Parental Discourse and Activism as a Response to Bereavement of Fallen Sons and Civilian Terrorist Victims

Abstract

This study is a phenomenological exploration of bereavement among a population of Israeli parents who became demonstratively activist following the death of their offspring either as soldiers in the line of duty or as victims of terrorism. It illuminates how an anger-forgiveness continuum gives a politically charged significance to the bereavement experience regardless of party or ideological orientation. Strong nationalist identification with the armed forces is overlaid with intense personal emotions of guilt and blame assignment. Mourning as a career may follow pathological or normative courses. Political leaders emerge who mobilize similarly situated mourners to protest against military and civilian policy related to the perceived nexus between security matters and the personal loss. The dynamic between factors which assuage personal needs and simultaneously endanger national consensus regarding the performance of leading state institutions-the government and the defense establishment-is underlined in the conditions which both facilitate and impair any transition from anger to reconciliation.The chief identifying feature of warfare and terror is the claiming of human lives. The recent increase in worldwide terror and the persistence of war repeatedly evoke the victims' pain as a topic of general social interest. The dead are silent forever, but their families, who suffer the anguish of loss, occupy a key position in public

Grandparents' Meaning Construction of the Loss of a Grandchild in a Terror Attack in Israel

“…While some emphasize the role of collective bereavement (e.g., Lebel & Ronel, 2005), others point to the shift within Israeli society from a collectivist sociocultural framework toward a more individualistic one, particularly in the case of the death of soldiers in combat (e.g., Malkinson & Witztum, 2000). The findings of the present study illuminate the integration of the personal and collective in the narratives of Israeli grandparents bereaved as a result of national terror attacks, a cohort whose members view themselves as active participants in historically significant collective events in the past as well as the present.…”

Ideological Meaning Making After the Loss of a Child: The Case of Israeli Bereaved Parents

“…Berzoff (2006) claimed that loss may be transformed into an ideologically based motive for positive social action, which shields the bereaved while helping them cope with the loss. Lebel and Ronel (2005) elaborated on ''guilt identification'' (see also Lifton, 1979) as a major characteristic of parental bereavement. They suggest that bereaved parents may engage in antagonist social action (e.g., against the government or the military) as a means of projecting their inner guilt upon an external ideological agent or institution.…”

An Unbearable Price: War Casualties and Warring Democracies

“…More significantly, not only was the bereavement discourse a response to disaster, but it also became a symbolic resource. Upper-middle class parents undertook political action as a way of imbuing their loss with meaning (see Lebel and Ronel 2005, at the theoretical level). For them, the crisis was more tangible because some of them felt that their sons had died for a controversial or even pointless cause.…”