Download or read book Netanyahu vs The Generals written by Guy Ziv and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2024-01-18 with total page 402 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book Why Hawks Become Doves written by Guy Ziv and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 2014-11-06 with total page 195 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why do hawkish leaders change course to pursue dovish policies? In Why Hawks Become Doves, Guy Ziv argues that conventional international relations theory is inadequate for explaining these momentous foreign policy shifts, because it underestimates the importance of leaders and their personalities. Applying insights from cognitive psychology, Ziv argues that decision-makers' cognitive structure—specifically, their levels of cognitive openness and complexity—is a critical causal variable in determining their propensity to revise their beliefs and pursue new policies. To illustrate his point, he examines Israeli statesman Shimon Peres. Beginning his political career as a tough-minded security hawk, Peres emerged as one of the Middle East's foremost champions of Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking. Drawing on a vast range of sources, including interviews with Peres and dozens of other political elites, archival research, biographies, and memoirs, Ziv finds that Peres's highly open and complex cognitive structure facilitated a quicker and more profound dovish shift on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict than his less cognitively open and complex rivals.
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 Netanyahu vs The Generals written by Guy Ziv and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2024-01-18 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book Netanyahu and Likud s Leaders written by Gil Samsonov and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2020-02-20 with total page 404 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book Losing an Enemy written by Trita Parsi and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2017-08-01 with total page 571 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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
Download or read book The Netanyahu Years written by Ben Caspit and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2017-07-11 with total page 543 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book Generals in the Cabinet Room written by Yoram Peri and published by US Institute of Peace Press. This book was released on 2006 with total page 356 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "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.
Download or read book Generals in the Cabinet Room written by Yoram Peri and published by US Institute of Peace Press. This book was released on 2006 with total page 348 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book Trump and His Generals written by Peter Bergen and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2019-12-10 with total page 402 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From one of America's preeminent national security journalists, an explosive, news-breaking account of Donald Trump's collision with the American national security establishment, and with the world It is a simple fact that no president in American history brought less foreign policy experience to the White House than Donald J. Trump. The real estate developer from Queens promised to bring his brash, zero-sum swagger to bear to cut through America's most complex national security issues, and he did. If the cost of his "America First" agenda was bulldozing the edifice of foreign alliances that had been carefully tended by every president from Truman to Obama, then so be it. It was clear from the first that Trump's inclinations were radically more blunt force than his predecessors'. When briefed by the Pentagon on Iran and the Strait of Hormuz, he exclaimed, "The next time Iran sends its boats into the Strait: blow them out of the water! Let's get Mad Dog on this." When told that the capital of South Korea, Seoul, was so close to the North Korean border that millions of people would likely die in the first hours of any all-out war, Trump had a bold response, "They have to move." The officials in the Oval Office weren't sure if he was joking. He raised his voice. "They have to move!" Very quickly, it became clear to a number of people at the highest levels of government that their gravest mission was to protect America from Donald Trump. Trump and His Generals is Peter Bergen's riveting account of what happened when the unstoppable force of President Trump met the immovable object of America's national security establishment--the CIA, the State Department, and, above all, the Pentagon. If there is a real "deep state" in DC, it is not the FBI so much as the national security community, with its deep-rooted culture and hierarchy. The men Trump selected for his key national security positions, Jim Mattis, John Kelly, and H. R. McMaster, were products of that culture: Trump wanted generals, and he got them. Three years later, they would be gone, and the guardrails were off. From Iraq and Afghanistan to Syria and Iran, from Russia and China to North Korea and Islamist terrorism, Trump and His Generals is a brilliant reckoning with an American ship of state navigating a roiling sea of threats without a well-functioning rudder. Lucid and gripping, it brings urgently needed clarity to issues that affect the fate of us all. But clarity, unfortunately, is not the same thing as reassurance.
Download or read book The Bomb written by Fred Kaplan and published by Simon & Schuster. This book was released on 2021-02-02 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book Jews Antisemitism and the Middle East written by Michael Curtis and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-09-08 with total page 311 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Will animosity towards Jews and the State of Israel never end? This book ventures to rectify the misrepresentations, propaganda, obsessions, and falsifications widely disseminated in the media and public discourse, explaining the motivations behind them. The issues Michael Curtis scrutinizes are complicated and controversial, sometimes even baffling, but he reviews them in as objective and rigorous a manner as possible. Curtis divides his arguments into five key areas: political correctness and the obsessive attack on Israel; the surprising and disturbing rise of antisemitism; the Arab world and the Islamist threat; the Palestinian narrative; and the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. The first section focuses on the censorious attitude toward Israel taken by many in the international community. A second section consists of essays on the increase of contemporary antisemitism in Arab and Muslim countries as well as European democracies. In the third section, the author addresses changes in the Arab world, the threat of Iranian ambitions, the new alliance of Sunni Islamist states, and the growing strength and danger of Islamic fundamentalism and extremist behavior. His fourth section, on the Palestinian Narrative, details the acceptance by many critics of Israel and the international media of the Palestinian narrative of victimhood. Finally, the section on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict details the continuing struggle within the Middle East between Israelis and Palestinians. This book is a must read for historians, political scientists, Jewish studies scholars, and all those interested in one of the most volatile and controversial regions in the world today.
Download or read book Day of the Assassins written by Michael Burleigh and published by Pan Macmillan. This book was released on 2021-05-27 with total page 478 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: ‘Written with Burleigh’s characteristic brio, with pithy summaries of historical moments (he is brilliant on the Americans in Vietnam, for example) and full of surprising vignettes’ – The Times ’Book of the Week’ In Day of the Assassins, acclaimed historian Michael Burleigh examines assassination as a special category of political violence and asks whether, like a contagious disease, it can be catching. Focusing chiefly on the last century and a half, Burleigh takes readers from Europe, Russia, Israel and the United States to the Congo, India, Iran, Laos, Rwanda, South Africa and Vietnam. And, as we travel, we revisit notable assassinations, among them Leon Trotsky, Hendrik Verwoerd, Juvénal Habyarimana, Indira Gandhi, Yitzhak Rabin and Jamal Khashoggi. Combining human drama, questions of political morality and the sheer randomness of events, Day of the Assassins is a riveting insight into the politics of violence. ‘Brilliant and timely . . . Our world today is as dangerous and mixed-up as it has ever been. Luckily we have Michael Burleigh to help us make sense of it.’ – Mail on Sunday
Download or read book The General s Son written by Miko Peled and published by . This book was released on 2016 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A powerful account, by Israeli peace activist Miko Peled, of his transformation from a young man who'd grown up in the heart of Israel's elite and served proudly in its military into a fearless advocate of nonviolent struggle and equal rights for all Palestinians and Israelis. His journey is mirrored in many ways the transformation his father, a much-decorated Israeli general, had undergone three decades earlier. Alice Walker contributed a foreword to the first edition in which she wrote, "There are few books on the Israel/Palestine issue that seem as hopeful to me as this one." In the new Epilogue he takes readers to South Africa, East Asia, several European countries, and the West Bank, Gaza, and Israel itself.
Download or read book Bibi written by Anshel Pfeffer and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2018 with total page 434 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For many in Israel and elsewhere, Benjamin Netanyahu is anathema, an embarrassment; yet he continues to dominate Israeli public life. How can we explain his rise, his hold on Israeli politics, and his outsized role on the world's stage?In Bibi, Anshel Pfeffer reveals the formative influence of Netanyahu's father and grandfather, who bequeathed to him a once-marginal brand of Zionism combining Jewish nationalism with religious traditionalism. In the Zionist enterprise, Netanyahu embodies the triumph of the underdogs over the secular liberals who founded the nation.Netanyahu's Israel is a hybrid of ancient phobia and high-tech hope; of tribalism and globalism -- just like the man himself. We cannot understand Israel today without first understanding the man who leads it.
Download or read book Be Strong and of Good Courage written by Dennis Ross and published by PublicAffairs. This book was released on 2019-09-03 with total page 451 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Modern Israel's founding fathers provided some of the boldest and most principled leadership of any nation--now Israel needs their example more than ever. Modern Israel's founding fathers provided some of the boldest and most principled leadership of any nation. Now Israel needs their example more than ever.At a time when the political destiny of Israel is more uncertain than at any moment since its modern founding, Be Strong and of Good Courage celebrates the defining generation of leaders who took on the task of safeguarding the country's future. David Ben-Gurion, Menachem Begin, Yitzhak Rabin, and Ariel Sharon were all present at the creation of the new nation in 1948. Over the next sixty years, each experienced moments when the country's existence was directly imperiled. In those moments, Israel needed extraordinary acts of leadership and strategic judgment to secure its future, and these leaders rose to the occasion. The strength they showed allowed them to prevail. Today, Israel may be on the verge of sacrificing the essential character that its greatest citizens fought to secure. This is the story of that epic struggle.
Download or read book Supreme Command written by Eliot A. Cohen and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2012-04-17 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “An excellent, vividly written” (The Washington Post) account of leadership in wartime that explores how four great democratic statesmen—Abraham Lincoln, Georges Clemenceau, Winston Churchill, and David Ben-Gurion—worked with the military leaders who served them during warfare. The relationship between military leaders and political leaders has always been a complicated one, especially in times of war. When the chips are down, who should run the show—the politicians or the generals? In Supreme Command, Eliot A. Cohen expertly argues that great statesmen do not turn their wars over to their generals, and then stay out of their way. Great statesmen make better generals of their generals. They question and drive their military men, and at key times they overrule their advice. The generals may think they know how to win, but the statesmen are the ones who see the big picture. Abraham Lincoln, Georges Clemenceau, Winston Churchill, and David Ben-Gurion led four very different kinds of democracy, under the most difficult circumstances imaginable. They came from four very different backgrounds—backwoods lawyer, dueling French doctor, rogue aristocrat, and impoverished Jewish socialist. Yet they faced similar challenges. Each exhibited mastery of detail and fascination with technology. All four were great learners, who studied war as if it were their own profession, and in many ways mastered it as well as did their generals. All found themselves locked in conflict with military men. All four triumphed. The powerful lessons of this “brilliant” (National Review) book will touch and inspire anyone who faces intense adversity and is the perfect gift for history buffs of all backgrounds.
