‘Drafted in Death’ Bereaved Parents, Secrecy and the Challenge of Military Hegemony

Abstract

This article illustrates the process of democratization and clarity in the Israeli national security arena throughout the years and the penetration of ‘military monopoly’ concerning security policy design by civil social movements. It is viewed in the broader context of a trend from collective to liberal values and civil society’s permeation of the state’s public policy arena. Those institutional developments are being illustrated by observing the case study of bereaved parents-military relations in Israel. Three models of public behavior exhibited by parents of fallen soldiers in Israel: the ‘hegemonic bereavement model’ that emerged after the War of Independence (1948); the ‘political bereavement model’ that appeared in the wake of the Yom Kippur War (1973); the ‘no-confidence model’ that materialized following major accidents and revelations of negligence during the 1990s. These paradigmatic behaviors emerge in the wake of crisis situations that took a heavy toll in military dead and wounded. The article traces the public initiatives of those bereaved parents who, following their personal tragedy, became social and media activists and formulators of public consciousness.