Defending the Holy Land

by Maoz, Zeev

• ISBN13: 9780472115402
• ISBN10: 0472115405
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2006-05-12
• Publisher: Univ of Michigan Pr

Summary

Defending the Holy Landis the most comprehensive analysis to date of Israel's national security and foreign policy, from the inception of the State of Israel to the present. Author Zeev Maoz's unique double perspective, as both an expert on the Israeli security establishment and esteemed scholar of Mideast politics, enables him to describe in harrowing detail the tragic recklessness and self-made traps that pervade the history of Israeli security operations and foreign policy. Most of the wars in which Israel was involved, Maoz shows, were entirely avoidable, the result of deliberate Israeli aggression, flawed decision-making, and misguided conflict management strategies. None, with the possible exception of the 1948 War of Independence, were what Israelis call "wars of necessity." They were all wars of choice-or, worse, folly. Demonstrating that Israel's national security policy rested on the shaky pairing of a trigger-happy approach to the use of force with a hesitant and reactive peace diplomacy,Defending the Holy Landrecounts in minute-by-minute detail how the ascendancy of Israel's security establishment over its foreign policy apparatus led to unnecessary wars and missed opportunites for peace. A scathing and brilliant revisionist history,Defending the Holy Landcalls for sweeping reform of Israel's foreign policy and national security establishments. This book will fundamentally transform the way readers think about Israel's troubled history.

Author Biography

Zeev Maoz is Professor of Political Science at the University of California, Davis.

Table of Contents

The Israeli security puzzle : conceptions, approaches, paradoxes	p. 3
The Sinai war : the making of the second round	p. 47
The six day war : playing with fire	p. 80
The war of attrition : the first payment for arrogance	p. 113
The Yom Kuppur war : the war that shouldn't have been	p. 140
The Lebanese swamp, 1981-2000	p. 171
The unlimited use of the limited use of force : Israel and low-intensity warfare	p. 231
The mixed blessing of Israel's nuclear policy	p. 301
Israeli intervention in intra-Arab affairs	p. 361
Never missing an opportunity to miss an opportunity : the Israeli nonpolicy of peace in the Middle East	p. 386
The structure and process of national security and foreign policy in Israel	p. 499
Principal findings and lessons	p. 544
If so bad, why so good? : explaining the paradox of the Israeli success story	p. 564
Paths to the future : scenarios and prescriptions	p. 597
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