The Sword and the Olive
Subtitle: A Critical History of the Israeli Defense Force
Edition: 1st edition
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Published: July 2, 2002
Language: eng
Format: Paperback
Number of pages: 448
ISBN-13: 9781586481551
Subjects: Military life & institutions; War & defence operations; Middle East - General; Public Policy - General; Middle East - Israel; Political Science; History - Military / War; History: World; Israel; Military - Other; History; Armed Forces; Tseva haganah le-Yisrael
First sentence: AT THE BEGINNING of the twentieth century, Palestine-even the country's borders had yet to be defined, let alone marked on the ground-was merely a remote and neglected province of the Ottoman empire.
Description: "Around 1905 a small group of Jews, having escaped the pogroms in their native Russia, found themselves refugees in a foreign country. Surrounded by hostile Arabs, they banded together in a small group known as Ha-shomer - "The Guard." From these humble beginnings, the renowned Israeli Defense Force was born, and over the course of the 20th century proved itself to be one of the greatest armed forces of all time.

Again and again, often against overwhelming odds, it defeated its enemies in victories so dramatic that the IDF assumed mythical status. Behind every myth, however, there is a reality. Israel's forces have suffered defeat in recent years - most notably in Lebanon in 1982 - and some of the successes have come at a great cost to morale. The events of the second Intifada have even led some to ask if Israel is now the Goliath, and no longer the David of the region: powerful, arrogant, and vulnerable.".

"In the Sword and the Olive, military historian Martin van Creveld offers the first complete history of the IDF in a generation. The Sword and the Olive is a history of one army as the history of a nation."--BOOK JACKET.