Download or read book An Army Like No Other written by Haim Bresheeth-Zabner and published by Verso Books. This book was released on 2020-08-25 with total page 449 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A history of the IDF that argues that Israel is a nation formed by its army. The Israeli army, officially named the Israel Defence Forces (IDF), was established in 1948 by David Ben-Gurion, Israel's first prime minister, who believed that 'the whole nation is the army'. In his mind, the IDF was to be an army like no other. It was the instrument that might transform a diverse population into a new people. Since the foundation of Israel, therefore, the IDF has been the largest, richest and most influential institution in Israel's Jewish society and is the nursery of its social, economic and political ruling class. In this fascinating history, Bresheeth charts the evolution of the IDF from the Nakba to the continued assaults upon Gaza, and shows that the state of Israel has been formed out of its wars. He also gives an account of his own experiences as a young conscript during the 1967 war. He argues that the army is embedded in all aspects of daily life and identity. And that we should not merely see it as a fighting force enjoying an international reputation, but as the central ideological, political and financial institution of Israeli society. As a consequence, we have to reconsider our assumptions on what any kind of peace might look like.
Download or read book A War Like No Other written by Victor Davis Hanson and published by Random House Trade Paperbacks. This book was released on 2006-09-12 with total page 418 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of our most provocative military historians, Victor Davis Hanson has given us painstakingly researched and pathbreaking accounts of wars ranging from classical antiquity to the twenty-first century. Now he juxtaposes an ancient conflict with our most urgent modern concerns to create his most engrossing work to date, A War Like No Other. Over the course of a generation, the Hellenic city-states of Athens and Sparta fought a bloody conflict that resulted in the collapse of Athens and the end of its golden age. Thucydides wrote the standard history of the Peloponnesian War, which has given readers throughout the ages a vivid and authoritative narrative. But Hanson offers readers something new: a complete chronological account that reflects the political background of the time, the strategic thinking of the combatants, the misery of battle in multifaceted theaters, and important insight into how these events echo in the present. Hanson compellingly portrays the ways Athens and Sparta fought on land and sea, in city and countryside, and details their employment of the full scope of conventional and nonconventional tactics, from sieges to targeted assassinations, torture, and terrorism. He also assesses the crucial roles played by warriors such as Pericles and Lysander, artists, among them Aristophanes, and thinkers including Sophocles and Plato. Hanson’s perceptive analysis of events and personalities raises many thought-provoking questions: Were Athens and Sparta like America and Russia, two superpowers battling to the death? Is the Peloponnesian War echoed in the endless, frustrating conflicts of Vietnam, Northern Ireland, and the current Middle East? Or was it more like America’s own Civil War, a brutal rift that rent the fabric of a glorious society, or even this century’s “red state—blue state” schism between liberals and conservatives, a cultural war that manifestly controls military policies? Hanson daringly brings the facts to life and unearths the often surprising ways in which the past informs the present. Brilliantly researched, dynamically written, A War Like No Other is like no other history of this important war.
Download or read book Spies of No Country written by Matti Friedman and published by Signal. This book was released on 2019-03-05 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the award-winning and critically-acclaimed author of Pumpkinflowers, the never-before-told story of the mysterious "Arab Section": the Jewish-"Arab" spies who, under deep cover in Beirut as refugees, helped the new State of Israel win the War of Independence. In his third non-fiction book, Matti Friedman introduces us to four unknown young men who are caught up in the fraught events surrounding the birth of Israel in 1948 and drawn into secret lives, becoming the nucleus of Israel's intelligence service. The tiny, amateur unit known as the "Arab Section" was conceived during WWII by British spies and by Jewish militia leaders in Palestine. Consisting of Jews from Arab countries who could pass as Arabs, it was meant to gather intelligence and carry out sabotage and assassinations. When the first Jewish-Arab war erupted in 1948 and Palestinian refugees began fleeing the fighting, a small number of Section agents disguised as refugees joined the exodus. They fled to Beirut, where they spent the next two years under cover, sending messages back to Israel over a radio antenna disguised as a clothesline. Of the dozen men in the unit at the war's beginning, five were caught and executed. Espionage, John le Carré once wrote, is the "secret theater of our society." Spies of No Country is not just a spy story, but a surprising window into the nature of Israel--a country that sees itself as belonging to the story of Europe, but where more than half of the population is native to the Middle East. Starring complicated characters with slippery identities moving in the shadow of great events, Spies of No Country tells a very different story about what Israel is and how it was created.
Download or read book On War written by Carl von Clausewitz and published by . This book was released on 1908 with total page 388 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Army of None Autonomous Weapons and the Future of War written by Paul Scharre and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2018-04-24 with total page 388 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the 2019 William E. Colby Award "The book I had been waiting for. I can't recommend it highly enough." —Bill Gates The era of autonomous weapons has arrived. Today around the globe, at least thirty nations have weapons that can search for and destroy enemy targets all on their own. Paul Scharre, a leading expert in next-generation warfare, describes these and other high tech weapons systems—from Israel’s Harpy drone to the American submarine-hunting robot ship Sea Hunter—and examines the legal and ethical issues surrounding their use. “A smart primer to what’s to come in warfare” (Bruce Schneier), Army of None engages military history, global policy, and cutting-edge science to explore the implications of giving weapons the freedom to make life and death decisions. A former soldier himself, Scharre argues that we must embrace technology where it can make war more precise and humane, but when the choice is life or death, there is no replacement for the human heart.
Download or read book Key to the Sinai written by George Walter Gawrych and published by . This book was released on 1990 with total page 164 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Ghost Warriors written by Samuel M. Katz and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2016 with total page 442 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The untold story of the Ya'mas, Israel's special forces undercover team that infiltrated Palestinian terrorist strongholds during the Second Intifada. It was the deadliest terror campaign ever mounted against a nation in modern times: the al-Aqsa, or Second, Intifada. This is the untold story of how Israel fought back with an elite force of undercover operatives, drawn from the nation's diverse backgrounds and ethnicities--and united in their ability to walk among the enemy as no one else dared. Beginning in late 2000, as black smoke rose from burning tires and rioters threw rocks in the streets, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and Arafat's Palestinian Authority embarked on a strategy of sending their terrorists to slip undetected into Israel's towns and cities to set the country ablaze, unleashing suicide attacks at bus stops, discos, pizzerias--wherever people gathered. But Israel fielded some of the most capable and cunning special operations forces in the world. The Ya'mas, Israel National Police Border Guard undercover counterterrorists special operations units, became Israel's eyes-on-target response. Launched on intelligence provided by the Shin Bet, indigenous Arabic-speaking Dovrim, or "Speakers," operating in the West Bank, Jerusalem, and Gaza infiltrated the treacherous confines where the terrorists lived hidden in plain sight, and set the stage for the intrepid tactical specialists who often found themselves under fire and outnumbered in their effort to apprehend those responsible for the carnage inside Israel. This is their compelling true story: a tale of daring and deception that could happen only in the powder keg of the modern Middle East. INCLUDES PHOTOGRAPHS AND MAPS
Download or read book A Passion for Israel written by Mark Werner and published by . This book was released on 2020-03-28 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What would motivate a successful corporate lawyer to trade in his comfortable life in America for three weeks every year to volunteer for manual labor on Israeli military bases? This book is based on journals he kept during 14 volunteer Sar-el stints on Israeli military bases from 2006 to 2019.
Download or read book We Were Caught Unprepared written by Matt M. Matthews and published by DIANE Publishing. This book was released on 2011 with total page 105 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a print on demand edition of a hard to find publication. The fact that the outcome of the 2006 Hezbollah-Israeli War was, at best, a stalemate for Israel has confounded military analysts. Long considered the most professional and powerful army in the Middle East, with a history of impressive military victories against its enemies, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) emerged from the campaign with its enemies undefeated and its prestige tarnished. This historical analysis of the war includes an examination of IDF and Hezbollah doctrine prior to the war, as well as an overview of the operational and tactical problems encountered by the IDF during the war. The IDF ground forces were tactically unprepared and untrained to fight against a determined Hezbollah force. ¿An insightful, comprehensive examination of the war.¿ Illustrations.
Download or read book Surrounded written by Rhoda Ann Kanaaneh and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2008-10-10 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An estimated 3,000 Palestinian citizens of Israel currently volunteer to serve in the Israeli military, a force fighting other Palestinians just miles away in occupied territories. Surrounded takes a close look at this controversial group of soldiers, examining the complex reasons these people join the army and the wider implications of their decisions in terms of security and citizenship. Most observers perceive a clear and powerful divide in the political tensions and open hostilities between the State of Israel and the Palestinian people, but often fail to notice those who straddle this divide—Palestinian citizens of Israel. These soldiers comprise no more than half a percent of this population, but their stories provide a powerful vantage point from which to consider a question faced by all Palestinians in Israel: to what extent are they, in fact, Israeli? Surrounded contains over seventy interviews with soldiers, and provides a unique glimpse of their conflicting experiences of acceptance, integration, and marginalization within the Israeli military. Concluding with comparisons to similar situations around the world, the book upends nationalist understandings of how wars and those who fight in them work. A key to a more complex understanding of ethnic conflict, this gripping and revealing look at a select group of soldiers will immensely alter ideas about the reasons why people choose to fight, particularly on "the wrong side" of a war.
Download or read book The Culture of Military Organizations written by Peter R. Mansoor and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2019-10-17 with total page 485 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Examines how military culture forms and changes, as well as its impact on the effectiveness of military organizations.
Download or read book There is Nothing So Whole as a Broken Heart written by Cindy Milstein and published by AK Press. This book was released on 2021-03-23 with total page 303 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Through stories at once poetic and poignant, There Is Nothing So Whole as a Broken Heart offers a powerful elixir for all who rebel against systemic violence and injustice. The contemporary renewal of Jewish anarchism draws on a history of suffering, ranging from enslavement and displacement to white nationalism and genocide. Yet it also pulls from ancestral resistance, strength, imagination, and humor—all qualities, and wisdom, sorely needed today. These essays, many written from feminist and queer perspectives, journey into ancestral and contemporary trauma in ways that are humanizing and healing. They build bridges from bittersweet grief to rebellion and joy. Through concrete illustrations of how Jewish anarchists imaginatively create their own ritual, cultural, and political practices, they clearly illuminate the path toward mending ourselves and the world.
Download or read book Vietnam 101 written by Jerry C. Davis and published by . This book was released on 2021-03-29 with total page 416 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: College of the Ozarks, a small Work College nestled in the Ozark Mountains, has a patriotic goal and is taking a leadership role of filling in the gaps of American history by equipping future generations with the truth. Hopefully, this book will bridge the generation that fought the Vietnam War to the current generation, which has been taught little or nothing about the War and its meaning. As you will read, when students are taught the truth, they are willing to listen. In the case of the Vietnam War, there is no better way for today's generation of college students to understand this conflict than to travel to former battlefields with veterans who fought in these battles during their youth. Consequently, the country of Vietnam and the battle sites become a "classroom," and seeing them with veterans provides a "laboratory" for observations like no other. It is a generational bridge, connecting youth of today with Vietnam Veterans. This book depicts a course with a field trip. That is why it was written in an unusual style, common to what you might expect in a first-year "survey" class.
Download or read book Nothing but Victory written by Steven E. Woodworth and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2006-10-17 with total page 796 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Composed almost entirely of Midwesterners and molded into a lean, skilled fighting machine by Ulysses S. Grant and William Tecumseh Sherman, the Army of the Tennessee marched directly into the heart of the Confederacy and won major victories at Shiloh and at the rebel strongholds of Vicksburg and Atlanta.Acclaimed historian Steven Woodworth has produced the first full consideration of this remarkable unit that has received less prestige than the famed Army of the Potomac but was responsible for the decisive victories that turned the tide of war toward the Union. The Army of the Tennessee also shaped the fortunes and futures of both Grant and Sherman, liberating them from civilian life and catapulting them onto the national stage as their triumphs grew. A thrilling account of how a cohesive fighting force is forged by the heat of battle and how a confidence born of repeated success could lead soldiers to expect “nothing but victory.”
Download or read book Nature s Army written by Harvey Meyerson and published by University Press of Kansas. This book was released on 2020-04-15 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Blessings on Uncle Sam’s soldiers! They have done their job well, and every pine tree is waving its arms for joy.–John Muir Muir’s words and this book both celebrate a crucial but largely forgotten episode in our nation’s history—how a generation prior to the creation of a National Park Service, the US Army ran Yosemite National Park in an unusual alliance with the fabled preservationist John Muir and his Sierra Club. Harvey Meyerson brings that largely forgotten episode in our nation’s history to life and uses it as a touchstone for a reconsideration of a century of civilian-military cooperation in environmental protection and infrastructure construction whose impact and relevance still resonate. Despite the worldwide renown and popularity of Yosemite National Park, few people know that its first stewards were drawn from the so-called Old Army. From 1890 until the establishment of the National Park Service in 1916, these soldiers proved to be extremely competent and farsighted wilderness managers. Meyerson recaptures the forgotten history of these early environmentalists and how they set significant standards for the future oversight of our national parks. The army, Meyerson suggests, had actually been well prepared to assume this stewardship. During its first hundred years—and despite the interruptions of warfare—its soldiers had crisscrossed the American landscape, preparing maps and writing detailed reports describing climate, weather, physical terrain, ecosystems, and the diverse flora and fauna populating the lands they explored and often protected during an era of wide-open exploitation of natural resources. Such experience made the army better suited than any other federal agency to oversee the early national parks system. Combining environmental, military, political, and cultural history, Meyerson’s study is especially timely in light of Yosemite’s enormous popularity (four million visitors annually) and recent controversies pitting conservation forces against dam builders and proponents of expanded public access.
Download or read book Like No Other written by Una LaMarche and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2014 with total page 358 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the timeless tradition of "West Side Story" and "Crossing Delancey, " this thoroughly modern take on romance is sure to inspire laughter, tears, and the belief that love can happen when and where it's least expected.
Download or read book Range written by David Epstein and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2021-04-27 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The #1 New York Times bestseller that has all America talking—with a new afterword on expanding your range—as seen on CNN's Fareed Zakaria GPS, Morning Joe, CBS This Morning, and more. “The most important business—and parenting—book of the year.” —Forbes “Urgent and important. . . an essential read for bosses, parents, coaches, and anyone who cares about improving performance.” —Daniel H. Pink Shortlisted for the Financial Times/McKinsey Business Book of the Year Award Plenty of experts argue that anyone who wants to develop a skill, play an instrument, or lead their field should start early, focus intensely, and rack up as many hours of deliberate practice as possible. If you dabble or delay, you’ll never catch up to the people who got a head start. But a closer look at research on the world’s top performers, from professional athletes to Nobel laureates, shows that early specialization is the exception, not the rule. David Epstein examined the world’s most successful athletes, artists, musicians, inventors, forecasters and scientists. He discovered that in most fields—especially those that are complex and unpredictable—generalists, not specialists, are primed to excel. Generalists often find their path late, and they juggle many interests rather than focusing on one. They’re also more creative, more agile, and able to make connections their more specialized peers can’t see. Provocative, rigorous, and engrossing, Range makes a compelling case for actively cultivating inefficiency. Failing a test is the best way to learn. Frequent quitters end up with the most fulfilling careers. The most impactful inventors cross domains rather than deepening their knowledge in a single area. As experts silo themselves further while computers master more of the skills once reserved for highly focused humans, people who think broadly and embrace diverse experiences and perspectives will increasingly thrive.
