Israelas Death Hierarchy: Casualty Aversion in a Militarized Democracy (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9780814753347)

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.

Author: Yagil Levy
ISBN-10: 0814753345
ISBN-13: 9780814753347
Publisher: New York University Press
Language: English
Published: 11/05/2012
Pages: 269
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 1.10lbs
Size: 9.10h x 6.30w x 0.90d

Review Citation(s):
Choice 05/01/2013