David Rodman

Politics, History and Culture

Israel has relied heavily on clandestine diplomacy throughout its history. Indeed, some of the Jewish state’s most vital decisions stemmed from secret negotiations. The decision to embark on war against Egypt in 1956 grew out of clandestine contacts with the French and British. Similarly, the decision to enter into peace talks with Egypt in the late 1970s emerged out of earlier back-channel contacts with that state. During the past six decades, Israel has often relied on officials tied to its intelligence community—for example, the late Reuven Shiloah and Uri Lubrani—to conduct secret negotiations with both foreign governments and non-state entities. Efraim Halevy, who spent most of his years as a public servant employed as a Mossad officer, eventually rising to head the organization, also got deeply involved in clandestine diplomacy, particularly in the latter stages of his career. In this survey of his activities during the past decade and a half, Halevy concentrates heavily on his behind-the-scenes role in hammering out the 1994 Israel–Jordan peace treaty, as well as on his part in maintaining the agreement in the face of predictable post-accord crises, especially the Jewish state’s botched attempt to assassinate Hamas leader Khaled Mashal on Jordanian soil. If Halevy’s account is to be believed—and there is no reason not to—he played a prominent role in both forging and preserving the treaty. Halevy, out of a sense of loyalty to Israel, as well as to his former colleagues in the intelligence community, does not divulge any information about classified Mossad operations or programmes. By no stretch of the imagination can his book be considered to fall into that ‘tell all’ genre so popular with ex-government officials around the world. Nevertheless, he is rather candid about the ways in which politicians use (and misuse) intelligence information and assessments. He also shares his occasionally frank opinions about the leaders with whom he worked, including Yitzhak Rabin, Shimon Peres and Ariel Sharon.

Ethos clash in Israeli society

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Israeli culture on the road to the Yom Kippur War

conduct during these years. The Zionist movement’s traumatic experience during the Second World War, according to Cohen, led it to draw the conclusion that it could rely only on itself, not the Allies, to achieve its goal of a Jewish state in Palestine after the war. This sentiment, he claims, eventually drove the mainstream Zionist movement, in cooperation with more extreme elements, to engage in anti-British military operations after the war. Contra the conclusion of some other researchers, Cohen does not indicate that Jewish resistance was the primary reason that the British eventually decided to withdraw from Palestine, but he does think that it seriously strained Great Britain’s resources at a time when the country needed to recover from the losses it had suffered during the Second World War. The British decision to relinquish the fate of Palestine to the United Nations, contends Cohen, was the cumulative result of several trends. First, after the Second World War, Great Britain decided to divest itself of most of its empire, especially India, so the strategic rationale behind holding onto Palestine had largely ‒ though by no means entirely ‒ faded away. Second, Great Britain’s inability to reach an agreement with the United States about the final disposition of Palestine added to the former’s incentive to withdraw from the territory. And, third, Great Britain’s inability to reconcile the demands of the Jewish and Arab communities simply added to its sense that withdrawal offered the only sensible option open to it. Both volumes, in short, furnish considerable insight into the international politics of a tumultuous period of Middle Eastern and Jewish history. Consequently, they deserve a wide audience.

Struggling over Israel's soul: an IDF general speaks of his controversial moral decisions

period. A (smaller) ‘revisionist’ school, on the other hand, counters with the claim that much more socio-cultural and demographic continuity existed than is recognized by the traditionalist school. The revisionists agree with the traditionalists that the urban centres of Judah were destroyed and their populations decimated by the Babylonian invasion, but they claim that the kingdom’s rural hinterland, which housed the majority of its population, soldiered on largely intact after the devastation, albeit under Babylonian hegemony, until the rise of the Persian Empire and the return of part of the exilic community from captivity. Israeli archaeologist Avraham Faust, who recently authored a pioneering study of Israelite origins, here comes down strongly in favour of the traditionalist camp. In this groundbreaking monograph, he examines and synthesizes a vast array of archaeological and other data – field surveys of urban and rural settlements in different time periods, in-depth excavations at particular urban and rural sites, assemblages of local and Greek pottery, as well as evolving linguistic, religious and lifestyle practices—to arrive at the convincing conclusion that the Babylonian invasion caused the virtually complete collapse of pre-exilic Judahite society, a collapse whose effects on society lingered until well into the Hellenistic era. Not only does Faust build his own case methodically on the basis of this collection of evidence, but he also just as thoroughly ‘deconstructs’ the revisionist case, pointing out where and how this body of evidence undermines its members’ thinking. Faust also observes that a not-so-subtle agenda lies behind the revisionist school’s stance. If Judahite society did not continue to function in the wake of the Babylonian invasion, then this camp’s view of the Hebrew Bible’s authorship is simply not sustainable. This agenda, according to Faust, accounts for much of the revisionist unwillingness to come to grips with the archaeological record. Much of Faust’s monograph is somewhat technical in nature; the book, after all, devotes a considerable amount of space to discussions of field surveys, pottery assemblages, architectural practises and the like. Nevertheless, it is still accessible to the intelligent layman with an interest in this period of Jewish history. Faust’s monograph, in sum, offers perhaps the most compelling and accurate glimpse yet into the realities of Jewish life in sixth century BCE Judah.

Asset test: how the United States benefits from its alliance with Israel

Directorate. During his career, he fought numerous ‘battles’ – to integrate ultraOrthodox Jews into the IDF, to stop draft dodging amongst secular and religious youth alike, to ensure a smooth disengagement from Gaza and many others. As a moderate member of the national religious camp, Stern waged some of his toughest fights against more extreme elements within this segment of the population. His fundamental decency – he especially values national unity, tolerance and compromise – comes through strongly in this book, which recalls the many encounters in which he tried to bridge gaps between contending positions for the benefit of all. Anyone interested in getting a sense of the various tensions within the IDF, not to mention within Israeli society, will profit by reading this work.

History, Politics and Culture

The State of Israel received perhaps the biggest shock in its history on 6 October 1973, when the Egyptian and Syrian armies launched a simultaneous and massive assault in the Sinai and on the Golan, respectively. Taken by surprise, the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) fought desperate holding actions on both fronts to prevent catastrophic breakthroughs. While reserve units were hurriedly mobilized and dispatched to the fronts, the meagre IDF forces deployed there at the outset of the fighting barely managed to contain the Arab attacks, and only at a very heavy cost in men and machines. The IDF eventually won a grand victory in the Yom Kippur War, but not before Israel had suffered a real scare. Much of the blame for the near disaster of the first few days of the war has been laid squarely on the doorstep of A’MAN, the IDF’s intelligence branch. Though it had promised to give both the IDF and the civilian government a clear warning well in advance of an impending Arab attack, it completely failed to do so in the autumn of 1973. Indeed, many of its senior analysts, including the Director of Military Intelligence himself, Major General Eliyahu Zeira, continued to insist almost up to the moment that the first bombs and shells landed on Israeli outposts that war did not appear imminent. Prior to the Yom Kippur War, A’MAN occupied the most important position in Israel’s intelligence community. It alone among the state’s three principal intelligence services had the task of preparing the ‘national estimates’ that served as the basis of Israel’s defence and foreign policies. Its civilian counterparts, the MOSSAD (foreign intelligence) and SHIN BET (domestic intelligence), to the contrary, had no such broad mandate. The tale of how and why A’MAN failed in its main duty has been told many times in the past, but never in such depth (at least in the nonclassified literature) and with such authority as in Uri Bar-Joseph’s volume. Not only did the author consult the relevant government documents, especially A’MAN’s own work product as well as the non-classified portions of the Agranat Report, but he also trawled through the available

Airpower applied: U.S., NATO, and Israeli combat experience; Armoured warfare: a military, political and global history

the Yom Kippur War, however, the standard interpretation of the diplomacy of the period will require a thorough reassessment. The thesis at the heart of Foxbats Over Dimona has thus far not gained much traction among historians of the Arab‒Israeli conflict. Whether the same fate awaits the thesis at the heart of The Soviet‒Israeli War, of course, will be determined in the years to come. In the meantime, Ginor and Remez’s fascinating and well-written book merits the careful attention of every serious historian of the conflict.

Israel facing a new Middle East: in search of a national security strategy

in the 1991 Gulf War and the 2006 Second Lebanon War spurred the development of anti-missile and anti-rocket interceptors, respectively. The list goes on. One of the major reasons that Israel has been able to put into service so many effective cutting-edge defence technologies, often at rather short notice, observe Katz and Bohbot, is the close cooperation between the country’s military industries and the IDF. The scientists and engineers who first conceive of and then construct these implements of warfare are frequently the very same people who fight with them. Or their family members and friends are those who fight with them. Indeed, the authors highlight this personal dimension of the defence technology development process by organising a number of chapters around the untiring efforts of prominent individuals, soldiers and civilians alike, who leveraged not only their own expertise and contacts but also those of their peers inside and outside of the IDF, to ensure that these technologies progressed from amorphous ideas sitting on drawing boards to battle-ready implements deployed on the front lines. It will probably be decades before a truly definitive account of how Israel became a high-tech military superpower can be committed to paper. The authors would surely agree that their account captures only the proverbial tip of the iceberg. Much information in respect of the capabilities and utilisation of the technologies they cover in the book remains strictly classified, of course, in order to promote the country’s national security interests. And, undoubtedly, the Jewish state’s military industries, in collaboration with the IDF, are responsible for the development of yet other defence technologies whose very existence is likely to stay cloaked indefinitely behind a veil of secrecy for the very same reason. Nevertheless, Katz and Bohbot’s book offers an enlightening introduction to its topic, and it should find favour among both professionals and laymen with an interest in military technology and its applications on the battlefield.

At the decisive point in the Sinai: generalship in the Yom Kippur War

anti-Zionist strain in updated, ‘politically correct’ forms by leftists and Islamists. Alexander explores the current embodiment of a disgraceful practice that goes back at least to the Middle Ages: just as certain Jewish apostates were among the most savage persecutors of their brethren in those days so certain Jewish leftists are among the most vicious critics of Zionism and Israel now. The fourth section contains essays by Benjamin Ginsberg and David Patterson on the connection between religious doctrine and the anti-Zionist strain of anti-Semitism. Ginsberg explains how radically different interpretations of Christian scripture have led evangelical and mainline Protestants to embrace proand anti-Zionist agendas, respectively, while Patterson describes how Islamists harness Muslim scripture to advance their goal of destroying Zionism and the Jewish state. Lastly, the fifth section contains essays by Andre Oboler, Ira Robinson and Joel Fishman on some of the methods used to spread the anti-Zionist strain of anti-Semitism. Oboler demonstrates how the internet has been exploited as a tool of dissemination, while Robinson and Fishman expose how the message has been spread throughout Canada and the international community, respectively. Pollack’s volume, in sum, furnishes an outstanding introduction to various dimensions of the anti-Zionist strain of anti-Semitism. All of the essays are engagingly written, very informative and completely accessible to the layman. This anthology is a heartily recommended point of entry for those people interested in learning about leftist and Islamist hate mongering.

For heaven’s sake: Squadron 201 and the Yom Kippur War

Some observers will undoubtedly find Beres’ perspective to be unpersuasive, especially as the ‘politically correct’ way of thinking about nuclear weapons holds that they have no redeeming qualities under any set of circumstances, while other observers will just as surely find his perspective to be compelling. Regardless of her own personal view, however, every observer interested in the role of nuclear weapons in the Middle East ought to give Beres’ treatment of the topic serious consideration.