“It Wasn’t Ideological, I Was Just Saving My Soul”: Emotional Individualism and Avoiding Military Service in Israel

The common discourse tends to associate young Israelis’ unwillingness to serve in the military with individualistic-materialistic attitudes and with the rise of the market ethos in recent decades. This article examines the accounts of middle-class Israelis who avoided military service and offers a substantially different explanation for their choices and actions.
My main argument is that avoidance of military service in Israel is best explained and justified not by external incentives but by internal emotions, in particular feelings of incompatibility, anxiety, alienation, and absurdity with regard to the military. This type of justification rests on what I call “emotional individualism” – a stance that acknowledges the right of individuals to act on instincts, emotion-driven desires, and the need to protect their own mental well-being from perceived threats.
The article is based on in-depth interviews with 55 Israeli men and women who avoided mandatory military service by initiating the requisite legal procedures. Listening to their hitherto-silenced perspective reveals that the choice not to serve in the military may occupy a midpoint between the personal and the ideological; that is, it may be motivated by resistance to the military’s aggression not only against perceived external enemies but also against its own members qua individuals. This perspective subverts the normalization of military service in Israel and its construction as a “natural” stage in the life course of Israelis.
The avoiders’ emotional justificatory discourse usually leads to strong self-acceptance regarding their choices. At the same time, it may also produce feelings of guilt about the perceived discrepancy between the act of personal self-defense and the necessity of state-organized collective defense. Despite such fissures, the avoiders’ accounts reveal an important dimension of the evolving dynamic between the military and Israeli society in general, suggesting that universal conscription has personal and social implications more diverse than has hitherto been recognized