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In Civil-Military Relations in Israel, Yehuda Ben Meir examines the reasons preventing Israel from becoming a "garrison state". A former deputy minister for foreign affairs and longtime member and analyst of the Israeli political scene, Ben Meir is uniquely qualified to give a behind-the-scenes picture of the intimate relationship between Israel's civilian and military leaders. Civil-Military Relations in Israel examines the changing face of the military over the years from an idealistic defense force to a professional army. Ben Meir also views the great divisiveness in Israeli politics as a threat to the unified strength of purpose that in the past characterized the nation's civil authority...
In a myth-busting analysis of the world's most intractable conflict, a star of Middle East reporting, "one of the most important writers" in the field (The New York Times), argues that only one weapon has yielded progress: force. Scattered over the territory between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea lie the remnants of failed peace proposals, international summits, secret negotiations, UN resolutions, and state-building efforts. The conventional story is that these well-meaning attempts at peacemaking were repeatedly, perhaps terminally, thwarted by violence. Through a rich interweaving of reportage, historical narrative, and powerful analysis, Nathan Thrall presents a startling cou...
This three-volume encyclopedia, abridged from a 30-volume set in Hebrew and with a foreword by Elie Wiesel, chronicles Jewish life before and during the Holocaust. Arranged alphabetically by town, thousands of entries explore centuries of Jewish life. Some entries, particularly for large cities, provide information on Jewish residents as early as the Middle Ages and discuss the fate of Jews during the Black Death persecutions (1348-1349) and various pogroms from the 17th to 20th centuries. Each entry provides information on the town's Jewish inhabitants on the eve of German occupation, gives the dates of Jewish roundups and mass executions and estimates how many Jews from that community survived the war. Includes more than 600 black-and-white photographs.
Challenging the established view that the civilian sector in Israel has been predominant over its security sector since the state's independence in 1948, this volume critically and systematically reexamines the relationship between these sectors and provides a deeper, more nuanced view of their interactions. Individual chapters cast light on the formal and informal arrangements, connections, and dynamic relations that closely tie Israel's security sector to the country's culture, civil society, political system, economy, educational system, gender relations, and the media. Among the issues and events discussed are Israel's separation barrier, the impact of Israel's military confrontations with the Palestinians and other Middle Eastern states -- especially Lebanon -- and the impact of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Israeli case offers insights about the role of the military and security in democratic nations in contemporary times.
For more than forty years Yitzhak Rabin played a critical role in shaping Israeli national security policy and military doctrine. He began as a soldier in the Palmach, the elite underground unit of the Jewish community in Palestine, served in the 1948 War of Independence, and ultimately became chief of staff of the Israel Defense Force (IDF), defense minister in several governments, ambassador to the United States, and, twice, prime minister. As chief of staff, Rabin led the IDF to its triumph in the 1967 Six Day War. He was assassinated in 1995 as prime minister as he left a peace rally. Drawing on unpublished materials and interviews with important sources, including Rabin himself, Efraim ...
From the former editor in chief of Haaretz, the first in-depth comprehensive biography of Ariel Sharon, the most important Israeli political and military leader of the last forty years. The life of Ariel Sharon spans much of modern Israel's history: A commander in the Israeli Army from its inception in 1948, Sharon participated in the 1948 War of Independence, and played decisive roles in the 1956 Suez War and the six day War of 1967, and most dramatically is largely credited with the shift in the outcome of the Yom Kippur War of 1973. After returning from the army in 1982, Sharon became a political leader and served in numerous governments, most prominently as the defense minister during th...
This collection of essays offers a fresh look at the 1970s, the crucial decade when the nuclear non-proliferation regime took shape. Exploring a broad array of newly declassified archival sources from different countries across the globe, and moving freely across methodological and national barriers, historians from Europe, North and South America, Asia and Africa discuss the making of the global nuclear order from truly international and transnational perspectives. The result is a fascinating and innovative volume which will remain an essential reference for historians of the nuclear age, of the cold war, and more generally of the evolution of the international system in the second half of the twentieth century. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of The International History Review.
National security has been at the forefront of the Israeli experience for seven decades, with threats ranging from terrorism, to vast rocket and missile arsenals, and even existential nuclear dangers. Yet, despite its overwhelming preoccupation with foreign and defense affairs, Israel does not have a formal national security strategy. In Israeli National Security, Chuck Freilich presents an authoritative analysis of the military, diplomatic, demographic, and societal challenges Israel faces today, to propose a comprehensive and long-term Israeli national security strategy. The heart of the new strategy places greater emphasis on restraint, defense, and diplomacy as means of addressing the ch...