The struggles of ‘Isreality’:
Dynamic identity change and
social movement participation
among Israeli refusers
Eden Tosch & John Drury Department of Psychology: University of Sussex
The decision is made alone,
by any soldier,
not necessarily by activists
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.
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
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)
The Elaborated Social
Identity Model
• Past ESIM studies:
– Set in UK
– Show dynamic patterned identity shifts
– Protestors in environments of face-toface crowd conflict with authority
– Authority represented by police or
security forces
• Radicalization appears in response
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 intergroup relationships: military actions
and social condemnation
• Radicalization appears in response
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, 1 Shminist, 2
‘grey’ refusers
– 2 served jail time; all others said they
would be willing to go to jail.
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….
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
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
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
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
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
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 recategorization
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.
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.’
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
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
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.
Summary
• Radicalization
• Critical Identity as outcome not
(just) determinant
• Distal as well as Proximal
relations with Authority
• Iraeli-ness struggled over rather
than rejected