What the Hell has Happened to the Israeli Army?
By URI AVNERY So what has happened to the Israeli army? This question is now being raised not only around the world, but also in Israel itself. Clearly, there is a huge gap between the army’s boastful arrogance, on which generations of Israelis have grown up, and the picture presented by this war. Before the choir of generals utters their expected cries of being stabbed in the back–“The government has shackled our hands! The politicians did not allow the army to win! The political leadership is to blame for everything!”–it is worthwhile to examine this war from a professional military point of view. (It is, perhaps, appropriate to interject at this point a personal remark. Who am I to speak about strategic matters? What am I, a general? Well–I was 16 years old when World War II broke out. I decided then to study military theory in order to be able to follow events. I read a few hundred books–from Sun Tzu to Clausewitz to Liddel-Hart and on. Later, in the 1948 war, I saw the other s
