The military, ethnicity, and integration in Israel revisited

The 1960s have seen the emergence of a body of literature on the role of the military in new nations and its effects on nation-building and development Common among such studies was the belief that these armies in Asia, Africa and Latin America possessed the organizational capability, the technology, and the necessary manpower to achieve modernization and integration. The immigrants of the fifties were composed of extended families, and of entire communities which were either mobilized by emissaries from Israel, forced out by conditions in their countries of origin or swept by messianic feelings of redemption to return to the promised land. The military in Israel has been considered a “melting pot” where no ethnic distinction is made and each conscript has the opportunity more than anywhere else in the society to prove himself and his capability. In her writings, Cynthia Enloe sees ethnicity as a dynamic force which is “open to changing collective definitions and fluctuating emotional intensities”.