Reuven Gal

Battlefield experience

Gal served in the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) as a combat infantry officer (as part of his regular mandatory service) from 1960-1963. As a reserve officer he served as a commander of an elite infantry unit, which participated in the battles in Jerusalem during the Six-Days War in 1967. Following that war, he was awarded the rank of Captain in the Reserve Corps. Gal also served, in various positions as an officer in the War of Attrition (1967-1970) and in the Lebanon War (1982).

After completing his academic studies in psychology and sociology (B.A. and M.A. at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem, 1968; Ph.D. at the University of California at Berkeley, 1975), Gal re-joined the military and served as IDF's Chief Psychologist (1976-1982). He retired from the IDF with the rank of Colonel in 1983.

This combined experience – both as a combatant who saw war and as a military psychologist who treated battle casualties and consulted field commanders – helped Gal to develop programs to enhance and maintain units’ morale and cohesion as means to protect soldiers serving in battle from emotional and psychological traumas. Gal studied this subject and wrote numerous scholarly papers on the topic.

Gal’s expertise in military psychology – of Western militaries in general and of the Israeli army in particular – is also reflected in his books.

After retiring from his post as chief psychologist for the IDF, Gal was awarded a Senior Research Associateship by the National Academy of Science (NAS) and spent two years (1983–85) in Washington D.C. doing research and academic work.

Promotion of peace and co-existence

Since his retirement from military service in 1983, Gal has focused his effort on strategies for achieving peaceful co-existence (in other words, the proactive embrace of diversity and difference) in the Middle East. He serves as a member of the Board of Advisors for The Abraham Fund Initiatives (TAFI) Council, non-profit organization which is dedicated to advancing co-existence, equality and cooperation between Israel's Jewish and Arab citizens. It was founded in 1989 by Alan B. Slifka and the late Dr. Eugene Weiner (both Gal's close friends) and named for the common ancestor of both Jews and Arabs.

In 2008, Gal helped to found The Administration for National Civic Service (ANCS) in an effort to include young Israeli Arabs in service efforts and also as a strategy for achieving better cooperation and equity between Jews and Arabs in Israel. The ANCS has been called “the Israeli equivalent of the Peace Corps” and as a result, Gal was identified by the Jerusalem Post as “the driving force behind national-civic service.”

One of Gal’s most notable recent initiatives was to propose the idea of building a Middle-East Peace Trail spanning five countries in the Middle East, to be built by young people from Egypt, Israel, Palestine, Jordan, Iran, and Iraq. This effort to support the growth of peace and understanding between Israelis and Arabs is still ongoing.

Administration for National Civic Service

In 2006, Gal wrote Service without Guns in collaboration with American author Donald J. Eberly, establishing himself as a proponent of non-military national service. In the book, he makes the point that, “Young people everywhere would much rather cooperate with other young people in constructive activities than engage them in combat.”

Gal was asked by the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office (then headed by Ariel Sharon) to become a consultant to and subsequently the Deputy National Security Advisor for Domestic Policy in the Israeli National Security Council, where he was in charge of promoting Civic Service, a voluntary service organization for young people exempt from the mandatory military service.

Working hand-in-hand with two consecutive Israeli Prime Ministers (Ariel Sharon and Ehud Olmert), Gal played an instrumental role in creating a system to encourage young people who are exempted from the military draft to support local communities and their country in non-military service instead. This resulted in the creation of The Administration for National Civic Service, the organization which he headed from 2007 to 2009.

Gal said the idea of the ANCS is to allow young Israeli Arabs to earn benefits of the same type earned by Jewish men and women who are conscripted into the army.

In 2007, the Associated Press noted that the number Israeli Arabs participating in service projects had risen thanks to word of mouth as young people completed their service and encouraged others to sign up. AP quoted Reuven Gal as saying, “The youngsters will benefit a lot, the community will get a lot ... and the entire Israeli society will benefit. You (the Arabs) will become a part of Israeli society and contribute to integration.”

As part of the ANCS’s mission, Gal was involved in efforts to modify the Tal laws (named after retired judge Tzvi Tal, who headed the committee under prime minister Ehud Barak) which dealt with the special exemption from mandatory military service given to Israeli Ultra Orthodox Jews. And in 2008, the Israeli daily newspaper Haaretz reported that under the policies of the new national service administration “the number of ultra-Orthodox youth who opt for national service instead of joining the army has doubled in recent months.”

Carmel Institute for Social Studies

In 1985, Gal founded and subsequently headed the Israeli Institute for Military Studies. In 1993, it was renamed the Carmel Institute for Social Studies.

As a non-profit research and policy-making center, the Carmel Institute, situated in the town Zikhron Ya'akov, on the slopes of Mount Carmel, conducted research programs and promoted social and psychological projects, both in Israel and internationally. While its main focus was studying and researching a multitude of aspects of the Israeli society from sociological and psychological perspectives, under Gal's personal supervision the Carmel Institute also initiated many international projects based on its body of knowledge. Among these projects was the “Helping-the-Helpers” program designed to assist and support mental-health professionals in the former Yugoslavia countries (Bosnia-Herzegovina, Serbia, Croatia, Kosovo) throughout their civil wars (1992-2001). Gal served as the Director of the Carmel Institute from 1985-2002, and President from 2002 until its closure in 2004. During this time period, he published widely on a range of scholarly topics.

In 1991, Gal, together with two colleagues, founded the Center for Outstanding Leadership (COL) (which had as its roots the ideas and philosophies of the Carmel Institute) in Zikhron Ya’akov, Israel. The Center specialized in long-term, in-depth leadership development programs. To this day, the COL has trained and supervised hundreds of leading Israeli CEO's and leaders of various institutions. In 1998, in collaboration with the JDC-Israel, the COL conducted a year-long leadership program for young Jewish activists in the Former Soviet Unions (FSU), sponsored by the Schusterman Foundation.

Military psychology and the peace process

In 1991, Gal, while he was Head of The Israeli Institute for Military Studies, edited the textbook Handbook of Military Psychology with co-editor A. David Mangelsdorff of the United States Army’s Health Services Command at Fort Sam Houston, Texas. Bringing together a distinguished team of authors, including Edgar M. Johnson, Friedrich W. Steege, Paul R. Chatelier, Earl A. Alluisi, Gerald P. Krueger, T. O. Jacobs, and Robert S. Nichols, this comprehensive book on the psychological aspects of military organizations and service was dubbed by military author Sir John Keegan as “an essential tool” for military psychologists, trainers and leaders.

From 2002 to 2004, Gal served as the Deputy National Security Advisor for Domestic Policy at the Israeli National Security Council (NSC). Among his responsibilities were issues related to the improvement of the conditions of Arab minorities (Muslims, Christians, Bedouins, Druze and others) in Israel, national resiliency, the connection between the State of Israel and Jewish Diaspora, and other issues.

From 2005 to 2007 he served as a senior consultant to the Alan B. Slifka Foundation, planning and designing the Co-existence Leadership Institute for Jews and Arabs in Israel. In May 2006, as part of this project, he published an extensive report entitled “Enhancing Co-existence through Multiple Channels of Influence: A Strategic Scheme to Change the Quality of Arab-Jewish Relationships in Israel.”

Between 2006 and 2007, Gal was a Senior Fellow, sponsored by The Richard and Rodah Goldman Research Scholarship Foundation, at the Harold Hertog School of Government and Policy at Tel Aviv University. His position paper –"The Perceived Subject of Rights and Duties of Israeli-Arab Citizens in Light of the 'National Civic Service' Perspective" was submitted in October 2007.

Consultant work

During the civil wars in the Balkans (1992-1995) and in Kosovo (1996-1999), Gal served as a consultant on post-traumatic stress in the former Yugoslavia countries (Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Serbia, Macedonia and Kosovo) on behalf of UK Jewish Aid & International Development (UKJAID) in collaboration with UNICEF.

In the aftermath of the 1995 earthquake in Japan, Gal (together with his wife, Ivria, a clinical-psychologist and family-therapist) traveled to the destroyed city of Kobe to train Japanese mental-health professionals in how to treat and cope with the post-traumatic effects of that disaster.

In addition, Gal engaged in conflict-resolution and reconciliation issues in Northern Ireland, as well as Jewish-Arab co-existence programs.

Another project he supported was the organization and feasibility studies of the “World Jewish Peace Corps,” an effort to create a network of young Jewish volunteers serving internationally in non-Jewish, disaster-stricken communities.

Gal currently serves as an Advisory Board Member of The International Center for Conciliation alongside other notables such as Elie Wiesel, Thomas L. McNaugher, Hillel Levine, and Henry Rosovsky.

Building a Peace Trail

In 1999, Gal first proposed the idea of building a Middle East Peace Trail (similar to the Appalachian Trail in the United States). He subsequently included this idea in Service Without Guns and again shared the idea at a forum sponsored by the Shinnyo-en Foundation in 2009 called the “Six Billion Paths to Peace: Reflection and Dialogue.”    As envisioned by Gal, the Peace Trail would span five countries in the Middle East. His concept would team up young people from Egypt, Israel, Palestine, Jordan, Iran, and Iraq who would work closely together to build the trail. In a year-long “tour-of-duty,” Gal proposed, these young “future leaders in the Middle East will have the opportunity to share their stories with each other, and to bond and build community in powerful ways.”

A "Road to Peace"

In the introduction to Service without Guns authors Gal and Eberly make the point that the future “Road to Peace” will require more than U.N. resolutions and military might, and the toppling of dictators. It requires the development of institutions that will help move the world toward peace, and to sustain it once war is abolished. They wrote: “We have written this book because we believe the world will be a better place if civilian service by young people becomes as widespread and important in the 21st Century as military service was in the 20th Century.”

In 1990, when the Middle East stood on the brink of war and the United States was laying the groundwork for an invasion of Iraq, Gal edited (along with American military expert Thomas C. Wyatt) the book Legitimacy and Commitment in the Military.

Featuring eleven essays written by an international group of leading behavioral scientists – from the perspectives of psychology, sociology, history, philosophy, anthropology, and military studies – the book critically analyzed “fault lines” and urgent questions of legitimacy and commitment of military forces. This blue ribbon panel closely scrutinized specific wars such as in Vietnam and Algeria, as well as military organizations, including the Soviet, Israeli, and U.S. armies, and ultimately, the role and commitment of the individual soldier.

Today, Gal serves on advisory panels and speaks at conferences around the world to promote the cause of peace, volunteerism and service.

Awards

Gal has been the recipient of numerous honors and awards, including: