Civil - military relations in Israel

Type :

Term papers

Pages :

5 pages

Format :

.doc

Published date :

01/12/2009

Category :

Law & contracts

Sub category :

Other law subjects

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Summary :

Introduction.
Civil military relations: The role of Tsahalis in politics and society as an example of Huntington's subjective control.
1. The 'parachutage' phenomenon: The pre-eminence of military elites in politics.
2. A strong link between the armed forces and the Israeli society.
IDF held within various control mechanism: Objective control.
1. The basic laws of Israel: subordination of the military to the civilian authorities as grantee of democracy.
2. The evolution of Tsahal: A constant process of professionalisation.
Conclusion.
Bibliography.

Abstract

israel is a democratic republic and operates under the parliamentary system. Executive power is exercised by the prime minister and the government. It was founded in 1948.The Israeli defence forces, Tsahal, were also created in 1948, with the professionalisation of several paramilitary underground armies like the Haganah or the Irgoun. These self defence militias aimed at protecting the Jewish emigrants at the beginning of the 20th century (in application of the sionist doctrine). This characteristic makes the particularity of Tsahal: the army has strong links with the population and has been very influenced by the sionist theories. As many armies in the world, the first role of Tsahal is protect the country from the external attacks. Internal security is the other role of Tsahal (growing risk of terrorism)
A third role of Tsahal is to foster the national cohesion. Observing the several roles of Tsahal, we can understand the very specificity of the IDF (Israeli defence forces). But, are there real democratic civil-military relations in israel? And if not, why during the first sixty years of their history the IDF never overtly challenged the authority of the civilian government? We will see that although Tsahal has kept all the time a very pre-eminent role in Israeli life and politics there are several mechanisms of control which protect the democratic process.