The Sword And The Olive Read Free Page A

will combine with narrative, the general with the specific. Only in this way, and by taking as comprehensive a point of view as possible, can one hope to do justice to the subject as a whole.
    With these objectives in mind, the volume falls into three main parts. Part I will take us from the beginnings past World War I, past the time when Hagana was founded during the period of British rule as a self-defense organization, past the establishment in 1941 of PALMACH as the first full-time fighting force, past the start of the underground struggle against the British in 1944-1947, and all the way through Israel’s War of Independence, which lasted from November 1947 to January 1949. Part II will trace the IDF’s growth from the War of Independence to the 1973 Arab-Israeli War inclusive, the period when it fought its most celebrated campaigns and also turned itself from a popular militia equipped with infantry weapons into one of the world’s most modern and most powerful armed forces. Part III will examine the slow but steady decline of the IDF from the end of the October War to the present day, a period characterized above all by the introduction of high technology (including, according to foreign reports, nuclear weapons and their delivery vehicles) on the one hand and the increasing shift from interstate war to antiguerrilla and antiterrorist operations on the other.
    For the reader who is not an Israeli and does not know Hebrew, a word concerning the sources used in writing this volume may be in order. Partly for understandable security reasons, partly because of the eastern European political tradition of which they were the carriers, Israel’s leaders have traditionally made it rather hard to gather information on defense in general and the IDF in particular. During recent years the situation has tended to improve: Parts of both the state archives and those of the IDF itself are now open through to the period of the 1956 Suez Campaign, as are various prestate archives. Still, the extent of the change should not be exaggerated. Especially compared to what we have come to expect of Western democracies with their various freedom of information acts, much—including much that is critically important to the Israeli state’s existence—remains inaccessible to the public.
    In trying to close the gap I have drawn on the enormous body of material represented by the secondary literature, the press (both the general one and that which is published by the IDF itself), memoirs, diaries, and interviews. In doing so I have not been wary of footnoting the volume very heavily; the reason being that, since so much is censored, I wanted to make sure that I could point out my sources for each fact cited. Also, I wanted to give the reader at least an idea concerning the enormous body of material that is available, and that, in previous full-length, English-language accounts of the subject written by either foreigners or Israelis, for the most part has remained either untouched or unmentioned.
    MARTIN VAN CREVELD
Jerusalem, Israel
     

THE SWORD AND THE OLIVE
     
    What is good? You ask. To be brave is good.
    FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE, Thus Spake Zarathustra
     

I
     
    THE SURGE, 1907-1949
     
    A T THE BEGINNING of the period covered by this part, the first Jewish self-defense groups, consisting of a few dozen loosely organized, inexperienced, and ill-armed men and women in the northern part of Erets Yisrael (Land of Israel), had just been founded. By the time it ended there already existed a regular, state-owned, Jewish armed force with almost 100,000 men and women under arms. It included, besides a dozen ground combat brigades, at least embryonic air and naval arms as well as a general staff, a logistic service, an intelligence service, a communications service, a technical service, and even a “psychological research service” employing 62 people. 1 These forces, as well as the rudimentary military industries by which they were supported,