Educators came to that conclusion while attending a recent three-day conference to discuss militarism in Israeli education — convened by the Hebrew University Departments of Education and Sociology and Anthropology, the Kibbutz Teachers’ College and New Point.
“A country is militaristic,” says author Rela Mazali, “when the prevailing social climate makes military, violent solutions seem logical and even preferable. A militarized society devotes large shares of its resources to war and preparation for war, and the Israeli educational system plays a primary role in perpetuating that militarism.”
Mazali is an activist in New Profile, a non-profit group that works to lessen militarism and promote civic culture in Israel. For four years she has analyzed the ways in which the army penetrates into, and collaborates with, the Israeli educational system to convey the message that military service, war, and even death seem like a normal, necessary, inevitable and even positive part of our lives.
Mazali’s research describes how army posters on bulletin boards in high schools throughout Israel compete for teenagers’ attention and boast about the benefits of the different military units. On school outings and camp-outs, students follow the routes of famous battles.
Teaching hours have been cut back, classrooms are over-crowded and parents pay out of their own pockets for “extras” such as instruction in computers or English, yet the schools devote much of the preciously short school day to preparation for the military. Soldiers, often in male-female teams and always in uniform, come into the school to tell about the army and to “prepare the students for their future army experience.”
“An Israeli parent has to give permission for a child to receive an anti-tetanus shot, but no parent is consulted when the army wants to send uniformed soldiers into the classroom to encourage students to enlist in a certain unit, or to tell about their experiences, as if the army were a summer camp,” Mazali says.
“And as a parent, you hesitate to complain. After all, even if you oppose these militaristic messages, you don’t want your child to be too different or to be rejected by his peers. That’s one of the ways that the educational system and the military work together to co-opt the parents,” she adds.
Even children’s arithmetic exercises make the army seem normal, Mazali insists. She quotes from a fifth-grade arithmetic book approved for use by the Ministry of Education.
“Of 6,340 conscripts, 2,070 asked to be assigned to the paratroopers and 1,745 asked to be assigned to commando units. How many were left?”
Says Professor Ruth Ginsburg from the Hebrew University’s department of humanities: “Most parents, teachers, principals and even pedagogical supervisors don’t ever question the militarism that is so prevalent in the educational system. In Israel, we don’t celebrate equality or democracy or solidarity on Independence Day. We celebrate the army and the military. Army bases open their gates to the public, and children climb on tanks, as though they were jungle gyms.”
“By not asking questions, by not being critical, we have let militarism and war take over our lives,” says Hagit Gur-Ziv from the Kibbutz Teachers’ College critical pedagogy department.
“Instead of thinking creatively about peaceful, constructive solutions, we follow leaders who believe that aggression and war are normal. Instead of thinking about what we could do to promote peace, we believe that war has been forced upon us and that it is inevitable.”
As an example of the collaboration between the Education Ministry and the military, Mazali points to the ministry’s program to prepare high-ranking officers from the armed and security forces to serve as educators after they are discharged. Some high profile military men, such as current Tel Aviv Mayor Ron Huldai, almost directly moved from being army brass to being a high school principal.
Says Mazali, “These men promote militarism in Israeli society. After all, for most of their adult lives, they were engaged in promoting violent, military solutions to conflicts. They view war and the preparation for war as a normal part of public life. By emphasizing their military past, they help to make military service seem attractive, especially to young men.”
So young Israeli children learn that being a good citizen means going into the army and serving their country.
“Instead of celebrating the positive messages in our heritage, we celebrate war and conflict,” says Gur-Ziv, “On Chanukah children learn about the Maccabees’ victory over the Greeks. On Purim, we celebrate our victory over the Persians and the massacre that the Jews inflicted on their enemies. On Pesach, we commemorate our victory over the Egyptians. On Lag B’Omer, we remember our war with the Romans.”
Yehoyada Amir, lecturer at the Institute for Jewish Studies at the Hebrew University, says Judaism can, and must, provide students with other, peaceful messages. He points to the teachings of Martin Buber and Yeshayahu Liebowitz, two modern Jewish thinkers who found anti-militaristic messages in their classical Jewish sources.
“Jewish texts provide examples for both militarism and for peace,” Amir says. “The question is what messages we wish to take from our sources. Will we focus on the Song of Deborah, in which three women praise war and bloodshed, or will we focus on the messages of justice and peace found throughout the Bible? It is up to us as educators to choose.”
But Judaism, he cautions, has never promoted pacifism.
“War is not always unjustified. Anti-militaristic education must be wise; of course there are situations in which we must fight to save ourselves or the ones we love. But today, there are too many religious leaders who teach that war is a value in and of itself.”