From "obligatory militarism" to "contractual militarism" - Competing models of citizenship

In the mid-1980s, following the 1973 War and the Lebanon War of 1982, scholars of Israeli society identified a decline in military motivation among Ashkenazi secular youth, mainly pupils from elite, secular high schools1 and kibbutz youngsters,² formerly the military's social "backbone." The Oslo peace process, the 2000 withdrawal from Lebanon, and protest against the mass exemption from military service given to Haredi yeshiva students, all intensified the process toward the end of the 1990s. Although the drop in motivation was somewhat tempered after the outbreak of the al-Aqsa Intifada in September 2000, as controversy began to surround the army's behavior during the Intifada it became clear that the graduates of prestigious high schools had ceased to take their prospective military service for granted.