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By Connie Hackbarth,

An aggressive public relations campaign against military draft evaders is currently being waged on billboards, television sets and computer screens throughout Israel. Entitled "Real Israelis Don't Shirk the Draft," the low point of this campaign is a brief video clip featuring secular, European Jewish Israelis in their early twenties, sitting around drinking chai during their post-military trip abroad.

A thoroughly unsophisticated method of social shaming and discipline is employed in the clip as each Israeli in turn brags about what s/he did in the military, while the obvious question of "…and what did you do?" is aimed at the only quiet, ostensibly non-veteran in the group. Even if you don't know Hebrew (and some of it is in English), watching this brief clip is most instructive in how the political and military elites of Israel would like to portray their society.

What the promoters and designers of this campaign-purportedly Tel Aviv public relations professionals acting out of concern for Israeli society-fail to grasp is that amongst the many results of the Oslo political process of the 1990's, is the successful integration of Israel into the global economy and Israelis (at least the middle and upper middle class Jewish society to which this campaign aims) into its associated neoliberal ideologies of individualism and consumerism. Ideologically and practically, there can be no return to the mythological Israel of earlier decades, which featured a highly motivated Jewish society for which sacrifice, and specifically service in the military, was a personal and communal rite of passage without which future education, social status and professional employment were unattainable. Enlistment in the Israeli military is no longer a given for today's Jewish citizens of Israel, at least a quarter of whom do not enlist in the military according to the military's own statistics.

Israeli social activists responded to the aforementioned video with one of their own, dubbed "Real Israelis Don't Shirk (the Truth)." Based on the format of the original clip, this video features Israelis sitting around and discussing why they did not serve in the military, or did not complete their military service. All of the reasons cited (and a reason is always cited, for, apparently, one is still needed after all) relate to a wholly internal Israeli discourse: the "state" does not care about me or my family or the military does terrible things to soldiers, about whom it also does not care. Ideological, political reasons are not cited by any of the 'actors' in this well-intentioned film clip, well-reflecting the current lack of socio-political alternatives to replace the splintered and cracked Zionism of the 21st century. Palestinians-as a people with individual and collective rights, our neighbors whom we have been oppressing and occupying for decades already-have no existence in this internal Israeli discourse. They do not exist and are not mentioned.

Military Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi was quoted by Haaretz on 1 August 2007 as saying that "There was also draft-dodging in the past… What's new is that the draft dodgers have lost their shame. Our mission is to make these shirkers blush with shame, and return the pride to serving soldiers." What Ashkenazi does not relate to, however, are the reasons Jewish Israeli society is more accepting of non-conscription than in the past, and how "to make these shirkers blush." It is no coincidence that the Israeli military lacks a formulated policy for dealing with this issue. Barring a comprehensive socio-cultural and political alternative that will end the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian and Syrian territories and bring about social justice and peaceful joint living for both Israelis and Palestinians, public relations jingles and catchy slogans are all mainstream Israeli society can muster.

[Via: Alternative Information Center]