Stuart A. Cohen

Changing Civil–Military Relations in Israel: Towards an Over-subordinate IDF?

In the realm of civil–military relations, as in many other spheres, Israel has persistently defied conventional categorizations. Clearly, the degree of overall influence wielded by the Israel Defence Force (IDF) exceeds the boundaries that democracies generally consider appropriate. It has long been apparent that in many fields of public life (and not just those directly relevant to security affairs) Israel’s military only rarely merits depiction as a subordinate arm of government. Frequently, it has constituted the dominant influence over policy-making and policy execution. Nevertheless, it was for many years generally agreed that Israel did not at all conform to the models of either a ‘praetorian’ or ‘garrison’ state. Even scholars who have more recently referred to Israel as a ‘militaristic’ society, take care to qualify their use of the term. Thus Baruch Kimmerling speaks of Israel as a case of ‘cognitive’ and/or ‘cultural’ militarism, whilst Yagil Levi writes at length about ‘material’ militarism. Both agree that, notwithstanding the IDF’s long tradition of predominance in Israeli society and public life, Israel remains a vibrant parliamentary democracy. Faced with this seeming paradox (a term first used in the civil–military context by Moshe Lissak many years ago), most scholars have preferred to regard the Israeli framework as a unique hybrid. As such, it has often seemed to require the invention of an entirely new vocabulary of terms. Thus, the late Dan Horowitz coined the phrase ‘a civilianized military within a partially militarized society’. Rebecca Schiff spoke of a ‘concordance’ model of relations, and Yoram Peri discerned a special form of civil–military ‘partnership’. Whichever the case, the principal conclusion was one and the same. As both Samuel Finer and Moshe Lissak argued in their introductions to the Hebrew edition of Finer’s classic, The Man on Horseback (published by Ma’archot, the Israel Ministry of Defence’s publishing house, in 1982), a military coup in Israel was virtually unthinkable. As a paradigmatic citizen army, the IDF would never attempt

A taxonomy of Israel's use of military force

Abstract This article analyzes the spectrum of Israels use of military force. Employing a comparative theoretical framework, it offers a taxonomy of that experience based on three criteria: the character of envisaged political goals, the type of military strategy preferred, and the scope of forces engaged. The combination of those criteria produces eight individual modes of force, each of which is examined (with supplementary illustrations being provided from non‐Israeli instances). It is suggested that the terminology here used presents a more accurate depiction than has hitherto been available of the spectrum of the use of military force in world politics.

The Changing Jewish Discourse on Armed Conflict: Themes and Implications

ABSTRACT The ubiquity of military service and armed conflict in the contemporary Israeli experience has stimulated intense Jewish theological discourse in matters relevant to armed conflict. Warfare and its conduct, subjects that for almost two millennia constituted one of the great lacunae of rabbinic instruction, are now addressed in a swelling tide of detailed and erudite publications. The present essay outlines the contours of that discourse. Focusing on contemporary analyses of issues that in the western tradition fall under the rubric of ius ad bellum, it examines the means whereby attempts are made to apply traditional Jewish taxonomies of conflict to modern Israeli circumstances. In addition, the essay addresses four specific issues: (1) The identities and affiliations of the discourses principal participants; (2) The formats and styles of their discussions; (3) The principal issues with which they are concerned; and (4) The potential implications, operational as well as intellectual, of the developments described.

Mesopotamia in British Strategy, 1903–1914

Britains strategic interest in Mesopotamia in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was a consequence of her control over India. The valleys of the Tigris and the Euphrates constitute a natural highway from Syria to the Persian Gulf, and thence to the Indian Ocean. Not until a relatively late stage in Imperial history, however, did Britain extend her formal protection to this region. In the nineteenth century successive British governments had refused to finance the establishment of either a Mesopotamian steamer service or railway line. Subsequently, they had first (1903) rejected participation in an international Baghdad railway scheme, and then (1914) sanctioned complete German control over the project as far as Basra. A small Indian force was despatched to the head of the Persian Gulf in October 1914, but the subsequent Mesopotamian campaign was ‘a haphazard affair from start to finish’ lacking political or military direction. Thus, the De Bunsen committee, which reported on Britains desiderata in Asiatic Turkey in June 1915, had concluded that Ottoman “devolutionary control” over Mesopotamia was preferable to Indian annexation of any part of the region other than the Basra vilayet; that October, the War Cabinet experienced difficulty in deciding whether to sanction an advance on Baghdad. No proclamation of political interest in Mesopotamia was in fact made by a British government until the capture of the city in 1917. The immediate and local arguments impelling that operation have been fully investigated. By contrast, the strategic tradition that deprecated it has been relatively neglected. This paper proposes to survey the latter and to indicate the degree to which the extension of the Mesopotamian campaign contradicted previous British strategy toward the region.

‘Unlicensed’ War in Jewish Tradition: Sources, consequences and implications

Abstract The prevalence of military activity in the experience of modern Israel has recently generated several attempts to compare western teachings on warfare and its exercise with those found in Jewish sources. The present article constitutes a contribution to that enterprise, focusing on attitudes towards what are here termed ‘unlicensed wars’ in the overall just war tradition. The article first defines that specific category of armed conflict, arguing that ‘unlicensed wars’ are characterized by a failure to follow the constitutional procedures required to set the military apparatus in motion. It then goes on to analyze specifically Jewish textual traditions relating to the consequences of this situation. Finally, the paper discusses the broader messages conveyed by the term ‘unlicensed war’, demonstrating how it reflects the Jewish conception of the polity as a covenantal community.

Swimming against the tide: the changing functions and status of chaplains in the Israel Defense Force

ABSTRACT This article describes and analyses the changes that have occurred in the services performed by chaplains in the Israel Defense Force (IDF) – the only military in the world that consists almost entirely of Jews. Essentially, we argue, the shift has been one of focus. For many years, IDF chaplains primarily (albeit never exclusively) concerned themselves with providing religious services to the minority of personnel who observed Orthodox Jewish rituals. ‘Outreach’ programmes, targeted at the secular Jewish majority, were secondary. Recently, however, the IDF rabbinate has undergone a process of ‘role expansion’, emphasising the provision of counselling and guidance to the entire Jewish complement, especially in combat units. In the second part of the article, we analyse the possible reasons for that development: demographic and cultural trends in Israeli society; the prominence of counter-insurgency missions in the IDF’s operational agenda; and the personalities of recent chief chaplains. Finally, we address the possible implications of this shift, asking whether the intra-organisational frictions that it generates, especially with the Education Corps, portends a battle for the soul of the IDF.

Fighting Back: British Jewry's Military Contribution in the Second World War (review)

Vol. 30, No. 2 ♦ 2012 short-lived. Tragically, traces of the ideological diffusion examined in these pages have had a much longer life.” Interestingly, one new manifestation of Arab antisemitic propaganda is the equation of Israel and its Jewish supporters with the Nazis themselves. Despite his superb research and compelling arguments, Herf might have provided more background on pre-war Arab antisemitism and on the Moslem Brotherhood. In addition, he might have illustrated some of the “traces” of the earlier propaganda in the present pronouncements of Hamas, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, Al-Qaeda, and Ayatollahs. A spelling correction might also be in order: Herf ’s spelling of “anti-Semitism” should be revised to antisemitism. Unlike Zionism, there is no ideology entitled “semitism,” despite the fact that Hebrew and Aramaic are semitic languages. And ironically, so is Arabic. The term “antisemitism” was invented by a German racist in 1879 as a pseudoscientific substitute for “Jew-hatred.” Unfortunately, the term took hold. This well-researched, clearly organized, and excellently documented study will be of great value to students of Nazi Germany and Islamic and Middle Eastern studies. It paves the way for further research and reinterpretation. The term “Islamofascism” might be a misnomer, but what Herf aptly calls the “selective interpretation” of Islamic texts and tradition by the Nazis and their Arab supporters achieved an attempted synthesis of Nazi and Islamic beliefs—especially in the area of the Jew-hatred that persists in the Middle East, North Africa, and Iran. Leon Stein Professor Emeritus of History Roosevelt University

Evolving Nationalism: Homeland, Identity and Religion in Israel, 1925–2005

representative of the general population and “commanded only a limited following.” Dozens of town and village notables, sheikhs and mukhtars dispatched cables to the Colonial Secretary rejecting the staunch anti-Zionist positions adopted by the Delegation (p. 386). Yet, Friedman acknowledges, it seems that the expenses for the cables of protest against the Delegation and other items “were covered by the Zionist Organization, which had discovered in the rural population of Palestine a willing instrument to undermine the privileged status position of the Palestine Executive. . . . The Zionists and the Palestinian peasants, it seems, had some common interests” (p. 387). But it was the peasants who were the backbone of the Arab Rebellion in 1936–39. One could hardly expect the Arabs of Palestine, urban folk or peasants, to passively submit to the Zionist project, designed from its inception to convert them into a minority in their own country. After all, the Zionists and the British believed that Jewish immigration would gradually transform Palestine into a predominantly Jewish state (p. 10). The Arabs were totally aware of the Zionist objectives and, quite understandably, rejected them. It is true that the Zionists tried to convince themselves otherwise, but that was never a genuine reflection of the realities in Palestine, just Zionist wishful thinking. All in all, this book, notwithstanding some differences of interpretation that may remain, is yet another of Friedman’s invaluable list of outstanding contributions to the historiography of the Middle East in the twentieth century.