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The publication of the numbers, together with comments from the Israeli military spokesperson, have created a significant ”debate,” or rather, a hysterical outcry in Israel over the rising share of non-draftees, and the need to expand the pool of recruits, mainly by punishing through social and economic exclusion those who don’t join the military.

But the national debate over the threat of “deserters” has overlooked the main reason for this phenomenon: the demographic growth of the ultra-orthodox community in Israel. Study in religious schools is a ground for almost automatic exemption from military duty. Yet, Israeli journalists, politicians and the self-righteous (and self-defined) “defenders” of morality have largely chosen, instead, to target secular middle-class dodgers. These youngsters find their way out of the military mainly by going to the military psychiatrist, claiming to be unsuited for military service.

In the last 20 years, there has been a slow but steady rise in the numbers of non-drafted secular Jews, most of whom are exactly the kind of material the Israeli military is looking for: good and skilled students coming from stable backgrounds, who had the potential to become officers or do other kinds of “vital work” for the military. However, instead of taking a military path, these young men and women continue their lives, in Israel, studying in universities, finding well-paid jobs or even becoming rock and pop singers.

Yet what seems to bother the Israeli military and the mainstream politicians even more than the loss of these potential soldiers is the level of social acceptance that they enjoy in parts of Israeli society. Israel, a state that has an army that has a state, is very much based on militaristic values and the importance of “contributing to society” through military service. These values have very much been contested since the 90s, with the erosion of the social state, the fast and brutal process of neoliberalization and the continued occupation of the Palestinian territories.

Israel is locked in an ambivalent situation. Since the beginning of the Second Intifada and the bursting of the “New Middle East” fantasy bubble, nationalism and militarism are back in fashion, but, in a society that is today much more diverse and polarized; a great extent of the traditional social foundations that made national/military cohesion possible, are lacking. This crisis is one instance of a larger process that many other countries also have been undergoing during this period of transition from the “global village” capitalism of the 1990s to the militarized capitalism of the post-9/11 era.

In the ’90s, the traditional nationalist ethos weakened in concert with the weakening of the Israeli public’s social and economic security. The transition to a type of war situation at the end of the year 2000 caught Israeli society somewhat unprepared, in a condition of reduced unity and solidarity. The depth of this crisis became manifest during the last Lebanon war, in the military’s incredible level of mismanagement, both in carrying out its military task and in its provision for the civilians in northern Israel. The Israeli government and military abandoned the poor under rocket fire in damp and filthy bomb shelters, while upper-middle class families found refuge in hotels in Israel or abroad. 

All these events and processes contributed to the acceptance of the non-draftees in certain sectors of Israeli society, and made it possible for many young people, mainly from middle-upper class backgrounds, to consider not joining the military. However, Israeli Jews from lower socio-economic classes—mainly Mizrahis, and new immigrants from Russia and Ethiopia—still join the military in high numbers, largely in order to attain a better social and economic status in Israeli society.

Most of the non-draftees wouldn’t call their decision political. Neither do they show a great interest in politics, and they might even recoil from Israeli politics. For most of them, the decision not to enlist was based mainly on personal reasons and wasn’t directly connected with any thought regarding the ongoing occupation, the last war, or what is likely to come next.

Does this group of young people who avoids military service actually represent a beginning of the de-militarization of Israeli society? What kind of effect do they have on Israel’s war-politics and the continuation of the occupation?

It is still hard to say if this process has a direct impact on decision making in Israel. Sadly, the majority of Israeli society is still very much militarized and sees the military as an important part of life. Moreover, the Israeli education system works together with the military in order to fight ”desertion” by sending soldiers to secondary schools, advertising the benefits of serving, and organizing military training for students between 16 and 18 years of age.

The depoliticized character of most of the non-draftees also makes them much less of a threat to the state’s politics. They can be easily dismissed as selfish, spoiled and egoistic kids, not to be taken seriously as a group of people who diverge from the militaristic norms.

Still, the growing numbers of the non-drafted and refuseniks (conscientious objectors), as well as the decline in motivation to join combat units, does worry political leaders. Even Ariel Sharon once said in an interview that the rising numbers of leftwing refuseniks was one of the reasons for the redeployment of military outside of the Gaza Strip. Many more high-ranking officers speak about the non-draftees as a strategic threat to Israel, making it much harder to go to war, or to continue with the daily tasks of occupation.

The shrinking pool of recruits is one of the weak points in the occupation politics of Israel, and should be taken into account as a factor that might force Israel into negotiations and more dovish moves in the future. Nevertheless, as long as the phenomenon doesn’t take a clear political form by showing resistance to war and occupation in more ways than just simply avoiding service, they can be portrayed as nothing but an irritant that deserves casual admonition from the nationalist moral preachers.