The struggles of ‘Isreality’: Dynamic identity change and social movement participation among Israeli refusers

2. The struggles of ‘Isreality’: Dynamic identity change and social movement participation among Israeli refusers Eden Tosch & John Drury Department of Psychology: University of Sussex

3. The decision is made alone, by any soldier, not necessarily by activists

4. Trajectory of Radicalization • Participants display a shift towards increasingly critical views on the Israeli military and power structures and an increasing commitment to act for change.

5. Trajectory of Radicalization • Develops where an ‘asymmetry of representations’ exist • incongruity of refusers’ self-identity compared to how they are perceived (and treated) by others • Representations held by Authority Figures with power over the refusers

6. Trajectory of Radicalization • Defined within the Elaborated Social Identity Model (ESIM) as the development of an enduring critical attitude towards those in power (ESIM; Drury & Reicher, 2000; Reicher, 1996a, b, 2001; Stott & Reicher, 1998)

7. The Elaborated Social Identity Model • Past ESIM studies: • Set in UK • Showdynamic patterned identity shifts • Protestors in environments offace-to-face crowd conflictwith authority • Authority represented by police or security forces • Radicalization appears in response

8. Broadening The Elaborated Social Identity Model • This Study: • Set in Israel • Show dynamic patterned identity shifts • Refusers in environments of distal conflict with authority • Authority represented by distal inter-group relationships: military actions and social condemnation • Radicalization appears in response

9. Who are the participants: • 11 Israeli Refusers representing the spectrum of Israeli refusers. • 9 men and 2 women. • middle to upper middle class, Ashkenazi (European) background. • From left leaning left families. • Most sabra (born and raised in Israel). • University educated, four with graduate degrees. • 4 officers, 1 sergeant, 1Shminist, 2 ‘grey’ refusers • 2 served jail time; all others said they would be willing to go to jail.

10. Theme: ASYMMETRY OF REPRESENTATION • Refusers discuss differences between how they perceive their action (and thus their identity) and how they experience other’s perceptions of them….

11. Theme: ASYMMETRY OF REPRESENTATION …and you love your country blindless, you know. –J a big part is Israeli society is thinking “traitors” (laughter). Or terrorists—lots of people think that. I mean, I am sure that people think that they should be hanged… –O

12. Theme: ASYMMETRY OF REPRESENTATION And I think that the reason I am not the same (as a friend who emigrated) is because I’m so connected. Because I see myself as an Israeli and I, in some place in my heart, I don’t want to give up (…) and so the answer is yes, that’s what made me, able to sacrifice all that: Because I feel this connection, ‘cause many people blame me as, you know, as a traitor, you know ‘you hate your own’, you know, ‘you hate yourself’, ‘you hate your people’.—S

13. Theme: BECOMING ACTIVISTS • Refusers go from attending protests to organizing protests • They publish articles, speak publicly, organize and participate in events, study related academic subjects, and produce politicized art and music

14. Theme: BECOMING ACTIVISTS I was brought up on the zionistic notions. But the first time i really felt ‘one with the cause’ for me it was very, can i say– shaping experience? It really… it really shaped me. –A

15. Theme: BECOMING ACTIVISTS I think you don’t really have a choice … I think, I don’t think I wanted to—at the beginning at least I didn’t really thought about this—‘let’s, let’s go and shout this everywhere.’ But since--- everybody had something to say about it, everyone I knew had something to say about it, you know, (…) you come to be a spokes-person whether you want it or not. Later it developed into a situation where… I, I’m happy to speak. –O

16. Theme: REFUSERS AND PALESTINIANS • Ethno-national discourse of Israel prohibits cooperation and even association with Arabs • Refusers see ‘them’ as ‘us’ in an act of ‘social creativity’ (Reicher, p.323) -- an imaginative re-categorization Reicher, S. (1996) Social identity and social change: Rethinking the context of social psychology. In Robinson, W.P. ed. Social groups and identities: Developing the legacy of Henri Tajfel. Oxford, Butterworth-Heinemann.

17. Theme: REFUSERS AND PALESTINIANS • symbolically inverting Israeli identity An ex-pilot, and reservist of many years S: ‘I’m just, my heart now is, is now with the weak side’ A 21-year-old woman, D speaks somewhat tongue-in-cheek: ‘I’m on the side that hates me.’

18. Theme: REFUSERS AND PALESTINIANS And those people were in my mind you know, all the time, like an open eye inside my mind, looking at my lips, not saying that ‘I’m a pilot’. So this is some kind of a connection, a relation with Palestinians but I was not friend of them or something, but I think it was another important part on this process.–S

19. Context: Israel • Israeli Defense Force the ‘peoples’ army’ • Israeliness : collective fate and shared identity, interweaving of individual and national identities bound within political situations and ideological narratives • Rejection of military = rejection of Israeli identity

20. Authority: Direct v. Distal • Social disapproval carries a heavy weight • Significant enough to be compared to the police repression of previous ESIM studies • Punishment for refusing is the rejection of the community, limited access to education and employment opportunities, exclusion even from some peace organizations, and the enduring distain of many.

21. Summary • Radicalization • Critical Identity as outcome not (just) determinant • Distal as well as Proximal relations with Authority • Iraeli-ness struggled over rather than rejected