Fortress Israel

Download or read book Fortress Israel written by Patrick Tyler and published by Macmillan + ORM. This book was released on 2012-09-18 with total page 554 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "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.

Download or read book Fortress Israel written by Patrick Tyler and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2012-09-18 with total page 578 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the late 1940s, David Ben-Gurion founded a unique military society: the state of Israel. A powerful defense establishment came to dominate the nation, and for half a century Israel's leaders have relished continuous war with the Arabs with an unblinking determination.

Download or read book Fortress Israel written by Patrick Tyler and published by Portobello Books. This book was released on 2012-10-04 with total page 460 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'Israel, six decades after its founding, remains a nation in thrall to an original martial impulse.' Born of idealism, under David Ben Gurion and his protgs Dayan, Sharon and Peres, Israel came to prioritize security at all costs, and to seize land and water whenever opportunity arose. The security state erected around the nation is the most agile, relentless, intelligent and skilful in the region. And it is very little understood. Patrick Tyler believes that the way to understand it is to understand the men and women who have created, sustained and directed it. Less an anatomy of institutions and administrations than a searching biographical study of the outsize personalities who headed its operations and in consequence steered Israel's course since its foundation, this book is a landmark in the revelation of the inner workings and innermost desires of the Israeli nation-state.

Download or read book The Fortifications of Ancient Israel and Judah 1200–586 BC written by Samuel Rocca and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2012-10-20 with total page 152 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides a detailed study of the fortifications of the founders of ancient Israel from the time of their first settlement in the Middle East, through the periods of the united and divided kingdoms, until the sack of Jerusalem in 586 BC. It begins in the period of Israelite settlement in the First Iron Age period (1200–1000 BC). The extensive fortifications created by the famous kings Saul, David and Solomon are covered, including Gibeah, Jerusalem, Megiddo, Hazor and Gezer, which are described in the Bible. The period of the Divided Monarchy saw the creation of two separate political entities: the kingdoms of Israel and Judah. The enemies the two kingdoms faced in this period included Moab, Edom, and the Arameans as well as the mighty empires of Assyria, Babylonia and Egypt. This book is a must-have for fans of warfare in the ancient Middle East.

Download or read book A Mighty Fortress written by H. A. Covington and published by AuthorHouse. This book was released on 2005-07-28 with total page 386 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The next book of H. A. Covington’s Northwest novel trilogy, A Mighty Fortress picks up where A Distant Thunder left off, and serves as a bridge to the final novel in the series, The Hill of the Ravens. In a not too distant future, the United States is on the verge of breakup and collapse. America is hopelessly bogged down in an overseas war against the Islamic world in a dozen countries that seems to have no end, while at the same time the nation is torn by years of bloody domestic terrorism on the part of white militias in the Pacific Northwest, and Hispanic separatists in the Southwest. The economy, the government, and the legal system are falling apart. America is going broke and on the verge of meltdown, as well as facing a major Arab offensive in the Middle East. Finally, the Federal government has no choice but to submit to negotiations with the terrorists, and a peace conference is called at Longview, Washington. Cody Brock is a tough Seattle street kid, a runaway who joined the Northwest Volunteer Army at sixteen. By day he attends Hillside High School, where he falls in love with the cheerleader, homecoming queen, and budding actress, Kelly Shipman. By night he rides with the most deadly of all the terrorist hit squads, the murderous crew of the gangster-like Robert “Bobby Bells” DiBella, along with his girl comrade Nightshade. Both of them are selected to accompany the rebel delegation to Longview, where suddenly Cody is compelled to confront a ghost from his past. His Jewish past...

Download or read book The Memoirs of God written by Mark S. Smith and published by Fortress Press. This book was released on 2004 with total page 214 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This insightful work examines the variety of ways that collective memory, oral tradition, history, and history writing intersect. Integral to all this are the ways in which ancient Israel was shaped by the monarchy, the Babylonian exile, and the dispersions of Judeans and the ways in which Israel conceptualized and interacted with the divine-Yahweh as well as other deities.

Download or read book Israel in Exile, a Theological Interpretation written by Ralph W. Klein and published by Augsburg Fortress Publishing. This book was released on 1979 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: