‘Pounding Their Feet’: Israeli Military Culture as Reflected in Early IDF Combat History

Abstract

How did the Israel Defense Forces' (IDF) organisational and military culture shape their understanding of security threats, perceptions of warfare, and instinctive responses to security challenges? Israel's early military history is marked by the stubborn persistence of accepted patterns of thought and action. In the first twenty years of its existence, the IDF habitually came to sacrifice both political and military long-term and medium-term considerations in favour of the superficial, short-term satisfaction of its drive for action. The Israeli Army as an institution separated military actions from their political implications, and all too often, granted itself freedom of action at all levels of command. That myopic pattern led to recurring raids and minor operations during the 1950s, and contributed notably to the outbreak of the Six-Day War in 1967.

Key Words:

• Military culture
• IDF
• Six-Day War

Acknowledgements

The author wishes to thank Doron Avi-Ad and the dedicated staff of the IDF archive for their willingness, endless patience and great assistance and Eyal Ben Ari, Alex Wieland, Stephanie Hare-Cummings and the anonymous readers of this article for their useful comments. Special thanks to MacGregor Knox for his enduring support and mentorship.

Notes

¹Roger Keesing, quoted in Ann Swidler, ‘Culture in Action: Symbols and Strategies’, American Sociological Review 51/2 (April 1986), 273.

²Ibid., 276–7.

³Ibid., 273–4.

⁴See Elizabeth Kier, Imagining War: French and British Military Doctrine Between the Wars (Princeton UP 1997), 28–32; Isabel V. Hull, Absolute Destruction: Military Culture and the Practices of War in Imperial Germany (Ithaca, NY: Cornell UP 2004), Ch. 4, and ‘Military Culture, Wilhelm II, and the End of the Monarchy in World War I’, in Annika Mombauer and Wilhelm Deist (eds.), The Kaiser (Cambridge: CUP 2003), 239–42.

⁵Israeli society fits neatly into Stig Förster's concept, also employed by Isabel Hull, of ‘double militarism': see Hull, Absolute Destruction, 105–9. For a theoretical discussion of the IDF's relationship to Israeli society, see Daniel Maman, Eyal Ben-Ari and Zeev Rosenhek (eds.), Military, State, and Society in Israel (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers 2001), and Edna Lomsky-Federa and Eyal Ben-Ari (eds.), The Military and Militarism in Israeli Society (Albany, NY: State Univ. of New York Press 1999). For another examination of Israel as a militarised society see Yoram Peri, Generals in the Cabinet Room: How the Military Shapes Israeli Policy (Washington DC: US Institute of Peace 2006).

⁶Thus, for instance, Israeli diplomacy was always subordinate to strategic and military needs. As Ben-Gurion observed in 1955: ‘The Minister of Defence is authorised to make a defence policy; the role of the Foreign Minister is to explain that policy’. Dan Horowitz, ‘The Israeli Concept of National Security’, in Avner Yaniv (ed.), National Security and Democracy in Israel (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner 1993), 11–12.

⁷See also Martin van Creveld, Defending Israel: a Controversial Plan Toward Peace (New York: Thomas Dunne Books/St. Martin's Press 2004), and Israel Tal, National Security: the Israeli Experience, tr. Martin Kett (Westport, CT: Praeger 2000).

⁸These notions correspond to the IDF's definition of its twofold security challenge: ‘on-going security’– guarding borders and hinterland, and ‘fundamental’ or ‘basic security’– defending against a conventional full-scale Arab attack. The first requirement was answered by continuous preventive and/or retaliatory operations, and begot the ‘small war’ perception. The second was the foundation of the IDF's strategic planning and conduct. See also Elchanan Oren: ‘Changes in Israeli Security Perception after Kadesh’, in Ilan Troen and Moshe Shemesh (eds.), The Suez-Sinai Crisis 1956: Retrospective and Reappraisal (London: Frank Cass 1990), 205.

⁹‘Small war as the decisive form of war conduct in our struggle for existence’, IDF Archive, Tel-Hashomer, Israel (henceforth IDFA), 20/481/1949, 19 March 1948.

¹⁰Ibid.

¹¹See for instance the ongoing debate over the size of the IDF's smallest operationally independent unit – division or brigade (among the many IDF discussions of this question, see for example the GS meetings of March–Nov. 1957, IDFA 34/847/1962 and 33/847/1962). Eventually the GS chose the brigade; given the IDF's limited resources, it was the more realistic decision. However that decision also reflected and reinforced the IDF's ‘hybrid’ frame of thought. For an attempt to instil a more traditional military framework, see the memorandum ‘Strategic planning’, IDFA 24/645/1956, 6 Jan. 1955.

¹²For works on these issues in English, see Ze'ev Drori, Israel's Reprisal Policy, 1953–1956: The Dynamics of Military Retaliation (London: Frank Cass 2005), and Benny Morris, Israel's Border Wars, 1949–1956: Arab Infiltration, Israeli Retaliation and the Countdown to the Suez War (Oxford: Clarendon Press 1993).

¹³Maj. Gen. Israel Tal commented in 1977 that ‘over the years it has become clear that Israel's military thought, to this day, is little more than a series of footnotes to the doctrine which crystallised in the fifties. It is therefore worthwhile to look back and examine what it is that constituted that doctrine’ (quoted in Ariel Levite, Offense and Defence in Israeli Military Doctrine [Oxford: Westview Press 1990], 25).

¹⁴Reprisal policy lost its primacy to other strategies; but reprisal raids, disconnected from the terror acts they were supposed to punish, were never abandoned; see for instance the four reprisal raids reported in ‘Annual Report 1966–67’, IDFA 64/117/1970, as well as the notorious raid in Samou'a (Nov. 1966) that endangered King Hussain's government in Jordan, and Prime Minister Levi Eshkol's 1966 yearly letter to the IDF (IDFA, 8/117/1970).

¹⁵Morris, Israel's Border Wars, 183–6.

¹⁶Palestinian civilians were trapped in demolished houses, according to the raiding troops, by mistake. Yet some evidence suggests that raiding forces were encouraged not to spend too much time and effort in making sure buildings were empty before blowing them to rubble. ‘[I] t is obvious to me today that we shouldn't clear the police [building] or, more accurately, all the rooms, even if there are women and children inside, and the method from [the raid in] Han-Unnes is good. Clear two rooms and put the explosives in': Lt. Col. Ariel Sharon, in the Qalqilya debriefing (‘Samaria’ operation) of 202nd Paratroop Brigade, IDFA, 8/776/1958, 14 Oct. 1956.

¹⁷See the chart of reprisal operations 1953–1956, IDFA 59/846/1997 (date unknown).

¹⁸See for instance Sharon's description of his mission: ‘the mission we received was taking and demolishing the Qalqilya police station while using holding forces … we had to have bigger numbers of those in order to cause the enemy more casualties … ’. In contradiction of his later claim that ‘the mission was not to kill Arabs but to blow up the police’, during the long debriefing he several times mentioned that ‘the UN reports 83 casualties’ as proof of the mission's success (Qalqilya debriefing, IDFA 8/776/1958, 14 Oct. 1956). See also the comment of Eli Zeira (Dayan's chief of staff): ‘[in a] big operation … the mission is to kill the maximum number of Arabs … ’ Maj. Gen. Tzur commented that ‘as for the mission … it was clear that the meaning was … a big and comprehensive action, and [this] meaning mostly included the killing of many Arabs and according to this the operation was planned'; Tzur referred to Arab soldiers as ‘Arabushim’– a pejorative colloquial diminutive meaning ‘little Arabs'; ‘Samaria’ debriefing, IDFA 8/776/1958, 17 Oct. 1956).

¹⁹GS meeting, IDFA, 7/363/1956, 27 July 1954.

²⁰Ibid.

²¹From its early days, the IDF emphasised and sought to foster resourcefulness and creativity in its officers: Horowitz, ‘Israeli Concept’, 18–19. Operations that extended or exceeded their original orders could thus be valued as a legitimate expression of operational improvisation.

²²Morris, Israel's Border Wars, 242–3.

²³As quoted in Morris, ibid., 306.

²⁴Ibid., 334.

²⁵GS meeting, IDFA 7/363/1956, 27 July 1954.

²⁶GS investigation of operation ‘Samaria’, IDFA 32/847/1962, Oct. 1956.

²⁷Israeli casualties grew constantly throughout the summer and autumn of 1956, culminating in 18 dead and 88 wounded in Operation ‘Samaria’, the straw that broke the reprisal camel's back: Morris, Israel's Border Wars, 186.

²⁸GS Investigation of ‘Samaria’, IDFA 32/847/1962, Oct. 1956.

²⁹Ibid.

³⁰‘Survey of Changes in the IDF 1952–1954’, IDFA 7/636/1956, 5 July 1954.

³¹Ariel Sharon, Reprisals: This is How We Were, This is What We Did, <www.nfc.co.il/archive/003-D-3912-00.html?tag=10-39-06>.

³²‘Samaria’ debriefing, IDFA 8/776/1958, 17 Oct. 1956.

³³Qalqilya debriefing, IDFA, 8/776/1958, 14 Oct. 1956.

³⁴Ibid.

³⁵Comments of Refa'el Eitan (‘Raful’) and Zvi Tzur (‘Chera’): Samaria’ debriefing, IDFA 8/776/1958, 17 Oct. 1956. Dayan personally ruled out the taking of the Sufin and Qalqilya positions for fear of unnecessary casualties: see the three debriefings on the Samaria' operation in IDFA, 32/847/1962 and 8/776/1958.

³⁶‘Samaria’ debriefing, IDFA 8/776/1958, 17 Oct. 1956.

³⁷Qalqilya debriefing, IDFA, 8/776/1958, 14 Oct. 1956.

³⁸‘Samaria’ debriefing, IDFA 8/776/1958, 17 Oct. 1956.

³⁹A comment by Mordechi Gur, one of Sharon's company commanders, in ibid.

⁴⁰Qalqilya debriefing, IDFA, 8/776/1958, 14 Oct. 1956.

⁴¹Ibid.

⁴²Ibid.

⁴³Col. Heim Bar-Lev, ibid.

⁴⁴Maj. Gen. Assaf Simhoni, GS Investigation of ‘Samaria’, IDFA 32/847/1962, Oct. 1956.

⁴⁵Ibid.; Dayan used the pejorative term ‘Arabushim’.

⁴⁶Mordechai Gur, ‘Samaria’ debriefing, IDFA 8/776/1958, 17 Oct. 1956.

⁴⁷Qalqilya debriefing, IDFA, 8/776/1958, 14 Oct. 1956.

⁴⁸‘Samaria’ debriefing. IDFA 8/776/1958, 17 Oct. 1956.

⁴⁹Qalqilya debriefing. IDFA, 8/776/1958, 14 Oct. 1956.

⁵⁰GS meeting, IDFA 7/363/1956, 27 July 1954.

⁵¹‘Samaria’ debriefing, IDFA 8/776/1958, 17 Oct. 1956.

⁵²Such operations could always be justified under the circumstances of a low-intensity conflict, but the point to be stressed is that they became an instinct embedded in the IDF's evolving military culture.

⁵³Moti Golani, Israel in Search of War: The Sinai Campaign 1955–1956 (Brighton: Sussex Academic Press 1998), 1–11.

⁵⁴For the comprehensive strategic planning of the early and mid-1950s see, among other sources, IDFA, 259/488/1955, 261/488/1955, 27/488/1955, 109/1034/1965, 15/678/1967, 30/637/1956, and 39/157/1959. The plans reflect both Israel's acute security situation, and at the same time a surprising self-confidence that extended to operational goals such as the ‘seizure of Damascus’, IDFA 259/488/1955, 6 Feb. 1950. For economic and strategic planning, as well organisational changes, see the GS meeting on ‘War Planning’, IDFA 21/847/1962, 20 April 1952; for the 1952 training exercise, ibid., 19/4/1955.

⁵⁵IDFA 19/4/1955.

⁵⁶Ibid.

⁵⁷See the various GS meetings from the 1953–1956 period, IDFA, 26-32/847/1962. However, the effort to introduce an organised, strategically based structure and doctrine also faced the social atmosphere of ‘small army’, as expressed in a memo sent to Dayan by Capt. Israel Geffen [Dayan's brother-in-law] regarding the desirable doctrine for armoured warfare. The cover letter ran: ‘Moshe, I'm sending you, not through the usual channels, the summary of things that annoy the guys and how the guys think the armour should practice and fight’, IDFA, 40/776/1958, 10 Sept. 1965. In his The Sword and the Olive (New York: Public Affairs 1998), 161, Martin van Creveld mentions the rare achievement of Maj. Gen. Tal, who managed to instil strict discipline in the mid-1950s armoured corps in contrast to the general spirit of ‘balagan meurgan’ (organised mess). For more on the IDF's efforts to create an orderly army while maintaining its unique system of command and control, see ibid., 157–64, 166–70.

⁵⁸GS meeting, IDFA 7/363/1956, 27 July 1954.

⁵⁹Maj. Gen. Tzur, GS Investigation of the ‘Samaria’ operation, IDFA, 32/847/1962, Oct. 1956. See also Dayan's comment on ‘using these operations to train our units and check our resources’, ‘Samaria’ debriefing, IDFA 8/776/1958, 17 Oct. 1956.

⁶⁰Golani, In Search of War, 1–11. Official IDF after-action reports and post-war investigations concluded that the campaign (most of the reports use the term ‘operation’) was too short and limited to a single front, and thus did not make an ideal campaign from which to derive lessons: ‘Conference for Studying the Kadesh Lessons’, IDFA 36/847/1962, May 1957 (see also 8/776/1958 and 5/846/1959).

⁶¹‘Conference for Studying the Kadesh Lessons’, IDFA 36/847/1962 and 5/846/1959, May 1957.

⁶²Simhoni feared that reservist infantry units would not be able to accomplish the mission of taking Quessimah, and was not prepared to rely on British and French forces to take action: Mordechai Bar-On, The Gates of Gaza: Israel's Road to Suez and Back (London: Macmillan 1994), 249–70.

⁶³Ibid., 259.

⁶⁴Moshe Dayan, Diary of the Sinai Campaign, 1956 (London: Weidenfeld 1966), 99–100.

⁶⁵Ibid., 99.

⁶⁶‘My major criticism has always been directed at soldiers who did not make the supreme effort to keep up their share in the battle … and not at officers … who took on more than their duty demanded. I'm not saying it's always desirable; at times it can precipitate disaster … [but] we have to hold on to this vigorous and ebullient tradition’ (Bar-on, Gates of Gaza, 260). Dayan himself contributed to this tradition by failing to report on early developments of the campaign to Prime Minister Ben-Gurion: Golani, In Search of War, 142–3.

⁶⁷Dayan noted that some orders might be ‘surprising … in contradiction to all plans made to date, and at times even contrary to military logic’ (ibid., 251; see also the special GS meeting before Kadesh, IDFA 102/199/2005, 25 Oct. 1956).

⁶⁸On the centrality of deterrence in Israeli security perceptions see Tal, National Security, 51–7; 126 on deterrence as the rationale of reprisal operations. See also Levite, Offense and Defence, 42–3, 47–62, 124–5. Levite suggests that ‘In the absence of alternative policy instruments to influence Arab behaviour, deterrence quickly became the name of the game for Israel. Deterrence has not only become the center-piece of Israeli security versus the Arabs, but Israeli policymakers have consistently attached to it critical security importance in redressing Israel's strategic vulnerability’ Levite further explains the dynamic through which the restoration of ‘credibility’ of Israeli deterrence became an end in itself (ibid., 47).

⁶⁹‘Conference for Studying the Kadesh Lessons’, IDFA 36/847/1962, May 1957.

⁷⁰Maj. Gen. Israel Tal coined the ‘Sinai formula’ phrase; he did not need to explain it to his colleagues: GS meeting, IDFA 205/117/1970, 30 Jan. 1967.

⁷¹Israel Tal, National Security, 203. Tal refers to the years between the Six-Day War and the Oct. 1973 War, but his analysis is applicable to the years preceding the Six-Day War as well.

⁷²For an example of the frequent attempts to tempt the Syrians into border skirmishes, see the order from Oct. 1966 to ‘leave a bait’ for the Syrians (in the form of an agricultural machine) in the disputed farming territories within no-man's-land, in the hope that they would open fire: IDFA 47/9/1969, Oct. 1966; for similar attempts in 1958–59, see IDFA 76/847/1962.

⁷³Maj. Gen. Elad Peled, ibid.

⁷⁴Maj. Gen. Israel Tal, ibid. Maj. Gen. Sharon suggested what he called a ‘war of attrition’, but with similar operational characteristics: ‘I don't mean raiding this position or the other, but attrition war in different dimensions, with a more daring and broader attitude … we're not ready for it today, but we have the concept and willingness … I really think we should recommend and push for that kind of war': GS meeting, IDFA 206/117/1970, 17 May 1967.

⁷⁵Maj. Gen. Narkiss, ibid.

⁷⁶Ibid.

⁷⁷Maj. Gen. Yesha'a'yahu Gavish, GS meeting, IDFA 205/117/1970, 13 March 1967.

⁷⁸CGS Rabin, GS meeting, IDFA 206/117/1970, 3 April 1967. The aerial battle was authorised by Eshkol.

⁷⁹Dayan's reaction was ‘Are you mad? You're leading the country to war!’, Tom Segev, Israel in 1967 [in Hebrew] (Jerusalem: Keter 2005), 229.

⁸⁰Rabin, GS meeting, IDFA 206/117/1970, 3 April 1967. See also van Creveld's analysis linking the aerial battle to the Six-Day War and mentioning the ‘considerable length’ the IDF was willing to go to provoke a battle with Syria, thus catching Egypt's attention. Van Creveld mentions another possible Egyptian incentive for war – an attempt to prevent Israel from bringing its nuclear capabilities to fruition: The Sword and the Olive, 172–5.

⁸¹See GS meeting, IDFA 206/117/1970, 17 May 1967, for the change of mood in the GS, and the recognition of the challenges Israel was now facing.

⁸²In Foxbats over Dimona (New Haven, CT: Yale UP 2007), Isabella Ginor and Gideon Remez examine the USSR's role in shaping the events leading to the Six-Day War. According to Ginor and Remez, the Soviets and their Arab allies attempted to lure Israel into a preemptive attack, hoping to leverage the ensuing war as a legitimation for an attack on Israel's almost-operational nuclear weapons facility, and thus prevent an irrevocable change in the Middle Eastern balance of power. Regardless of doubts and questions arising from these claims, it is worthwhile noting that the Soviet–Arab assumption – namely that the IDF would launch a pre-emptive strike – was accurate, as Yariv's words illuminate.

⁸³Ibid. The GS assumed that a multi-front war was imminent on 23 May, upon Nasser's closure of the Straits of Tiran on 22 May to Israeli shipping. On 25 May Yariv assessed an Egyptian attack as a matter of hours. See Michael B. Oren, Six-Days of War: June 1967 and the Making of the Modern Middle East (Oxford: OUP 2002), 97. Yariv, as did other members of the GS, kept demanding a pre-emptive attack even when the expected Egyptian attack failed to materialise.

⁸⁴Rabin, GS meeting, IDFA 206/117/1970, 19 May 1967. For a detailed analysis of the overall military considerations surrounding, and the political limitations upon, an Israeli pre-emptive strike in the face of the Egyptian build-up in Sinai, international indifference to the closure of the Straits of Tiran, the Israeli government's political deliberations, and the Israeli public's widespread fears, see Oren, Six-Days, 61–126, and Edward M. Luttwak and Daniel Horowitz, The Israeli Army 1948–1973 (Cambridge, MA: Abt Books 1983), 221–5.

⁸⁵So much so that Rabin himself noted it after the war: GS meeting, IDFA 206/117/1970, 21 Aug. 1967. In a GS meeting a week earlier, Maj. Gen. Elad Peled had noted that ‘ever since Clausewitz we know that war is the continuation of politics by other means, but no one defined how to do war when there is no policy. And if we look at it today, where are we standing and how little political achievements we have, one of the conclusions is that war must have political goals': GS meeting, IDFA 206/117/1970, 14 Aug. 1967.

⁸⁶IDFA files 259/488/1955, 261/488/1955, 27/488/1955, 109/1034/1965, 15/678/1967, 30/637/1956, 39/157/1959. In 1953 the Planning Department of the GS distributed its ‘Instruction for strategic planning’ (codename ‘Pra'ot’). Under ‘Mission’ it says: ‘a. Safeguarding the state's physical integrity within its borders. b. Using a defensive war to establish more secure borders, that will be more suitable to the needs of the state's economy.’ The exclamation ‘No!!!’ is scribbled in the margin of section a: ‘Instruction for strategic planning’, IDFA, 20/7/1957, 7 March 1953.

⁸⁷GS meeting, IDFA 206/117/1970, 17 May 1967.

⁸⁸See also the analysis of Ami Gluska, who concludes that although the GS did not deliberately intend to bring about war, its military activism, not subject to effective political control, inevitably expanded from the tactical into the strategic sphere: The Israeli Military and the Origins of the 1967 War (New York: Routledge 2007), 40–83, 260.

⁸⁹See ‘Special GS discussion with the Security Committee’, IDFA 3/46/1980, 2 June 1967. In that meeting, GS members – who felt that they were facing a great threat but also a rare opportunity for a successful all-out clash with the Arab powers, an opportunity that political considerations might eventually nullify – assailed Eshkol with pressure tactics, passionate personal appeals, and the grimmest worst-case analysis.

⁹⁰Ibid.: Narkiss addressed the Prime Minister in a disrespectful manner.

⁹¹Ibid.

⁹²Ibid.: Sharon and other members of the GS proceeded to insult Eshkol further, calling him a ‘lobbyist’ for his efforts to gain American support.

⁹³Segev, 1967, 284.

⁹⁴As seems especially clear from the passionate words of Maj. Gen. Elad Peled, who, no doubt feeling that Israel was in great danger, told Eshkol: ‘We have been in this stressed and unclear situation for two weeks, and we're explaining and explaining again at every opportunity why time is working against us. The GS has not received a single explanation – what are we waiting for. I can understand that we are waiting for something. So get the secret out and we will all know what we are waiting for!’ Even after Eshkol's patient explanation of the importance of American support, Peled insisted: ‘We asked for an explanation – what are we waiting for?': GS discussion with the Security Committee, IDFA 3/46/1980, 2 June 1967.

⁹⁵‘The Six-Day War, Concluding Report, part II. Formations': IDFA, 3/901/1967.

⁹⁶See the various pre-war ‘Pargol’ ['Crop'], ‘Kardom’ ['Axe'] and ‘Makevet’ [War Hammer] plans, IDFA 62/117/1970. The plans were in general similar to those made before the Sinai Campaign, alongside defensive ‘Sadan’ [Anvil] plans. See also Central Command's report, which outlines orders from 3 June 1967 to prepare for an opportunist operation in Latrun, Sur Bacher, the Commissioner's Headquarters and more: ‘These plans enabled Central Command to attack on 5 June as the situation deteriorated. In most cases during the first phase, all brigades operated according to one of the pre-determined plans’ (‘Six-Day War Report’, IDFA, 1/901/1967) – remarks that cast doubt on Central Command's claim (ibid.) that ‘the war turned into a snowball that grew independently with time, carrying everything with it’. Central Command itself appears to have pushed the snowball by every possible means.

⁹⁷Maj. Gen. Narkiss, ibid.

⁹⁸Reconnaissance unit 47, IDFA, 3/901/1967.

⁹⁹Central Command, ‘Six-Day War Report, Part A. Commander's Survey’, IDFA, 1/901/1967. Narkiss probably confused the order to take Ramallah with the actual seizure, which took place at 1900.

 See also the comments of Narkiss's Operations officer, Lt. Col. Regev: ‘I'd say Central Command entered the war pushing one brigade after the other to fight. This as a result of the Command's pressure on the GS to authorise one thing after the other. On the eve of the 5th it was clear that it's going [well], that we need to stop asking for authorisations, [the Command] now has the brigades and can do whatever it wants with them': ibid.

¹⁰⁰On the event that marked the opening of the central front, the battle at the Commissioner's Headquarters initiated by the Jordanian Army, Narkiss commented that ‘we got fragmented authorizations to all kinds of things. I think, for instance, that in the [case of the] Commissioner's Headquarters [we] should have received final authorisation from the Operations Directorate, whether we really should counter-attack’. ibid.

¹⁰¹Segev, 1967, 199–207.

¹⁰²Maj. Gen. Narkiss, Central Command, ‘Six-Day War Report, Operations’, IDFA, 1/901/1967.

¹⁰³Narkiss's initiatives in general did not gain the support of the GS, which was determined to focus on the Southern front. Narkiss complained about ‘clear, harsh demands not to get involved and mixed up … even if they disconnect [Mount Scopus]’. The GS was well aware that such orders were required. Narkiss was eager to prevent a ‘[negative] impact … on Israel's prestige … if the Commissioner's Headquarters … [or Mount Scopus] is taken'; ibid.

¹⁰⁴Ibid. Narkiss finally received orders to take the Old City, since the GS feared an early ceasefire; ibid.

¹⁰⁵In an interview held to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the Six-Day War, Col. Dan Ziv, then Deputy Commander of Battalion 71 of the 55th Brigade, affirmed that the Brigade's goal had been to capture the Old City. His words summarize the values and conduct of the IDF of 1967: ‘I don't care what the GS said and what order Motta [Mordechai Gur, commander of the Paratroop Brigade] received. The civilian leadership was not ready for that at all. What was important was implementation without allowing the wise guys in the GS to chatter too much. Today's battalion commanders are just as good as we were, and perhaps even better. They are no less professional or enthusiastic, and they have much better equipment. The difference is that they [the military leadership] knew how to give us not only the responsibility for carrying out the mission but the authority to carry it out as well': ‘The Battle for Jerusalem is in Our Hands’, Haaretz, 31 May 2007. See also van Creveld's analysis of IDF conduct on the Syrian front: ‘Apparently there had been no thought given by the General Staff to the Campaign's final objectives … the decision where to halt was left to the discretion of junior commanders who captured this position or that as it suited them’. (The Sword and the Olive, 194).

¹⁰⁶Central Command, ‘Six-Day War Report, Operations’, IDFA, 1/901/1967; Narkiss refers to a previous cancellation of the order to take Jericho.

¹⁰⁷Ibid.

¹⁰⁸Maj. Gen. Israel Tal, GS meeting, IDFA 206/117/1970, 14 Aug. 1967.

¹⁰⁹Central Command, ‘Six-Day War Report, Conclusions’, IDFA, 1/901/1967.

¹¹⁰Maj. Gen. Aharon Yariv, Director of Military Intelligence, GS meeting, IDFA 206/117/1970, 21 Aug. 1967.

¹¹¹GS Meeting. IDFA 206/117/1970, 21 Aug. 1967.

¹¹²‘Military meanings of the new borders’, by the GS operations branch, IDFA, 60/107/1970, 2 July 1967. The GS did not shy away from assessing the war's political implications as well: ‘In light of these lessons . . . we shouldn't be interested now in peace. We should be interested in a political struggle, in which the military element will play an important role’ (Maj. Gen. Yariv, GS meeting, IDFA 206/117/1970, 21 Aug. 1967). See also Maj. Gen. Ze'evi's statement of his ‘will to dictate an arrangement and not to aspire to peace. I'm afraid of peace. It has lots of dangers for the Jewish and Israeli people … I think we haven't yet thought about this desired peace. As I see it it's very dangerous and we had better not have it': GS meeting, IDFA 206/117/1970, 7 Aug. 1967. For more on the IDF's approach to teritorries as strategic assets alone see Peri, Generals in the Cabinet Room, 226–9.

¹¹³‘Military meanings of the new borders’, IDFA, 60/107/1970, 2 July 1967.

¹¹⁴Maj. Gen. Yariv, GS meeting, IDFA 206/117/1970, 21 Aug. 1967.

¹¹⁵See GS meeting, IDFA 206/117/1970, 26 June 1967, including discussions on where to usefully locate IDF bases and training schools in order to create facts on the ground.

¹¹⁶Levite offers a brief discussion of ‘Organisational and Conceptual Conservatism’ in the Israeli security apparatus, and suggests that only the Israeli political leadership can legitimise and encourage conceptual reforms in Israeli military doctrine: Offense and Defence, 150–3.