The path of least resistance: Constructions of space in the discourse of Israeli military refuseniks

Discourse, Context and Media ∎ (∎∎∎∎) ∎∎∎–∎∎∎

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The path of least resistance: Constructions of space in the discourse of Israeli military refuseniks Oren Livio n Department of Communication, University of Haifa, 199 Abba Khoushy Blvd., Rabin Building, Room 8034, Haifa 3498836, Israel

art ic l e i nf o

a b s t r a c t

Article history: Received 15 September 2014 Received in revised form 24 February 2015 Accepted 27 February 2015

In this article I examine the ways in which Israeli soldiers who refuse to serve in the Occupied Territories use spatial representations and metaphors in discourse explaining their decision to refuse. Using Lefebvre’s (1995) framework regarding spaces of representation as sites of political struggle, I analyze how selective refuseniks construct the Territories as a space of pollution, irrationality, disorder and death, expressing fear that these qualities might contaminate Israeli space, and thus implicitly promoting a separatist logic of exclusion. Refuseniks employ metaphors of movement to portray the transition from ‘here’ to ‘there’ as a shift into an alternate universe, and attempt to appropriate hegemonic discursive conceptualizations associated with three culturally loaded spaces: the prison, the Jewish settlements, and Nazi Germany. The ambivalent dialectics of dominant and resistant ideologies in refuseniks’ discourse and their cultural implications are discussed. & 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Critical discourse analysis Space Israel Refuseniks Palestine Conscientious objection

1. Introduction In recent years, the impact of both the ‘discursive turn’ (e.g., Billig, 1999) and the ‘spatial turn’ (e.g., Warf and Arias, 2009) in the social sciences has been widely acknowledged. A variety of studies in different disciplines have addressed issues related to discourse and space simultaneously, examining the heterogeneous ways in which they interact. While earlier philosophical approaches to language and space had considered them to be relatively neutral or a priori ‘containers’ of social information and knowledge, more critical and poststructuralist approaches have recognized both their constructed and their constitutive nature; that is, the ways in which discourses and spaces both reflect relations of power, ideologies, and social identities, and at the same time help construct (i.e., shape, constrain, and transform) these same entities. Studies attempting to link discourses and spaces and examine their mutual interactions take different forms. Some focus on space itself as a form of discourse, considering the physical layout of space as a feature to be analyzed (e.g., Foucault, 1977). Others examine the increasingly complex ways in which spaces and discourses are intertwined in the terrains of geographical landscapes, everyday life, mobility, or performance (e.g., Falkheimer and Jansson, 2006; Jaworski and Thurlow, 2010). Still others

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examine the spatial features of language itself, such as the use of spatial metaphors (e.g., Shands, 1999). Finally, some studies explore the ways in which spaces are constructed in discourse, focusing on the ways in which discourses such as planning materials, geographical or urban planning documents, travel guides, or media texts frame and represent spaces of varying scales and the cognitive, material, and symbolic practices they are associated with (e.g., Richardson and Jensen, 2003; Searle, 2004). The present study is aligned with the latter two of these approaches, critically examining both spatial representations and spatial metaphors in one specific context—their use in discourse by Israeli soldiers who refuse to serve in the Occupied Territories (henceforth ‘refuseniks’).1 While much research has examined constructions of space in discourse, a vast majority of studies have focused on these constructions as tools in the service of power; that is, on how institutional discourses enforce logics and rationalities of space associated with maintaining the unequal relations of power associated with neoliberalism, globalization, patriarchy, and so forth (e.g., Petersen and Warburton, 2012; Searle, 2004). Far fewer studies have examined discursive constructions of space by social movements, groups, and individuals challenging these

1 There is some variation among scholars with regard to the preferred English translation for sarvanim—the commonplace Hebrew term for those who refuse to serve. While some (e.g., Helman, 1999; Linn, 1996) have used ‘conscientious objectors,’ I have chosen the more popular term generally used by the ‘refusers’ themselves. This also appears to be the favored term in most scholarly and popular discourse on the topic (e.g., Dloomy, 2005; Kidron, 2004a)

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.dcm.2015.02.002 2211-6958/& 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Please cite this article as: Livio, O., The path of least resistance: Constructions of space in the discourse of Israeli military refuseniks. Discourse, Context and Media (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.dcm.2015.02.002i

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dominant constructions and attempting to resist or subvert hegemony (for some examples, see Mohanram, 1999; Shands, 1999). In addition, this study’s focus on both discursive representations of physical space and the use of spatial metaphors in discourse is meant to highlight the complementary functions of these two discursive apparatuses. As Elden (2004: 186) notes, “Much spatial language deals with contestation, struggle and productivity. This is precisely because it mirrors the actual uses and experiences of space.”.

2. Theoretical framework 2.1. Discourses about space In his seminal work The Production of Space, Lefebvre (1995) identifies space as the primary site of political and ideological struggle. Lefebvre sees space as socially produced by social forces, with its meanings constantly negotiated materially, through spatial practices, and mentally, through discourse, perceptions, and interpretations. Lefebvre develops a conceptual triad encompassing physical, mental, and social space; it consists of spatial practice, representations of space, and spaces of representation (Lefebvre, 1995:33–39).2 As elucidated by Elden (2004: 190): The first of these takes space as physical form, real space, space that is generated and used. The second is the space of savoir (knowledge) and logic, of maps, mathematics, of space as the instrumental space of social engineers and social planners. (…) Space as a mental construct, imagined space. The third sees space as produced and modified over time and through its use, spaces invested with symbolism and meaning, the space of connaisance (less formal or more local forms of knowledge), space as real-and-imagined. [Emphases in original]. In this study I use Lefebvre’s schema to examine Israeli military refuseniks’ constructions of space in discourse. These discursive constructions take into account refuseniks’ lived experiences of the space of the Occupied Territories (spatial practice), as well as the perceptions and the symbolic meanings attached to this space (spaces of representation). At the same time, these constructions are also influenced by the more institutional and technical discourses concerning the Territories and their relation to Israel (representations of space). 2.1.1. Discourses of space in Israel and the Occupied Territories The conflict over space lies at the heart of the conflict between Israel and its neighbors, and between Zionism – as the master narrative through which most Jewish Israelis make sense of their collective identity – and the Palestinian national movement (BenAri and Bilu, 1997: 3–4). From its inception in the late 19th century, the Zionist movement has considered the quest for space to be its ideological backbone, its central goal being the establishment of a territorial homeland for the Jewish people after 2000 years of exile (Rosen-Zvi, 2004: 10). The 1947 United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine, which resolved to divide the territory between Jews and Arabs, followed by Israel’s War of Independence and its establishment as an independent state in 1948, appeared to have solved this problem. However, certain issues related to space remained problematic, in particular the fact that Israel constructs itself as both a territorially defined political state and an ethnically defined tribal state belonging to all the Jews in the world (Rosen-Zvi, 2004). The 1967 Six Day War rendered this ambiguity much more 2 The English translation uses “representational spaces” rather than “spaces of representation,” but I have followed the more accurate form. See Elden (2004: 190).

acute. In this war, Israel seized territories in the West Bank, Gaza Strip, Golan Heights, and East Jerusalem. The status of the Occupied Territories, and in particular the West Bank, has been at the center of debate within Israeli society since then, with some Israelis viewing the Territories as an asset for use during negotiations for peace, and others citing their religious and historical significance as the biblical cradle of Jewish civilization and culture, signifying and realizing the dream of the ‘Greater Israel’ (Feige, 2002). Further complicating the issue is the fact that the West Bank is sizable (approximately 5665 square kilometers, compared with Israel’s 20,770 square kilometers)3 and geographically contiguous with Israel; it does not occupy a ‘separate space’ but rather extends directly eastwards from Israel’s officially recognized borders, forming what might be viewed as the ‘belly’ of Israel. The question of sovereignty over the space of the Occupied Territories has become even more problematic due to the fact that almost since their seizure, and more determinedly after the rise of the right-wing Likud government in 1977, Israel began to settle them with Jewish residents. Today approximately 370,000 Jews reside in the West Bank (not including East Jerusalem),4 maintaining their rights as Jewish citizens and under the jurisdiction of Israeli (civil) law. At the same time, the approximately 2.7 million Palestinian residents of the West Bank live under military occupation, are under the jurisdiction of the military legal system, and their individual and collective rights are severely limited. And while Israel unilaterally evacuated its (scarcer) settlements in the Gaza Strip in 2005 and ceded control to the Palestinian Authority, the 1.7 million Palestinians residing in Gaza also remain under tight political and military regulation.5 Lustick (1993) has suggested that Israeli discourse concerning the status of the Territories be viewed from a Gramscian perspective, as an ongoing struggle over their understanding, with different groups attempting to impose their ideological definitions of spatial reality and to render them neutral and commonsensical (see also Feige, 1999). In the present study I take this Gramscian approach as a starting point, and examine military refuseniks as one group that has taken upon itself the mission of attempting to impress upon Israeli society its worldview with regard to the Territories, through a combination of both spatial practice (refusing to physically occupy the space seen as illegitimate) and spatial discourse. 2.2. Civil militarism in Israel and the refusal movement The integral link between nationality and military conflict in Israel has rendered the entire Jewish population, in essence, a “nation in uniform” (Ben-Eliezer, 2003). While some cracks have certainly appeared in the formerly taken for granted centrality of the military (e.g., Cohen, 2008; Livio, 2012), it still occupies an extremely central social role. With some exceptions, all Jewish Israeli citizens must serve a compulsory term in the military, with many continuing to serve in the military reserves. This has made military service an essential component of individual consciousness and personal identity, and the military is widely considered 3 See, for example, the Carter Center maps for Israel and the Occupied Territories. Available at: http://www.cartercenter.org/countries/israel_and_the_palestinian_territories.html. 4 This number is based upon the Israeli civil registry. The number of Jews living in East Jerusalem is more difficult to ascertain, as Israel does not distinguish between East and West Jerusalem in official publications. Current estimates put the number at around 200,000 (Dayan, 2013). 5 The figure for West Bank residents includes Palestinians residing in East Jerusalem. The size of the Palestinian population has been a topic of much political controversy, with different sides advancing divergent estimates aligned with their political objectives. The figures stated here reflect the estimates made by the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics and the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics (see Miller, 2015)

Please cite this article as: Livio, O., The path of least resistance: Constructions of space in the discourse of Israeli military refuseniks. Discourse, Context and Media (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.dcm.2015.02.002i

O. Livio / Discourse, Context and Media ∎ (∎∎∎∎) ∎∎∎–∎∎∎

to be a universal, national institution that transcends any political rift (Ben-Eliezer, 2003). In addition, this situation has instilled a military-oriented framework on civil society, with the discourse of security having become a central prism through which many Israelis’ worldviews are reflected to at least some extent. Thus scholars have argued that Israeli society is one that may be characterized as a society of civil militarism (Kimmerling, 1993). Since the military is culturally constructed as a defensive force used for survival only, however, perceived breaches of its defensive, apolitical ethos, such as the continued occupation and several military conflicts since the 1980s, have led to the increased alienation of some Israelis from the military (Cohen, 2008; Sheffer and Barak, 2010). In addition, changes in the IDF’s institutional logics, its organization and composition – as well as the influence of broader political, economic, and cultural currents – have complicated civil–military relations in general, and in particular the formal and informal interactions between the military and soldiers in compulsory service, reserve soldiers, potential conscripts, populations fully or partially exempt from service, etc. (e.g., Cohen, 2008; Livio, 2012; Rosman-Stollman and Kampinsky, 2014; Sheffer and Barak, 2010). These changing circumstances have also given rise to the birth of the selective refusal movement (Dloomy, 2005; Helman, 1997, 1999; Linn, 1996). Selective refusal is defined as an unwillingness to take part in specific military activities for moral and/or ideological reasons (Helman, 1997, 1999). Unlike those who refuse to serve in the military under any circumstances, selective refuseniks do not call into question the necessity of the military for survival, nor do they necessarily object to the central part played by the military in society. Rather, they argue that since the State has violated its contract with its citizens by forcing them to participate in immoral, politically-motivated acts of oppression, they have the right to defy it under these specific circumstances (Helman, 1997, 1999). Selective refuseniks thus do not refuse to serve in the military in general, but only to serve in specific locations. The issue of space therefore becomes central to their argument. The first selective refuseniks in Israel appeared in the late 1960s, shortly after the beginning of the occupation (Elgazi, 2004). Until the early 1980s, however, selective refusal was extremely rare, and involved a small number of conscripts coming from groups at the political margins of Israeli society, commonly the Communist Party of Israel or other radical, socialist, non-Zionist organizations (Epstein, 1999). It was only during the first Lebanon War in 1982 that selective refusal became a systematic act of political dissent by individuals and groups otherwise identified with the Israeli mainstream (Linn, 1996). During the war, over 3000 soldiers signed a declaration that they would refuse to serve in Lebanon, and 168 were jailed (Chacham, 2003; Kidron, 2004b). As noted by Epstein (1999), most of these refuseniks were in fact former soldiers who had completed their compulsory service and many years in the reserves, and approximately a fifth of them had even served as officers. This trend was also characteristic of the second wave of refuseniks, during the first Palestinian Intifada in 1987, when several thousand soldiers declared their refusal to serve in the Occupied Territories, and over 200 were jailed. This wave died down with the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993 (Kidron, 2004b). The present study focuses on the third wave of refuseniks, which arose after the outbreak of the second (Al Aqsa) Intifada in September 2000. In this wave, over 1000 soldiers either refused to serve in the Occupied Territories or declared their intent to refuse. Over 200 refuseniks were jailed.6 Similarly to the first two waves, a

6 There have also been a number of refuseniks from the right wing who protested the 2005 Israeli disengagement from the Gaza Strip, and, more recently, a

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vast majority of third wave refuseniks were soldiers from combat units, many of them high-ranking officers with significant military experience (Chacham, 2003; Dloomy, 2005). Also as with the first two waves, their treatment by the military was extremely diverse, ranging from imprisonment to various forms of negotiation, including finding ways to quietly assign them to locations not in the Occupied Territories in order to avoid attracting public attention to the phenomenon of refusal. Public and media reactions to the refuseniks have been quite complex. On the one hand, refuseniks have been severely criticized in the media and denounced as traitors or defectors by much of the public (Chacham, 2003). On the other hand, the third wave of refuseniks also received unprecedented levels of coverage, not all of which was unfavorable. This is probably due to the fact that the refuseniks mostly come from Israeli elites, have previously untarnished military careers, and possess significant organizational and public relations skills. At the same time, refuseniks have for the most part been unable to influence broad sectors of the Israeli public, and after brief spells of widespread attention, refusenik waves (including the third) have generally died down (Dloomy, 2005; Lavie, 2002).

3. Data The study focuses on spatial representations in the discourse of selective third wave military refuseniks who publicly declared their refusal. The analysis is based on the framework of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA; Fairclough, 2010; Machin and Mayr, 2012), which incorporates linguistic, social, and narrative approaches to the analysis of texts and focuses on identifying the discursive strategies through which groups negotiate social relations of power. The discourse of refuseniks is viewed as one arena in which Israeli society’s politics of space are enacted and negotiated. The sample of texts was gathered from several sources. First, refuseniks’ personal narratives were obtained from published literary anthologies (Chacham, 2003; Carey and Shainin, 2002; Hanin et al., 2004; Kidron, 2004a, 2004b),7 from their organizations’ websites,8 and from news outlets that have published refuseniks’ diaries.9 Second, interviews and news articles with refuseniks were gathered from both the refuseniks’ own websites and a computerized search of the online databases of three Israeli news sites: Ynet, Nrg, and Haaretz. Third, a variety of posters, pamphlets, refusal letters, and newspaper advertisements issued by refuseniks were examined.10 While it is impossible to evaluate (footnote continued) group of 43 elite intelligence unit reserve soldiers who have declared their refusal to collect information on Palestinians. These refuseniks are not the focus of this study. 7 Kidron (2004b) and Hanin et al. (2004) are in Hebrew and targeted at a general Israeli audience. Kidron is a general historical compilation of refuseniks’ texts from the early 1970s onwards, with 27 texts by third wave refuseniks. Hanin et al. document the statements and trials of six refuseniks charged by the military prosecutor in 2003. Kidron (2004a) is a somewhat altered English translation of Kidron (2004b), targeted at a foreign audience. Chacham (2003) and Carey and Shainin (2002) were originally published in English and are also targeted at a mostly foreign audience. Chacham has long interviews with nine contemporary refuseniks; Carey and Shainin provide a general anthology of dissenting voices in Israel by a variety of journalists, academics, authors, and refuseniks. It contains six texts by third wave refuseniks. 8 The most prominent of these is Courage to Refuse (www.seruv.co.il), which has 66 Hebrew and 18 English texts (most of which are translations) by refuseniks. 9 These include the Israeli web service Walla News, which published 37 installments of the diary of refusenik Shimri Tzameret, and the daily newspaper Haaretz, which published a diary by refusenik Shahar Smooha. 10 These have mostly been published in electronic form on refuseniks’ websites, and some have been included in Kidron (2004b).

Please cite this article as: Livio, O., The path of least resistance: Constructions of space in the discourse of Israeli military refuseniks. Discourse, Context and Media (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.dcm.2015.02.002i

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how representative this sample is of all selective refuseniks’ discourse, it is extremely comprehensive in terms of the discourse one might encounter in the public sphere either serendipitously or intentionally. All texts were examined for both spatial representations (i.e., references to specific physical spaces, real and/or symbolic) and spatial metaphors (i.e., the figurative use of words or expressions with spatial meanings or implications). The use of these representations and metaphors was then analyzed using CDA tools (e.g., Machin and Mayr, 2012), including lexical choices and their connotations, the construction of structural oppositions, different rhetorical tropes, strategies for the construction of evidentiality, and strategies for representing different places, social groups and individuals. The use of spatial metaphors was given particular attention, based upon recent research demonstrating how metaphors used in political contexts reflect both strategic linguistic choices meant to associate specific issues with conceptual domains that bear significant emotional connotations (CharterisBlack, 2006), and less conscious cognitive associations, some grounded in experiential connections, that nevertheless may serve ideological and rhetorical goals (see Hart, 2008). Following the example of the Gavriely-Nuri (2008) analysis of war metaphors in the Israeli context, I focused in particular on (spatial) metaphorical constructions that were used repeatedly by different speakers in my sample, examining how they emphasized (or blurred) specific features associated with relevant spaces or the practices associated with them.

4. Analysis 4.1. The space of experience: On the importance of ‘being there’ The most common style of argument used by refuseniks is that which employs the personal narrative, demonstrating that they have become convinced of the moral rightness of their actions through real life experience. The legitimacy of experience as a moral compass is based upon the fact that it involves actual, physical contact with (and witnessing of) the reality of the occupation. It is thus seen as grounded in both objective visual evidence and the subjective experience of authentic pain, which is associated with evidentiality and truth (Peters, 2001). As previously demonstrated (Helman, 1999), selective refuseniks thus use their military past as a resource for legitimizing their claim to moral authority, However, they do not merely mention their military past,11 but provide lengthy, highly detailed experiential accounts that are infused with a strong sense of place. Thus, for example, a text by Courage to Refuse member Avner Kochavi included very little abstract argumentation, but a meticulous physical and sensory description: I remember well the first lookout post I helped man in the town of Halhul, near Hebron. (…) The house walls were black with coffee grounds that the soldiers emptied out from the roof. The courtyard was full of human excrement and toilet paper, because it served the soldiers as their toilet. The roof was littered with piles of garbage and tins of preserves. The armored truck that brought each rota squad of soldiers would smash up the sidewalk and the entrance to the house. Whenever there was a change of guard at two in the morning, it woke the whole household, and since there was a baby in the house it would start crying. I remember the looks on the faces 11 Although they certainly do this as well: all members of Courage to Refuse signed the petition declaring their refusal referencing their military unit and rank. Many also included medals and decorations received.

of the members of the household every time I ran into them on the stairway, a look of humiliation. (Kidron, 2004a: 89; Kidron, 2004b: 144).12. The inclusion of so much sensory evidence serves to situate the moral argument within a real life physical environment, thus enhancing its epistemic modality. While the physical characteristics of the location are painstakingly described, however, the actual participants (except for the speaker) remain anonymous, thereby rendering this simultaneously a concrete physical space and an abstract space that is meant to stand in for all the space of the occupation. This is made evident in the final sentence of the text, which links the specific circumstances to their all-encompassing representativeness: “Ostensibly, there was no ‘black flag’13 over that situation, but in fact an enormous black sheet envelops any military action in the midst of a civilian population” (Kidron, 2004a: 89, 2004b: 144). As noted by Shavit (2009: 29-30), the characters in these narratives often serve as recurring, stereotypical archetypes. At the same time, specific, concrete physical spaces are meticulously described and linked to tactile impressions and emotional states of mind, thus grounding individuals’ knowledge and understanding in the field of direct experience. 4.2. The space of contamination: ‘Here’ and ‘there’ In order to argue that serving in the Territories is morally wrong, merely ‘being there’ is not enough. The audience must also understand that ‘there’ is not ‘here.’ Illustrating what Feige (1999) has demonstrated in his analysis of the rhetoric of the Israeli activist group Peace Now, this involves a strategy of ‘estrangement’ of the Occupied Territories that renders them “a different and separate object from the entity called ‘Israel’“ (Feige, 1999: 120). In similar fashion, refuseniks’ invocation of the Territories involves the construction of a structural opposition between the ‘here’ of Israel and the ‘there’ of the Territories, with clusters of positive characteristics associated with Israel and clusters of negative characteristics associated with the Territories, illustrating what Van Dijk (1998) has referred to as the ‘ideological square.’ Moreover, prolonging the occupation is seen as increasing the risk that characteristics identified with ‘there’ will seep into the space of ‘here’ and pollute it. The constructed characteristics of the two opposing spaces generally involve three interrelated themes: 4.2.1. Purity/contamination The Occupied Territories are constructed as a contaminated and impure space, one that is filthy and contagious. This construction projects an image of a social structure in which the Territories’ constructed other – Israel – is seen to be clean and healthy, albeit in risk of contamination (see Douglas, 1966). As refusenik Yaniv Iczkovitz described his experience of the Territories, “I saw Palestinian children swimming in garbage, literally. They would dive into dumpsters in search of food” (Chacham, 2003: 54). Purity and contamination are often implicated within a medicalized and/or bodily-related discourse. The space of the occupation is compared to a “cancerous tumor that is controlling us” (Kaspari, in Kidron, 2004a: 93; Kidron, 2004b: 152). 12 Where published English language versions of refuseniks’ texts exist, these have been referenced. Since translations of the Hebrew texts were sometimes inaccurate, the original texts were examined and translations revised if necessary. References point to both the original Hebrew texts and the published English language versions. 13 The “black flag” refers to an Israeli court verdict concerning the soldiers responsible for the Kafr Qasem massacre in October 1956, when 47 Arab Israeli citizens were killed by border guards for violation of a curfew they had not heard about. In countering the soldiers’ claim that they were merely following orders, the court ruled that some orders must not be obeyed for above them waves “the black flag of illegality.”

Please cite this article as: Livio, O., The path of least resistance: Constructions of space in the discourse of Israeli military refuseniks. Discourse, Context and Media (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.dcm.2015.02.002i

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Contamination is often signaled by reference to bodily waste in Palestinian space. As Omry Yeshurun wrote, “One night I had a dream. About the kid I’d dragged from his parents’ home in the middle of the night; he pissed in his pants and wept all the way to the Para’a prison” (Kidron, 2004a: 95); Likewise, Zohar Shapira recalled how he had once “been sitting covering fire in a pigsty full of shit when a small girl suddenly ran in front of me. (…) I shot a bullet above her head and luckily she stopped” (Asher, 2004). Bodily refuse may also be used more metaphorically, as when Amit Mashiach stated: “When morality is shit, everything is shit” (Michaeli, 2002). It is also related to a discourse of sickness and health. In describing the Al Itihad Palestinian hospital in Nablus, Blum (2003) wrote of “The Palestinian doctor wearing a nozzle, the wounded man found and interrogated in his bloody bed. (…) I feel an awesome nausea. Unable to hold it back, I throw up and cry outside the hospital walls.”. A closely related structural opposition is that constructing Palestinian space as the space of death and Israeli space as the space of life. The link between this construction and that of sickness and health is often emphasized. Thus, for example, Blum’s text just quoted ends with the statement: “Two days later our friend Beni Meisner died in the Casbah at Nablus,” creating a symbolically inseparable tie between the Territories as a space of sickness and the Territories as a space of death. Similarly, Idan Kaspari (in Kidron, 2004a: 92; Kidron, 2004b: 151) wrote: On July 3, 1983 I killed three people. (…) They were innocent civilians in an occupied land. (…) My friends and I who killed these three people in cold blood did not wish to kill. But neither did we care. (…) We murdered them without blinking an eyelid, the way you crush a passing ant. [Emphasis in original]. In contrast, Israeli space is constructed as one of life, albeit one that is constantly threatened by the possible invasion of Palestinian death. This is most obviously evident in the reference to Palestinian suicide bombers entering Israeli space, a theme that recurs frequently in texts by refuseniks. More implicitly, Kaspari finished his account of murder cited above by creating another discursive opposition between spaces of death and spaces of life: On July 3, 1998 my first daughter was born. I did not notice the identical dates until a few weeks ago when I glanced at a diary I had written during my military service. Fifteen years after taking a life, I created a new life. (…) In order to protect my daughter’s life I must do everything I can to keep death away from the world. (…) Refusing to collaborate with the occupation is part of my modest contribution to the preservation of life. (Kidron, 2004a: 94; Kidron, 2004b: 153). 4.2.2. Rationality/irrationality The medical discourse of physical sickness and health is reinforced by a similar discourse of mental health, which involves conceptualizations of rationality and irrationality, sanity and insanity. In the discourse of refuseniks, Israel and the Occupied Territories are two spaces with separate logics. Within Israel, rationality generally prevails, except for the cases in which it is invaded by the logic of the Territories (see Feige, 1999: 120–121). Across the Green Line, however, a strange and illogical reality exists. As Assaf Oron wrote, this is: That strange no-man’s land created in 1967 and now known as ‘the Territories.’ We have created an entirely hallucinatory reality, in which the true humans, members of the nation of masters, could move and settle freely and safely, while the subhumans, the nation of slaves, were shoved into the corners, kept invisible, and controlled under our IDF boots. (Chacham, 2003: 17).

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Whereas Israel is governed by laws, in the Territories “there’s no law and no citizenship” (Ishay Rosen-Zvi, in Chacham, 2003: 130–131). And given the existence of no law, morality is nonexistent. As Yaniv Iczkovitz explained, “You can’t be moral in Gaza. It’s a contradiction in terms” (Chacham, 2003: 53). Shavit (2009) has referred to this construction of the Territories as an abnormal, lawless, chaotic realm as reflecting Camus’ (1958) definition of the absurd as arising from the conflict between two alternate realities. In this case, the structural discursive opposition between Israel and the Territories serves not only to demonstrate the immorality of the occupation, but also to legitimate Israeli space as one in which rationality and morality prevail. Thus, even in critiquing Israeli policies in the West Bank, the refuseniks implicitly construct them as a strange anomaly that is detached from Israeli reality as a whole. 4.2.3. Order/disorder Finally, the discourse of moral and rational chaos is accompanied by one of physical disorder. The most common occurrence of this is in descriptions of searches of Palestinian homes by soldiers, which inevitably boil down to a depiction of violent spatial disarray. As Guy Grossman recalled: A search means coming into a home at night, yanking people from their beds, pushing a family into a corner, and holding a gun to the father’s head. The kid screams and pees in his pants, so the grandmother starts screaming too. You smack her, and threaten to silence her with a gun, so she won’t wake up the whole neighborhood. After all, you have to search the neighbors’ houses too. (Chacham, 2003: 80–81). The events and characters of a specific search are discursively constructed as prototypical, and the Territories become a space of random, pervasive violence. Descriptions of arbitrary shootings, often disregarding the IDF’s official rules of engagement, and frequently with no apparent goal, abound. This helps construct the image of the Territories as a disorderly space within which no rational logic is maintained, with the physical attributes of lived space (spatial practices) signifying the symbolic (im)moral characteristics of these spaces as spaces of representation (Lefebvre, 1995). 4.3. Representations of movement, transition, and invasion The structural opposition between Israel and the Occupied Territories is accentuated through the use of descriptions and metaphors of movement and invasion focusing on the transition between the two spaces. These representations and metaphors highlight an important fact: in the discourse of most refuseniks, while reality in the Territories is immoral, the more problematic aspect is the blending of two distinct spaces into one. This is obvious in refusenik discourse focusing on what the occupation is doing to ‘us,’ rather than to Palestinians; the danger is that the occupation incurs “on us, [an] erosion of moral values, collapse of the economy, misery for the needy” (Yesh Gvul advertisement, Haaretz, January 25, 2000); the fear is that the occupation is becoming “a residue accumulated in our subconscious, (…) a filter through which we experience the world” (Shimri Tzameret, in Hanin et al., 2004: 96); that the two spaces have become inseparable, and that therefore continued pollution is unavoidable. The spatial constructions of movement employed by the refuseniks take into account both the geographic proximity between the two spaces and their discursive opposition as separate universes. Thus, moving from one space to the other is simultaneously constructed as both extremely easy, involving only a short drive, and unbelievably difficult, involving a shift into an alternate universe. On the one hand,

Please cite this article as: Livio, O., The path of least resistance: Constructions of space in the discourse of Israeli military refuseniks. Discourse, Context and Media (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.dcm.2015.02.002i

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“The Palestinians are painfully close to us” (Assaf Oron, in Chacham, 2003: 17); on the other, “Going from Tel Aviv to Gaza, I felt like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” (Ishay Rosen-Zvi, in Chacham, 2003: 124). Here too, on the discursive level, spatial practice (physical, lived space) and symbolic space (spaces of representation) become indistinguishable. To reconcile the seemingly contradictory fusion of closeness and distance, a liminal, transitional space in which the transformation from ‘here’ to ‘there’ occurs is constructed. This space is fundamentally metaphorical, but in many cases it is also concretized in the form of actual boundary points, barriers, or vehicles of transition. These entities function as types of thresholds, and as such are both uncertain and dangerous (Van Gennep, 1960). Assaf Oron described the transition from man to beast that occurs in such liminal spaces: Already on the bus ride to the Gaza Strip, the soldiers were competing to see whose ‘heroic’ tales of murderous beatings during the Intifada were better (in case you missed this point, the beatings were literally murderous: beating to death). (Carey and Shainin, 2002: 141). In some cases liminal spaces are represented by border markers, which are characterized by moral corruption and violence (Douglas, 1966). Two such physical markers that appear recurrently are the separation wall (in Israeli terminology, ‘fence’) built to divorce Israel from the Territories, and the military checkpoints at which soldiers decide whether Palestinians will be allowed entry into Israel. As Rami Kaplan recounted: The regiment commander dictated the policy to restrict Palestinian laborers from entering Israel: “Kill them on the fence.” That was the new policy. Why on the fence? Because the regulations for opening fire are more lenient there. Once they cross that line, the regulations make it harder to shoot and kill them. The regiment commander kept repeating, “Kill them on the fence” like a mantra. (Chacham, 2003: 40). Border points are represented as places where moral anarchy reigns. Interestingly, however, what the regiment commander is ordering concretely is what the refuseniks themselves argue for abstractly: stopping the invasion of Palestinian space into Israeli space. 4.4. Three unique places Three specific locations repeatedly come up in the discourse of selective military refuseniks, and are thus invested with special significance. These are the prison, the Jewish settlements in the Occupied Territories, and Nazi Germany. While all three locations are actual, physical spaces, their cultural import is derived from their symbolic status. 4.4.1. The prison and the space of freedom The prison occupies a central place in refusenik discourse, most notably since it is the place where they may be – or, in some cases, already are – jailed. In this capacity, the prison is the place of spatial restriction and oppression. In the words of refusenik Ori Tokker-Mimon (2003), it is the place of “distress, deprivation of freedom, life stopping and entering a routine that you have no control over”; or as Shimri Tzameret (2003) put it, “Prison is shit, or like it says on the toilet wall, ‘They told me Military Prison No. 6 is a whorehouse, but they didn’t tell me we’re the whores.’”. It is the prison’s symbolic use as a space of representation that is more significant, however, as it serves as a metaphor for the entire reality of the occupation. As Assaf Oron wrote about Gaza, “The people were captives, allowed neither entry nor exit. I knew such an imprisoned population was a ticking time-bomb” (Chacham, 2003: 29). Discursively, then, it is everyday life – normally associated with freedom – that is constructed as a prison; and paradoxically, it

therefore follows that the lived space of the prison becomes, for refuseniks, the space of freedom, as it is the only place where they are liberated from having to take part in the occupation. This connection was made eloquently by some jailed refuseniks. As David Chacham– Herson (in Chacham, 2003: 137, 149) explained: I am imprisoned, and yet I feel more freedom than most Israelis I have known. (…) [Prison] was a liberating place for me. Go against your conscience, and that will imprison you. Since I didn’t act against my conscience, I felt like a free man in prison. Likewise, Matan Kaminer (in Kidron, 2004a: 118, 2004b: 204– 205) wrote: Israel today is a prison. The worst kind of prison is the invisible kind. We cannot see our prison (…) because we are blind. (…) The most suffocating kind of prison is made of glass. (…) Today I’ll be going to another kind of prison, a kind made of cement and tent canvas, of barbed wire fences and the uniforms of prison guards. It’s called Military Prison No. 4. I’m glad to be going because, finally, my prison will be visible. In Military Prison No. 4, I may develop a miraculous sense of sight. Hope and experience both show that sight is an infectious trait. My goal is an epidemic of seeing people who will tear down the walls of separation with their sense of sight. Soon a critical mass of seeing people will have collected. All of a sudden, everyone will be able to see the prison. Even the guards will realize that they, too, are prisoners. And the prison will be gone. The implication of the prison metaphor with the notion of seeing recalls Foucault’s (1977) view of the panoptic prison as a leitmotif of authoritarian society. By overturning society’s dominant dichotomy of freedom and confinement, however, the refuseniks break down the traditional conceptions of power and control. They discursively re-appropriate the space of prison from the State and convert it into their own space of freedom and vision. By extension, they implicate the end of the occupation with another metaphor of movement: that of breaking out of prison. 4.4.2. The Jewish settlements and the space of immorality Since the beginning of the Jewish settlement movement in the Occupied Territories, the settlers have attempted to portray themselves as followers of the pioneer settlers of Israel, highlighting their connection to the land and their alleged native status. The region’s Palestinian residents were constructed as incidental inhabitants with no religious or historical ties to the place (Feige, 2002). Refuseniks’ discourse aims to discredit these conceptions by creating another structural opposition, in which the Palestinians are native inhabitants and the settlements are random and haphazard. As described by Assaf Oron: The Jewish settlements looked like a nightmare. Skeletons of unfinished houses were scattered in the middle of nowhere. Israeli estate agents had come to buy land from Palestinians and sell it to Jews. (…) The contractors took the money from clients who had paid for the villa of their dreams, on rocky hills, and then fled abroad. The ugly, half-built houses stayed behind. The settlements looked disjointed and barren. (Chacham: 26–27). In Israeli discourse, the Jewish settlers have continuously attempted to claim that the space they occupy is part of the homeland. Their most emblematic slogan has been “Yesha Ze Kan,” literally translated as “Judea, Samaria, and Gaza are here,”14 therefore symbolically appropriating the land both by using the West Bank’s historical Jewish, Hebrew name and by claiming that 14 In Hebrew, “Yesha” is an acronym of “Judea, Samaria, and Gaza,” which also means “salvation,” thereby implying that the settlers are the saviors of Israel.

Please cite this article as: Livio, O., The path of least resistance: Constructions of space in the discourse of Israeli military refuseniks. Discourse, Context and Media (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.dcm.2015.02.002i

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it is ‘here’ (Feige, 1999). As portrayed by refuseniks, however, the settlements are “colonies smothering the Palestinian cities and villages.” They thus become part of the contaminated, irrational and immoral other of the Territories. They are “a bone lodged in Gaza’s throat, (…) run by a small number of deranged people” (Rami Kaplan, in Chacham, 2003: 42), and “the cancer which eats away at the Israeli social body, (…) a messianic cult in charge of the land theft and expulsion enterprise” (Sergio Yahni, in Carey and Shainin, 2002: 137; Kidron, 2004b: 31). Moreover, they are denied their religious status, which is normally implied due to the settlers’ commitment to Jewish orthodoxy. Instead, the space they occupy becomes profane, described as “Sodom and Gomorrah” (Guy Grossman, in Chacham, 2003: 70) and “Eden turning into Hell” (Rami Kaplan, in Chacham, 2003: 42). 4.4.3. Nazi Germany and the space of traumatic memory Finally, a third space invoked is that of Nazi Germany. This space is particularly controversial in Jewish Israel, which has traditionally constructed itself as a community built on Nazi victimization (Segev, 1993; Zertal, 2005). The selective refuseniks have entered this highly charged discursive scene, and sometimes identify the spaces and bodies encountered in the Occupied Territories with those in the ghettoes and concentration camps. This may be done implicitly, as when Yonatan Shapira referred to “a population caged in fences and camps, shot at by a massive, terrifying army” (in Kidron, 2004b: 185–186); or more overtly, as when Guy Grossman wrote: “I see Germany right in front of me. And I hate being told that we shouldn’t make the comparison” (Chacham, 2003: 84). In making this connection, the refuseniks challenge spatial and historical politics claiming the Holocaust’s unique nature and the proscription on extending the applicability of lessons learnt from it to other locations; rather, they embrace the more cosmopolitan “transposition of Holocaust memory onto contemporary sensibilities [and the] mapping [of] Holocaust memories onto the continuous conflict between Palestinians and Israelis” (Levy and Sznaider, 2002: 99–100). The reference to Nazi Germany is closely implicated with a discourse of knowledge. Just as many Germans claimed they did not know what was going on during the Holocaust, the refuseniks assert that Israelis choose to avoid knowledge of what is going on in the Occupied Territories. The refuseniks thus take on the moral responsibility and obligation of dispatching this unwanted knowledge (see Katriel and Shavit, 2011). As Guy Grossman wrote: The Israeli public makes these rationalizations every day to avoid what’s really going on. That’s exactly what happened in Germany. The Germans didn’t want to see the chimney smoke. It was something that was happening at a distance, in Poland. They got up in the morning, went to work, and didn’t know what was going on in the camps. (Chacham, 2003: 84). As a result, the refuseniks’ actions become spatial acts of transmission and transport, whose goal is to compress the conceptual distance between the Territories and Israel while maintaining the physical distance. The refuseniks are carriers of the knowledge that no one wants to possess, or what Taussig (1999: 50) refers to as the “public secret”: “that which is generally known but cannot be spoken”; as such, they see themselves as tortured martyrs willing to travel back and forth between the two spaces of Israel and the Territories, a journey that no one else is willing to undertake. 5. Conclusion: Between hegemony and resistance The view of refusal as a journey between two separate territories is a spatial metaphor positioning the refuseniks in an

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in-between, liminal stage. It is in this stage that they see themselves as visionaries of social change, experiencing a sense of social unity or communitas in which people may initiate an antistructural form of societal change (Turner, 1969). In the process of becoming a refusenik, the realization that others share one’s convictions is a spiritual pinnacle, a constitutive moment in which “I discovered that I was not alone. Like discovering life on another planet” (Assaf Oron, in Carey and Shainin, 2002: 143). This moment is then transformed into a moment of active refusal, which is again often expressed through the use of a variety of transgressive spatial metaphors. Refuseniks repeatedly talk about “crossing the line,” “crossing the border,” “breaking away from the pack,” or “breaking ranks.” As Assaf Oron explained his decision, “The most difficult thing is to break ranks. But once you become aware that what you’re doing is a crime, that barrier is removed” (Chacham, 2003: 30). The movement is one that breaks the refusenik free from the cramped reality of the occupation into the open space of moral freedom. At the same time, the spatial metaphors employed by refuseniks are quite commonly masculine and militaristic—refuseniks cross lines into another territory, endure physical battles with society, or walk away from one (military) combat unit in order to join another (activist) unit. Thus, for example, the signatories of a 2003 petition explained that “We have long ago crossed the border from those fighting for their righteous way and have come to the border of those fighting for the oppression of another people. We shall not cross this border again” (Mualem and Harel, 2003). These are thus double-edged discursive spatial mappings: while suggesting new paths for resistance, they are also grounded in the same militaristic materiality of more traditional, hegemonic modes of thought. These complex formulations reflect the ambivalent position selective refuseniks occupy in the Israeli sphere, as well as their ambivalent attitudes toward Israel and the Territories. Refuseniks have strategically positioned themselves both on the outskirts and at the center of Israeli society: highlighting their military experience to legitimate their claims, while simultaneously subverting the supremacy of military rationale; discursively distancing themselves from the occupation while constructing structural oppositions in which Israel is superior to the Territories. As noted by Lomsky-Feder et al. (2008: 602), this may also partially be a result of the fact that most selective refuseniks are reserve soldiers, thus occupying a unique social position that simultaneously “reproduces social conceptions about the military – it clearly replicates hierarchies and is based upon martial considerations – and has a subversive potential to undermine these very pecking orders and concerns.”. These complicated constructions demonstrate the cultural resonance of dominant discourses and their commonsensical nature. As Lakoff and Johnson (1980) have shown, metaphors – including spatial metaphors – often reveal a given society’s dominant modes of thought implicitly; selective refuseniks can certainly be expected to share these perceptions. Lefebvre (1995) has also demonstrated how society’s dominant discourses of space, realized as conceived representations of space and perceived spaces of representation, can never be fully escaped. Indeed, refuseniks for the most part are not subversive in their fundamental conceptualization of spatial relations between Israel and the Territories. Explicitly rejecting perspectives underlining the shared aspects of Israeli–Palestinian existence, refuseniks generally project a hegemonic, separatist view clearly distinguishing between Israel and the Territories. If a link between the two spaces exists, it is perceived as a dangerous blending of categories polluting the Israeli landscape (Douglas, 1966). This is a hegemonic view that is shared by much of the Israeli Left and Right. It is also reminiscent of the separatist tendencies of other seemingly subversive spatial discourses employed by resistant social movements, as demonstrated for

Please cite this article as: Livio, O., The path of least resistance: Constructions of space in the discourse of Israeli military refuseniks. Discourse, Context and Media (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.dcm.2015.02.002i

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example by Mohanram (1999) in her analysis of multicultural feminist discourses, or by Feige (1999) in his analysis of the Israeli activist group Peace Now. While these limitations are reflective of most refusenik discourse, exceptions do exist. Thus, Courage to Refuse member Tal Belo (in Chacham, 2003: 63–65) provides an imaginative antidote to these dominant discourses. While Belo’s narrative about the Territories is also infused with an extremely strong sense of place, unlike most refusenik discourse it emphasizes structural similarities rather than oppositions. As Belo explains in an interview (Chacham, 2003: 73–75): You can build a physical border, but not a spiritual one. The reason I’m still living here, instead of in Australia or New Zealand, is my longing for these places and for being there with them. I am kind of an Arab! I was born in this place. Every year, I experience the same salty heat waves they do. (…) Gaza is a beautiful place. It’s magical. (…) The Oslo plan was to divide the land. They’re over there in their own state, and we’re here in ours. You can’t put up electric fences between us. The people who suggest that we do so are the same people who still demonize the Arabs. That’s nonsense! Our dream is to live in this area. If we don’t learn to get along with the Arabs, we won’t be able to live here. Belo here unsettles the dominant discourses of knowledge associated with Zionism and most of the refusenik movement. Accentuating the shared personal experience of Israelis and Palestinians, Belo suggests the existence of an interimplicated space without borders and fences, in which he himself is “kind of an Arab!” Such discursive constructions, however, are extremely rare. While demonstrating the transgressive potential of refusenik discourse, they also highlight the limited range of perspectives it normally encompasses. References Asher, I., 2004. Thanks to the refuseniks we will eventually leave Gaza. Ma’ariv 7, May (daily newspaper article), (Hebrew). Ben-Ari, E., Bilu, Y. (Eds.), 1997. Grasping Land: Space and Place in Contemporary Israeli Discourse and Experience. State University of New York Press, Albany. Ben-Eliezer, U., 2003. Civil society and military society in Israel: neo-militarism and anti-militarism in the post-hegemonic era. In: Al-Haj, M., Ben-Eliezer, U. (Eds.), In The Name of Security: The Sociology of Peace and War in Israel in Changing Times. University of Haifa Press/Pardes, Haifa, pp. 29–76 (Hebrew). Billig, M., 1999. Freudian Repression: Conversation Creating the Unconscious. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Blum A. (2003) Memories from Nablus—February 1989. Available at: 〈www.seruv. org.il/english/signer_article.asp?sid=93〉 (accessed 30 August 2014). Camus, A., 1958. The Myth of Sisyphus, and Other Essays. Knopf, New York. Carey, R., Shainin, J. (Eds.), 2002. The Other Israel: Voices of Refusal and Dissent. The New Press, New York. Chacham, R., 2003. Breaking Ranks: Refusing to Serve in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Other Press, New York. Charteris-Black, J., 2006. Britain as a container: immigration metaphors in the 2006 election campaign. Discourse Soc. 17, 563–581. Cohen, S.A., 2008. Israel and its Army: From Cohesion to Confusion. Routledge, London. Dayan D., 2013. The settlements: And These are the Real Numbers. 5 November. Available at Haaretz, (accessed 05.01.15) (Hebrew) (newspaper article) 〈http:// www.haaretz.co.il/.premium-1.2157891〉. Dloomy, A., 2005. The Israeli refuseniks: 1982–2003. Isr. Aff. 11 (4), 695–716. Douglas, M., 1966. Purity and Danger: An Analysis of the Concepts of Pollution and Taboo. Routledge and Kegan Paul, London. Elden, S., 2004. Understanding Henri Lefebvre: Theory and the Possible. Continuum, London. Elgazi, G., 2004. Listening to the voice of refusal. In: Hanin, D., Sfard, M., Rotbard, S. (Eds.), The Refuseniks Trials: The Military Prosecutor Versus Haggai Matar, Matan Kaminer, Shimri Tzameret, Adam Maor, Noam Bahat, and the Military Prosecutor Versus Yonatan Ben Artzi. Bavel, Tel Aviv, pp. 11–35 (Hebrew). Epstein, A.D., 1999. The battle for legitimacy: the development of conscientious refusal in Israel from the establishment of the state to the Lebanon War. Isr. Soc. 1 (2), 319–354 (Hebrew). Fairclough, N., 2010. Critical Discourse Analysis: The Critical Study of Language, second ed. Longman, London.

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Please cite this article as: Livio, O., The path of least resistance: Constructions of space in the discourse of Israeli military refuseniks. Discourse, Context and Media (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.dcm.2015.02.002i