Israel's death hierarchy : casualty aversion in a militarized democracy / Yagil Levy.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Levy, Yagil, 1958-

Series:

Warfare and culture series

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Israel. Tseva haganah le-Yiśraʼel.

Casualty aversion (Military science)--Israel.

Casualty aversion (Military science).

Civil-military relations--Israel.

Civil-military relations.

Israel.

Israel--Military policy.

Military policy.

Israel. Tseva haganah le-Yiśraʼel--Regulations.

Physical Description:

xiii, 256 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

New York : New York University Press, [2012]

Summary:

Whose life is worth more?

That is the question that states inevitably face during war time. Which troops are thrown to the first lines of battle and which ones remain relatively intact? How to protect various categories of the civilian populations? And when front and rear are porous, whose life should receive priority, soldiers or civilians? In Israel's Death Hierarchy, Yagil Levy uses Israel as a compelling case study to explore the global dynamics and security implications of casualty sensitivity. Israel, Levy argues, originally chose to risk soldiers, mobilized from privileged classes, more than civilians and other soldiers. However, with the mounting of casualty sensitivity, the state gradually restructured what Levy calls its "death hierarchy" to favor privileged soldiers over soldiers drawn from lower classes and civilians, and later to place enemy civilians at the bottom of the hierarchy by the use of heavy firepower. The state thus shifted risk from soldiers to civilians. As the Gaza offensive of 2009 demonstrates, this new death hierarchy has opened Israel to global criticism. Book jacket.

Contents:

The right to protect and the right to protection

Unbalancing and balancing the rights

Bereavement-motivated collective actors

Bereavement-motivated collective actors: a comparison

The death hierarchy

Casualty sensitivity breeds high lethality

Casualty sensitivity and political-military relations.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780814753347

0814753345

9780814753354

0814753353

9780814738337

0814738338

OCLC:

777628044