Israels-Wars-1947-1993

188 Pages·1947·1.06 MB·English

Israel’s Wars, 1947–93

Warfare and History
General Editor
Jeremy Black
Professor of History, University of Exeter

European warfare, 1660–1815
Jeremy Black

The Great War, 1914–18
Spencer C. Tucker

Wars of imperial conquest in Africa, 1830–1914
Bruce Vandervort

German armies: war and German politics, 1648–1806
Peter H. Wilson

Ottoman warfare, 1500–1700
Rhoads Murphey

Seapower and naval warfare, 1650–1830
Richard Harding

Air power in the age of total war, 1900–60
John Buckley

Frontiersmen: warfare in Africa since 1950
Anthony Clayton

Western warfare in the age of the Crusades, 1000–1300
John France

The Korean War
Stanley Sandler

European and Native-American warfare, 1675–1815
Armstrong Starkey

Vietnam
Spencer C. Tucker

The War for Independence and the transformation of American society
Harry M. Ward

Warfare, state and society in the Byzantine world, 565–1204
John Haldon

Soviet military system
Roger Reese

Warfare in Atlantic Africa, 1500–1800
John K. Thornton

The Soviet military experience
Roger Reese

Warfare at sea, 1500–1650
Jan Glete

Warfare and society in Europe, 1792–1914
Geoffrey Wawro

Israel’s Wars, 1947–93

Ahron Bregman

Israel’s Wars, 1947–93

Ahron Bregman

London and NewYork

First published 2000
by Routledge
11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE

Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
29 West 35th Street, NewYork, NY 10001

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group

This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2001.

© 2000 Ahron Bregman

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any
form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented,
including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system,
without permission in writing from the publishers.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Bregman, Ahron.
Israel’s wars, 1947–93 / Ahron Bregman.
p.cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1.Arab–Israeli conflict. I.Title.
DS119.76.B74 2000
956.04–dc21
99-054115

ISBN 0–415–21467–X (hbk)
ISBN 0–415–21468–8 (pbk)
ISBN 0-203-13244-0 Master e-book ISBN
ISBN 0-203-17978-1 (Glassbook Format)

In memory of my great uncle

Ahron Friedman

killed in the 1948 War of Independence

ix

Contents

List of maps
x
Preface
xi
Abbreviations
xiv

1 The 1947–9 war
1

2
A nation-in-arms 1949–67
26

3 The six bad years 1967–73
41

4 War and peace 1973–9
66

5 War in Lebanon 1982
95

6 Intifada 1987–93
118

7 Conclusions
134

Notes
138
Select bibliography
163
Index
166

x

List of Maps

1 Palestine 1947: the UN Partition Plan
8
2 Israel 1949: armistice lines
22
3 The 1967 Six Day War: Israel’s conquests
60
4 The 1973 Yom Kippur War: the Syrian front
88
5 The 1973 Yom Kippur War: the Egyptian front
91
6 Lebanon,‘Operation Peace for Galilee’ 6–11 June 1982
109

xi

Preface

This book is the result of a suggestion made by Jeremy Black, general editor of
Warfare and History, who thought that an account of Israel’s wars would be a useful
addition to the series. Its publication was delayed by an invitation to act as a
consultant and write the companion book for a six-part BBC Television documen-
tary about the Arab–Israeli conflict (The Fifty Years War: Israel and the Arabs). This
has proved a benefit since, in the course of my work on the series, I came across
material which I could never otherwise have obtained.
Israel’s Wars, 1947–93 is, first and foremost, an overview of Israel’s wars with the
Palestinians and Arabs. I start with the 1947–8 Jewish-Palestinian struggle for pos-
session and mastery of the land of Palestine, and conclude with the Israeli–Palestin-
ian confrontation which took place between 1987 and 1993, the so-called Intifada.
In between I examine Israel’s wars with its Arab neighbours, principally Egypt,
Jordan, Syria and the PLO in Lebanon, in the years 1948, 1956, 1967, 1968–70, 1973
and 1982.
Israel’s Wars is not, however, only about battles and fighting, but also about the
people of Israel, a nation-in-arms, who are, it is often said, ‘soldiers on eleven
months’ annual leave’. By looking at almost five decades of Israeli– Palestinian–
Arab conflict we can see that the Israelis, in spite of tremendous difficulties, have
for many years demonstrated an extraordinary willingness to carry the burden,
pay high taxes, endure long military service, and fight both in wars and between
them. But after, and as a result of, the Six Day War of June 1967, as I will demonstrate,
Israelis became more critical of their leadership, dissent grew, and there was also a
pronounced tendency to reject the idea that preparations for war need always be at
the expense of social services and justify indifference towards domestic problems.
Still, in spite of growing dissent and criticism, the Israelis remained, in the post-
1967 war period, loyal to their leadership, always rallying behind it in times of
war. The turning point, however, came during the 1982 war in Lebanon when, for
the first time in Israel’s history, national solidarity showed signs of breaking down,
and while the battle was still in progress Israelis protested against the war, and

PREFACE

xii

some even declared their refusal to take part in it. This unprecedented challenge
and decline in the motivation of Israelis to serve gathered pace after the Lebanon
war and reached a peak during the Intifada, the Palestinian revolt in the occupied
territories between 1987 and 1993.
I link this trend mainly to a reduction in the level of the external threat to
Israel’s existence, and suggest that during the first two or three decades of the state,
a strong sense of external threat, fresh memories of the Holocaust and collective
ideals and priorities had stiffened the will of Israelis to serve, fight and sacrifice.
This determination was strengthened by the leadership’s success in cultivating the
image of Israel as a small defenceless state surrounded by evil Arabs bent on her
destruction; and, ironically, by the Arabs themselves, who played into their hands
by exaggerating their own military capability and talking of dismantling the Jewish
state, wiping it out and driving the Jews into the sea. However, with the external
danger subsiding, the gradual disappearance of the Holocaust generation and a
general shift from collective ideals and priorities to individual ones, there was also
a decline of will among Israelis to serve and bear the burden, as was made very
clear in Lebanon in 1982 and during the Intifada.
This book is intended chiefly for the use of university students, and is designed
to be rather more than a chronicle of events. There are frequent pauses to examine
how things operate and for what reasons; and I often go beyond the task of narrative
and description to comment and explain, so that the reader can elicit from the
sequence of events some better understanding of how things turned out as they did.
The book also contains new – never before published – material. Perhaps most
notable is the revelation that Anwar Sadat’s right-hand man (who also worked for
Sadat’s predecessor President Nasser as confidante and member of his presidential
staff) was an agent of Mossad, Israel’s secret service. I expose, for the first time, the
documents he passed to the Israelis which became the foundation of Israel’s strategy
before the Yom Kippur War (‘The Conception’) and claim that from being an
agent working exclusively for Mossad, he later became a double agent and worked
also for Sadat, who sent him, on the eve of the Yom Kippur War, to meet the head
of Mossad in London and to mislead him regarding the time Egypt would open
fire.
I have always believed that while one can learn history from documents, articles
and books, it can be better understood if heard from those who have made it, for
motives and personalities are important in the making of history. And though a
person’s recollection tends to be clouded by later events, oral history is still an
important complement to the written word and to our better understanding of
history. In the last decade or so, in addition to sieving through piles of written
material, I have had the opportunity to meet many who have taken part in making
the history about which I am writing here. Their names are too numerous to
mention, but I wish in particular to thank the following, from whom I have

PREFACE

xiii

benefited most: Amos Amir, Moshe Amirav, Meir Amit, Moshe Arens, Ehud
Barak, Haim Bar Lev, Mordechai Bar On, Benyamin Begin, Yossi Beilin, Yossi
Ben-Aharon, Avigdor Ben Gal, Benyamin Ben-Eliezer, Yosef Burg, Warren
Christopher, Ben Zion Cohen, Avraham Dar, Robert Dassa, Uzi Dayan, Abba
Eban, Rafael Eitan, Miriam Eshkol, Yeshayahu Gavish, Mordechai Gazit, Eli Geva,
Benjamin Givli, Mordechai Gur, Eitan Haber, Yehoshafat Harkabi, Isser Harel,
Yair Hirschfeld, Mordechai Hod, Yitzhak Hofi, Yehiel Kadishai, Lou Keddar, David
Kimche, Yitzhak LeviLevitza, Uri Milstein, Amram Mitzna, Uzi Narkiss, Yitzhak
Navon, Benjamin Netanyahu, Marcelle Ninio, Meir Pail, Dan Pattir, Matityahu
Peled, Shimon Peres, Leah Rabin, Yitzhak Rabin, Itamar Rabinovich, Gideon Rafael,
Ran Ronen (Peker), Elyakim Rubinstein, Yehoshua Saguey, Yossi Sarid, Uri Savir,
Amnon Lipkin-Shahak, Shlomo Shamir, Yitzhak Shamir, Yaacov Sharett, Ariel
Sharon, Yisrael Tal, Avraham Tamir, Yair Tzaban, Ezer Weizman, Aharon Yariv,
Re’havham Ze’evi, and Eli Zeira. Last, but certainly not least, my love and thanks
go to Dana, and to my children Daniel and Maya, whose constant interruption is
a good reminder that there is more to life than the long and lonesome business of
writing.

Ahron Bregman
London, 1999

xiv

Abbreviations

The following abbreviations are used in the notes:

ISA
Israel State Archive
BGA
Ben Gurion Archive
BLA
Brian Lapping Associates (interviews carried out by this production
company and kept at the Liddell Hart Centre, King’s College London)
HA
Hagana Archive
IDFA
Israel Defence Forces Archive
LILR
The Lavon Institute for Labour Research
LPA
Labour Party Archive
YTA
Yad Tabenkin Archive