“Once in the military system, Israelis never fully exit,” writes the prizewinning journalist Patrick Tyler in the prologue to Fortress Israel. “They carry the military identity for life, not just through service in the reserves until age forty-nine . . . but through lifelong expectations of loyalty and secrecy.” The military is the country to a great extent, and peace will only come, Tyler argues, when Israel’s military elite adopt it as the national strategy.
Fortress Israel is an epic portrayal of Israel’s martial culture—of Sparta presenting itself as Athens. From Israel’s founding in 1948, we see a leadership class engaged in an intense ideological struggle over whether to become the “light unto nations,” as envisioned by the early Zionists, or to embrace an ideology of state militarism with the objective of expanding borders and exploiting the weaknesses of the Arabs. In his first decade as prime minister, David Ben-Gurion conceived of a militarized society, dominated by a powerful defense establishment and capable of defeating the Arabs in serial warfare over many decades. Bound by self-reliance and a stern resolve never to forget the Holocaust, Israel’s military elite has prevailed in war but has also at times overpowered Israel’s democracy. Tyler takes us inside the military culture of Moshe Dayan, Yitzhak Rabin, Ariel Sharon, and Benjamin Netanyahu, introducing us to generals who make decisions that trump those of elected leaders and who disdain diplomacy as appeasement or surrender.
Fortress Israel shows us how this martial culture envelops every family. Israeli youth go through three years of compulsory military service after high school, and acceptance into elite commando units or air force squadrons brings lasting prestige and a network for life. So ingrained is the martial outlook and identity, Tyler argues, that Israelis are missing opportunities to make peace even when it is possible to do so. “The Zionist movement had survived the onslaught of world wars, the Holocaust, and clashes of ideology,” writes Tyler, “but in the modern era of statehood, Israel seemed incapable of fielding a generation of leaders who could adapt to the times, who were dedicated to ending . . . [Israel’s] isolation, or to changing the paradigm of military preeminence.”
Based on a vast array of sources, declassified documents, personal archives, and interviews across the spectrum of Israel’s ruling class, FortressIsrael is a remarkable story of character, rivalry, conflict, and the competing impulses for war and for peace in the Middle East.
About Patrick Tyler
Patrick Tyler worked for twelve years at The Washington Post before joining The New York Times in 1990, where he served as chief correspondent. His books include Running Critical, A Great Wall (which won the 2000 Lionel Gelber Prize), and A World of Trouble. He lives in Washington, D.C.
Editorial Review
Since its founding in opposition to Arab hostility, Israel remains “in thrall of an original martial impulse,” writes former Washington Post and New York Times journalist Tyler (A World of Trouble: The White House and the Middle East—from the Cold War to the War on Terror, 2008, etc.). The native-born Israelis, sabras (“the new Jews, no longer a caricature of passivism, dependence, and weakness, but a people determined to take its fate into its own hands”), represented best in such figures as defense minister Moshe Dayan, grew up on cooperative farms, sparring with local Arabs over turf, reading the Bible not for religious instruction but as a “manual for war,” and becoming radicalized while serving in the army. The new militarism superseded the romantic notions of Zionism’s founding. By the mid-1950s, Ben-Gurion began urging for immediate escalation of Israel’s military might in response to Egyptian leader Nasser’s arms spree from Russia. Dayan, Ariel Sharon, Abba Eban, Menachim Begin, Yitzhak Rabin, Golda Meir and others were enlisted in Ben-Gurion’s new offensive-thinking policy, a call for an expansion of the Jewish state through preemptive strikes. Tyler attributes much of Ben-Gurion’s new “activist strategy” to his impending retirement, deep-seated anxiety about his “weak-sister” successor and need to galvanize the support of the Israeli people. There has been a high price for this militarism—e.g., the Six-Day War, War of Attrition, border reprisals, Yom Kippur War and the current subverting of Iran’s nuclear program by secret assassinations and bombings. The tragic result of this military folly, writes the author, is Israel’s inability to generate effective diplomatic channels and alternatives for peace. – Kirkus Reviews
“Fortress Israel: The Inside Story of the Military Elite Who Run the Country — and Why They Can’t Make Peace” by Patrick Tyler
The Washington Post Book Review – October 6, 2012 (Excerpt)
More than 60 years after its founding, the state that David Ben Gurion and other Israeli founding fathers built still does not know peace. Longtime enemies such as Egypt have laid down their arms, but Syria remains defiant, and in Lebanon, Hezbollah wages an on-again, off-again, low-level war. Most troubling, Israel rules uneasily over the West Bank and is in a state of near war with Hamas-led Gaza. The lack of resolution to the Palestinian problem is increasingly making Israel an international pariah.
Patrick Tyler, an eminent journalist who has reported for The Washington Post and the New York Times, offers a provocative explanation for Israel’s constant insecurity: Its leaders, particularly its security elite, are unable and unwilling to turn their guns into ploughshares. In the end, however, the argument of “Fortress Israel” does not survive close scrutiny, and the book, as its subtitle suggests, simplifies Israeli politics and the difficult security dilemmas the country faces. [Read the full article...]
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THE BLEEDING HILLS A Novel by Wilfried F. Voss
I have fought a good fight,
I have finished my course,
I have kept the faith. - 2 Timothy iv. 7
The Irish War is officially a part of history, but not for Finnean Whelan, an IRA veteran of almost 40 years. British Intelligence has produced evidence that he is the mastermind behind a conspiracy to assassinate the First Minister of Northern Ireland. For Whelan this is not only a mission of revenge, but marks the beginning of a journey into the past and the return to the one true love: Ireland. [More...]
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THE BLEEDING HILLS
