Felix Lauv
Annul mandatory service
Illegitimate orders leave no choice but to allow Israelis to make own decision
We owe much gratitude to the heads of hesder yeshivot and to their students and soldiers, for again bringing the issue of mandatory military service up for debate. Seemingly, there is no room for debate. The service duty is entrenched by law, and as we know laws need to be adhered to, or else we’ll see social order collapse.
However, we are not dealing with a regular law like all others here. It is a law that under extreme circumstances requires one to kill people. In less extreme cases one may have to hurt people or harm their property, freedom of movement, etc. – acts that regular laws bluntly forbid. Hence, it is unreasonable to demand one to adhere to such law just because it’s a law…
When we wish to examine the moral basis for the military service duty, we usually rely on the right to self-defense. It’s important to understand that this is a right, not a duty, and the right is to thwart aggression, rather than to kill the aggressor. Moreover, this right is granted to individuals. Turning it into the duty of the general public, that is, a duty to kill, is not taken for granted.
The pacifist position rejects this shift from right to duty out of hand. In purely moral terms, the pacifist stance is correct. An attempt to justify the duty to serve starts from the recognition that in our imperfect reality, there is no room for pure morality.
Within this reality, one group may find itself under attack by another group without any provocation. The only way individuals in the attacked group can realize their right for self-defense is to form a mutual defense alliance. This unwritten agreement is the only basis that a service duty can be premised upon.
It’s very important to stress that this is a defense pact. Defense alone. There is a relatively clear and acceptable definition for a situation that justified the utilization of military force: A case of a clear and present threat that cannot be lifted in any other way, as long as the utilization of force is proportional to the threat. We should note that this is a defense pact among citizens. The government is not a party to the agreement, but rather, is the “contractor” who implements it. A government, even if it was elected democratically, is not allowed to turn a defense pact into something else.
Regrettably, Israel’s leaders and top military officials have failed to internalize the existence of such pact; an agreement that is the only source for deriving military orders. The IDF’s spokesman recently firmly repeated the position whereby the army must carry out the government’s policy, whatever it is. This is precisely what the cynical declaration of Prussian thinker Carl Von Clauswitz meant: War is the continuation of policy by other means.
In many cases, the army had been utilized in contradiction to the unwritten defense pact. The orders to expel Arabs in 1948, to embark on the Sinai Campaign, to utilize an occupation mechanism in the West Bank and Gaza, and yes, also to evacuation settlements were not meant to prevent immediate danger.
I suggest referring to such orders as “illegitimate,” as opposed to “illegal.” Formally speaking, authorized commands are legal, as long as they are not blatantly illegal, as noted in the landmark ruling of the Kfar Qassem massacre. Insuordination that is perceived to be political, whether rightist or leftist, has a common denominator: Protest against illegitimate acts; acts that have nothing to do with defense.
Those who bring politics into the army are actually its leaders, who perceive their job as the people who implement policy.
So what should a soldier do when his leaders and military commanders failed to spare him the conflict between seemingly legal orders that are “blatantly illegitimate?” It appears there is no choice but to leave the decision up to that soldier.
Some will likely argue that it is impossible to manage and army that way and that national security will be undermined. These concerns have a simple answer: Annul the mandatory service duty. Honest people will still have to protest against illegitimate and immoral military acts, but they will be spared the insubordination dilemma.
Dr. Felix Lauv engages in scientific education in the framework of the Weizman Instittue’s program for young scientists
