2012 Winner of the Shapiro Award for the Best Book in Israel Studies, presented by the Association for Israel Studies Whose life is worth more? That is the question that states inevitably face during wartime. Which troops are thrown to the first lines of battle and which ones remain relatively intact? How can various categories of civilian populations be protected? And when front and rear are porous, whose life should receive priority, those of soldiers or those of 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.
List of Figures and Tables Acknowledgments Preface from the Series Editor Wayne E. Lee Introduction The Right to Protect and the Right to Protection The Essence of Rights Balancing Strategies Conclusions Unbalancing and Balancing the Rights Balanced Rights Unbalanced Rights Demands for Burden Reduction The Subversive Bereavement Discourse Balancing Strategies Conclusions Bereavement-Motivated Collective Actors The South Lebanon Guerrilla War (1985-2000)Explaining Four Mothers' Success The Al-Aqsa Intifada (2000-2005) The Second Lebanon War (2006) and Operation Cast Lead (2009) Conclusions Bereavement-Motivated Collective ActorsGold Star Families for Peace Alternative Explanations Theoretical Conclusions The Death Hierarchy The Principles of the Death HierarchyThe Structure of the Death Hierarchy Conclusions Casualty Sensitivity Breeds High Lethality The Essence of the Force-Casualty Tradeoff Israel's Wars against Gaza: A General Outline The Tradeoff Conclusions and Theoretical Implications Casualty Sensitivity and Political-Military Relations Civilian Control of the IDF: General Background Casualty Sensitivity Reinforces the Military Conclusions and Theoretical Implications Conclusions Notes Bibliography Index About the Author
