Emotions of Conflict, Israel 1949-1967

Abstract Israel’s citizens have had to cope with the emotional challenges of the threats their country has faced during its first two decades. The book unpacks the history of citizens’ emotions—an analysis of the reports about how they felt and of the emotional regime—the emotional repertoire designed by political leaders and cultural agents wishing to mold the feelings of Israeli citizens. Policy makers—Prime Minister and Defense Minister David Ben-Gurion first and foremost—sought to fortify the spirits of Israelis and to inculcate an emotional regime that would rise to the challenges of the new frontier state. Israel’s emotional regime was meant to mitigate fear, foster preparedness, and instill a shared feeling of purpose, belonging, and solidarity; it served as foundation for the political elite’s ideology and nurtured a model of citizenship. This emotional regime imbued Israelis with a sense of moral rectitude and equipped them with tools to manage their fears and, in extreme cases, despair. Most significantly, it met the human need for existential meaning in times of crisis, meaning that is essential to overcome the fear of impending death. Yet the emotional regime sometimes failed, as in the cases of immigrants unable to acculturate and adopt Israel’s norms and practices and soldiers and citizens unable to withstand the thirst for revenge. The perspective of the history of emotions leads to hitherto untapped and nuanced insights about the weaknesses and strengths of Israelis, and reveals new connections between identity, morality, state-sanctioned violence, politics, and law, along with a new understanding of the motivations behind policy makers’ decisions.