The Sword and the Olive: A Critical History of the Israeli Defense Force [Englisch] [Taschenbuch]

Martin Van Creveld is a contrarian. This new history of the Israeli Defense Forces (TSAHAL) is by turns complimentary and critical. It starts with the development of self defense forces established in Palestine under the Ottomans and continues forward through the British mandate, then through the various wars up through the Intifada. Enough campaign history is provided to buttress the author's criticism and praise of various leaders. While Van Creveld is critical of the amateur (and often vengeful) nature of the early Zionist and Israeli forces, he does credit them for high morale, aggressive leadership, the ability to learn from mistakes, and to effectively improvise where needed. For Van Creveld the myth of Israeli invincibility rested on stunning successes and tight censorship that covered up mistakes and would-be mistakes. The fall of the IDF starts with the ill-considered invasion of Lebanon in 1982 and accelerated with the response to the Intifada in the late 1980s. Van Creveld sees the surest sign of IDF failure as the inability to participate in the Gulf War; this criticism is unfair and unrealistic as the Israeli military was not designed to project so much power so far, and any Israeli participation in the Coalition would have broken down the anti-Hussein consensus among the Arab participants. Van Creveld shows that the IDF no longer enjoys the invincible reputation and high status that it did 20 years ago. The book covers many topics : the development of Israel's arms industry, the "tank is king" mentality that was so disasterous at the beginning of the 1973 October War, the effect of Israel's nuclear capability, the entangling of party politics, the rise of the Air Force, the usually marginal nature of the Navy, and the status of women. Two interesting aspects of this book : the not-quite-standard English rendering of Hebrew and Arabic words (Mount Chermon for Mt. Hermon, Beqa Valley for Bekaa Valley) and the frequent citation to popular songs, jokes, and sayings that reflect the public image of the IDF. Highly recommended for anyone interested in the Middle East or in the development of national military systems.

Detailing the evolution of the Israeli Defence Force from its pre -world war one beginning as a private company of guards (Ha-shomer), through its War of Independence and its "finest hour" in the 1967 Six Day War, and up to the 1990s with its failure to act during the 1991 first Gulf War and first Intifada (1986-1993), "The Sword and the Olive" is a compelling portrait of Israel's army, and, as the IDF is one of Israel's central institution, of the Israeli State and of Israeli society in the 20th century.

A world renowned military historian, Martin van Creveld's book is very well written and highly informed. It covers the military, social and economic aspects of the IDF, touching on almost everything, be it the role of nuclear weapons in Middle East, gender roles in the IDF (most controversial is van Creveld's thesis postulating an inverse relationship between the role of women in the Army and its prestige p. 361), or the similarities between the IDF's strategy and that of the Whermacht.

I often lament the shortages of maps in Military history books, but van Creveld's book is more offensive then most in this regard, normally there is only one map to each campaign, and I doubt anyone but the initiated can follow van Creveld's description of Israel's wars.

I am no expert in Israeli military history, most of which I gather from reading Israeli newspapers, but I was particularly surprised of van Creveld's assertions that a main motive behind Nasser's commencement of hostilities in the Six Day War was his fear of the Israeli Nuclear program. Van Creveld emerges as a critic of Israel's policy of nuclear policies, arguing that opacity failed to prevent the Six Day war and the Yom Kippur war (pp. 220-221). As a cause for the Six-Day war, van Creveld hardly mentions the internal political consideration of the Arabs, particularly in Egypt (see Michael B. Oren's brilliant "Six Days of War" for a very different perspective).

I never realized how limited the Egyptian military's moves were in the Yom Kippur war (van Creveld always refers to it as 'The October war'). In essence, Israel's maintenance of the Bar-Lev line, on the west bank of the Suez canal, was costly in terms of human life and military material, and made little or no strategic sense. By fighting on the line, Israel subjugated itself to heavy anti-aircraft and anti-tank fire, and thus did not enjoy the superiority it had in mobile warfare as in the Six Days war and the 1956 war. Israel utterly failed to take advantage of the strategic qualities of the Sinai desert as a barrier against attack on itself.

The subtitle of "The Sword and the Olive" is "A Critical History", and critical it is. Van Creveld does not spare criticism of the early pre State Israeli forces and personnel, as well as of Israel's army in the first twenty-five years of its existence, blaming Israelis for inciting Syrian fire on its tractors and questioning performances in the Six Day War.

After the 1973 war, though, van Creveld's criticisms become truly devastating. As heads of state, Golda Meir "frankly admit[ed] she did not know exactly what a division was", and Menachem Begin "kept meddling [with army affairs] even though his military knowledge had been acquired during his kindergarten years and barely developed thereafter" (p. 108). Nor is van Creveld kinder to generals: Moshe Dayan "failed to carry his point of view in the Cabinet" and "as usual" "found a way to shift responsibility [for the Bar Lev line] to others" (pp. 211-213). General 'Motta' Gur's "greatest intellectual achievement[s]" were "a series of children's books about Azzit, a heroic shepherd she-dog" (p. 249). The general intellectual poverty of the Israeli high command was manifested in Rafael Eytan "for whom wider cultural horizons simply do not exist" (p. 263).

About the current state of the Israeli army van Creveld doesn't mince words. The state of the Israeli moral is so devastating that the army had to suppress research about it. "In an army that once prided itself on truthfulness, lying has become institutionalized" van Creveld writes (p. 350). Great public outcry about accidents led to a pre-approbation of exercises and to a sharp decrease in the quantity and quality of training (p.349). Indeed, the IDF has become "soft, bloated, frequently undisciplined and undertrained", and although every successive IDF chief of staff has promised to make the army "lean and mean" again, none delivered the promise (p. 318).

Van Creveld has little doubt as to the cause of the malaise: The Occupation and the war against the Palestinians. "War... is an imitative activity in which... the two sides will learn from each other and tend to resemble each other. Thus he who fights the weak will himself become weak, and he who by "fighting" the weak behaves like a coward will end up turning into one" (p.352).

You do not have to agree with every point of van Creveld opinionated study in order to appreciate its knowledge and learning. A Superb source about the IDF, "The Sword and the Olive" is a must read for anyone interested in Israel, the Middle East, or Military history.

This is a highly engaging book by a very influential Israeli military historian, who having made his reputation addressing other topics, now takes on the IDF. Though the book is a must for anyone with an interest in Middle East military matters, and the IDF in particular, the tone of the book at times is more legal brief than history, as the author presses to complete his thesis. In general, that thesis is that the IDF has been overrated in the past, though it achieved certain heights of glory between 1967 and 1973, and since has been on a rather steady decline. Basically, this is a sound thesis, but pursued too ardently at times. For example, Van Creveld endorses the view put forth by Seymore Hersh that the Syrian offensive on the Golan in 1973 was only halted in the end by Israel "rattling the nuclear saber". ...This is a famous story, much written about, and which produced a number of Israeli heros. To attribute the success of these tankers, whose tactics were much studied and copied by NATO tankers over the years, to a speculative nuclear threat, is a bit much for a historian. There are many more numerous prosiac factors which credibly led to the withdrawal, among them, the fanatic Israeli resistance, the Syrians own heavy losses, the prior commitment of Syria's armored reserve, including the elite Republican Guard, and the effect of IAF interdiction strikes on Syrian supply lines, to name a few. This is not the only example. Van Creveld has virtually nothing positive to say about the 1982 Lebanon campaign, which is already received wisdom in much of Israel and among Israel's critics, and so somewhat tiresome. But his analysis is overly harsh in a purely military history sense. The campaign's early stages were relatively well conducted, though not mistake free, but it is difficult to imagine any other modern army having done better under the circumstances the Israelis faced. This is true regardless of whether the campaign was ultimately was a strategic mistake. As far as further criticism of the book goes I would add that some of the footnotes (the book is heavily footnoted) do not seem to match up to the point being made. This may have something to do with translation problems. The real strength of the book is the last chapters in which Van Creveld takes the IDF to task for undermining its own warrior spirit through Israeli versions of political correctness, overreliance on technology, coddling, etc. Of course, almost everything said could be applied to most modern western armies, and in particular the U.S. Armed Forces. Pretty obviously, the IDF's close links with the U.S. military, which did not realy begin until after the 1973 War, also correlate with the IDF's perceived decline.