Resisting the cultural division of protest: The Israeli demobilized reservists’ protest after the Yom Kippur War (1973–1974)

Abstract

The Israeli demobilized reservists’ protest after the Yom Kippur War is historically renowned for accelerating the emergence of civil criticism with regard to military and strategic affairs and for enabling the formation of peace movements in Israel. This article argues that this movement’s largest contribution was its ability to restructure the rigid cultural division of protest. In the political culture of the early 1970s in Israel, any form of street protest was associated with marginal groups engaging in a disruptive revolt against the established order. The demobilized reservists’ protest recruited members of mainstream social categories for a series of large-scale peaceful demonstrations, which concluded with the resignation of the Israeli government. This precedent blurred the traditional association of street protest with counter-hegemonic movements, and liberated the Israeli repertoire of contention for new social actors and issues. Analyzing the dialectic relations between the cultural division of protest and tactical selection in the demobilized reservists’ protest, this article shows that when members of the mainstream society employ tactics affiliated with marginal or radical groups, they legitimize these tactics as standard forms of political participation and expand their society’s modular repertoire of contention.