Benjamin Netanyahu has carefully cultivated a self-image as Israel's 'Mr. Security' during his decades of political activity. His reputation as a security-minded leader has resonated with large swathes of the Israeli public, enabling him to become Israel's longest-serving prime minister. Yet the Israeli security community has long questioned Netanyahu's approach to national security. The Netanyahu era has seen unprecedented civil-military tensions, while retired generals and former heads of the Mossad and Shin Bet intelligence agencies, some of whom were appointed by Netanyahu, have publicly rejected both his leadership and his policies. Drawing on interviews with dozens of senior veterans of the Israeli security establishment, this book addresses this intriguing paradox. It sets out to explain the mutual distrust and intense disagreements between Netanyahu and the security community, as well as the underlying reasons behind the Israeli public's inattention to the collective judgment of hundreds of ex-generals and former spymasters.
Benjamin Netanyahu has carefully cultivated a self-image as Israel's 'Mr. Security' during his decades of political activity. His reputation as a security-minded leader has resonated with large swathes of the Israeli public, enabling him to become Israel's longest-serving prime minister. Yet the Israeli security community has long questioned Netanyahu's approach to national security. The Netanyahu era has seen unprecedented civil-military tensions, while retired generals and former heads of the Mossad and Shin Bet intelligence agencies, some of whom were appointed by Netanyahu, have publicly rejected both his leadership and his policies. Drawing on interviews with dozens of senior veterans of the Israeli security establishment, this book addresses this intriguing paradox. It sets out to explain the mutual distrust and intense disagreements between Netanyahu and the security community, as well as the underlying reasons behind the Israeli public's inattention to the collective judgment of hundreds of ex-generals and former spymasters.
"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.
A dramatic shift of power has taken place within Israel's political system; where once the military was usually the servant of civilian politicians, today, argues Yoram Peri, generals lead the way when it comes to foreign and defense policymaking.
Benjamin Netanyahu is currently serving his fourth term in office as Prime Minister of Israel, the longest serving Prime Minister in the country’s history. Now Israeli journalist Ben Caspit puts Netanyahu’s life under a magnifying glass, focusing on his last two terms in office. "A biography of the steely Israeli prime minister that underscores his relentless, seemingly emotionless competitive drive ... A highly readable portrait of an enigmatic politician." - Kirkus Reviews Caspit covers a wide swath of topics, including Netanyahu’s policies, his political struggles, and his fight against the Iranian nuclear program, and zeroes in on Netanyahu’s love/hate relationship with the American administration, America’s Jews, and his alliances with American business magnates. A timely and important book, The Netanyahu Years is a primer for anyone looking to understand this world leader.
This research discusses the second-generation Likud leaders, known as the Princes, who have dominated Israeli politics for most of the last three decades: their relations with their parents and the extent to which they have followed in (or diverged from) their footsteps. The main theme seeks to explore the unique, perhaps unprecedented, socio-political phenomenon of generational duplication in a western-type democracy. This volume examines the ways and means through which the disciples of Zionist leader Ze'ev Jabotinsky managed not only to maintain lasting control of their mentor's creation – to transform after Israel's establishment from a small opposition party into the country's dominant and ruling party – but also hand down this political pre-eminence to their descendants. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is the son of Ben-Zion Netanyahu, "foreign minister" of Jabotinsky's movement. President Reuven Rivlin is the son of resistance warrior Rachel Rivlin. MP Benny Begin is the son of Menachem Begin. Former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Tzipi Livni and many others were also part of those "Princes". A breakthrough in the world’s inter-generational research, the book is for readers interested in political science, sociology, and the politics of Israel and the Middle East.
The definitive book on President Obama’s historic nuclear deal with Iran from the U.S. foreign policy expert and acclaimed author of Treacherous Alliance. In Losing an Enemy, Middle East policy expert Trita Parsi examines President Obama’s strategy toward Iran’s nuclear program and reveals how the historic agreement of 2015 broke the persistent stalemate in negotiations that had blocked earlier efforts. The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, commonly known as the Iran nuclear deal, accomplished two major feats in one stroke: it averted the threat of war with Iran and prevented the possibility of an Iranian nuclear bomb. Parsi advised the Obama White House throughout the talks and had access to decision-makers and diplomats on the U.S. and Iranian sides alike. With his unique insight, he examines every facet of a triumph that could become as important and consequential as Nixon’s rapprochement with China. Drawing from more than seventy-five in-depth interviews with key decision-makers, including Iran's Foreign Minister Javad Zarif and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, this is the first authoritative account of President Obama’s signature foreign policy achievement. "A detailed and gripping account of the 22 months of negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program that resulted in the 2015 deal."—John Waterbury, Foreign Affairs
"Generals in the Cabinet Room offers insights into the workings of Israel's military-political complex over the past fifteen years. Drawing on extensive literature (much of it in Hebrew and thus largely unknown outside of Israel) and hundreds of interviews with leading players, Peri explains how Israel's prolonged experience of low-intensity conflict and political crisis has enabled the military establishment to acquire unprecedented influence, shaping Israeli policy toward the Oslo process and the al-Aqsa intifida."--BOOK JACKET.
From the author of the classic The Wizards of Armageddon and Pulitzer Prize finalist comes the definitive history of American policy on nuclear war—and Presidents’ actions in nuclear crises—from Truman to Trump. Fred Kaplan, hailed by The New York Times as “a rare combination of defense intellectual and pugnacious reporter,” takes us into the White House Situation Room, the Joint Chiefs of Staff’s “Tank” in the Pentagon, and the vast chambers of Strategic Command to bring us the untold stories—based on exclusive interviews and previously classified documents—of how America’s presidents and generals have thought about, threatened, broached, and just barely avoided nuclear war from the dawn of the atomic age until today. Kaplan’s historical research and deep reporting will stand as the permanent record of politics. Discussing theories that have dominated nightmare scenarios from Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Kaplan presents the unthinkable in terms of mass destruction and demonstrates how the nuclear war reality will not go away, regardless of the dire consequences.
The most comprehensive study to date of Israel's national security. It combines an exhaustive analysis of the military, diplomatic, demographic and societal challenges Israel faces, with the responses it has developed, to present a detailed proposal for an overall new national security strategy, the first such Israeli strategy ever published.
