rating when predicting the situation five years into the future (see Table 3.1). Today is better than middling, but five years ago things were better; five years from now things will be again as good as they were five years ago.

The ratings might appear to indicate a lack of optimism within the Israeli public regarding security. After all, if the highest ladder rung is nine, then the fifth and sixth ladder rungs indicate a ranking in the middle reaches of the ladder. It might be argued that the moderate optimism regarding the future state of national security, in which the future will be no better than the past, was related to the Lebanese conflict of 1982. The nation was frustrated over the political furor which the war in Lebanon raised and by the basic fact that, three years after they had moved in, Israeli forces had almost completely withdrawn from the country with no important strategic gains and with considerable political, economic and human losses.

Comparing this analysis with similar ones done in the past, however, indicates that this was not a new pattern. Two earlier surveys had used the same technique (see Table 3.1). One was conducted in 1962 and the other in 1981.⁶ In 1962, the pattern was that of an optimistic nation: the past mean ladder rating was 4.0, the present 5.5, the future 7.5. Things were okay, and they were getting better. In five years, by 1967(!) they would be fine.⁷ The pattern generated in Israel in 1981 was very different from the

Table 3.1. Mean Ladder Ratings, 1962, 1981, 1986*

| 1962 | 1981 | 1986
Past rating | 4.0 | 6.4 | 6.1
Present rating | 5.5 | 5.6 | 5.6
Future rating | 7.5 | 6.3 | 6.1

1962 pattern - but almost identical to the one found in 1986. The past score was 6.4, the present 5.6, the future 6.3.

Sometime between 1962 and 1981 (probably during the Yom Kippur War of 1973) Israelis lost their innocence regarding security affairs. Still tough and resilient, theirs was no longer an optimism borne of success and achievement but an appraisal which resulted from bitter experience and frustrating political and military reality. In the 1960s it was optimism for the nation and its achievements that seemed to displace personal fears and which motivated individual sacrifice.

Using a different battery of questions, the elemental conviction in future security was distinct. 85 percent assessed as nonexistent or low the probability that the State of Israel would be destroyed, and 82 percent thought that there was absolutely no chance or only little chance that the Jewish people would face another Holocaust. Regarding the possibility of another successful surprise attack by Arab armies such as occurred in 1973, the distribution was more normal in the statistical sense. 21 percent were sure that this would not happen and 8 percent were certain that it would; a third thought that Israel might be surprised again, and 38 percent reported that they thought that Israel would not be a victim again of what happened in 1973.

War and peace are the constants of security policy. Israelis feel secure, as was shown above, in the nation's ability to win in war. That a country so beleaguered should find the psychological and moral strength to continue its struggle for security for almost forty years is at least as impressive as is Israel's record in successfully recruiting political and material support for its cause. Despite the fact that the nation has been preoccupied with war for so many years, there are optimistic overtones in the answers regarding peace and war. 57 percent felt that peace with Arab states was possible in the near future. 62 percent thought that Israel could influence, by its behavior, the willingness of the Arabs to reach a genuine peace. 96 percent felt confident that the long-range existence of Israel was assured.

The Arabs were generally viewed as maximalist in their policy goals. 73 percent of the respondents believed that the ultimate goal of "the Arabs"⁸ was to destroy the State of Israel. Half of that same 73 percent also believed that the Arabs wanted to exterminate most of the Jewish population as well, while the other half thought that the Arabs would be satisfied with the conquering of Israel. 22 percent of the total sample reported that the goal of the Arabs was to capture the territories taken by Israel in the 1967 war, while 5 percent thought that the Arab goal was to return only some of those territories.

Syria was regarded as the biggest threat to Israel. When asked in January 1986 to assess on a five point scale the likelihood of peace or war with the major Arab protagonists (1 was peace and 5 was war), Syria scored 4.1. The Palestinians were ranked on the same scale 3.7, the Lebanese 3.2. The Jordanians were almost at the mid-point between peace and war with a 2.6 score; only the Egyptians were closer to the pole of peace with 2.0.

Peace is one side of the com, war is the other. The likelihood of war motivates states to arm and to deal with issues of national security. One distinction made between the war in Lebanon and previous Israeli wars was that in 1982 Israel had a choice, and chose war. (Some questioned whether the Sinai Campaign of 1956 did not also fall into that category.) The conditions under which it is justifiable to initiate war are a major theme in the public debate over security. But what type of war would be supported by the public and what of the specter of nuclear war?

A strong case can be made, based on the survey's results, that Israelis are willing to risk much in order to avoid war. One might have reasonably expected a greater degree of bellicosity in the sample's responses after so many years of national struggle. For example, when faced with the hypothetical situation of Israel's military power being far superior to that of the enemy's, 92 percent of the sample still refrained from supporting the suggestion of a preemptive strike. When asked how war can best be avoided using a forced-choice between pressing for peace talks or strengthening Israel's military might, two-thirds opted for peace talks.

Eight hypothetical situations regarding initiating war were presented. The responses to these situations clustered into two groups, with men - and especially young men - more likely to support the initiation of war. The first category seemed to point to the use of war in a reactive or defensive sense. The category included initiating war

- to prevent an attempt to destroy the country (89%);

- to prevent or stop a war of attrition (76%); and

- to prevent an attempt to retake territories that had been taken earlier by Israel (73%).

The hard-core values in the public mind seemed to be existence, security and opposition to the notion of being forced to alter by war long-time political arrangements, such as relinquishing control of the territories.

A second category indicated lower levels of support for the use of war. While the range in distribution patterns is larger, this category included examples of using war in an offensive sense. Thus it is justified to initiate war

- to prevent persistent border clashes with an Arab state (47%);

- to destroy the enemy's military power in order to prevent future threats to Israel (44%);

- to respond to reports of a neighbor's intention to invade (40%);

- to capture additional territories deemed necessary for Israel's defense (26%); and

- to overthrow a hostile regime and replace it by one which would agree to peace with Israel (23%).

Terrorism can be decreased, but not eradicated, by military means, the sample felt. That was the opinion of three-quarters of the sample, with the other quarter splitting between the positions that military moves can halt terrorism and that military action will only lead to more terrorism. There was no clear-cut preference for how to confront terrorism. A third said that attacks should be initiated on terrorists and their bases before they strike, 39 percent called for defensive strikes that would prevent further attacks, and 28 percent favored reaction only after terrorist incidents.

"If the Palestine Liberation Organization undergoes basic changes and announces that it recognizes the State of Israel and will completely give up acts of terrorism, do you think then that Israel should or should not be ready to hold negotiations with the PLO?" To this question, half of the sample said yes, that Israel should be ready to do so, and the other half said no. But if the military response to terrorism and the way to handle the PLO divided the sample, the sample was more definitive regarding Israel's nuclear option. Although 92 percent of the respondents believed that Israel has a nuclear capability, the use of those weapons was deemed unacceptable by almost two-thirds of the sample. Only 36 percent reported that in their opinion there are conditions under which it might be justified to use nuclear weapons (47 percent among men; 26 percent among women).

The effort which Israelis are called upon to make for security is enormous. The effort involves one of the highest tax rates in the world, three years compulsory service for men and two years for women, and 30 to 45 days a year service in the reserves until the age of 54 for men. Perhaps it is because of this effort that Israelis evaluate their security position so positively. One would otherwise have difficulty coming to grips over time with the dissonance between enormous effort and inconclusive results. By believing security to be great, consistency is maintained between the effort and the perceived result.

A substantial proportion of Israelis is willing to make even greater sacrifices.⁹ At an abstract level, 70 percent say they are willing to make additional personal, social and economic sacrifices in order to maintain security. More concretely, almost half are willing to raise taxes, 37 percent to have reserve service lengthened, and a third agree to extend the period of compulsory service.

Regarding the defense budget, less than ten percent were for cutting it. This was surprising since the public debate in the period of the survey focused on cutting government expenditures to curb run-away inflation; the defense ministry, with its disproportionate share of the budget, was a prime target for the cutters and many politicians and experts approved of these cuts. Also, as we shall see, many thought that there were relatively high levels of waste in the army. Still, almost a third of the sample supported increasing the defense ministry's budget, while 60 percent were for leaving things as they were.

The price of Israel's security is paid not only in terms of personal and economic sacrifice, but also in a social coin. The levels of out-migration from Israel are high and the burden of defense is often mentioned as a reason for the drain. In the survey the sample was asked what they thought the major reason was for contemplating leaving the country. The results are interesting because they provide evidence for the social science debate about the effects of prolonged conflict. Do such conflicts lead to greater solidarity or do they hasten destabilizing processes? In the Israeli case, based on this sample, the security issue is by no means the major reason for considering leaving the country. Almost threequarters thought it was the economic situation that was primarily on the minds of those who wanted to leave, only 14 percent cited the security situation, 10 percent the social situation, 2 percent the role of religion in the state's affairs and 1 percent anti-democratic tendencies in the country.

Israelis show a high level of consensus regarding security matters that are general in character. They are much less unified when faced with specific issues such as the future of the territories. Differing perceptions of reality about the international system are related to differing policy positions.

The most divisive issue has to do with the future of the territories under Israel's military jurisdiction since the Six-Day War of 1967. Opinion on this issue was investigated in two different ways, but each time the results show that opinion was almost evenly divided. When asked to choose among three solutions regarding the territories in Judea, Samaria and the Gaza Strip, the sample generated the following distribution:

- returning most of the territories in exchange for a peace agreement that would be acceptable to Israel and would ensure Israel's security - 30%;

- annexing the territories — 23%; and

- leaving the situation as it is - 47%.

Those who gave the status-quo answer were presented with a forced-choice question that contained the first two alternatives. The final distribution of the total sample had 54 percent favoring annexation and 46 percent supporting a land-for-peace solution.

In order to ascertain how much of the territories the public perceived as negotiable, the question was also presented in a slightly different way. In this version, those supporting returning territories for peace were a slightly larger group:

- return all the territories except for minor border corrections and with special arrangements made for Jerusalem in exchange for a peace treaty - 16%;

- return areas densely populated by Arabs (about two-thirds of the territories) - 35%; and

- return nothing, not even for a peace treaty - 49%.

In addition, 14 percent favored negotiating over the Golan Heights with Syria in exchange for a peace treaty.

And in the interim, until a solution is achieved, what of the government policy regarding the inhabitants of those territories? Half thought it just right, 5 percent too harsh, and 45 percent perceived it as too soft. As to the degree of civil rights the territories' inhabitants should enjoy:

- much more, including the right to vote in Israeli parliamentary elections - 6%;

- more, but no right to vote - 19%;

- the same as today - 58%; and

- less - 17%.

The possibility of annexing the territories posed a stark dilemma for Israelis who thought about civil rights. In 1986, the territories were administered by military authorities and, under the Geneva Conventions, civil rights were accordingly curtailed. Arab inhabitants of the territories did not enjoy the political and civil rights which are part and parcel of modern democratic regimes. They could not vote, for example, for Israel's parliament (the Knesset). Much of their personal and communal activity was regulated by the administrators of the Israeli civil and military authorities. (Since they are under Israeli jurisdiction, the inhabitants of the territories did have the right to apply to Israel's Supreme Court, sitting as a High Court of Justice.) The dilemma was that if the territories were turned over to some other jurisdiction (such as Jordan), civil rights for the inhabitants might not be the new regime's top priority. For civil rights to be achieved, perhaps, paradoxically, annexation was the answer; but that would have to be at the expense of Palestinian self-determination.

When queried about the degree of civil rights they would be willing to grant the Arabs in the hypothetical case of annexation, the sample's over-all posture is more liberal than when they were asked about civil rights under the conditions then prevailing:

- much more, including the right to vote in Israeli parliamentary elections - 18%;

- more, but no right to vote - 25%;

- the same as today - 49%; and

- less - 11%.

As with the issue of the territories, the response most widely supported called for retaining the status quo. This can be seen as the justification for, as well as the result of, government policy.

Political scientists and democratic theorists have considered the role of public opinion on policy in general and on international relations in particular. The general expectation is that members of the mass public should be informed and interested but that on the whole they are not; that they should participate, but they generally do not.

The Israeli case holds true to the described patterns in certain senses, but it is exceptional in other senses. Israelis believed that they must be supportive of government, especially in times of crisis; they were well informed yet they believed that their ability to influence policy was very low; and they were skeptical about politics and politicians.

1. Government support. When asked "To what extent may one criticize the government in a time of war?" 37 percent said that that kind of behavior was absolutely forbidden, while an additional 54 percent thought that "one can have quiet and controlled reservations" about the government, but no more than that. In response to another question, 88 percent of the sample considered that it was essential "to support the government during a security crisis, like war, even when one does not agree with what it is doing."

2. Information. Israelis are very well informed. We decided to use two questions regarding the status of the Arabs in the territories to test the level of information of the sample. Most Israeli Jews have no meaningful social contact with Arabs, so it was felt that these questions would identify those who had made an effort to gain and retain information on subjects of importance to the national security debate. No parallel defense-related question seemed appropriate since the defense issues tended to be either technical in nature, professional or secret.

Table 3.2. Political Knowledge

Do Arabs in the territories have access to...
| High Court of Justice |  | Vote
A. Definitely | 31%* |  | 5%
B. I think so | 29 |  | 17
C. I don’t think so | 22 |  | 19
D. Definitely not | 18 |  | 59*
* Correct answer |  |  |
% of correct answers | 60% |  | 78%
% of two correct answers |  | 45% |

The two questions asked were, "Do the Arabs of Judea, Samaria and the Gaza Strip have the right to apply to the High Court of Justice?" and "Do the Arabs of Judea, Samaria and the Gaza Strip have the right to vote in Knesset elections?" The correct answer for the first question was yes and for the second, no (see table 3.2).

There were very slight differences in the distribution of opinion when considered by various background factors. For example, respondents born in Asian and African countries and children of fathers born in those countries had a lower level of two correct answers to the political knowledge question (41 percent) than did their counterparts from Europe or America and second-generation Israelis (47 percent each).

3. Influence. The high levels of support for the government and the high rate of knowledge is especially fascinating in light of the low levels of influence Israelis believe they have over security and defense matters. Only 2 percent believed that they and their friends could influence decisionmaking on security issues to a great extent, with another 14 percent reporting that they could do so to a certain extent; 62 percent however reported that they could not do so at all. When asked about specific issue-areas, such as the defense budget and the release of terrorists, the pattern remained about the same (see questions 122-126 in the Appendix). On matters of influence, the Asian-Africans and European-Americans were almost identical (15 percent and 14 percent respectively), with the second-generation Israelis higher (20 percent).

4. Skepticism. One of the important myths of the Israeli belief system about security is that the organizations which deal with the topic are somehow different from other institutions in the country. In general, public life is bureaucratic and decisions are not quick in coming; political and personal considerations often seem to intervene in decisionmaking. Culturally Israel at times seems to fit into its geographical location perched between the Levant and the South Mediterranean.

The popular myth has been that the Israel Defense Forces ana the other security organizations were different. Scholars and other observers pointed out that it was very unlikely that these major institutions could really be much different from others in the culture because of the universal nature of service in the army and the penetration of the army into so many areas of Israel's civil life.¹⁰

The poll showed that public support for the myth had eroded - or was never as high as some thought. Even the IDF is finite. When asked if there was more or less waste in the army than in civilian institutions, 40 percent replied that there was more, 21 percent thought that there was less and 39 percent thought it was about the same in both places. A little less than half thought that there were army functions that would be carried out better if they were given over to civilian authorities, while 42 percent thought that there were functions currently in the hands of civilian authorities that would be better handled by the military.

A key element in the definition of a professional army is the presence of an officer cadre free from political and personal considerations in taking decisions. The IDF was long perceived to be headed by such a cadre. The Israeli sample was mixed regarding this question in 1986.

When asked whether the army chiefs make security decisions based only on professional and relevant considerations, only 47 percent agreed. Probably the perception of the public regarding the professional character of the military was lowered by the Lebanese experience. It is also true, of course, that the Yom Kippur War experience of 1973 began shattering the myth.

It is not surprising that Israeli political leaders got lower grades than the army command regarding the professional nature of their decisions about security. Only 32 percent said that the political leaders' decisions regarding security were based on professional considerations. What is surprising, in light of the prevalent myth about the importance of security and the uniqueness of the army, is that both groups received such low assessments.¹¹

Another topic important to an understanding of the role of public opinion is the triad of relationships which has to do with the source of opinion, the existence of sufficient understanding to form one, and the actual expression of an opinion. The source of opinion was not probed fully but a number of questions were asked about the role of the mass media.

On the whole, Israelis gave very high grades to mass media coverage of defense matters: two-thirds perceived the media to be responsible, 68 percent reported that the media placed the right amount of emphasis on the security issue, 72 percent held that the credibility of the media could be trusted on security issues, and 70 percent thought the media to be objective on security issues. Yet only 26 percent of the respondents felt that they understood enough to express an opinion about security matters. Two things are of importance here: first, the rate of people who regularly express opinions on security matters (32 percent) was higher than those who felt they understood enough to express an opinion. Second, the low rate of public confidence in itself and the high rate of confidence in the leadership (82 percent say they can rely on the statements of the country's leaders concerning security issues) is the breeding-ground in which public opinion aligns itself with the government's policy.¹²

Behavior is a different matter. Most Israelis do not use public means to express their views on security issues, for example, by attending rallies and demonstrations or by signing petitions. Only 4 percent reported that they engaged in these activities often, with 28 percent doing it sometimes.

Social and political differences are only weakly related to variations in attitude and to behavior patterns. Those who supported Likud positions on defense policy were stronger in their support of the government during crisis than were Alignment supporters (90 to 84 percent), and they tended to express opinions more often (34 to 28 percent). On the other hand, supporters of the Alignment defense position thought the media treated the security issue in a responsible way compared to the Likud supporters (74 to 60 percent), and they had a higher rate of correct answers to the political questions (48 to 42 percent). There were almost no differences between the two groups about whether they understood enough about security issues to express an opinion or whether they can influence security policy.

On the whole, Israelis felt secure and confident that the country would overcome; they were interested, informed and supportive; at the same time, they were skeptical about many features of the defense establishment and the decisionmaking process, and they did not believe that they could influence these decisions.

* The 1986 survey used a 9-ladder scale and the 1962 and 1981 surveys used a 10-ladder scale. The 1986 survey referred specifically to the national security situation while the 1962 and 1981 surveys referred to the over-all condition of the nation. Gross comparisons may be made if we keep these differences in mind.

Chapter 4. The Structure of National Security Beliefs

The Psalmist (121:4) summed up the prevalent attitude toward defense problems in Israel: "The guardian of Israel will neither slumber nor sleep." Israelis believe this; 79 percent of the respondents agreed with the statement. Yet when queried as to the identity of this guardian, only 17 percent gave the answer which the Psalmist offered in the following couplet, "God is your guardian." Moreover, despite long-term massive aid from the United States, only 2 percent of the sample mentioned that country as Israel's guardian. (Nonetheless, two-thirds supported a defense treaty with the United States in order to deter the Arabs from attacking Israel.) The State of Israel and the Jewish people scored better than the Americans, but less well than God, with 13 and 10 percent, respectively. The majority (57 percent) answered that it is the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) that is the guardian of Israel.

The model with which we shall explore public opinion regarding national security in Israel has three major components: (1) the emotive basis of relating to national security issues; (2) the perception of the enemy and of the threat facing Israel; and (3) policy preferences. It is the interaction of these three constructs that structures reactions to international policy issues.

1. The emotive basis for relating to national security issues introduces considerations of a nation's interests, its history and its destiny. Inevitably such a discussion leads to terms such as rationality, relativity and mysticism. Were it possible to show that certain policies in the field of international relations, when rigorously followed, produced specific results, rationality would triumph. If we knew, for example, that territorial aggrandizement (or territorial conciliation for that matter) was associated with a reasonable chance that war would not be fought in this generation, we could more easily deal with the intellectual problem at hand.

The subject is so difficult precisely because we realize its centrality yet we are uncertain whether there are universal criteria for rationality. The notion of rationality has a rich history in the literature of social science.¹ One recent expression of the tension between rationality and ultimate ends is Inglehart's work on the post-materialist period.² He echoes Max Weber's theoretical distinction between functional and substantive rationality in which there is a basic contradiction between values of efficiency and productivity on the one hand, and individual autonomy and creativity on the other.

Can we label actions or beliefs as rational or irrational regardless of the context, the situation, or our own political beliefs and social values? In a sense, of course, there appear to be such universal criteria since prediction is the basis of both primitive and modern common-sense and science and these predictions are often successful. Some anthropologists have even argued that there is a fundamental similarity between magic and religion on the one hand and science on the other.³

While there is no easy solution to the complexities introduced by the concept, there is also no denying that it taps a basic dimension of orientation to security phenomena. This is especially obvious in Israel. The more deeply one probes, the clearer it is that the nature and destiny of Israel and the Jewish people are deep-seated core-beliefs for many Israelis; these must be considered as superordinate constructs if we are to understand the phenomenon.⁴

The organization of attitudes regarding security policy within the Israeli public seems to encompass those with an instrumental orientation and those with an extra-rational one.⁵ The fundamental question is the relationship between means and ends in the world of the respondent. For many, there seems to be a simultaneous coexistence of a rational model of security policy that posits predictable relations between means and ends, on the one hand, and beliefs that deny basic tenets of instrumental rationality, on the other. Many Israelis seem to blend these two kinds of beliefs: about making definable efforts and thereby achieving observed ends, and about divine intervention and historical determinism. We shall explore this issue more fully in the next section.

The dimensions of the rationality debate are similar to the one regarding realism and idealism as motivating factors of nations in the international sphere. Osgood, for example, writes that "...in so far as individuals believe that nations, as a matter of fact, are moved by self-interest, we shall call them Realists; and in so far as they believe that nations conduct themselves according to idealist ends and motives that transcend their selfish interest, we shall call them Utopians." The Realist sees the struggle between nations as the distinguishing characteristic of international relations, with little hope of mitigating international conflict with appeals to sentiment and principle. "The utopian, on the other hand, believes that the essence of international relations is spiritual power, which springs from the impact of thoughts and actions upon the supreme arbiter of all human affairs, the individual conscience."⁶

Our concern touches upon this distinction although it is obviously different. Those with an extra-rational orientation in our analysis concentrate on the power of forces beyond our cognition - mystical forces - to address problems of national security while those with an instrumentalist orientation in this study focus on power relations for understanding international politics. In that sense, Osgood's Realist is comparable to our rational respondent; his Utopian, with reliance on processes which transcend power relations, is parallel to our extra-rationalist.

2. The second component of our model is the perception of the enemy and of the threat facing Israel. This group of constructs is central to Jewish history and to the development of the Zionist community in Eretz Israel. One of the fundamental objectives of the Zionist revolution was to change the status of the helpless Jew who was oppressed by his neighbors, to that of a free and independent Jew who would be secure in his homeland. One of the ironies of the history of Zionism is that while the Jews achieved freedom and independence in their land they did not shake off their perception that opposition to them and struggle with them was due to their Jewishness. Even mainstream Zionist parties still tend to reject a geo-political explanation of international conflict and persist in analyzing the conflict between Israel and the Arab states in the spirit, and often in the lexicon, of the persecution suffered by Jews in most European countries and in some of the countries of the Muslim world.

While the threat perceived is reminiscent of the crusades, the pogroms and the Holocaust, the response is Biblical. No longer passive and meek, the response of Israel and Israelis is one of armed power, retaliation and retribution. The Lord of Hosts is again at the head of the army of Israel and His hand is outstretched and His arm is mighty. These images are of course nourished by Israel's impressive military victories over various combinations of Arab nations in the past forty years. The few against the many have - and shall, in the opinion of an overwhelming number of Israelis interviewed - overcome. The two constructs which tap

Table 4.1. Constructs of the Model

| Reliability (standardized item alpha) | Questions (see Appendix) | Key (meaning of low scores in statistical analysis to follow)
1. Extra-rational-a | .708 | 11, 215, 216, 217, 218, 220, 221 | Not only rational forces operate in Israel's security
2. Threat-b | .714 | 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 78 | Hope for peace greater than threat of war
3. Overcome-b | .720 | 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74 | Israel will be able to deal with threats
4. Offensive war | .738 | 41, 42, 43, 44, 45 | Initiating war of offensive nature justified
5. Defensive war | .795 | 38, 39, 40 | Initiating war of defensive nature justified
6. Sacrifice | .742 | 87, 88, 89 | Willingness to make personal sacrifice for security
7. Territories-c | .759 | 9, 10, 27, 54 | Return territories
8. Civil rights-d | .644 | 15, 28, 32 | Liberal policy to territories’ Arabs
9. Nuclear | .9641-e | 47, 48, 49, 50, 51 | Use of nuclear weapons justified
10. Political identification | .911 | 229, 231, 232, 234 | Support for right

a - The communality of the “right to the land” question (no. 11) was .98936 in the factor analysis which determined the extra-rationality construct.

b - Factor analysis showed clearly that these two constructs were distinct. In the oblique factor analysis the coefficient of correlation of the two factors was -.144.

c - Questions 9 and 10 were combined into one variable. Those who answered “status quo” for 9 were asked question 10 and they were coded according to their answers to the two questions. See Appendix.

d - Factor analysis showed that this construct was distinct from the territories construct. The correlation coefficient of the two constructs in the oblique factor analysis was .459.

e - Coefficient of scalability.

this dimension are listed in Table 4.1 as Threat and Overcome.⁷

3. The policy preferences of the population based on perceptions of the international system, are the third component of the model. We shall argue that for the first two components (relating to national security rationally or extra-rationally; perceptions of threat and belief in the ability to overcome) there are rather high levels of agreement within the sample. Yet something happens in the process of transforming these components into policy preferences, for very different policy preference distributions are generated.

An important distinction discovered in the factor analysis and reported in Table 4.1 was between the future of the territories and the civil rights of the inhabitants of the territories. This distinction is identical to that made by the Begin government in its interpretation of the Camp David accord calling for autonomy for the Palestinians. The debate centered on this very point: Begin's understanding was that autonomy would be granted to the people but not to the land.⁸

The variance regarding policy is very high in the sample. The clearest example is the question about negotiations with the Palestine Liberation Organization. The question was worded very carefully, with many conditions. It could hardly be thought of as a "loaded" question. And yet, when asked "If the PLO undergoes basic changes and announces that it recognizes the state of Israel and will completely give up acts of terror, do you think then that Israel should or should not be ready to hold negotiations with the PLO?," 50 percent felt that Israel should be ready to do so and the other 50 percent thought that Israel should not be ready to do so. Obviously we shall not be able to find a better example to make the point of equal division regarding policy preferences. (The annex/return territories division in the sample, as we have seen in Chapter 3, for example, was approximately 54 vs. 46 percent.) These figures of division stand out because on the other components there is such a high degree of consensus.

Israel's security is such a pervasive issue in the country, and the resources that it demands are so large, it is not surprising that the Israeli public has developed unique ways to deal with it. On the symbolic and psychological levels, there are the Almighty and the Jewish people; on the level of rationality and professionalism, there are the Israel Defense Forces, the Mossad, the Shin Bet Kaf (General Security Service) and Israel's other security institutions. Together they make up a complex mosaic which we have conceived to be analogous to a religion of security.

Israel's religion of security is a curious mix of nationalist and religious symbolism, on the one hand, and rational and professional considerations on the other. The religion has its dogmas, its scripture, its priests, its festivals, its processions and its ceremonial garb. These are manifested in the doctrines and orders, the generals, parades and uniforms of the Israeli army. Many of these are typical of all armies, but for the Jewish army they also relay with them the horror of the Holocaust, the mysteries of Masada, and messianism. The entire nation participates, as when the air-raid sirens become audible memorials on days of mourning dedicated to the victims of the Holocaust and Israeli soldiers killed in the line of duty. Emotion and goal-oriented function seem to blur when the sirens blare.

Moreover, the religion of security provides rules for inclusion and exclusion according to the degree of discipline, sacrifice and devotion of the adherents. Those who deny major tenets are singled out as softies or eggheads at best, enemies of Israel at worst. The priesthood (strategists and general staff) defines dogma; but there is also a plethora of prophets of doom shouting to the winds. The religion of the priests is perpetuated in a written and oral tradition, and while the people are on the whole accepting, there is the feeling of riding the whirlwind between brilliant military feats and forecasts of impending disaster. Tithes (taxes) are ordained and the faithful are rewarded (promoted); heretics are excluded, sometimes by subtle social pressures and at other times by much less subtle forms, such as censorship.

Religion often flourishes in periods of uncertainty; as the vision of the future upsets us, we turn to a superior force to bring us comfort. Certainly the defense future of Israel is uncertain enough to warrant extra-rational - if not supernatural - aid in grappling with it. A solution to a mystery is sought.

Deep-seated beliefs about the nature and destiny of Israel and the Jewish people are the core-beliefs of many Israelis. These values are at the heart of the orientation of Israelis to security. The organization of attitudes seems somehow to incorporate those with an instrumental orientation and those with an extra-rational one. There seems to be a basic coexistence between a rational model of security policy which posits predictable relations between means and ends, on the one hand, and beliefs which deny basic tenets of instrumental rationality, on the other. Israelis seem to blend these two kinds of beliefs: about making definable efforts and thereby achieving observed ends, and about divine intervention and historical determinism.

The religion of security was empirically highlighted when factor analysis was applied to the data. The dominant factor which emerged from this analysis we have called extra-rationality. The statements which make up the construct had very high loadings⁹ on the dominant factor; these loadings in the factor analysis are presented in Table 4.2; the questions appear in the Appendix.

Table 4.2 The Extra-rationality Construct and the Factor Analysis Loading

|  | Loading
220. | World criticism of Israeli policy stems mainly from antisemitism. | .694
216. | The guardian of Israel will neither rest nor sleep. | .583
217. | Not to return territories of the Land of Israel is a principle not to be challenged under any circumstances. | .531
221. | In setting its policy, Israel should not be concerned with Gentile opinion. | .516
215. | The whole world is against us. | .500
218. | God will watch over us, if we are deserving of it, even if we are not prepared for the next war. | .360

Ideologies are belief systems; both parts of the definition beliefs and system - are important. A belief system is a "configuration of ideas and attitudes in which the elements are bound together by some form of constraint or functional interdependence."¹⁰ Having described the national security beliefs of Israelis, it is important to determine how these beliefs are interrelated.

The model which we shall present developed from both theoretical and empirical considerations. A summary of the constructs and their constituent elements is presented in Table 4.1. Most of the elements are self-evident and have been developed in the earlier chapters.

The major construct of the model has to do with the way Israelis relate to national security at the most basic level. We have called this construct extra-rationality. Generally above the partisanship of policy, the ideology of national security is fundamentally rooted in a belief system which combines the rational and the extra-rational. Striking to the observer of the Israeli scene is the power of the myth of national security in justifying and rationalizing behavior of many kinds.

There appears to be a religion of security which binds the nation together despite differences of partisan politics. The contours of this religion of security are suggested in Table 4.3. The constructs of the model are weakly interrelated but some of the Pearson correlations¹¹ are statistically significant. Extra-rationality, for example, is positively related to offensive war (.12); that is, those who are more extra-rational in their assessments are more likely to support using war for offensive purposes. Those who are more extra-rational in their appraisal of the forces that guide Israel's security are less likely to want to return the territories (correlation coefficient of -. 14) and are also more likely to oppose the extension of civil rights to the Arabs living there (correlation coefficient of -.09). The issues of the land and people of the territories are also closely linked to feelings of being threatened: those most threatened are least forthcoming regarding the territories. This is seen in the very high correlations of .36 and .33, respectively, regarding threat, the territories and civil rights. Also, the two issues of the territories - land and people - are themselves closely interrelated (.34).

Justifying defensive war is related to justifying offensive war (.26); justifying both types of war is weakly related to positions on the territories. Justifying offensive war is firmly related (.25) to perceptions of extra-rationality, although justifying defensive war is not (.01 and not significant statistically). Justifying defensive war is related to willingness to make sacrifices for the security of the nation (.24); offensive war is more weakly related to sacrifice (.11).

Supporting the use of nuclear weapons generates very revealing patterns. All of the correlations are statistically significant but two of the weakest are with extra-rationality (.07) and political identification (.12), To uphold the use of nuclear weapons in Israel in 1986 did not mark one as a rationalist or as an extra-rationalist, a leftist or a rightist. One reason for this was that the parties had never raised the issue on the public agenda and, accordingly, the dispersion of attitudes regarding the issue was great.

Table 4.3. National Security Constructs, Pearson Correlations

There was a stronger relation between supporting the use of nuclear weapons and the threat of war (-.27). It follows that those who maintained that position regarding nuclear weapons were also more likely to support defensive war (.13) and offensive war (.24).

The most powerful links are between political identification and the national security constructs. Three of the nine correlations are at the .33 level or above. That level of vigorous association is only duplicated in the threat construct. Political identification is strongly associated with threat itself (-.34); those who support the right are most likely to believe that war is more likely than peace and. those who support the left judge that the hope of peace is greater. As we shall see, it is the intervention of political groups that defines for Israelis their stance on ideological and national security issues.

A more refined way of understanding some of the relations involved in the model is provided by path analysis.¹² Path analysis allows us to study causal relations among variables. We may construct a model which can then be verified by path analysis. Based on regression analysis,¹³ the method can be used to test a limited set of causal hypotheses by assessing the effect of each factor while taking into account all the other factors simultaneously. This is what is shown in Figure 4.1.

We chose six of the variables discussed previously for the analysis. The model conceived of the focus of policy as being the future of the territories, the justification of initiating what we have termed offensive war, and the justification of the use of nuclear weapons. Our model conceived of the extra-rationality and threat constructs as core values and background factors which were at the base of an Israeli's orientation to national security.¹⁴ The model assumed that the core and background constructs were connected to the policy outcome constructs by what we called the political identification construct. This latter was made up of a series of questions which included whether the respondent felt closer to the security position of the Likud or of the Labor Alignment, his placement on the left-right continuum, his 1984 Knesset vote, and his vote intention at the time of the interview. This conglomerate of indicators gave a good indication of the respondent's political identification; it was hypothesized that political identification served as a filter of the background attitudes of extra-rationality and threat on the path toward the crystallization of policy attitudes toward the territories.

Figure 4.1 indicates the results of the path analysis for the model. The two background constructs, extra-rationality and threat, are related. The more your orientation is extra-rational, the more likely you are to assess the future of Israel's security in terms of war rather than in terms of peace; the standardized beta weights¹⁵ between those who feel little threat and those whose mental stance is extra-rational is -.26. Extra-rationality is strongly related to offensive war (beta .35) and to political identification (beta .37), moderately related to the territory issue (beta .20), and weakly related to justification of the use of nuclear weapons (beta .05). Threat, on the other hand, is more weakly related to each of the other constructs than is extra-rationality, with the exception of the use of nuclear weapons (beta -.25). Perception of threat is associated with justifying their use.

Figure 4.1. Path Analysis of National Security Constructs
Key - meaning of low scores:
Extra-rational - Not only rational forces operate in Israel's security
Threat - Hope for peace greater than threat of war
Offensive War - Initiating war of offensive nature justified
Territories - Annex territories
Nuclear - Use of nuclear weapons justified
Political Identification - Support for right

The most interesting feature of the path analysis has to do with the role of political identification in filtering attitudes.¹⁶ The relationship between the extra-rationality and territories constructs (beta .20) is direct and it is processed through the political identification construct (extra-rationality and political identification, beta .37, and political identification and territories, beta .47). On the other hand, the political identification system is much more indirect in its influence on the connection between extra-rationality and justifying the initiation of offensive war. The original beta value is .35 but the beta between political identification, beta .37, and political identification and territories, beta .47). relations for which no mention is made in the figure, such as between threat and offensive war, were zero.

We have here an example of the political elite affecting public opinion. The political parties strenuously attempt to communicate their policy preferences regarding the territories. This is not the case regarding the justification of offensive war. While there is some correlation between rightist parties and more bellicose policies, these messages are not at the heart of the political discourse.

The impotence of the mass public to arrange itself on an issue without the aid of the political elite is clearly evident by the pattern generated by the nuclear weapons issue. Most leaders and parties have remained silent on the issue and the public lacks structure in its opinion pattern. The political filtering mechanism is absent and therefore the issue appears unrelated to political identification.

In this chapter we have provided evidence for three fascinating features of the Israeli experience. First, the centrality of the emotive, almost mystical quality of what we have labeled extra-rationality in explaining the public's approach to national security. Second, the importance of political identification as a filter in structuring opinion. Third, the different patterns generated in the data depending on whether or not the political parties have defined and discussed the issue. Without that structuring, even the extra-rationality construct is unusually impotent.

Chapter 5. Army Service as a Societal Experience

The attitudes of an individual are shaped by many things: by the dominant values of his society, by his place in the social system, by his friends and family, and by experiences which he undergoes, to name a few. One meaning and explanation of "national character" is that members of a national group who face similar issues and problems and influence one another are likely to believe and behave in ways that are much the same, especially when compared to members of other national groups.

Living in Israel certainly has an intense impact on the individual. The sense of community is high and the society is small enough to produce a feeling of family. Consensus not only exists, it is also a cherished value.

Army service in Israel is a central experience of the society and the individual. In many ways the entire society is influenced by the military and its priorities. The security issue has generated strong patterns of consensus in Israel. As we have seen, Israelis believe in their ability to overcome military threat. But Israelis pay a high price for their vigilance. Five major wars have been fought in less than forty years of independence. Security matters permeate Israeli society and are never far from the surface. No area of Israeli public life is immune from their impact. Major economic decisions in such varied fields as industrial infrastructure and natural resource development and urban planning take defense considerations into account. The number of buses available in the country, the future of an airport close to the heart of a city, the routing of roads and their capacity, are all examples of this penetration.

National security is the most important gap between the Jews and non-Jews in Israel. For many Jews, army service is a major form of identification with the country. For non-Jews, it signifies their being outside the mainstream of Israeli life. The defense issue segregates the Jewish from the Arab population by requiring army service from the former while denying it (except for the Druze and Bedouin) to the latter.¹

The national security issue is especially relevant for the individual Israeli. Having served in the army is an important requisite to most positions of power and importance in national life, and those who have not served are shut out from most of them. Veteran status is also a necessity for certain welfare benefits. Service is nearly universal among Jews and is a long-term undertaking. Most men serve in reserve units into their fifties. While married women are not recruited, unmarried women do serve, and remain in the reserves until age 24. Almost without exception, every family in Israel has some connection - some more direct than others - with the army. Two Jewish groups are exempted from army service for political reasons: The conscription of some yeshiva students is formally deferred (in effect they are exempted) while they are studying, and religiously observant women may avoid active service. Attempts to make service truly universal - by requiring some form of national service from Arabs on the one hand and Jews who have been exempted on grounds related to religion on the other - have failed.

Our concern is with the effect of army service on attitudes, and especially on national security orientations. This effect can be conceptualized in a number of ways. Army service can be seen in the context of the general societal consensus regarding security, the general preoccupation with the topic, and reinforcing beliefs and values which have been transmitted at early stages. Alternatively, army service can be understood in terms of a life-experience which cannot help but shape the individual and his attitudes.

Both points of view are reasonable. Political socialization studies place great emphasis on the formative years of childhood, adolescence and early adulthood in determining one's political outlook and later behavior. An individual is influenced both by early experiences - the primacy hypothesis, and by current experience and political developments - the recency hypothesis.² The primacy hypothesis stresses the centrality of primary socialization in forming adult political attitudes, while the recency hypothesis stresses secondary socialization as a critical change in that process. Values are set early in life, but dramatic developments are likely to change one's outlook. A war-generation, for instance, has different views from the one after it; economic crisis can reshape the social and political outlook of a population. Critical elections that shift the political course of a country take place because of profound changes in the voting behavior of important groups of the electorate due to events that fundamentally alter values and attitudes.³ It is reasonable to anticipate that army service would have such a cumulative effect on attitudes.

Previous studies can be cited to support both views. Schild, for example, persuasively argues the case for the centrality of the army experience in Israel. Using Erving Goffman's notion of a "total institution," Schild dealt mostly with the sociological and psychological effects of service in the Israel Defense Forces on recruits. Although he admits that his data are "soft," he concludes that "undoubtedly the IDF experience changes the person."⁴

The research by Kirkpatrick and Regens in the United States is less clear-cut. They write that "The findings reveal that military service per se as well as the nature of an individual's institutional experience in the armed forces does not distinguish veterans from non-veterans in terms of the content of their foreign policy attitudes."⁵ They cite the earlier work of Harold Lasswell and argue that "such commonality tends to provide implicit support for the garrison state concept which implies the diffusion of shared attitudes supportive of the military's role in the policy throughout the mass public."⁶ Nonetheless, there were differences: for example, the veterans' conceptualization of force was much less abstract than was found for non-veterans.

Table 5.1. Aspects of Army Service for Respondents of Survey, by Sex

| Total | Male | Female
Service in the Israel Defense Forces |  |  |
    Yes | 51% | 69% | 33%
    Now serving | 8 | 11 | 4
    None | 41 | 21 | 63
More than 2-1/2 years of service | 29 | 54 | 3
Combat soldier | 18 | 32 | 2
Some combat | 13 | 22 | 4
Reserve service today | 26 | 47 | 4
1-30 days annual reserve duty | 12 | 21 | 2
More than 31 days | 9 | 17 | 1
Served in the administered territories | 28 | 48 | 6
Officer rank | 5 | 9 | 1
Fought in one war | 13 | 22 | 4
More than one war | 15 | 29 | -

Unofficial estimates put the rate of Jewish men who actually serve in the army at more than nine out of ten. The rate for women is much lower, perhaps six out of ten. Our sample inflates the rate of non-service, perhaps because of army service: the sample was interviewed at home and it is likely that for groups with higher rates of army service fewer individuals are at home at any given moment; hence they are underrepresented in the sample. In any event, the discrepancy between the population and the sample is of no consequence since our interest is in the relation between service in the armed forces on the one hand and national security attitudes on the other.

In the sample, 21 percent of the men and 63 percent of the women reported that they had no army experience. 11 percent of the men in the sample and 4 percent of the women were doing their compulsory service when they were interviewed. The remaining 69 percent of the men and 33 percent of the women had actively

The sample is more representative of the population than seems to be the case at first glance. A quarter of the no-service men were in the age group of compulsory service (18-21); for them it is more appropriate to report that they had not yet served. An additional 45 percent of the no-service men were above the age of 55; for many of them army service was probably waived because they arrived in the country at a relatively advanced age. Contrast these figures with only 4 percent of the men in the sample between the ages of 22 and 25 who had not served. Almost 40 percent of the women in the sample who did not serve reported that they were exempted for religious reasons, compared with 8 percent of the men who did not serve.

There are other indicators that the sample was sensitive to patterns which exist in the society, although the numbers are probably not precise estimates of the population. Place of birth, religious observance and class are all related to army service. The foreign born had higher non-service rates than the Israel-born, with men serving much more than women. For their Israel-born children, male service is nearly universal while women of fathers born in Asia and Africa serve at a lower rate than those women whose fathers were born in Europe or America. Religiously observant-and especially women-serve less. The lower class has a higher rate of non-service, usually as a result of social or economic problems that exempt them.

Concretely, of those born in Asia and Africa, 25 percent of the men and 85 percent of the women had no army service, compared with 30 and 81 percent, respectively, for respondents born in Europe and America. For their Israel-born children, the men serve at almost identical rates (13 percent non-service for the sons of Asia-Africa born fathers, 9 percent non-service for the sons of Europe-America born fathers), while the rate for their daughters is very different (60 percent non-service for the daughters of the former compared with 37 percent non-service for the daughters of the latter). This is related to the higher degree of religiosity among the Asian-African groups.

The effect of religion is clear. 40 percent of the women who did not serve claimed that they were exempt for religious reasons (compared with 8 percent of the men). 95 percent of women who identified themselves as religious did not serve, compared with 30 percent non-service for men who identified themselves as religious. For those who identified themselves as secular, 21 percent of the men and 54 percent of the women did not serve.

In Israeli society, ethnicity, religious observance and class are related. Lower army service rates were found among the lower income group as well. For men who reported their family income to be above average, 14 percent had no army service. For the average income group the rate was 19 percent and for the below average income group it was 24 percent. The same pattern was found for the women who had not served. In the high income group it was 53 percent, 61 percent in the average income group and 73 percent in the below average income group.

Imagine a country with a history of at least sixty years of conflict and war. That same country in that short period has experienced five or six wars (depending how one counts), and has been very successful in its military exploits, especially when the number of countries warring against it is taken into account. This country has developed a "peoples' army" with almost universal military service and with a military reserve in which participation continues through most of adulthood. An arms industry has been developed which exports the tools of war to other countries; missions steadily visit to learn of the art and practice of war in this country.

At the level of the individual citizen, the military experience is everywhere. Security, war and army service are a cluster of realities in Israel that should have enormous impact on the way the world is seen. To examine the effects of army service on values and attitudes we constructed an indicator of army service (see Table 5.2).

Table 5.2. Scale of Army Service

It was our expectation that army service would be related to various attitudes and beliefs, especially in the area of national security. We expected less variation regarding political issues such as the future of the territories and the civil rights to be granted residents of the territories. These issues divide the society and are the subject of intense partisan debate. Since there is almost universal service in the army, it is reasonable to expect that this array of attitudes would be reflected regardless of service in the army.

Regarding national security issues, a strong argument could be made for expecting that army service would have a moderating effect on attitudes. The more contact one has with the army, the personal sacrifice and the level of investment of national resources are clearer. Also, the horrors of war are more easily grasped.⁷ Alternatively, it might be argued that the institutional values of violence and war which must exist in an army were transferred to those exposed to that institution and were internalized by them. One aspect of the cultural explanation for Israel's move to the political right in the last two decades is that those who were nurtured on these values increasingly achieved positions of influence in the society and the society reflected their values.⁸

Table 5.3. Army Service by Security Attitude Constructs

The data do not provide clear-cut confirmation for either expectation. There appears to be no consistent effect of army service on national security values (see Table 5.3). The highest Pearson correlation is .13 and four of the nine relations are not statistically significant.⁹ There are some patterns in the data, but the lack of consistency is much more striking. Those in the highest service category have response patterns different from the other groups on a number of the constructs, but the effect of lower levels of service experience is not readily predictable. For example, the scores for extra-rationality decrease as one moves from no-army service through minimal and significant army service (scale scores 2 and 3} to wartime service (scale score 4), but the incidence of high scores on extra-rationality (e.g., rationality) is equally evident among all groups. The threat construct generates yet a different pattern. Those who did not serve and those who served short of war have almost identical rates of high and low threat perception; only that small part of the sample (5 percent; scale score 4) who actively fought in war has a lower response rate in both categories.¹⁰

The more army experience one has the more likely one is to believe that Israel will overcome. However, those who have had no army experience have rates of believing that Israel will be able to deal with threats that are as high as those who serve in the reserves and have had combat training. Those who are less certain of Israel's ability to overcome seem to produce a consistent pattern: the less acquaintance with the army, the more likely one is to be unsure of the country's ability to deal with threats. Support for offensive war shows no clear pattern; for the defensive war construct the clearest distinction is between those who have had no army experience and those who have had such experience, regardless of degree. Army service is not an efficacious indicator of willingness or non-willingness to sacrifice for national security. Those who have been through war have the lowest scores of the service categories in both their willingness to sacrifice and their non-willingness to do so.

The political issues or returning or retaining the territories, and civil rights for the Arabs living in them, are most clearly related to whether or not a respondent has experienced army service - and not the degree of army service. This is not a surprising finding since those groups that have the lowest rates of service are also the groups that have consistently been found to be most hawkish: the religious, those coming from Asian and African backgrounds and the lower classes. Both no-army service and hawkish attitudes are more evident in these groups; those with high levels of non-service tend to be more hawkish. Another expression of this is the finding (the data are not reported here) that officers in the sample tended to be more moderate in their political opinions. But when controlled for level of education, the relation between attitude and officer rank virtually disappeared. Those with higher levels of education were more moderate and officers tended to have higher levels of education.¹¹

We also examined the connections between service and attitudes within various groups in order to make certain that the effect of service was not hidden there (see Table 5.4). For example, we looked at the correlations between army service and the constructs for national security separately for young people, for middle-aged people and then for older people; for religious respondents alone, for traditional people by themselves and then for secular respondents in isolation; and for respondents who reported that they would have voted for one of the following five groups of parties on the day they were interviewed - for the Likud, for Labor, for parties left of Labor, for those right of the Likud, and for religious parties.

In all, we looked at 99 correlations: army service by nine attitude constructs for three age categories, three religiosity categories and five political party vote categories. Only 19 of them were significant at the .05 level. Only four of them were above .20 and three others were below .10; the rest were in the teens. More than half were in the two categories of defensive war and the territories (five each). Seven of the 19 were in the religiosity categories; Labor voters had three significant correlations.

Table 5.4. Statistically Significant Pearson Correlations* for Army Service and Attitude Constructs Controlling for Age, Religiosity and Party Vote

We could speculate about some of these correlations, but since the correlations are so low and the direction and the regularity so uneven, no more than hints are available. For example, there is evidence that army service is related to more moderate political values. Increases in army service are slightly related to greater readiness to return territories for each of the following groups: middle-aged respondents, religious and traditional respondents, and for respondents who would vote for Labor and the right. Similarly, there is a slight relation between army service and seeing defensive war as unjustifiable for the middle-aged and older respondents, for both the religious and the secular and for Labor voters. On the whole, though, no strong pattern is evident.

Note the high negative correlation between service and sacrifice for religious party voters. The more a religious voter has served, the more he is prepared to make additional sacrifices. Among those with no service, as we have seen, are many religious women and some religious men. The finding that there is a behavioral consequence to army service - at least at the level of expressed willingness to behave in a certain way - fortifies the argument that universal army service intensifies identification with the country.

No single explanation is appropriate for all of the findings. Yet, the first hypothesis discussed above, regarding primary socialization patterns, seems to be most nearly confirmed. The effect of army service is present, but not overwhelming; this lends support to the point of view that other, earlier, processes are dominant. Even if the army experience hypothesis is not totally rejected, it can be reasonably applied only to a small percentage of the sample. The only group whose pattern is somewhat uniform (scale type 4, those who have experienced war and have been most exposed to the army) makes up only 5 percent of the sample.

A general and diffuse force seems to be at work which is more powerful than the experience of military service. The values of national security are inculcated by a more fundamental and deep-seated mechanism. The mechanism at work is much more powerful than adult socialization. The army does not have a cumulative effect on recruits, changing their values steadily as they have more and more army experience. We are faced with a social force that begins at the very onset of socialization. Initiation into the value-system of national security concerns in Israel starts at the earliest of ages. The evidence - or the lack of it - seems to argue for the primacy hypothesis rather than for the recency hypothesis. In a phrase, the army starts at age three for Israelis.

A true story regarding a birthday party at a nursery school will perhaps make the point clearer. At such birthday parties in Israel there is a charming practice of having various children bless the birthday boy or girl and make a wish for him. In 1970, when Aviv was four years old, one little boy came up to him and over the five lit candles on the birthday cake said, "I bless you and wish that you be a tank." Not a soldier in the armored corps, not a tank driver or a gunner - no less than a tank.

Or consider the remark of the disgruntled high-school graduate about to be inducted into the Israel Defense Forces: "As soon as I finish my three years of compulsory service, I am going to leave this country."

Israelis have internalized within themselves service in a spiritual army long before actual service in the real army begins. Since the process starts so early and is so over-arching, values are securely in place before exposure to the physical army commences. The society is geared to the army experience: nursery school children fantasize army life and high school students train for the army while still in school. Initiation into the army is a social rite of passage with the appropriate ceremony and symbolism. Becoming a full-fledged citizen (an adult) in Israeli society means going into the army. It does not signify breaking with the past or being introduced to new values. It is rather being initiated into an institution of adult practices and rituals with which you have been familiar from a very young age.

Chapter 6. Social Location and the World of Security

Security represents the over-arching superstructure of the building of Israel. It keeps together the other elements of the construction while also preventing the penetration of foreign elements. In order to fill this function, the arch must be broad enough to cover all the rooms of the house - all the groups of the society. We are not discussing here an umbrella or a patio-roof; security in Israel is the dome of the temple which draws into it the other elements of the edifice.

The location of an individual in the social structure is usually associated with his values and his attitudes. In this chapter we shall investigate that proposition in two senses: first, we shall describe the distribution of opinion regarding defense and foreign policy issues in Israel based on social location variables. Second, we shall assess the similarity or difference among groups when considering these attitudes.

The issue is an important one, for it is one of the axioms of modern social science that social location is related to one's attitudes. Positions on public issues are seen as a reflection of social formation. The two important paradigms of social research view the relationships differently, however. Functionalist paradigms are informed by cultural theories and posit that culture is not connected to social stratification; this allows consensus in a community regardless of class differences. On the other hand, most conflict research tends to assume that attitude structures are related to social strata; it bases its research on a conflict paradigm.

Functionalism stresses that culture precedes the social process and that consensus is a necessary condition for the "normal" functioning of society. Parsons, Almond and Verba, and Dahl claimed to have uncovered a basic belief system shared by most Americans.¹ This view sees common values, beliefs and psychological predispositions as the necessary conditions for the stability of the American system. Refinements of the viewpoint were provided by Converse and Galtung.² These reports showed, each in its own way, that there existed a vague consensus at the elite level (the "ideologues" of Converse and the consensual social center for Galtung). At the same time, however, the mass of the population was apathetic, especially regarding foreign affairs. These issues were left by the mass to be handled by the elite.

Conflict theory has spawned two major species of thought on these subjects. First, there is the school that argues that the ruling social class promulgates ideological consensus, which is perceived as legitimate by the masses. This is what Max Weber calls "legitimate domination," and what Karl Marx means when he discusses the ruling ideology of the ruling class.³ Gramsci argues that in the modern world rule is not achieved by brute force and by naked power; rather, it is based on the "prevailing consent" given by the masses to the leadership.⁴ This consensus is outlined by the leadership and its outer boundaries are delimited by them. The leadership defines common sense in this manner and presents as "natural" the existing social order. This natural order, once defined and institutionalized, is then entrusted to the bureaucracies of the state for protection and perpetuation.⁵

Empirical verification of this theoretical orientation was provided by Miliband who demonstrated that under the guise of pluralism and ideological diversification there exists a boundary of discourse that one simply does not cross. The boundary of discourse of this "hegemonic ideology" is defined with the active concurrence of political, religious, educational and media institutions.⁶ The conclusion is of course not exclusive to this paradigm.⁷ The political elite fashions public opinion and sets the boundaries of the discourse regarding political issues. The society's dominant values trickle down from the elite to other social classes.⁸

The other variant of the conflict paradigm holds that every social class has its own value system and attitude pattern. These different value systems form one of the bases of the social conflict that takes place among groups and classes.⁹ Class politics is possible, according to this viewpoint, because classes crystalize along the lines of their value systems; their political activity is a reflection of this crystalization.¹⁰ Status politics reflects the translation of different life-styles into shared manifest ideologies and political organization. Both class politics and status politics, although they emerge from different social bases, stem from social stratification.

In a society that lacks strong class differentiation and crystallization we should not expect to find class politics or class ideology. Lipset, for example, found that European politics was class-oriented while that in the United States was based on broad consensus.¹¹

Israel is a society whose social strata formation was dominated by politicians who in turn were motivated by political considerations rather than by economic or social ones.¹² Politicians in Israel mold public discourse and value systems by providing labels and cues that prescribe the content of public policy debate.¹³ In this type of society ideological differences regarding social and economic matter will be relatively minor. It is not surprising that more profound differences regarding issues of foreign policy are found.¹⁵

Our investigation will proceed along the following lines: We shall examine the relation between opinion-clusters regarding security and foreign policy matters, on the one hand, and among indicators of social location, religiosity and vote for political party, on the other hand. Our hypotheses are that (1) the relations between the national security constructs of the public in Israel and their social location will be weak, while the relation between these constructs and religiosity and vote for political party will be strong; and (2) the strength of the relationship between the constructs and vote for political party will not be affected when we control for social location.

Table 6.1 indicates how weak the relationship between the constructs and four social location indicators is. Fourteen of the 32 correlations are not statistically significant; and nine of those that are significant are very weak, with correlations of 0.1 or less.¹⁶ Only one correlation reached the level of 0.2, which is considered weak even in the social sciences.

The highest correlations in this weak group are for the extra-rational construct. Those living in the most crowded conditions (the poor) tend to be most extra-rational according to our definition, while those with more schooling and income tend to have more rational orientations. Even there the correlations are relatively low, but they are consistent.

The overcome and sacrifice constructs are practically insensitive to changes in social location. The war constructs, and especially defensive war, show some variation with the social indicators: the young are more militant, and those whose social status is higher (more schooling, higher income) are less bellicose. Regarding the political issues of the territories and the civil rights for the inhabitants of the territories we find a slight correlation

Table 6.1 Pearson Correlations for National Security Constructs and Selected Social Location Indicators

| Age | Living Density | Years of School | Income
1. Extra-rational | (-.01) | -.14 | .20 | .14
2. Threat | -.08 | .13 | (.03) | .07
3. Overcome | (-.05) | (.03) | (.04) | .07
4. Offensive war | (.01) | -.07 | .10 | (.02)
5. Defensive war | .14 | -.08 | -.05 | -.10
6. Sacrifice | (.05) | (-.02) | (-.03) | (-.03)
7. Territories | (-.03) | .11 | -.04 | -.09
8. Civil rights | -.10 | .15 | (.00) | (-.01)
9. Nuclear weapons | (-.05) | -.11 | .09 | .06

() = Not significant at the .05 level (i.e., the probability of these relations occurring by chance is less than 5 in 100).
Key - meaning of low scores:
1. Extra-rationality - Not only rational forces operate in Israel's security
2. Threat - Hope for peace greater than threat of war
3. Overcome - Israel will be able to deal with threats
4. Offensive war - Initiating war of offensive nature justified
5. Defensive war - Initiating war of defensive nature justified
6. Sacrifice - Willingness to make personal sacrifice for security
7. Territories - Return territories
8. Civil rights - Liberal policy to territories’ Arabs
9. Nuclear - Use of nuclear weapons justified

between more moderate positions and higher social location.

Much more robust connections are evident regarding religiosity and party vote (see Table 6.2). These are two of the most important predictors of political attitude in modern Israel and they are quite potent regarding the constructs under discussion here too. Of the 18 correlations, only the two for the overcome variable are not statistically significant. Seven are stronger than 0.2, with the

Table 6.2. Security Attitude Constructs by Religiosity and Party Vote*

correlation between retaining or returning the territories and voting for a party of the right or the left a high -.41.¹⁷

Table 6.2 presents the distribution of the support for the constructs within the religiosity and the party vote groups. An examination of the table is revealing for it shows that 57 percent of the religious respondents had an extra-rational orientation, compared with 22 percent of the secular and 31 percent of the total sample. 70 percent of the voters for leftist parties were rational in our terminology, compared with 8 percent of the voters for religious parties and 40 percent of the total sample.

The other area of conspicuous difference regards the distribution for the territories. A quarter of the secular respondents would return the territories as opposed to 10 percent of the religious; a third of the secular and two-thirds of the religious would annex them. The same patterns are repeated by party vote: almost half of the voters for leftist parties compared with 5 percent of the voters for rightist parties would return the territories; almost a fifth of the voters of the parties of the left and more than three-fourths of the voters for the right would retain them.

Our first hypothesis has been supported: The relations between the constructs and social location were weak, and the relations between the constructs, on the one hand, and religiosity and vote for political party, on the other hand, were strong. We shall now turn to the second hypothesis: that the strength of the relations between foreign and defense attitudes and political party support will not be affected when controlled for by social location.

The rationale for this second hypothesis cuts to the heart of the patterns of control and communication in the political system of Israel, Symbols and messages are processed in such a way that they appear to be universal and egalitarian in manner. They are equally effective regardless of one's social class or occupation. For issues of general societal importance, such as national security, an over-arching principle is at work which facilitates penetration to most groups in the society. The mechanism of penetration works well and it is at work in most of the institutions of the country: the schools, the mass media, the bureaucracies, the army, and not least important, the political parties. Cues and messages are plentiful and they are provided on a regular basis. While some appeals may actually be particular, the stature of the leadership and the standing of the security issue in the eyes of the population are such that the effect the message has becomes universal. This is why we can find only slight traces of difference within social groups. Since we believe in the importance of the political message, we anticipate that similar political differences will persist regardless of whether we examine members of the high or the low class.

We shall undertake this test by using discriminant analysis. Discriminant analysis is a statistical method for distinguishing between two or more groups based on a number of variables. The technique forms linear functions that maximize the separation of the groups. Based on these functions, we may analyze the extent to which groups are different based on the discriminating variables.¹⁸ In each analysis, the discriminated variable (analogous to a dependent variable) was changed while the discriminating variable (analogous to an independent variable) was not.¹⁹

Three measures associated with discriminant analysis will be reported: (1) The canonical correlation. This is analogous to a multiple regression correlation coefficient using a dichotomous variable. The range of theoretical scores of the canonical correlation is between 0 and 1 and expresses the strength of the discriminatory power regarding the groups in the analysis. The higher the coefficient, the higher the discriminatory power. (2) Wilks' lambda. This is a statistic that assesses the discriminating power of the model. The larger lambda is, the less powerful the model in explaining the data. In a sense, the larger lambda is, the more variance still unexplained. (3) The centroid. "A group centroid is an imaginary point which has coordinates that are the groups' mean on each of the variables....Because each centroid represents the typical position for its group, we can study them to obtain an understanding of how the groups differ."²⁰ We shall use the maximum gap (Max D) between the centroids as another statistic for comparing the effectiveness of the variable to discriminate among the groups we are studying.

Using these statistics, we turn our attention to Table 6.3. The Wilks' lambda measure reveals that the discriminated variables are extremely weak in assessing the efficacy of the discrimination among the national security constructs. Only party vote is relatively effective (.65), with religiosity at .89 a bit better than the usual .95 which we find for many of the other variables. The canonical correlation reiterates the weak relations. Most of the relations are near the level of .2, with religiosity higher at .29 and only party vote very high at .54. The centroid measure explores the maximum distance between the two farthest groups as explained above. For most of the groups, the distance among them for the variables is not great at all. Only for party vote is the centroid measure above 1.0; the other social indicators are shown to have little relation with the national security constructs.

The major finding of Table 6.4 is the consistency of the relationship between specific national security attitudes and the political party identification of the respondent regardless of other social factors. That is to say, in every social stratum, it is political rhetoric that channels the group members' attitude on national security policy. Similar differences among the various political parties are to be found in every social group. This flies in the face of the expectation that different social groups will respond differently to the messages of the various political parties. Of course, it is also true that party vote is associated with social location, especially with religiosity and ethnic origin. The agitated political rhetoric of Israel and its ideological political culture are strikingly revealed in these data. This is the meaning of the canonical correlation of about .6 and a Wilks' lambda of about .6. This is consistent with the finding from the path analysis in

Table 6.3. Discrimination of National Security Constructs* by various Location Indicators

Discriminated (dependent) Variable** | Canonical Correlation | Wilks’ Lambda | Max D
Age | .17 | .95 | .54
Place of birth | .20 | .95 | .29
Ethnic identification | .22 | .94 | .49
Education | .22 | .93 | .53
Living density | .20 | .95 | .45
Household expenses | .20 | .95 | .45
Subjective social class | .19 | .96 | .75
Work, status | .17 | .95 | .31
Religiosity | .29 | .89 | .70
Party vote | .54 | .65 | 1.21

* The national security (”independent”) variables are the ones discussed in Chapter 4, not including the nuclear variable.

** The categories of the discriminated (“dependent”) variables are provided in Table 6.4.

Chapter 4 which confirmed that political identification is the mechanism through which specific attitudes are channeled.

There are some important exceptions. The very young, ages 18-21, for example, are much more polarized than are other groups. That is the meaning of the canonical correlation of .73 for this group; the Wilks' lambda of .32 indicates that there is good discriminatory power between the groups; also the distance between the centroids for the supporters for various parties within this age cohort is the highest found (the difference is 3.47). This group is especially interesting since, on the whole, they have yet to serve in the army or are in the process of serving their compulsory period. In the long run, their generation will inherit

Table 6.4. Relation between Party Vote and the National Security Constructs* among Social Location Groups

Controlled | Canonical | Wilks’ |
Variable | Correlation | Lambda | Max D
Age 18-21 (n=514) | .73 | .32 | 3.47
22-40 (n=438) | .55 | .65 | 1.56
41+ (n=319 | .49 | .66 | 1.80
Place of birth |  |  |
Asia-Africa (n=437) | .51 | .65 | 1.48
Europe-America (n=339) | .60 | .58 | 2.74
Israel (n=108) | .63 | .44 | 2.42
Ethnic identification |  |  |
Ashkenazi (n=288) | .57 | .63 | 2.13
Sephardi (n=364) | .49 | .68 | 1.20
Neither (n=204) | .60 | .50 | 1.61
Education |  |  |
less than 9 yrs (n=158) | .47 | .57 | 1.89
9-12 years (n=542) | .56 | .63 | 2.54
more than 12 yrs(n=211) | .62 | .55 | 2.14
Living density |  |  |
densest quartile (n=241) | .43 | .72 | 1.73
middle two quartiles (n=421) | .60 | .57 | 1.86
highest quartile (n=249) | .54 | .60 | 1.81
Subjective social class |  |  |
hi and hi-middle(n=147) | .64 | .44 | 2.83
middle (n=685) | .53 | .65 | 1.44
low (n=51) | .53 | .59 | 1.79
Work status |  |  |
salaried worker (n=224) | .48 | .68 | 1.98
salaried clerk (n=198) | .60 | .53 | 1.79
independent (n=92) | .61 | .48 | 2.90
Household expenses |  |  |
below average (n=365) | .62 | .54 | 2.16
average (n=353) | .45 | .71 | 1.26
above average (n=137) | .63 | .54 | 1.89
Religiosity |  |  |
religious (n=102) | .65 | .49 | 3.15
traditional (n=308) | .51 | .69 | 2.70
secular (n=490) | .51 | .66 | 1.74

* The national security (“independent”) variables are the ones discussed in Chapter 4, not including the nuclear variable.

the land and determine its history. Does this polarization represent the extremeness of youth or is it the stuff of which future changes are made?

The effectiveness of the discrimination between national security constructs and party vote is greatest among two separate types within the population. On the one hand, and these are the more numerous, are those groups which traditionally have higher levels of connection with the establishment: second-generation Israel born, Ashkenazim, the upper and upper-middle class, and those who are independently employed. On the other hand, the religious respondents also reveal high levels of difference between the constructs and the vote. Both groups tend to be more interested and informed than other groups.

It is important to stress that our analysis does not refute other analyses of Israeli politics. Our analysis permits us to assess the relative homogeneity of the groups studied. For example, ethnicity and party vote are related; what we have measured is the typical distance of the group members from one political group to the members of other political groups. What we have seen is that the maximum distance from one another is rather consistent within most of the social location groups.

Political rhetoric differentiates among the camps much more effectively than do social differences, especially in Israel's multiparty atmosphere.²¹ In an atmosphere of modern complexity and bureaucratic decisionmaking institutions, political parties persist with labels such as left and right because in reality the meaning of these cues has become more diffuse and unclear and has different meanings in various groups.²²

In the discriminant analysis, we have considered the specific and diffuse stimuli offered the Israeli by the politicians of the various camps. We have found that belonging to or identifying with a political group is, on the average, tantamount to internalizing different political messages.

This type of analysis obviously stresses the dissimilar rather than the similar. We would be remiss, however, not to point out again the high levels of consensus which exist in general in Israeli society on these issues. Within this consensus, however, differences that occur do so within social groups and among the various political parties rather than among different social groups. Our analysis explored the variations from an imagined mid point that was defined by the answers of the respondents.

The lack of correspondence between attitudes of the public and social group membership is a central feature of Israeli society. This diffusion indicates that there is only a low level of crystallization within social groups of political and defense world views, conceptions and ideologies. This is what allows Israeli politicians to channel different social groups into the same political camp and ideology. This is the basis of the consensus that reigns in the world of defense and security.²³ This is the attitudinal backdrop that provides Israeli leaders with enormous leeway for flexibility in making Israel's foreign and defense policies.

Chapter 7. Conclusions

Israeli democracy celebrates its 40th anniversary in 1988. Few countries have retained their democratic forms when faced with the challenges of protracted external threat and political tensions the likes of which Israel has encountered. One of the keys to success has been that Israel's population was prepared to sacrifice and struggle and to accept the burdens of overcoming a very difficult military situation.

There have been heavy costs for this achievement. Deaths and casualties, a skewed and controlled economy, a postponement of social projects to satisfy security needs, a heavy dependence on allies, long periods of military service, a tense and aggressive demeanor, and a view of the world that is both parochial and hostile.

The necessary condition for keeping the political and social fabric together was a broad consensus regarding security. As we have seen, Israelis tended to be confident that the guardian of Israel would prevail. Although this guardian had various identities, the core belief was in its potency. This is the basic feature of the way Israelis looked at the world. Whether or not this was a rational view of the world, in the sense that certain actions were likely to achieve certain goals, is less important than the fact that this belief seemed to be a major one in the Israeli repertoire. The leadership of the country constantly reminded the citizens of the dangers the country faced and of the perils that had historically plagued the Jewish people. Public opinion absorbed these messages; attitudes pertaining to the use of force, to the suspicion that the world was basically hostile and often anti-semitic, that a nation must rely on its own wits and resources — all of these characterized the way the Israeli public viewed national security policy.

The consensus on national security was broad.¹ It provided an over-arching structure that could house within it many variants of attitudes regarding specific policy. Most of the political points of view on the Israeli scene in the 1980s seemed to stem from the same basic orientation toward the world. There seemed to be no basic distinction in core beliefs between, say, those who saw Israel as a small democracy endangered by its neighbors and those who envisioned Israel's destiny in more grandiose terms. Each group accepted the proposition that security was the essential building block of its vision; both groups tended to feel secure in Israel's ability to overcome.

This finding is an important one. It would be reasonable to expect a higher level of consistency between means and ends than we discovered. It would be reasonable to expect that those more limited in their ends would also be limited in their means and those whose ends were more far-reaching would also adopt more extreme means. While there are indications of the expected direction, the patterns are far from convincing or overwhelming. The national preoccupation with security — even on the part of those who feel more or less secure and on the part of those who attribute more or less peaceful aspirations to the Arabs — is the over-arching principle at the base of the Israeli consensus.

Two important questions can be answered, at least in a preliminary and tentative manner, as a result of this study. The first question has to do with the extent of militarization of the Israeli public, the second with the extent of influence of public opinion on national security policy. Both answers are complex and require more than a simple yes or no answer.

Regarding the question of militarization, it is important to distinguish between the society as a whole and the component parts of it. If we could imagine a militarist-civil continuum, Israeli society could be characterized as having adopted values that would put it on the militarist side of the continuum. The explanations have been presented: since most serve and since everyone is exposed to the core beliefs of national security, the militarist content is high. On the other hand, the data argue against the conclusion that Israeli life has become militarized, if by that phrase we mean that there will be a great difference in attitudes between those who are exposed to the army and those who are not. No separate caste of warriors has emerged in Israel and therefore no distinct value system of the army is evident. For the same reasons, there is little evidence of differentiation among those who serve much, little or none at all. And perhaps most important, when faced with a choice between using military and civil means to reach ends, two-thirds of the Israeli sample choose the civil course. The very impressive finding is that in spite of the high levels of penetration of the military in every aspect of Israeli society, 64 percent of the sample would choose to make efforts to find a solution to the international conflict Israel faces by peaceful means rather than by military ones.

The situation Israel faces and the measures taken to meet it provide a mechanism of consensus that highlights security and its values. A relatively open and democratic ethos is retained within this security-minded atmosphere. This mechanism of consensus is related to the second question regarding public opinion and policy. Clear arrows cannot be drawn since the public and the leadership share so many values and experiences. On the other hand, there is tremendous deference in Israel to the leadership precisely because security problems are so difficult and intractable. Public opinion appears to be more reactive than active, more led than leading.

Scholars have often noted that the public in most countries is especially ineffective regarding national security and foreign policy issues. The reasons for this include the unclear linkage between immediate personal interests and long-term national ones, the complexity of the information needed to form an opinion, and the secrecy surrounding many of the issues. The general finding has been low levels of knowledge and low levels of influence. The Israeli case is exceptional. Public opinion in Israel is characterized by high levels of knowledge and personal involvement regarding these issues and low levels of perceived influence. This paradox points to the importance of the political leadership in forming both policy and public opinion. In a sense this task is easier for the Israeli leadership since the public is aware of the importance of the issue and is relatively well-informed. The public relies on the leadership and is aware of its own ineffectiveness. Israelis have high levels of information but low levels of belief in their ability to influence policy. They keep their fingers on the pulse of the country (or on the on/off button of their television set) but the leadership's finger is on the trigger.

The public's reaction is often filtered by previous political leanings. An initiative by the right will always be harder for the left to oppose than the reverse situation in which the left initiates and the right reacts. This is because the core values of the society are security and these in turn lead to a propensity to military action and a shying away from political initiatives that might lead to the bargaining away of assets that afford military advantage. The bombing of the Iraqi nuclear reactor under the Begin government during the election campaign of 1981 left the Labor-Mapam Alignment speechless at first and mildly supportive later. The 1982 incursion into Lebanon was preceded by warnings in closed session by the Alignment leaders against the plans of the government headed by Begin and Sharon, but once the operation had started, these same leaders gave it, at least for the initial period, lukewarm public support.

Contrast this to the rightist reaction to some of the political developments that took place under Israel's two national unity governments. The first, which had existed since before the 1967 war, broke up in 1970 when the government headed by Golda Meir agreed to consider the Rogers initiative. The Gahal right-wing bloc, headed by Menahem Begin, felt that this would inevitably lead to territorial concessions. Begin's group resigned, thus ending the first national unity government. The second national unity government, set up in 1984, was threatened every time peace initiatives were mentioned. Prime Minister Peres's initiatives of 1985-6 regarding an international peace conference, and his trip to Morocco in 1986, both brought forth strong and suspicious reactions from the right. As Israeli political life is structured, it is hard to oppose military action; political initiatives are more easily questioned. The Israeli left is experienced at shooting and then crying about it.

The public reflects these patterns. The instinct of supporting or rejecting a political initiative depending on its source is deeply ingrained in the Israeli collective psyche. On the other hand, an almost knee-jerk reflex of supporting "reasonable" military action is just as strong. Public opinion follows these underwater reefs and shoals in a remarkably predictable manner.

The "religion of security" is an apt metaphor for considering the phenomenon of security in Israel. Just as a child is born into a certain religion, so too is the Israeli born into a very difficult geopolitical world with its attendant dilemmas. Just as a child accepts unquestioningly (at least for an initial period) the religion he was born into and some of the basic answers he receives from his parents and other important socializing agents regarding the mystery of creation and the existence or non-existence of the deity, so too does the Israeli child absorb at a very early age the basics of the core-belief of national security. He absorbs the confidence of his ability to overcome along with an unsettling uncertainty about whether that confidence is really appropriate. With age, this uncertainty may grow stronger and more persistent, but so too do the societal efforts to help him overcome these queries. Pageants and other collective happenings are provided by the establishment in order to reinforce his belief in the basic values. The unveiling of the Lavi aircraft in the summer of 1986 was not only a moment of military importance; it was also an exercise in public relations and confidence-building. The lighting and the setting, the revealing of the mystery, the promise of a rod whose swiftness would be incomparable, all these were worthy of the myth-builders of any of the world's great religions.

Matters of religion inevitably raise questions of rationality. The fascinating feature of any army is the juxtaposition of technical expertise and morale, of professional know-how and belief in a political cause. There is no denying that the two coexist; the question is how well. In the Israeli case, there seems to be a natural meshing of the two. Perhaps because of Jewish history, perhaps because of the odds which the Zionist experiment had to overcome — whatever the reason, the Israeli public has managed to perpetuate high levels of certainty in the justification of its cause together with strong beliefs about the eventual outcome of its conflict. Even if cooler, more "rational" minds might question whether it is reasonable to suppose that Israel would do well against the intervention of the Soviet Union or without the continued aid of the United States, most Israelis in 1986 thought that Israel could.

This major core belief we have dubbed "extra-rationality." One could argue about the name — the argument itself would be enlightening — but we have no doubt that this dimension taps a basic feature of the Israeli system. It highlights the insularity and vulnerability felt by many Israelis. The Gentile world is hostile and antisemitic, especially if it is critical. Israel must trust in the guardian of Israel — and look out for itself.

This core value of "extra-rationality" is related to religious belief, but the religious have no monopoly on it. It is to be found more often among those who support the right, but supporters of the left also share the belief. It is only slightly related to social location and to army service. It permeates the society and legitimizes behavior and policy. It is the clearest expression of the over-arching principle to which we have referred. It is expressed in the belief in the guardian of Israel.

The consensus regarding the core values to which we refer develops from the earliest stages of socialization into the system. This socialization is both diffuse and non-institutionalized in the sense that the patterns of support for the consensus are little affected by the extent of army service or, for that matter, by the very fact of army service. In one sense, this finding argues against the notion of a militarized Israel; in the other, it indicates that the core belief of national security has permeated the society so deeply that most people share the values of the institutions that guard the country. The core belief in the guardian of Israel — whatever its identity — is a major justification and preoccupation for many Israelis.

We have argued that the Israeli enters a spiritual army long before he ever carries a gun. His existence is bombarded with cues and stimuli that feed the security environment into which he will grow up. If a physical army is characterized by obedience, the spiritual one is characterized by conformity. A real army demands hierarchy, compliance, explicitness and a sense of personal detachment; behavior, even distasteful behavior, stems from a higher authority. Rules are to be followed even if they are not understood.

In the spiritual army, there is a feeling of fellowship and solidarity that reinforce the social controls active in the group. Imitation and implicit cues are sufficient to signal appropriate behavior. In a conformist situation such as the spiritual army created by the security dilemmas of Israel, the individual tends to believe that his behavior is voluntary and not determined by outside forces.

Two series of experiments in social situations help clarify this distinction. S. E. Asch studied conformity by determining the extent to which individuals would go along with the opinion of the group (about which line was the same length as another line) even though those group opinions went against the unmistakable evidence that the subject observed.² Milgram studied obedience by having his subjects inflict electrical shocks to other individuals at the direction of the experimenter in a learning experiment.³

In Asch's experiment the subjects tended to understate how much their actions were influenced by the other members of the group. They tended to stress their own autonomy and to minimize their dependency on the judgement of the group. Although the evidence of their influence by the group was clear and irrefutable, they nonetheless insisted that they acted as individuals in this very social situation.

In Milgram's experiments, by contrast, the subjects tended to dissociate themselves from their actions by claiming that they were forced to act as they did by an outside authority. Having the experimenter available to explain away why he or she commits distasteful acts relieves the individual of responsibility. Since this mechanism is not available in situations of conformity, the subjects tend to deny to the experimenter and to themselves as well that they were affected by the group. Both mechanisms are powerful forms of social influence; the one associated with conformity is obviously much more pervasive and subtle.

It is our argument that the spiritual army is primarily a form of conformity while the real army is motivated by obedience. When an army has a combination of both — conformity to which the soldiers have been socialized over a long period of time, and obedience which they are taught in basic training — this is a formidable combination which is likely to stand an institution in good stead.

This dual social influence system is perhaps one of the secrets of the success of Israel's defense forces. It may explain, for instance, why high degrees of informality can exist between officers and soldiers without undermining the basic command structure. It may shed light on how feelings of equality can be fostered in the army that do not exist in the society at large. The fact that the spiritual army comes before the physical army by many years and for most potential soldiers, and coincides with a crucial period of the individual's development, explains why we find no systematic differences in response patterns when controlling for nature of service, on the one hand, and why, on the other hand, even those who have never served show patterns that are not strikingly different from the others. It is in this sense that political socialization patterns are both primary and diffuse.

Conformity and consensus are two concepts whose similarities are important to ponder. The former most likely relates to individual behavior and values while the latter relates to a group or society. Both are subtle — often hidden — forms of social pressure. Both set the bounds of acceptable action or belief without formal sanctions being threatened or applied. Both seem to be voluntary, yet have far-reaching influence on the individual who does not conform or is outside the consensus.

The political implications of the findings of this study are, we believe, critical. The Israeli population is alert, responsive, and malleable. Public opinion, while structured and sometimes organized, is not set in a firm and final manner. We have provided evidence that indicates the potential flexibility of public opinion if the proper conditions arise.

The fact that Israeli public opinion is structured primarily along political lines rather than class ones is enormously important. It follows that the social institutions that might mediate in the process of forming the public's views are less important in the Israeli case than is the role of political institutions, such as the party and the leader. The appeal of the party or a leadership group could possibly bring about change in the public stand regarding security and defense policy. This is more likely, it seems, than the possibility of class or group interests emerging to redefine public policy. While there is no necessary contradiction between the two, our data leads to the conclusion that, on security issues, public opinion in Israel will likely follow a political route rather than a social one.

This gives the political leaders enormous leverage. They can change policy, if they so decide, secure in the knowledge that they will be able to swing public opinion to their position if they properly present it; in short, if they lead. No less important, they can retain the status quo. They can make a case for that position as well.

Moderates and leftists might well take heart when they read these words. The idea that the Israeli public will never support a territorial compromise to solve the Palestinian problem is not sustained. At the time of the survey, public opinion was split more or less evenly between annexing and returning positions. The analysis shows, however, that attitudes on foreign policy are closely linked to political choice; change in political choice could potentially lead to change in policy position.

Let us state clearly that there is no political message in what we write. While moderates and leftists might take heart, so too might hard-liners and rightists. While we have identified a potentiality for change in Israeli public opinion, we do not know the direction that change might take, any more than we can predict whether or when it will take place. The important point is that it could go either way. For the first decades of Israeli history, with the dominance of the left-of-center party, Israeli public opinion supported a pragmatic policy of military strength and political flexibility. After the 1967 war, the policy — and public opinion — became intransigent regarding the territories (although Sinai was returned to the Egyptians during that period). In these years, a hard-line nationalist platform emerged with varying degrees of extremeness: Rabbi Kahana was perhaps the most extreme, but the Tehiya party and some of the religious parties echoed some of his positions. The moderate overtures to the Arab states made by Shimon Peres during his 1984-86 premiership brought no clear results. The leadership was as polarized as was public opinion.

But it need not remain so. The system is not frozen in the sense that public opinion is split and cannot be changed. It is true that the 1980s have seen an almost even division in public opinion and in political power between the two major camps in Israeli politics. But that is an exception in Israeli history and in the experience of most nations. It may last and it may not. In any event, it is likely that political factors will bring about the shift in both policy and opinion.

Appendix
National Security and Public Opinion Questionnaire January 1986

[The first five numbers are for respondent identification.]

Here is a scale with nine rungs. The topic is national security. Nine is the best situation regarding Israel's national security that you can imagine, and one is the worst.

6. | On which rung of the ladder do you think Israel is regarding national security? | mean | 5.6
7. | And where do you think Israel was five years ago? | mean | 6.1
8. | And where will it be five years from now? | mean | 6.1
9. | There are three long-range solutions for the territories held since the 1967 war. Which one do you agree with most?
| A. In exchange for peace I would be willing to give up the territories as long as Israel’s security interests were provided for |  | 30.2%
| B. Annexing the territories |  | 22.8
| C. Leaving the situation as it is |  | 47.1
10. | And, if Israel had to choose between the first two alternatives, which would you choose? (Only for those who answered C to question 9)
| A. In exchange for peace I would be willing to give up the territories as long as Israel’s security interests were provided for |  | 32.2%
| B. Annexing the territories |  | 67.8

Here is a list of reasons used by some people who believe that Israel should continue to hold the territories. Please list them in order of importance. (Those who gave the answer as the most important are listed.)

11.
We have a right to the land.
48.6%

12.
We must prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state which could jeopardize our security.
27.9%

13.
We must have strategic depth in the event of war with Jordan.
16.4%

14.
We must have something to negotiate over when we discuss peace with Jordan.
9.1%

15.
What is your opinion of the way the government is handling security matters in the territories -- too harsh, too soft or just about right?

A. Too harsh
5%

B. Just about right
50

C. Too soft
45

16.
According to what you know, do the Arabs of Judea, Samaria and the Gaza Strip have the right to apply to the High Court of Justice?

A. Definitely
31%

B. I think so
29

C. I don't think so
22

D. Definitely not
18

17.
Do the Arabs of Judea, Samaria and the Gaza Strip have the right to vote in Knesset elections?

A. Definitely
5%

B. I think so
17

C. I don’t think so
19

D. Definitely not
59

18.
Here is a scale with 7 rungs. The first rung represents the position that the settlements in Judea, Samaria and the Gaza Strip contribute to the security of Israel because of the presence of the settlers and their activities, and the seventh rung represents the position that the settlements in Judea, Samaria and the Gaza Strip hinder the security of Israel because the Israel Defense Forces have to guard the settlements. The fourth rung is the middle position -- that the settlements in Judea, Samaria and the Gaza Strip don't help and don’t hinder the national security. On what rung would you place yourself?         mean     3.0

19.
In the following scale, rung 1 represents the position that the Israel Defense Forces’ presence in Judea, Samaria and the Gaza Strip has a negative effect on the army’s fighting ethic and the seventh rung is that the Israel Defense Forces’ presence in Judea, Samaria and the Gaza Strip has a positive effect. Where would you rank yourself on the scale?         mean     4.2

And what of the results of the security situation? What impact do you think the security situation has on the following areas?

20. | The Immigration of Jews to Israel |
| A. Attracts immigrants | 8%
| B. Has no impact | 39
| C. Repels immigrants | 53
21. | And what of its impact on emigration of Israelis from Israel? |
| A. Lessens the emigration | 4%
| B. Has no impact | 51
| C. Increases the emigration | 45
22. | And what of the country’s youth? |
| A. Creates a challenge for the youth | 21%
| B. Has no impact | 46
| C. Results in the emigration of youth | 33
23. | And the unity of the nation? |
| A. Increases the nation's unity | 40%
| B. Has no impact | 39
| C. Lessens the nation's unity | 22
24. | And the impact of security on the connection with Jews outside of Israel |
| A. Strengthens our ties to them | 56%
| B. Has no impact | 31
| C. Weakens our ties to them | 14
25. | And our prestige in the world |
| A. Positive influence | 27%
| B. Has no impact | 37
| C. Negative influence | 36
26. | And on our social and economic situation |
| A. Positive influence | 12%
| B. Has no impact | 29
| C. Negative influence | 60
27. | There are three basic opinions about the future of the territories in Judea, Samaria and the Gaza Strip if Israel comes to discussing peace with Jordan. Which opinion do you support?
| A. In exchange for a peace agreement, I would agree to return all the territories, with minor border modifications and with a special arrangement worked out for Jerusalem. | 16%
| B. In exchange for a peace agreement and for acceptable security arrangements, I would agree to return all the territories heavily populated with Arabs (about two-thirds of the territories). | 35
| C. No territories should be returned, even for a peace agreement. | 49
28. | During the period in which there is no settlement of the issue of the territories, are you in favor of granting more civil rights to the Arab inhabitants than they have today, or decreasing them, or leaving them as they are today?
| A. Increase their civil rights, including giving them the right to vote in Knesset elections | 6%
| B. Increase their civil rights, but do not give them give them the right to vote in Knesset elections | 19
| C. Leave things as they are now | 58
| D. Decrease their civil rights | 17
29-30 | i. Whose opinion should be taken into account regarding the future of the territories? (The first number is the percent that gave the category as first choice, the second number the percent that gave the category as second choice.)
| A. Israel Defense Forces generals | 50%      23%
| B. Professors of political science | 9      20
| C. Likud leaders | 8      11
| D. Alignment leaders | 9      11
| E. Rabbis | 2      4
| F. Public opinion | 22      31
31. | When you consider the recent debates In Israel about security policy, to what extent do you think that the large political parties are close to each other or that they are far apart?
| A. Very far apart | 8%
| B. Far apart | 28
| C. Sometimes far, sometimes close | 53
| D. Close | 9
| E. Very close | 1
32. | If the territories are eventually annexed to the State of Israel, are you in favor of granting more civil rights to the Arab inhabitants than they have today, or decreasing them, or leaving them as they are today?
| A. Increase their civil rights, including giving them the right to vote in Knesset elections | 182
| B. Increase their civil rights, but do not give them the right to vote in Knesset elections | 25
| C. Leave things as they are now | 49
| D. Decrease their civil rights | 11
33. | Regarding the northern border, do you think that Israel should be prepared or not be prepared to return the Golan Heights to Syria in exchange for a peace treaty?
| A. Israel should be prepared to do so. | 142
| B. Israel should not be prepared to do so. | 86
34. | If the PLO undergoes basic changes and announces that it recognizes the State of Israel and will completely give up acts of terror, do you think then that Israel should or should not be ready to hold negotiations with the PLO?
| A. Israel should be ready to do so. | 502
| B. Israel should not be ready to do so. | 50
35. | In your opinion, is it possible to be rid of Arab terrorism solely by military means?
| A. Yes, it is possible. | 132
| B. It is possible to lessen its impact but not to stop it by military means alone. | 72
| C. Military means only escalate the reactions of the terrorists. | 16
36. | There are various ways of handling terrorism. Which of the following should in your opinion be the major way of trying to cope with terrorism?
| A. We should initiate war against the terrorises and and hit them in their bases. | 34%
| B. We should conduct defensive war, trying to prevent terror. | 39
| C. We should conduct reactive warfare, hitting the terrorists in reaction to incidents. | 28
37. | If the terrorists again shell the northern settlements with katyusha rockets, what do you think would be the appropriate reactions?
| A. We should invade Lebanon with a large military force. | 5%
| B. We should use the air force and armored corps to shell the area with massive force. | 20
| C. We should use limited force to destroy the terrorist bases and then return home. | 43
| D. We should bomb the terrorist bases selectively using the air force. | 28
| E. We should not react militarily, but we should try to find a political solution. | 4

In your opinion, is it or is it not justified to initiate war in each of the following eight situations:

38. | As a defensive act, in order to prevent an attempt to annihilate the country |
| A. Certainly justified | 57%
| B. Justified | 32
| C. Not justified | 10
| D. Not at all justified | 1
39. | To prevent an attempt to regain territories that we took |
| A. Certainly justified | 32%
| B. Justified | 41
| C. Not justified | 21
| D. Not at all justified | 3
40. | To prevent or end a war of attrition waged against us |
| A. Certainly justified | 28%
| B. Justified | 48
| C. Not justified | 21
| D. Not at all justified | 3
41. | To destroy the enemy’s military power and prevent it from being able to pose a threat to Israel in the future |
| A. Certainly justified | 13%
| B. Justified | 31
| C. Not justified | 46
| D. Not at all justified | 11
42. | To overthrow a hostile regime and help establish a more sympathetic regime that will sign a peace treaty with us |
| A. Certainly justified | 6%
| B. Justified | 17
| C. Not justified | 52
| D. Not at all justified | 25
43. | To conquer important territories that will add to our security |
| A. Certainly justified | 6%
| B. Justified | 20
| C. Not justified | 53
| D. Not at all justified | 22
44. | Following an increase in the amount of border incidents with an Arab country |
| A. Certainly justified | 8%
| B. Justified | 39
| C. Not justified | 41
| D. Not at all justified | 12
45. | Based on information about the intention of neighboring countries to start border incidents |
| A. Certainly justified | 7%
| B. Justified | 33
| C. Not justified | 46
| D. Not at all justified | 14
46. | If Israel is sure that its military power is far superior to that of the Arab countries, in your opinion, should Israel initiate war in order to take advantage of its present situation?
| A. Should initiate war in this case | 8%
| B. No need to make use of a current military advantage | 92
47. | Are there circumstances in which it would be justified for Israel to use nuclear weapons (if it has or obtains these weapons), or do you believe that under no circumstances should nuclear weapons be used?
| A. There are circumstances in which it would be justified. | 36%
| B. Under no circumstances should nuclear weapons be used, (continue to question 52) | 64

Is it or is it not justified for Israel to use nuclear weapons, if it has or obtains these weapons, in each of the following four circumstances:

48. | In a state of absolute helplessness |
| A. Certainly justified | 49%
| B. Justified | 27
| C. Not justified | 15
| D. Not at all justified | 9
49. | To save many lives |
| A. Certainly justified | 17%
| B. Justified | 36
| C. Not justified | 31
| D. Not at all justified | 16
50. | To save a small number of lives |
| A. Certainly justified | 4%
| B. Justified | 12
| C. Not justified | 51
| D. Not at all justified | 33
51. | As a warfare tactic, instead of mobilizing the regular army |
| A. Certainly justified | 2%
| B. Justified | 9
| C. Not justified | 40
| D. Not at all justified | 49
52. | Do you think that Israel has nuclear weapons? |
| A. I'm sure it does. | 54%
| B. I think it does, but am not sure. | 38
| C. I don't think it dobs, but am not sure. | 7
| D. I'm sure it doesn't. | 1
53. | What is the main thing that Israel must do in order to prevent a war with the Arab countries?
| A. Everything in its power to initiate peace negotiations | 64%
| B. Increase its military power | 36

To what extent do you agree or disagree with each of the following four opinions:

54. | We must enter into a political process of peace treaties immediately, even at the cost of' territorial concessions. |
| A. Certainly agree | 14%
| B. Agree | 31
| C. Don’t agree | 40
| D. Certainly don’t agree | 15
55. | We must make personal, economic, and social sacrifices in order to sustain our power to a degree that will ensure secure existence. |
| A. Certainly agree | 17%
| B. Agree | 53
| C. Don't agree | 25
| D. Certainly don't agree | 5
56. | We must switch to nuclear weapons in order to deter the Arabs. |
| A. Certainly agree | 5%
| B. Agree | 22
| C. Don't agree | 46
| D. Certainly don't agree | 28
57. | We must sign a security agreement with the US so that the Arabs won’t attack us. |
| A. Certainly agree | 18%
| B. Agree | 49
| C. Don't agree | 27
| D. Certainly don't agree | 7
58. | Is peace between Israel and the Arab countries possible in the near future?
| A. I'm sure it's possible. | 13%
| B. I think it's possible but am not sure. | 44
| C. I think it's impossible but am not sure. | 31
| D. I'm sure it's impossible. | 12
59. | In your opinion, can Israel, through its behavior and policy, influence the Arabs’ willingness for true peace with it?
| A. I’m sure it can. | 19%
| B. I think it can but am not sure. | 43
| C. I think it cannot but am not sure. | 26
| D. I'm sure it cannot. | 12

Taking into account all the chances for both peace and war with the following countries or groups, in your opinion, are the chances higher for peace or for war?

60. | Egypt | mean 2.0
| 1. Much higher for peace |
| 2. Higher for peace |
| 3. Same chances for peace and war |
| 4. Higher for war |
| 5. Much higher for war |
61. | Jordan | mean 2.6
62. | Syria | mean 4.1
63. | Lebanon | mean 3.2
64. | Palestinians | mean 3.7

From among the following Arab countries and groups, indicate the two that are Israel's most dangerous enemy, and rate them according to importance:

A. Syria

B. PLO

C. Jordan

D. Shi 'ites in Lebanon

E. Libya

F. Egypt

G. Iraq

H. Khomeini's Iran

I. Saudi Arabia

65.
The most dangerous__________
73% indicated Syria

66.
The second most dangerous__________
38% indicated PLO
21% indicated Libya

To what extent will Israel be able or not be able to deal with each of the following:

67. | To what extent do you believe in our continued existence in Israel in the long range? |
| A. I certainly believe. | 76%
| B. I believe but am not sure. | 20
| C. I'm skeptical. | 4
| D. I certainly don't believe. | 1

68. | A war of all the Arab nations against us |
| A. Able | 75%
| B. Unable | 25
69. | A war that Syria alone will fight against us |
| A. Able | 94%
| B. Unable | 6
70. | An increase of acts of terror by terrorist organizations |
| A. Able | 92%
| B. Unable | 8
71. | The US reducing its support for Israel |
| A. Able | 69%
| B. Unable | 31
72. | A revolt of the Arab Israeli citizens |
| A. Able | 92%
| B. Unable | 8
73. | A revolt of the Arabs living in the administered territories (Judea, Samaria, and the Gaza Strip)
| A. Able | 93%
| B. Unable | 7
74. | The USSR providing massive support to the Arab countries in a war against us |
| A. Able | 67%
| B. Unable | 33
75. | Do you believe there is a danger that we will again be surprised by an Arab military initiative like in the Yom Kippur War?
| A. Yes, certainly. | 8%
| B. I think so but am not sure. | 33
| C. I don't think so but am not sure. | 38
| D. Certainly not. | 21
76. | What is your estimate of the real danger of Israel being annihilated?
| A. High | IX
| B. Medium | 14
| C. Low | 43
| D. Zero | 42
77. | In your opinion, is there or isn't there a possibility of another Holocaust of the Jewish people?
| A. There is, to a great extent | 2%
| B. There is, to a certain extent | 17
| C. There is, to a small extent | 40
| D. There is no chance | 42
78. | What do you believe to be the Arab aspirations in the final analysis?
| A. To regain some of the territories occupied in the Six-Day War | 5%
| B. To regain all of the territories occupied in the Six-Day War | 22
| C. To conquer Israel | 36
| D. To conquer Israel and annihilate a large portion of the Jewish population in Israel | 37

To what extent is each of the following six factors a reason for Arab opposition to the State of Israel:

79. | They harbor hate for the Jews. |
| A. It is a reason | 87%
| B. Not a reason | 13
80. | Israel is viewed as a foreign element in the Middle East, and as a “thorn in the side.” |
| A. It is a reason | 81%
| B. Not a reason | 15
81. | Our technological and qualitative advantages scare them. |
| A. It is a reason | 58%
| B. Not a reason | 38
82. | They see all of Israel as Arab land that must be returned. |
| A. It is a reason | 89%
| B. Not a reason | 7
83. | They want only to free territories occupied in 1967 (in the Six-Day War). |
| A. It is a reason | 58%
| B. Not a reason | 37
84. | They are afraid of Israeli hostility toward them in the future. |
| A. It is a reason | 62%
| B. Not a reason | 38
[Numbers 85 and 86 are blank.] |

Keeping up the level of security in Israel requires many resources. Which of the following would you personally be willing to give in order to maintain the level of security in the country?

87.
Would you be willing for taxes to go up so that you too would pay more taxes and the money would go to security?

A. Willing
48%

B. Not willing
52

88.
Would you be willing for the required army service to be made longer so that you or your children or close family's children would have to serve longer?

A. Willing
34%

B. Not willing
66

89.
Are you willing for reserve duty to be made longer so that you or your close family will have to serve more days?

A. Willing
37%

B. Not willing
63

90.
Is the burden of army service distributed justly in society?

A. Yes
55%

B. No
45

91.
From what you hear or see, is reserve duty utilized efficiently or wasted?

A. Usually utilized efficiently
48%

B. Usually utilized nonefficiently
52

92.
Is army service in the ICi

A. Too long
20%

B. Suitable in length
78

C. Too short
1

93.
In your opinion, should the defense budget be cut, left as it is, or increased?

A. Increased
31%

B. Left as it is
60

C. Cut
9

94.
In your opinion, is there or isn’t there waste in the IDF in comparison with civilian systems?

A. In the IDF there is much more waste than in most systems.
12%

B. In the IDF there is more waste.
28

C. Waste in the IDF is the same as in other systems.
38

D. In the IDF there is less waste.
16

E. In the IDF there is much less waste.
5

95.
If Israel buys foreign weapons systems, it saves the research and development expenses and can buy weapons that have been tried by others and have proven themselves. If Israel produces the weapons systems itself, on the other hand, the cost is higher but it reduces our dependence on others, and enables us to acquire new knowledge. In your opinion, what should usually be preferred?

A. Buying foreign weapons systems
21%

B. Development of weapons systems in Israel
79

96.
Are there today military functions or projects that would be better off in the hands of civilian bodies?

A. Yes
45%

B. No
55

97.
Are there today civilian functions or projects that would be better off in the hands of the military?

A. Yes
42%

B. No
58

98.
In your opinion, are military decisions of the IDF command influenced by relevant objective consideration only, or by other considerations as well?

A. Relevant considerations only
47%

B. Other considerations as well
53

99.
Concerning the control of the prime minister and other ministers over the activities of the upper ranks of the IDF, should (in light of Israel’s experience) this control be tightened, made more lax, or should the situation be left as it is?

A. Control should be tightened
27%

B. Situation should be left as it is
69

C. Control should be made more lax
4

You are asked to rank the following six factors according to the extent to which each influences national security. Give "1" to the factor that most influences, "2" to the next, and so on.

100. | Military power | mean 1.5
101. | Political/national power | mean 3.1
102. | Economic power | mean 2.6
103. | National morale | mean 4.3
104. | Social cohesiveness | mean 4.7
105. | Sense of unity | mean 4.5

Some people say that national security should be treated as a goal above any other issue, and that the more we emphasize it, the better off we will be. Others say that the security issue is important, but exaggerated emphasis on it can prove dangerous. Before you is a scale from 1 to 7; 1 represents the first opinion, 7 the second one. Where on this scale would you place yourself?

106. | The more we Too much emphasis emphasize 1---2---3---4---5---6---7 on security could security the prove dangerous, better. mean 3.1
107. | There is a saying: “The guardian of Israel will neither slumber nor sleep.” Whom do you see as the “guardian of Israel”?
| A. God | 17%
| B. IDF | 57
| C. USA | 2
| D. The State of Israel | 13
| E. The people of Israel | 10
| F. Everyone must guard himself | 2
| G. Another factor |
108. | To what extent may one criticize the government in time of war?
| A. Absolutely forbidden | 37%
| B. One can have quiet and controlled reservations | 54
| C. One can severely criticize, including street demonstrations and votes of no confidence | 9
109. | Do you believe it is essential or not to support the government during a security crisis, like war, even when one does not agree with what its doing?
| A. Always essential to support | 37%
| B. Usually essential to support | 51
| C. Usually not essential to support | 9
| D. Never essential to support | 4
110. | Do you believe the media treat the security issue in a responsible or irresponsible way?
| A. Totally responsible | 11%
| B. Usually responsible | 56
| C. Usually irresponsible | 24
| D. Totally irresponsible | 9
111. | Do the media place too much, too little, or the right amount of emphasis on the security issue?
| A. Too little | 6%
| B. Right amount | 68
| C. Too much | 26
112. | In your opinion, can the credibility of the media be trusted on security issues?
| A. Always or almost always | 16%
| B. Often | 56
| C. Seldom | 24
| D. Never | 4
113. | Do you believe the media to be objective on security issues?
| A. Always or almost always | 13%
| B. Often | 57
| C. Seldom | 27
| D. Never | 3
114. | To what extent do you rely on the statements of the country's leaders concerning security issues?
| A. Certainly rely | 13%
| B. Rely | 69
| C. Don't rely | 17
| D. Certainly don't rely | 2
115. | In your opinion, are the decisions made by political leaders on security issues influenced by relevant considerations only, or by other considerations as well?
| A. Relevant considerations only | 32%
| B. Other considerations as well | 68
116. | In your opinion, are the decisions of the military high command influenced by relevant considerations only, or by political considerations as well?
| A. Relevant considerations only | 16%
| B. Mainly relevant considerations | 39
| C. Relevant and political considerations equally | 40
| D. Mainly political considerations | 5
| E. Political considerations only | 1
117. | To what extent can one rely on official government information concerning security issues?
| A. To a very great extent | 9%
| B. To a great extent | 43
| C. To a certain extent | 41
| D. To a small extent | 6
| E. Not at all | 1
118. | To what extent does the public understand enough about security issues to be able to express an opinion?
| A. To a very great extent | 1%
| B. To a great extent | 23
| C. To a certain extent | 58
| D. To a small extent | 15
| E. Not at all | 4
119. | To what extent do you understand enough about security issues to be able to express an opinion?
| A. To a very great extent | 3%
| B. To a great extent | 23
| C. To a certain extent | 58
| D. To a small extent | 17
| E. Not at all | 4
120. | To what extent do you tend to express your views on security issues in the form of attending rallies and demonstrations, signing petitions, expressing your opinion in the press, etc. ?
| A. Often | 4%
| B. Sometimes | 28
| C. Seldom | 34
| D. Never | 35
121. | To what extent do you and your friends influence decisionmaking on security issues?
| A. To a great extent | 2%
| B. To a certain extent | 14
| C. To a small extent | 23
| D. Not at all | 62

To what extent do you and your friends influence decisionmaking in each of the following matters:

122. | Government appointments |
| A. To a great extent | 2%
| B. To a certain extent | 11
| C. To a small extent | 15
| D. Not at all | 72
123. | Military appointments |
| A. To a great extent | 2%
| B. To a certain extent | 5
| C. To a small extent | 14
| D. Not at all | 80
124. | Defense budget |
| A. To a great extent | 1%
| B. To a certain extent | 5
| C. To a small extent | 14
| D. Not at all | 80
125. | The releasing of terrorists |
| A. To a great extent | 2%
| B. To a certain extent | 6
| C. To a small extent | 12
| D. Not at all | 80
126. | Decisions concerning the overall state budget |
| A. To a great extent | 2%
| B. To a certain extent | 5
| C. To a small extent | 14
| D. Not at all | 80
To what extent does each of the following help you in formulating your views on various security issues?
127. | Interviews with high military commanders in the media |
| A. To a great extent | 17%
| B. To a certain extent | 47
| C. To a small extent | 17
| D. Not at all | 7
| E. They only confuse | 12
[Numbers 128 to 205 are blank.] |
206. | Interviews with political leaders in the media |
| A. To a great extent | 13%
| B. To a certain extent | 44
| C. To a small extent | 22
| D. Not at all | 9
| E. They only confuse | 12
207. | Military reports on television |
| A. to a great extent | 19%
| B. to a certain extent | 45
| C. To a small extent | 18
| D. Not at all | 7
| E. They only confuse | 11
208. | Military reports in the newspapers |
| A. To a great extent | 15%
| B. To a certain extent | 43
| C. To a small extent | 22
| D. Not at all | 10
| E. They only confuse | 12
209. | Evaluative articles (commentaries) |
| A. To a great extent | 13%
| B. To a certain extent | 41
| C. To a small extent | 23
| D. Not at all | 11
| E. They only confuse | 22
210. | Radio interviews |
| A. To a great extent | 12%
| B. To a certain extent | 42
| C. To a small extent | 23
| D. Not at all | 11
| E. They only confuse | 17

Before you is a list of statements that relate to the various issues we have discussed hitherto; you are asked to indicate the extent to which you agree or disagree with each:

211. | From among all of the views that exist in the world it seems there is only one that is correct. |
| A. Certainly agree | 7%
| B. Agree | 24
| C. Ddisagree | 51
| D. Certainly disagree | 18
212. | There are situations in which it seems preferable for people to take the law into their own hands. |
| A. Certainly agree | 3%
| B. Agree | 15
| C. Disagree | 48
| D. Certainly disagree | 34
213. | In situations in which there is a conflict of interests between the collective good and the good of the individual, the good of the individual should usually be preferred. |
| A. Certainly agree | 3%
| B. Agree | 21
| C. Disagree | 53
| D. Certainly disagree | 22
214. | Massada will not fall a second time. |
| A. Certainly agree | 28%
| B. Agree | 48
| C. Disagree | 19
| D. Certainly disagree | 5
215. | The whole world is against us. |
| A. Certainly agree | 10%
| B. Agree | 30
| C. Disagree | 49
| D. Certainly disagree | 12
216. | The guardian of Israel will neither slumber nor sleep. |
| A. Certainly agree | 29%
| B. Agree | 50
| C. Disagree | 17
| D. Certainly disagree | 4
217. | Not to return territories of the Land of Israel is a principle not to be challenged under any circumstances. |
| A. Certainly agree | 14%
| B. Agree | 36
| C. Disagree | 37
| D. Certainly disagree | 13
218. | God will watch over us, if we are deserving of it, even if we are not prepared for the next war. |
| A. Certainly agree | 11%
| B. Agree | 26
| C. Disagree | 40
| D. Certainly disagree | 23
219. | In my daily life, when goals are very important to me, the ends justify the means. |
| A. Certainly agree | 8%
| B. Agree | 42
| C. Disagree | 40
| D. Certainly disagree | 10
220. | World criticism of Israeli policy stems mainly from antisemitism. |
| A. Certainly agree | 15%
| B. Agree | 43
| C. Disagree | 36
| D. Certainly disagree | 7
221. | In managing its policy, Israel shouldn’t take into account the views of the Gentiles. |
| A. Certainly agree | 15%
| B. Agree | 40
| C. Disagree | 38
| D. Certainly disagree | 7
222. | A few strong leaders could do a lot more good for the country than all the discussions and laws. |
| A. Certainly agree | 17%
| B. Agree | 41
| C. Disagree | 33
| D. Certainly disagree | 10

And now, some information about you:

223. | Do you want to live in Israel in the long range? |
| A. I'm sure that I do. | 78%
| B. I want to, but am not sure. | 16
| C. I have doubts. | 5
| D. I’m sure that I don’t. | 1
224. | From among the following, which is the major factor that raises doubts about the wish to live in Israel, for people that have these doubts?
| A. The security situation | 14%
| B. The economic situation | 72
| C. The social situation | 10
| D. The rise of anti-democratic tendencies | 1
| E. The status of religion in the country | 2

Before you is a scale from 1 to 9 that describes different states that the individual can be in. Nine stands for the best possible state, and 1 stands for the worst possible state.

| worst 1 — 2—3—4—5—6—7---8—9 best |
| possible possible |
225. | Where would you place vourself on this scale in terras of your personal situation today? | mean 6.0
226. | Where do you think you were on this scale in terms of your personal situation five years ago? | mean 6.2
227. | Where do you think you will be in terms of your personal situation in five years? | mean 6.6
228. | Are you active in a political party? |
| A. No, I don't belong to a party. | 72%
| B. I’m only a supporter. | 21
| C. I’m a party member. | 6
| D. I’m an active party member. | 1
| E. I’m both a member and party functionary. | -
229. | On security issues, to the stand of which of the two big parties are you closer--to that of the Likud or that of the Alignment?
| A. Likud | 54%
| B. Alignment | 46
230. | How would you define yourself on a dove-hawk continuum? |
| dove 1---2---3---4---5---6---7 hawk |
| mean | 3.8
231. | How would you define yourself on a left-right continuum? |
| right l---2---3---4---5---6---7 left mean | 3.5
232-233. | If Knesset elections were held today, from among the following lists, which would you vote for? |
| A. Alignment (Labor and Yahad) | 34%
| B. Likud (Herut and Liberals and La'am) | 25
| C. Mapam |
| D. Tehlya and Tzomet | 10
| E. Shinui | 2
| F. Civil Rights and Yossi Sarid | 3
| G. National Religious Party |
| H. Agudat Israel |
| I. Shas |
| J. Morasha |
| K. Tami |
| L. Kach (Kahana) | 4
| M. Ometz (Hurvitz) |
| N. Hadash (Rakah communists) |
| O. Progressive List for Peace |
| P. another party, which? |
| Q. I haven’t decided | 15
| R. I wouldn’t vote |
234-235 | Which list did you vote for in the last elections, held in July 1984?
| A. Alignment | 33%
| B. Likud | 36
| C. National Religious Party |
| D. Agudat Israel |
| E. Shas |
| F. Morasha |
| G. Tami |
| H. Yahad (Veitzman) |
| I. Shinui |
| J. Civil Rights Movement |
| K. Tehiya and Tzomet | 7
| L. Lova Eliav |
| M. Ometz (Yigal Hurvitz) |
| N. Kach (Kahana) |
| 0. Hadash (Rakah communists) |
| P. Progressive List for Peace |
| Q. another list, which? |
| R. I didn’t vote, but I had the right to | 5
| S. I didn’t vote; I didn’t have the right to | 6
236. | Did you serve in the IDF, or are you now serving? |
| A. I am now serving | 8%
| B. I served in the past (those who answered 1 or 2 continue to next question) | 51
| C. No (continue with question 250) | 39
237-238. | How many years did you serve? |
| A. Up to a year | 8%
| B. A year to a year and a half | 9
| C. Year and a half to two years | 20
| D. Two to two and a half years | 14
| E. Two and a half to three years | 35
| F. 3 to 6 years | 10
| G. 6 to 15 years | 3
| H. Over 15 years | 2
239. | Did you have mainly combat or noncombat duties? |
| A. Mainly combat | 31%
| B. Combat and noncombat | 22
| C. Mainly noncombat | 47
240. | Do you today serve in the reserves? |
| A. No (continue with question 243) | 55%
| B. Yes (continue to next question) | 45
241-242 | How many days of reserve duty did you do in the past year? average | 31.7
243. | During your service or reserve duty, did you serve in the territories?
| A. Yes | 49%
| B. No | 43
| C. I don’t do reserve duty | 8
244-245. | What is your military rank, today, or with what rank were you discharged from the reserves?
| A. Private | 17%
| B. Private first class |
| C. Corporal | 23
| D. Sergeant | 31
| E. 1st sergeant |
| F. Sergeant major |
| G. Senior sergeant major |
| H. Second lieutenant |
| I. First lieutenant |
| J. Captain |
| K. Major | 1
| L. Lieutenant colonel | 1
| M. Colonel |
| N. Brigadier |
| O. Major general |
| P. Lieutenant general |
246. | In the reserves do you/did you have combat or noncombat duties?
| A. Combat | 36%
| B. Noncombat | 64
247. | Did you fight in one or more of Israel's wars (including the War of Attrition and combat duties in Lebanon)?
| (0) No Yes, how many? | 45%
| 1 | 25
| 2 | 13
| 3 | 11
| 4 | 3
| 5 | 2
248. | To what extent were you happy with your army service? |
| A. Very happy | 21%
| B. Happy | 52
| C. No opinion | 19
| D. Not happy | 6
| E. Not at all happy (continue to question 250) | 3
249. | Did you not serve because of religious or other reasons? |
| A. Religious reasons | 30%
| B. Other reasons | 70
250. | Is a close family member of yours doing his compulsory service today?
| A. Yes | 49%
| B. No | 51
251-252. |  |
| What is your age? average | 38
253. | How do you define yourself? |
| A. Ashkenazi | 35%
| B. Sephardi | 41
| C. Neither | 23
254-255. | Where were you born? (If Israeli born, where was your father born?)
| A. North Africa | 11%
| B. Asia | 12
| C. East Europe | 18
| D. Vest and Central Europe | 2
| E. America, Australia, South Africa | 1
| F. Israeli born-- Father-Israeli born | 12
| G. Israeli born-- Father-North Africa | 9
| H. Israeli born-- Father-Asia | 16
| I. Israeli born-- Father-East Europe | 15
| J. Israeli born-- Father-West or Central Europe | 3
| K. Israeli born-- Father-America, Australia, S. Africa |
256-257. | In what year did you immigrate to Israel? |
258-259. | How many years did you study? average | 12
260. | How do you identify yourself? |
| A. Religious | 12%
| B. Traditional | 32
| C. Secular | 56
261. | What is your family status? |
| A. Single (continue with question 267) | 26%
| B. Married | 67
| C. Divorced | 2
| D. Widowed | 4

Do you have sons or daughters in each of the following age groups?

262. | Up to age 16 |
| A. None | 29%
| B. Son(s) | 44
| C. Daughter(s) | 27
263. | 16 to 18 |
| A. None | 71%
| B. Son(s) | 19
| C. Oaughter(s) | 10
264. | 18 to 23 |
| A. None | 66%
| B. Son(s) | 22
| C. Daughter(s) | 12
265. | 23 to 30 |
| A. None | 67%
| B. Son(s) | 19
| C. Daughter(s) | 15
266. | 30 to 40 |
| A. None | 712
| B. Son(s) | 18
| C. Daughter(s) | 11
267. | The monthly expenditures of the average family of four reached 1,100,000 shekels in December, 1985. Taking into account your expenditures and the size of your family, do you spend:
| A. Like the average | 43%
| B. Belov the average | 41
| C. Above the average | 16
268. | How many rooms do you have in your home? average: | 3.3
269-2 | 170. How many people live in your home? average: | 4.1
271. | In which social class would you place yourself? |
| A. Upper class | 22
| B. Upper-middle class | 16
| C. Middle class | 77
| D. Lover class | 6
272. | Did you read a dally newspaper yesterday? |
| A. No | 362
| B. Yes, which daily newspaper(s) did you read? | 64
273. | When you read a newspaper, what do you look at first? |
| A. The front page | 682
| B. The economic section | 4
| C. The sports section | 4
| D. The news pages | 17
| E. Don’t read newspapers | 9
274. | Do you read literature on security issues? |
| A. Often | 5%
| B. Sometimes | 19
| C. Seldom | 22
| D. No | 54
275. | Do you discuss security issues with your friends? |
| A. Often | 15%
| B. Sometimes | 42
| C. Seldom | 22
| D. Not at all | 21
276. | Do you work outside the household? |
| A. Yes (continue with next question) | 56%
| B. No (continue to question 278) | 44
277. | How would you define yourself? |
| A. Salaried worker | 44%
| B. Salaried clerk | 38
| C. Independently employed (‘small time’) | 15
| D. Independently employed-- head of company | 2
278. | At the time of World War II, were you in one of the Euro countries under Nazi occupation? | pean
| A. Yes | 10%
| B. No | 90
279. | Did someone in your close family go through the Holocaust in a country that was under Nazi occupation? |
| A. Yes | 32%
| B. No | 68
280. | Was anyone in your family killed or seriously wounded in Holocaust? | the
| A. Yes | 28%
| B. No | 72
281. | Were you, or anyone in your family, wounded during IDF service?
| A. I was seriously wounded. | 2%
| B. I was wounded but not seriously. | 17
| C. Someone in my family was seriously wounded. | 23
| D. Someone in my family was wounded, but not seriously | 57
282. | Was anyone in your family killed during service in the IDF?
| A. Yes | 12%
| B. No | 88
283. | Sex of the interviewee: |
| A. Female | 48%
| B. Male | 52

Notes

Chapter 1

1. See, for example. Almond, G., The American Public and Foreign Policy (New York: Praeger, 1960), pp. 69-87.

2. Avarbanel M. and B. Hughes, "Public Attitudes and Foreign Policy Behavior in Western Democracies," in W. Chittick (ed.), The Analysis of Foreign Policy Outputs (Columbus: Charles Merill, 1975), p. 47.

3. Yizhar, M., The Foreign Policy of the United States (Hebrew). (Tel Aviv: Am Hasefer, 1977), p. 193.

4. Merritt, R., "Public Opinion and Foreign Policy in West Germany," in P. McGowan (ed.), Sage international Yearbook of Foreign Policy Studies. Vol. 1 (Beverly Hills: Sage, 1973), pp. 255-274.

5. George, A. L., "Domestic Constraints on Regime Change in U. S. Foreign Policy: The Need for Policy Legitimacy," in 0. Holsti, R. M. Siverson, A. L. George (eds.), Change in the international System. (Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 1980), pp. 233-263.

6. Jensen, L., Explaining Foreign Policy (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1982), pp. 143, 147.

7. Ellsberg, D., Papers on the Uar (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1972), p. 12.

8. Galtung, J., "Foreign Policy Opinion as a Function of Social Position," Peace and Social Structure -- Essays on Peace Research. Vol. Ill (Copenhagen: Christian Ejlers, 1978), p. 49.

9. See, for example. Mills, C. W., The Power Elite (New York: Oxford University Press, 1956); Kolko, G., The Roots of American Foreign Policy: An Analysis of Power and Purpose (Boston: Beacon Press, 1969); Horowitz, I. L., Three Worlds of Development (New York: Oxford University Press, 1972).

10. Allison, G., "Conceptual Models and the Cuban Missile Crisis," American Political Science Review, Vol. 63 (September 1969) pp. 689-718; Paige, G., The Korean Decision (New York: The Free Press, 1968); Snyder, R., H. Brock and B. Sapin, Foreign Policy Decision Making (New York: The Free Press, 1962).

11. George, A., "The 'Operational Code:' A Neglected Approach to the Study of Political Leaders and Decision Making," International Studies Quarterly. Vol. 13 (June 1969), pp. 190-222; Holsti, 0., "The Operational Code Approach and the Study of Political Leaders," Canadian Journal of Political Science. Vol. 3 (1970), pp. 123-157.

12. Almond, p. 4.

13. Ibid., p. 5.

14. Robinson, J., J. Rusk and K. Head, Measures of Political Attitudes (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, Survey Research Center, n. d.).

15. Merritt, R., "Public Opinion and Foreign Policy."

16. Verba, S., and R. Brody, "Participation, Political Preferences and the War in Vietnam," Public Opinion Quarterly, Fall (1970), No. 34, pp. 325-332.

17. Galtung, "Foreign Policy Opinion."

18. See, for example, Lippman, W., The Phantom Public (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1925); Kennan, G., American Diplomacy: 1900-1950 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1951).

19. Caspari, W., "The 'Mood' Theory," American Political Science Review, Vol. 64 (1970), pp. 536-547.

20. Miller W., and D. Stokes, "Constituency Influence in Congress," American Political Science Review, Vol. 57 (1963), pp. 45-56.

21. Schneider, W., "Public Opinion and Foreign Policy: The Beginning of Ideology?" Foreign Pol icy (1985) No. 17, pp. 88-120.

22. Coplin, W., "Domestic Politics and the Making of Foreign Policy," in Introduction to International Politics (Chicago: Markham, 1974).

23. Keis, N., "The Influence of Public Policy on Public Opinion-Israel 1967-1974," State. Government and International Relations (Hebrew), (September 1975) No. 8, pp. 36-53.

24. Jensen, Explaining Foreign Policy, p. 144.

25. Hanrieder, W. F., "Compatibility and Consensus: A Proposal for the Conceptual Linkage of External and Internal Dimensions of Foreign Policy," American Political Science Review, Vot. 61 (1967), pp. 971-982.

26. The distinction between valence issues and position issues is well known in the political science literature. See for example, Stokes, D. E., "Spatial Models of Party Competition," American Political Science Review, Vol. 57 (June 1963), pp. 368-377; Torgovnik, E., "Party Factions and Election Issues," in A. Arian (ed.), The Elections in Israel -- 1969 (Jerusalem: Jerusalem Academic Press, 1972), pp. 21-40.

27. Jensen, Explaining Foreign Policy, pp. 71-72.

28. Scott, W., "Psychological and Social Correlates of International Images," in H. Kelman, (ed.), International Relations (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1965), p. 79.

29. Cantril, H., "Trends of Opinion during World War II: Some Guides to Interpretation," in B. Berelson and M. Janowitz (eds.), Reader in Public Opinion and Communication (New York: Free Press, 1953), pp. 83-94, and Cantril, The Human Dimension (New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 1967).

30. Avarbanel and Hughes, "Public Attitudes," p. 51.

31. Boulding, K., "Towards a Theory of Peace," in R. Fischer (ed.), International Conflict and Behavioral Science (New York: Basic Books, 1964), p. 70.

32. Holsti, K. J., "Explanations of Foreign Policy Outputs," International Politics (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1977), ch. 12.

33. Wilkenfeld, J., "Domestic and Foreign Conflict Behavior of Nations," Journal of Peace Research, (1968) No. 1, pp. 56-59.

34. Jensen, Explaining Foreign Policy, pp. 49-50.

35. Morgenthau, H., Politics Among Nations (New York: Knopf, 1963), p. 130.

36. Allison, "Conceptual Models."

37. Handel, M., "The Question of Defining the Status of States in the International System," State, Government and International Relations (Hebrew), (1976) No. 9, pp. 5-34.

38. Ben-Zvi, A., "The Limits of Coercion in Bilateral Bargaining Situations: The Case of the American-Israel Dyad," The Jerusalem Journal of International Relations. Vol. 8 (1968), No. 4, pp. 68-99.

39. Keohane, R,, "Lilliputians Dilemma: Small States in International Relations," International Organization, Vol. 23 (1969), No. 2, pp. 291-311.

40. Buzan, B., "International Restraints on the Use of Force," in F. S. Northedge (ed,), The Use of Force in International Relations (London: Faber & Faber, 1974), pp. 166-194.

41. Ibid., pp. 75-76.

Chapter 2

1. Horowitz, D. and M. Lissak, The Origins of the Israeli Polity: Palestine under the Mandate (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1978).

2. The term is found in Brecher, M., The Foreign Policy System of Israel (London: Oxford University Press, 1972).

3. Treatments of the pre-state period can be found in Laqueur, U., A History of Zionism (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1972); Lucas, N., The Modern History of Israel (New York: Praeger, 1974); Shapiro, Y., The Formative Tears of the Israeli Labor Party (London: Sage, 1976); Eisenstadt, S. N., The Transformation of Israeli Society, London, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1985.

4. Horowitz and Lissak, The Origins, p. 9.

5. Epstein, I., "The Hidden Question," (Hebrew) Hashiloh, (1908).

6. Shimshoni, D., Israeli Democracy (New York: Free Press, 1982); Horowitz, D., "The Israel Defense Forces: A Civilianized Military in a Militarized Society," in R. Kotkowicz and A. Korbonski (eds.), Soldiers, Peasants and Bureaucrats (London: George Allen, 1982), pp. 77-106; Peri, Y., Between Battles and Ballots (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983). For a sweeping overview see Harkavi, Y., Fateful Decisions (Hebrew), (Tel Aviv: Am Oved, 1986).

7. For a theoretical discussion, see Stinchcombe, A., "Social Structure and Organization," in J. March (ed.), Handbook of Organization (Chicago: Rand McNally, 1965), pp. 142-93.

8. See George, "The 'Operational Code.'"

9. Gorni, Y. The Jewish Problem and the Arab Question (Hebrew), (Tel Aviv: Am Oved, 1984), p. 248.

10. One of many sources of this point of view can be found in Herzl, T., The Jewish State, 1896.

11. Meir, G., My Life (Hebrew) (Tel Aviv: Maariv, 1975), p. 11.

12. Ben-Gurion, D., Things as they Are (Hebrew), (Tel Aviv: Am Hasefer, 1965), p. 11.

13. Eban, A. My Country (Hebrew), (Jerusalem: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, Davar edition, 1972), p. 180.

14. Yaari, M., Tests of Our Time (Hebrew) (Merchavia: Sifriyat Hapoalim, 1957), pp. 116, 121.

15. The fact that 82 percent of Israelis do not believe that a Holocaust Is again likely (see question 77 in the Appendix) stems from their belief in the Israel Defense Forces, and not in their belief that the Gentiles have changed (question 220). See endnote 23, below.

16. Begin, M., The Revolt (Hebrew) (Tel Aviv: Ahiasaf, 1950), p. 36.

17. Ibid., p. 50.

18. On the rhetoric of Menahem Begin, see Gertz, N., "Few Against ManyRhetoric and Structure in the Election Speeches of Menahem Begin," Siman Kr'ia -- Literary Quarterly (Hebrew), (April 1983), No. 16-17, pp. 106-126.

19. Don-Yehiya, E., and C. Liebman, "The Dilemma of Traditional Culture in Modern Society -- Changes and Developments in the 'Civic Religion' in Israel" (Hebrew), Megamot (August, 1984), No. 4, pp. 479-80.

20. Ibid., p. 50.

21. Meir, My Life, p. 132.

22. Tabenkin, Y., "The Danger of Destruction and the Chances of Zionist Activism," in A. Ben-Ami (ed.). The Land of Israel Book (Hebrew) (Tel Aviv: Friedman, 1977), p. 159.

23. A poll among a representative sample of Tel Aviv high school students found that 37 percent thought that the Holocaust was the most important event in Jewish history; 22 percent reported that the Holocaust was an important lesson which should be remembered when foreign and security decisions were taken; and 34 percent felt that the Holocaust teaches us not to rely on other countries where issues of security and existence are concerned. Yediot Aharonot, May 6, 1986.

The population of Israel perceives the threat of another Holocaust as low. This is evident from the survey presented in this book. When asked, "Is there or isn't there a possibility of another Holocaust of the Jewish people?" only 2 percent thought the chances iwere great and 17 percent felt that there was some possibility. 42 percent thought there was no chance at all and 40 percent said that chances were small. See question 77 in the Appendix, and endnote 15.

24. Begin, The Revolt, p. 507.

25. Avneri, U., The War of the Seventh Day (Hebrew) (Tel Aviv: Daf Hadash, 1969), p. 233.

26. Herzog, C., The Nation Shall Rise as a Lion (Jerusalem: Yediot Aharonot, 1983), p. 299.

27. Lissak, M., "Areas of Contact and Overlap between the Civilian Sector and the Military Establishment, the Volunteer Army and ttie Standing Army," State. Government and International Relations (Hebrew), (Summer 1978), p. 36.

28. Bialer, U., "David Ben Gurion and Moshe Sharett -- Two Political-Security Orientations in Israeli Society," State. Government and international Relations (Hebrew), (Fall 1972), pp. 71-84.

29. See for example Horowitz, D., The Israeli Concept of National Security (Jerusalem: Eshkol Institute, Hebrew University, 1973).

30. Meir, My Life, p. 120.

31. ibid., p. 108.

32. Tabenkin, "The Danger of Destruction," p. 162.

33. Horowitz, The Israeli Concept.

34. Kleiman, A., "Continuity and Change in Israeli Diplomacy," in B. Neuberger (ed.), Diplomacy in the Shade of Conflict (Hebrew), (Tel Aviv: Everyman's University Press, 1984), p. 50.

35. Yaari, Tests of Our Time, p. 131.

36. Eban, My Country, p. 146.

37. Heradstviet, D., Arab and Israeli Elite perceptions (New York: Humanities Press, 1974).

Chapter 3

1. The sample did not include members of kibbutzim. The survey was the first in the Public Opinion and Security Policy project, headed by Asher Arian, of the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv University. The field work was conducted by the Dahaf Research Center.

2. For comparative sources, see Mueller, J. E., War. Presidents, and Public Opinion (New York: Wiley, 1973); Mueller, J. E., "Changes in American Public Attitudes Toward International Involvement," in E. P. Stern (ed.), The Limits of Military Intervention (Beverly Hills, California: Sage, 1977), pp. 323-344; Bardes, B. and R. Oldendick, "Beyond Internationalism: A Case for Multiple Dimensions in the Structure of Foreign Policy Attitudes," Social Science Quarterly, Vol 59 (December 1978), pp. 496-508; Mandelbaum, M. and W. Schneider, "The New Internationalisms: Public Opinion and American Foreign Policy," in K. A. Oye, D. Rothchild and R. J. Lieber (eds.), Eagle Entangled: U. S. Foreign Policy in a Complex World (New York: Longman, 1979), pp. 34-88; Hotsti, 0. R., "The Three-Headed Eagle: The United States and System Change," International Studies Quarterly, Vol. 23, No, 3 (September 1979), pp. 339-359; Schneider, W., "Conservatism, Not Interventionism: Trends in Foreign Policy Opinion, 1974-1982," in K. A. Oye, R. J. Lieber and D. Rothchild (eds.), Eagle Defiant: United States Foreign Policy in the 1980s (Boston: Little, Brown, 1983), 33-64; Capitanchik, D. and R. C. Eichenberg, Defence and Public Opinion (London: Royal Institute of International Affairs and Pouteledge and Kegan Paul, 1983); Rielly, J. E., (ed.), American Public Opinion and U. S. Foreign Policy 1983, The Chicago Council on Foreign Relations (1983); Yankelevich, D. and J. Doble, "The Public Mood: Nuclear Weapons and the U. S. S. R.," Foreign Affairs. Vol 63 (Fall 1984), pp. 33-46; Schneider, W., "Public Opinion," in J. S. Nye, Jr. (ed.), The Making of America's Soviet Policy (New Haver): Yale University Press, 1984), pp. 11-35; Schmidt, P.,"Public Opinion and Security Policy in the Federal Republic of Germany," Orbis (Winter 1985), pp. 720-742.

3. See for example, Schiff, Z., and Ya'ari, E., Israel's Lebanon War (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1984).

4. Verba, S. and R. A. Brody, "Participation, Policy Preferences, and the War in Vietnam," Public Opinion Quarterly (Fall 1970), pp. 325-32.

5. Arian, A., Israeli Public Opinion and the War in Lebanon, Tel Aviv University, Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies, Memorandum No. 15 (October 1985).

6. The data in 1962 were collected for Hadley Cantril and are reported in Antonovsky, A., and A. Arian, Hope and Fears of Israelis: Consensus in a New Society (Jerusalem: Jerusalem Academic Press, 1972). The 1981 data were collected and analyzed by Asher Arian. Both of these surveys used a 10-ladder scale and referred to the over-all condition of the nation, but gross comparisons with 1986 can be made if we keep these differences in mind.

7. The American responses for the 1962 period were: past 6.5, present 6.7 and future 7.4. See Hadley Cantril, The Pattern of Human Concerns (New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 1965), Appendix B.

8. In order to avoid haggling over nuances, the question was general and left it to the respondent to define for himself whether the subject of the question was the Arab states or Arab leaders or the Arab people.

9. Cf. Daniel Yergin, Shattered Peace: The Origins of the Cold War and the National Security State (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1977), ch. 8.

10. Ben-Dor, G., "Politics and the Military in Israel: The 1973 Election Campaign and its Aftermath," in A. Arian (ed.), The Elections in Israel -- 1973 (Jerusalem: Jerusalem Academic Press, 1975), pp. 119-144.

11. See Arian, A., Politics in Israel (Chatham, New Jersey: Chatham House, 1985), chapter 12.

12. See Keis, N., "The Influence of Public Policy on Public OpinionIsrael 1967-1974," State, Government and International Relations (Hebrew), No. 8 (September 1975), pp. 36-53.

Chapter 4

1. Weber, M., Economy and Society, in G. Roth and C. Wittich (eds.), (Los Angeles, California: University of California Press, 1978), Vol. 1, chaps. 1-3; Mannheim, K., Ideology and Utopia (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1949); Richards, D. A. J., A Theory of Reasons for Action (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971), chap. 3; Ryan, A., "Maximising, Moralising and Dramatising," in C. Hookway and P. Pettit (eds.),Action and Interpretation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1972), pp. 65-80; and Lukes, S., "Some Problems about Rationality," in B. R. Wilson, (ed.), Rationality (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1974), pp. 194-213.

2. Inglehart, R., The Silent Revolution: Changing Values and Political Styles among Western Publics (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1977).

3. See the discussion in Chapter 2. Also, see Evans-Pritchard, E. E., Theories of Primitive Religion (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1965), chap. 2; Gluckman, M., "The Logic of African Science and Witchcraft," Rhodes-Livingstone Institute Journal, (1944) (also in Bobbs-MerriIt Reprint Series in Social Sciences, A-87).

4. Some of the elements are to be found in the work of Liebman, C. S., and E. Don-Yehiya, Civil Religion in Israel: Traditional Judaism and Political Culture in the Jewish State (Los Angeles, California: University of California Press, 1983); Herman, S., Jewish Identity: A Social Psychological Perspective (Beverly Hills, California: Sage, 1977),

5. For a similar discussion, see Mujtabai, A. G., Blessed Assurance: At Home with the Bomb in Amarillo. Texas (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1986).

6. Osgood, R. E., Ideals and Self-Interest in America's Foreign Relations (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1953, pp. 8-9).

7. Statistical analyses are used widely in this and in the next two chapters. In an effort to have the chapters understandable to readers whose experience with statistical method is not extensive, these and subsequent basic capsule explanations are offered. More complete explanations for the terms offered, and a discussion of the terms not given here, can be found in basic statistics texts. One such text is Nachmias, D. and C. Nachmias, Research Methods in the Social Sciences (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1981).

A construct is an abstract variable with no identifiable empirical referent. It is made up of a number of indicators. Table 4.1 lists ten constructs which are at the heart of the analyses which follow.

Factor analysis is used to locate and define a small group of constructs or dimensions among a large group of variables. It is also used to determine the degree to which a given variable is part of a common underlying phenomenon.

Reliability (as measured by the standardized item alpha) indicates the extent to which the questions "fit" or "go together" with one another. The closer the reliability score is to 1.0, the better the fit. A score above 0.6 is generally considered acceptable for a construct -

Scaling is a technique which determines whether an underlying characteristic is at the base of a number of variables. In the Guttman scaling used here, certain special properties must be present (scalability is one of them) for the scale to be acceptable. The acceptable coefficient of scalability is 0.6.

8. See for example Gabay, M., "Legal Aspects of the Camp David Framework for Peace in Relation to the Autonomy Proposal," in Models of Autonomy, Y. Dinstein (ed.), (Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University Press, p. 256).

9. Factor analysis is used to locate and define a small group of constructs or dimensions among a large group of variables. A loading is the standardized multiple-regression coefficient of a variable on a factor.

10. Converse, P. E., "The Nature of Belief Systems in Mass Publics," in Ideology and Discontent, D. E. Apter (ed.), (New York: Wiley, 1964), pp. 202-61. See also Arian, A., ideological Change in Israel (Cleveland, Case Western Reserve University Press, 1968).

11. A Pearson correlation summarizes the relationship between two variables by a single number. It indicates the degree to which change in one variable is related to change in another. The range of the correlation coefficient is between 1.0 and -1.0. If the score is 1.0 there is a perfect correlation and if it is -1.0 it is a perfect negative correlation. A coefficient of 0 indicates that there is no correlation.

12. See Duncan, 0. 0., "Path Analysis: Sociological Examples," American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 72 (1966), pp. 1-16; and Blalock, H. M., (ed.), Causal Models in the Social Sciences, (Chicago: Aldine, 1970).

13. Regression analysis derives values of the dependent variable as predicted by a linear function of the relations between the variables under examination.

14. There were two reasons for this choice. One was that the method allowed us to use only a limited number of variables. Second, other factors such as the overcome construct and the sacrifice constructs were shown in Table 4.3 to be more weakly related to other constructs of the model.

15. A standardized regression coefficient. "Beta" is a shortened version of the term. Its range is between 1.0 and -1.0.

16. A similar theme was developed in Arian, A. and M. Shamir, "The Primarily Political Function of the Left-Right Continuum," Comparative Politics (January 1983), pp. 139-58. See also Talmud, I., Between Politics and Economy: Public Consent versus Ideological Distinction in Israel, M, A. thesis, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Tel Aviv University (1985).

Chapter 5

1. Horowitz, D., and B. Kimmerling, "Some Social Implications of Military Service and the Reserve System in Israel," European Journal of Sociology. Vol. 15, no. 2 (1974), pp. 262-276; Horowitz, D., "Israel Defense Forces: A Civilized Military in a Partially Militarized Society," in R, Kalkowitz and A. Korbuski (eds.), Soldiers, Peasants and Bureaucracy (London: G. Allen & Unwin, 1982), pp. 77-106.

2. Sears, D. 0., "Political Behavior," in The Handbook of Social Psychology, vol. 5, G. Lindzey et at. (eds.), (Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 1969), pp.315-345; Nachmias, D., "A Temporal Sequence of Adolescent Political Participation: Some Israeli Data," British Journal of Political Science, vol. 7 (1977), pp. 71-83.

3. This is the general finding of the adult political socialization literature. See for example Key, V. 0., Jr., "A Theory of Critical Elections," Journal of Politics. Vol. 17, (1955), pp. 3-18; Campbell, A., "A Classification of Presidential Elections," Elections and the Political Order. A. Campbell et al. (eds.) (New York: Wiley, 1966); Mannheim, K.,"The Problem of Generations," Essays in Sociology of Knowledge, pp. 276-322. Regarding the Israeli case, see Arian, Politics in Israel; Gitelman, Z., Becoming Israelis: Political Resocialization of Soviet and American Immigrants (New York: Praeger, 1982); Shapiro, Y., "Generational Units and Inter-Generational Relations in Israeli Politics," in Israel-- A Developing Society. A. Arian (ed.), (Assen: Van Gorcum, 1980), pp. 161-79.

4. Schild, E. 0., "On the Meaning of Military Service in Israel," in M. Curtis and M. S. Chertoff (eds.), Israel: Social Structure and Change (New Brunswick, New Jersey: Transaction, 1973), pp. 419-432. This quote p. 429.

5. Kirkpatrick, S. and J. Regens, "Military Experience and Foreign Policy Belief Systems," Journal of Political and Military Sociology. Vol. 6, (Spring 1978) pp. 29-47; this quote p. 35.

6. Ibid., p. 44.

7. Peri, Between Battles and Ballots.

8. On the move to the political right see Arian and Shamir, "The Primarily Political Function of the Left-Right Continuum."

9. It is important to remember that the score totals for the constructs are presented. The three categories for each construct roughly divide the sample into thirds. The size of the middle group can be calculated by adding the high and low percentages reported in Table 5.3 and subtracting from 100%. On the formation of the constructs, see the discussion in Chapter 4.

A Pearson correlation summarizes the relationship between two variables by a single -number. It indicates the degree to which change in one variable is related to change in another. The range of the correlation coefficient is between 1.0 and -1.0. if the score is 1.0 there is a perfect correlation and if it is -1.0 it is a perfect negative correlation. A coefficient of 0 indicates that there is no correlation.

10. Using another life-experience indicator of great importance in Israel showed even weaker results. The Pearson correlations between having been in a country ruled by the Nazis during World War II and the same national security and political constructs yielded only two significant results. Perception of high threat was weakly correlated with this Holocaust indicator (.05); support for liberal policies regarding the Arabs in the territories was correlated at .06.

11. Peri, Y., "The Ideological Character of the Israeli Military Elite," State, Government and International Relations (Hebrew), (Fall 1974), pp. 142-55.

Chapter 6

1. Parsons, T., The Social System (London: Cass, 1951). For a broader summary of the sociological school regarding this issue see Berkowitz, N., Classes and their Attitudes; The Impact of Social Structure on the Formation of Socio-Economic Attitudes and Perceptions, M. A. thesis, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Tel Aviv University (1985). Empirical research in this intellectual vein includes Almond, G., and S. Verba, The Civic Culture (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1963); and the research in political science on pluralism such as Dahl, R. A., Pluralist Democracy in the United States (Chicago: Rand McNally, 1967).

2. Converse, P. E., "The Nature of Belief Systems in Mass Publics," in Ideology and Discontent, D. Apter (ed.) (New York: Free Press, 1964), pp. 206-261; Galtung, J., "Foreign Policy Opinion as a Function of Social Position," in International Politics and Foreign Policy. J. Roseneau (ed.) (New York: Free Press, 1969), pp. 551-572.

3. Weber, M., Economy and Society, Vol. 1, G. Roth and C. Wittich (eds.) (New York: Bedminster Press, 1968); Marx, K., The German Ideology (New York: International Publishers, 1939). Also Marx, K., "The German Ideology," in The Marx-Engles Reader, R. Tucker (ed.) (New York: Norton, 1978), pp. 212-218.

4. Gramsci, A., Selections from Prison Notebooks (New York: International Publishers, 1980), p. 12.

5. Althusser, L., "Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses," in his Lenin arid Philosophy and Other Essays (London: NLB, 1971), pp. 127-186; Poulontzas, N., "On Social Classes, in Classes. Power and Conflict, A. Giddens and D. Held (eds.) (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1972).

6. Miliband, R., The State in Capitalist Society (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1969).

7. See, for example, Campbell A. et al., The American Voter (New York: Wiley, 1960); Nie, N., and K. Anderson, "Mass Belief Systems Revisited: Political Change and Attitude Structure," in Controversies in American Voting Behavior. R. Niemi and H. Weisberg (eds.) (New York: W. H. Freeman, 1976); Pomper, G., Elections in America (New York: Dodd-Mead, 1970); Converse, P. E., "Do Voters Think Ideologically?" in Niemi and Weisberg, Controversies; McClosky, H., "Issue Conflict and Consensus among Party Leaders and Followers, American Political Science Review. Vol. 54 (1960), pp. 406-427; and McClosky, H., "Consensus and Ideology in American Politics," American Political Science Review. Vol. 58 (1964) pp. 361-382.

8. Golthrope, J. H., Social Mobility and Class Structure in Modern Britain (Oxford: Clarendon, 1980).

9. Abercrombie, N., and B. Turner, "The Dominant Ideology Thesis," British Journal of Sociology. Vol. 29 (1978), pp. 149-70; Mann, M., "The Social Cohesion of Liberal Democracy," American Sociological Review, Vol. 35 (1970), pp. 423-39; Weatherford, M., "Recession and Social Classes: Economic Impact on Political Opinion, Political Behavior, Vol. 4 (1982), pp. 17-31.

10. Weber, M., "Class, Status, Party," in Class, Status, and Power, R. Bendix and S. M. Lipset (eds.) (New York: Free Press, 1953), pp. 63-74; Giddens, A., Class Structure in Advanced Societies (London: Heineman, 1973).

11. Lipset, S. M., Political Man: The Social Bases of Politics (Garden City, New Jersey: Doubleday, 1960); and Lipset, The First New Nation (London: Heineman, 1963). Other sources which explore the empirical relation between social location and vote include Zuckerman, A., and I. Lichbach, "Stability and Change in European Electorates," World Politics. Vol. 25 (1977) pp. 525-51; Zuckerman, A., "New Approaches to Political Cleavage: A Theoretical Introduction," Comparative Political Studies. Vol. 15 (1982), pp. 131-44; Rose, R., "From Simple Determination to Interactive Models of Voting," Comparative Political Studies. Vol. 15 (1982), pp. 145-69; Lijphart, A., "Religious vs. Linguistic vs. Class Voting," American Political Science Review, Vol. 73 (1979), pp. 442-58. For generational effects, see Butler, D., and D. Stokes, Political Change in Britain (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1974). For Israel, see Arian, A., "The Israeli Electorate 1977," in The Elections in Israel -- 1977, A. Arian (ed.) (Jerusalem: Jerusalem Academic Press, 1980), pp. 253-76; Shamir, M., and A. Arian, "The Ethnic Vote in Israel's 1981 Elections," Electoral Studies. Vol. 1 (1982), pp. 315-31.

12. Shapiro, Y., Democracy in Israel (Hebrew) (Ramat Gan: Massada, 1978); and Shapiro, Y., "Political Sociology in Israel: A Critical View," in Politics and Society in Israel, E. Krausz (ed.) (New Brunswick, New Jersey: Transaction, 1985), pp. 6-16.

13. Arian and Shamir, "The Primarily Political Functions of the Left-Right Continuum," pp. 139-158.

14. Berkowitz, Classes and their Attitudes.

15. Talmud, I., Between Politics and Economy.

16. Statistical significance at the .05 level, for example, indicates that the probability of the relationship under investigation occurring by chance is less than 5 in 100.

A Pearson correlation summarizes the relationship between two variables by a single number. It indicates the degree to which change in one variable is related to change in another. The range of the correlation coefficient is between 1.0 and -1.0. If the score is 1.0 there is a perfect correlation, and if it is -1.0 it is a perfect negative correlation. A coefficient of 0 indicates that there is no correlation.

17. The meaning of this correlation is that choosing to retain the territories and voting for a party of the right are negatively correlated. Put differently, the more right your party choice, the more likely you are to want to retain the territories; the more you want to retain the territories, the more likely you are to vote for a party of the right.

18. For a complete explanation, see Klecka, U. R., Discriminant Analysis (Beverly Hills, California: Sage, 1980). See also Kort, F., "Regression Analysis and Discriminant Analysis: An Application of R. A. Fisher's Theorem to Data in Political Science," American Political Science Review, Vol. 67 (1973), pp. 555-59.

19. Discriminant analysis was chosen because most of the socio-economic variables available are not interval variables and because there are large qualitative differences among them. In these analyses, the direct solution was employed.

20. Klecka, Discriminant Analysis, p. 16.

21. Torgovnik, E., "Election issues and Internal Conflict Resolution in Israel," Political Studies. Vol. 20 (1973), pp. 79-96; Mendilow, Y., "Party-Clustering in Multi-Party Systems: The Case of Israel -- 1965-1981," American Journal of Political Science. Vol. 27 (1983), pp. 64-85.

22. Arian and Shamir, "The Primarily Political Functions of the Left-Right Continuum;" Talmud, Between Politics and Economy.

23. On the linkage between politics and strata formation see Burawoy, M., "The Capitalist State in South Africa: Marxist and Sociological Perspectives," Political Power and Social Theory, Vol. 2 (1981); Peled, Y. and G. Shafir, "Ethnicity and the Split Labor Market: The Predicament of Jewish Workers in Tzarist Russia," American' Journal of Sociology (forthcoming).

Chapter 7

1. This consensus is a good example of the concept "hegemony" as used by some social scientists. See, for example, Gramsci, Selections from Prison Notebooks.

2. Asch, S. E., "Effects of Group Pressure Upon the Modification and Distortion of Judgments," in Groups, Leadership and Hen: Research in Human Relations. H. Guetzkow (ed,) (Pittsburgh: Carnegie Press, 1951), pp. 177-190.

3. Milgram, S., Obedience to Authority (New York: Harper & Row, 1974). On conformity, see pp. 113-115.

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Study no. 1 Nimrod Novik, Encounter with Reality: Reagan and the Middle East During the First Term.

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