The Parental Paradox (I like a bit of alliteration in a title)

As an English teacher, I like to point out to my pupils that technology tends to develop at a quicker pace than language leaving us with words and expressions that refer to devices and practices that no longer exist. Take telephones for instance. We still “dial” numbers rather than press them even though phones haven’t had dials for at least 20 years now. Also when we finish a conversation we “hang up” the phone, harking back to the time when people would literally hang the receiver up on the telephone stand.

In Israel, an example of this is the “Manila”, the letter that prospective recruits get telling them of their choices of units to serve in the army. Although manila envelopes went out of use in the army years ago, the name lingers on. 

The army obviously differs in the way it treats its female and its male recruits. The girls after their preliminary interview get a “manila” containing the various options that the army offers them personally. The higher the girl is rated by the army, the more varied and interesting her choices will be. Our eldest, Hadas , who is currently doing her military service made us proud by being sent what was considered to be a “good manila” which contained interesting and challenging options (many girls simply spend two years as office clerks not doing too much.) She had to rank them in order of preference.

One of the positions that was suggested to her was to serve in a unit that does liaison with foreign forces. She put this first and was asked to go to Tel Aviv for a day of interviews. She came back looking rather disappointed. Although she hadn’t yet been rejected she knew that her chances of being accepted were slim as all the other candidates knew at least one other foreign language apart from English.

Her second choice was to serve in the Medical Corps. She had her heart set on some job which was liaising between the families of injured soldiers and the army, but when she was asked by the army if she wanted to train to be a medic, I advised her to go for it. I told her that firstly it was a position which would give her skills that would be useful in civilian life and that everyone who hears that she is a medic would be impressed by this. Reluctantly, she agreed. Even today a year into her military service after she has proven herself in her job, she still gets annoyed when I give her the knowing paternal smile that says “I told you so” when anyone she tells about her being a medic makes approving noises.

For boys, though, the situation is different. Amichai, our number 2, who will be joining up at the end of this year also got a “manila” after going through preliminary medical check-ups and interviews. His, however, was a standard form sent to all those who are found to be combat-fit in which he had to choose and rank in order of preference the fighting units in which he wished to serve. After filling out the form, the army either decides where the boy will serve or sends the prospective recruit to a pre-army training course for a few days to see whether he is suited to an elite unit.

The first question was the most important. Its purpose was to gauge his level of motivation to serve in a combat unit. Like most of his friends, most probably, Amichai chose the number that signified the highest level of motivation and proceeded to tick off all the toughest infantry units as the ones in which he would prefer to serve. And like many of his friends, he has been sent a letter informing him that he has been chosen to participate in a pre-army training course. The fact that the army even considers you for an elite unit is considered to be prestigious.

It is at this point that a paradox becomes evident. If I take a step back and try to think "normally", there should be no way that this situation should cause anything but anguish for me as a father. My son wants to go to the army and is prepared to serve in a unit which will, no doubt, place him in life-threatening circumstances. And I am happy about this. Am I out of my tiny mind? My normal parental instincts should be to protect my children from all dangers, yet here I am telling people proudly that he could be joining an elite military unit.

Anyone reading this who does not live in Israel or who has not experienced life here will find it hard to understand why a parent should not object to their son’s being prepared to put his life in danger. To describe this merely as patriotism would be facile.

Israeli society has a very ambivalent attitude to the army. For a country under threat that relies on military strength for its survival, its citizens are very non-militaristic. Those who join combat units, both elite or regular, are not necessarily fire-breathing hard-line right-wingers who see every inch of the Land of Israel as holy and non-negotiable and would like to see it rid of all non-Jews by any means.

I have noticed, for instance, that whenever the arrival of a foreign dignitary is shown on television and the army provides a guard of honour, the music that is played by the military orchestra whilst the VIP is inspecting the guard is Naomi Shemer’s famous song “Machar” (Tomorrow.) The chances are that the foreign dignitary has much more on his mind than to ask what the music is, which anyway sounds like a regular military march in the way it is played by the band. The words to the song, however, convey a utopian vision of the future, one in which naval destroyers will be used only to export oranges. This might seem a strange choice of song for a military band to play as it envisages a time when armies will be redundant. The IDF, it appears, regards itself as a necessary evil.

Yet the problem is that military service is still seen as an integral part of an Israeli’s CV. What one did in the army can have far-reaching implications in one’s civilian life.  Take, for instance, all those former army generals who attained top political positions. Both Ehud Barak and Benyamin Netanyahu were members of the elite “Matkal” commando unit. The late Yitzhak Rabin was able to make political capital from his long distinguished military service, especially from the fact that he had been Chief of Staff during the 6-Day War. Menachem Begin and Yitzhak Shamir had their military experience as members of the Jewish Underground during the British Mandate to help them to further their political careers. It is little surprise, therefore, that much of the criticism that has been thrown at Israel’s elder statesman, Shimon Peres, has included barbs at the fact that he never served in the army. 

When I first arrived in Israel as an 18 year old who had just finished school in a country where there hadn’t been National Service for around 20 years and one in which even policemen didn’t carry guns, the sight of so many armed soldiers mingling with the civilian population that was going about its daily life was strange to me. In time, it became an inseparable part of regular life and I realised that if I were to become an Israeli, I would have to go the army and a year later I found myself starting infantry basic training rather than university as most of my friends back in Blighty were doing.

I wouldn’t say that I had an illustrious military career, but I did serve in a combat unit and continued to do so for around 20 years as a reservist. When I got out of the regular army, I found that one’s military service formed a major part in the way people related to you. Those immigrants who had not yet gone to the army felt that they were being kept out of the loop. I could sit down with other Israelis of my age and join in conversations which inevitably centred on army experiences. Going off for a month’s reserve duty each year only served to remind people that in spite of the fact that I hadn’t been born in the country (Israelis can be an exclusive lot), I was, in fact, one of them.

No less important, it seems, is what your children are doing in the army. Few Israelis want to have a child who is a conscientious objector or whom the army doesn’t want for reasons of compatibility. Telling people that your child isn’t serving his country is tantamount to saying that you haven’t brought up your kids properly. One’s capability as a parent is judged on the basis of the elite status of the unit in which one’s child serves. The more danger that you are prepared to see your child placed in, the better parent you are.

Sometimes I wonder how I would feel if Amichai were to have come home and said that he didn’t want to serve in a combat unit or in the army altogether. We have never really spoken about these issues at home and none of my kids have expressed any extreme political opinions. If anything they always joke about us being “left-wing”.  His decision to serve in a combat unit was most probably influenced not only by his friends all of whom have their hearts set on elite units, but also by seeing his father leave home for a month’s reserve duty each year when he was younger. This taught him that the army is part of our routine here in Israel and everyone has to play his (and her) part.

This, therefore, is one of the biggest paradoxes of life here. On one hand, I want to keep my kids safe and bring them up to be peace-loving citizens. On the other, I do nothing to dissuade them from making decisions that will endanger their lives and am proud of them for doing so. Telling people that a son is serving in a particularly elite unit is akin to telling people in England that your child has passed his Oxbridge exam.

Like so many other things in Israel, this seems, in a strange way, to make sense here.