Best Practices for Besting the Bureaucracy: Avoiding Military Service in Israel

This article considers the evasion of mandatory military service in Israel. Exemption from service is granted on a number of grounds at the discretion of military bureaucrats. Each year, many young people seek to obtain such an exemption for a wide variety of reasons, both ideological and pragmatic. At their disposal is a body of knowledge, collectively assembled by young recruits who have previously encountered the bureaucracy; that is, a best practices guide to navigate the exemption process. This article examines the creation and deployment of this body of knowledge. These best practices include information about legitimate exemptions and evaluation criteria, bureaucratic procedures, a typology of bureaucrats who a young recruit will encounter, advice about the type of persona to present to the military bureaucrats, as well as the key elements of the performance of this persona. Many ethnographic accounts describe the ways the bureaucratic gaze controls, disciplines, and frustrates clients attempting to accomplish their goals. This article considers the ways clients return the gaze of the state through their own surveillance and knowledge production, and in doing so flip the script on bureaucratic control.