Customer Reviews

Defending the Holy Land: A Critical Analysis of Israel's Security & Foreign Policy

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I think even the detractors of this book will have to at least admit that this book is a very brave endeavor by the author. The analysis that Maoz gives us here is at times subjective which does leave the author open to criticism, but he takes such a scientific approach in analyzing the evidence that any critic will be hard pressed to find flaws in his methodology.

The book is not for the casual reader or those with just a passing interest in Israel or the Arab/Israeli conflict. The author uses almost fifty pages at the very beginning of the book to explain to readers his methodological approach to analysis of Israeli defense policy. I for one have never read such a detailed analysis of an approach to analysis before. Any potential reader should be prepared for a dense work that requires a lot from the reader.

If you decide to take on this book I think you will be rewarded with the best analysis of Israeli defense policy there is out there. The information is neutral and based on the best evidence available and presented in a rational and almost clinical fashion.

Maoz goes into great detail about how the IDF has had too much influence on policy making decisions within the government, and how civilian leadership has played a subservient role to defense needs. He goes on to explain how this lack of civilian leadership has created a process by which military solutions to conflicts take a priority role over political solutions. This has affected Israel's peace making efforts in the region. Israel has been all to willing to embark on some extremely risky military adventures to seek an end or at least an improvement vis-à-vis its neighbors, but at the same time Israel has been unwilling to try even moderately risky attempts at political solutions.

Maoz attributes some of this to the fact that Israel's founding elites instilled a siege mentality during the founding and early days of the Israeli state. Unfortunately this siege mentality has persisted even after the realities on the ground have taken on some fundamental changes. Israel now has a large conventional edge on all of its enemies, and Israel, for the foreseeable future, has no real existential threat from those states in the area. This does not mean that Israel is safe, but what it should mean is that Israel should have more political room to maneuver and seek political solutions that will further its security.

When Israel has taken some risk for political solutions it has benefited enormously, as when Israel finally accepted Sadat's overtures for negotiations which lead to the Israeli/Egyptian peace treaty. This peace, even though it has been a cold peace, has lifted an enormous burden from Israel. This should have been the template for Israeli peace policy towards its neighbors but unfortunately Israel seemed to take no lessons from this peace, but instead Israel insists on focusing on Arab rhetoric which is not grounded in reality nor are these states pursuing policies that could make their rhetoric a reality.

Israel is in a relatively safe position right now. They have an economic, social and military edge over every one of their potential enemies and Israel should try to capitalize on its improved position by bargaining for peace and establishing a WMD free zone in the Middle East. These types of policies could possibly go along way in bringing security to the Israeli state and it could lighten the defense burden which could free up money that is needed for infrastructure and social programs within Israel.

Maoz goes into all of this and more. His discussion of Israel's nuclear policy is fascinating, and his information on the economic aspects of Israel's defense policy and its economic situation as a whole was extremely elucidating. All in all I found this book to be an invaluable contribution to the discussion. This is one book that anyone who seriously studies this region and Israel cannot do without. I highly recommend this book.

Prof. Maoz analyzes the evidence underlying the basic beliefs about Israel's military policy and history, held by most Israelis and supporters of Israel. From a pro-Israel perspective, Maoz's work is a call for change within Israel to promote new institutions that would lead to non-military solutions. The chapter pointing out the flaws in Israel's nuclear policy is extremely important in view of the current nuclear build-up in Iran.

Dr. Zeev Maoz who is a former head of the Graduate School of Government and Policy, and the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv University as well as an Academic Director at the Israeli Defense Forces National Defense College, presents a comprehensive analysis of Israel's Foreign Policy and Security objectives.

Any serious student or scholar who has interest in Israel/Palestine conflict must read this book. Detailed documentation and expert analysis, this book will show you that Israel's flawed policies and objectives are among the prime reasons why the conflict has not ended.

Note: This is from the 2006 edition. From reading a few other reviews I don't think the overall content has changed drastically, mostly updates.

The analogy or example of Machiavellian techniques cannot justify nor can it even account for Israel's strategy in the last sixty years, and certainly not in the last forty. Machiavelli's `Prince' described the evil that the leader must do in order to ensure the good of his subjects and the preservation of his state. In `Defending the Holy Land' Zeev Maoz describes a leadership that for the past sixty years, has only defended half its population. He describes actions that defend amoral behavior not only in one leader, the `prince' but of an entire government of poor, short-sighted policies.

Maoz states up front that his observations are not original and not intended to be neutral (17). The book focuses on Israel's national and foreign policy motives using history, politics and military strategy as the lens for analysis. Israel has built its policies on a few assumptions: Arab states and populations are continually hostile, there can be little dependence on foreign allies, and the geography of Israel places the national security under constant threat. The actions to check the assumptions have included small and limited wars, maintaining a self-interested alliance with arms suppliers and ensuring no defense treaties could ever limit Israeli military sovereignty.

One by one, Maoz extracts the frailties in these motives and policies to insist that they have perpetuated Israel's insecurity and could only ever lead to a `realist' peace, a coerced peace. The sad reality is perhaps Israel's government never intended for lasting peace or reconciliation from the start (9). The irony of Israel's `raison d'etat' is that the very borders of Israel's state are in question. Maoz concludes that Israel must transform its security dominated policies, denuclearize, expand its diplomatic capabilities and its National Security Council and remove the military-centric policy foundation for a more balanced governmental structure. A national policy without reconciliation can only lead to perpetual conflict.

The assumptions that have underlined Israel's policies have led to a host of tactics, none of which Maoz determines have been effective in achieving their intended ends. Many facets of society and culture have shown over time the capacity to adapt to higher thresholds of tolerance. Social norms and arguably morals and ethics have liberalized as a result of social consciousness in increased levels of tolerance. The result is a change in reaction to specific offenses, the lessening of retaliation towards formerly offensive material. If tolerance and the shifting of that threshold were a check and balance to continual animosity, Israel is fighting against this very shift.

Israel's policies of retaliation, escalation and deterioration are all examples of actions thwarting peace and regional communication. Israel used reprisal forces extensively in the 1950s in order to secure its state. Retaliation forces later focused on military sites but undoubtedly incurred hundreds of civilian collateral casualties. Israel's government would rarely allow an offensive act to pass without retaliation and what's worse, retaliation of unbalanced and disproportionate force. If nothing else, these policies, related also to the `open book' policies, only served to perpetuate violence. According to Maoz's data between 1948 and 2003 there were only seven years where Israeli deaths in regional conflicts were higher than those of Arabs. In 1977 the ratio of Arab to Israeli deaths was 12 to 1 (236).

This comes as a disappointing shock when Maoz explains that after 1967, the Arab nations had shifted their strategy from destruction of Israeli to normalizing relations. Israel either did not read the signs of Arab policy flexibility. Or perhaps the transition from external Arab threats to local Islamist and Intifada challenges blinded their policy potential. To be sure, both Israel and Arab constituents had ample chances to form more stable peace negotiations but each side took their turn in souring the initiatives. At crucial points in the last few decades, Arab nations were farther ahead of Israel in their pursuit of a peaceful settlement while Israel wallowed in their archaic policy against the imminent and eternal Arab threat. Unless Israel was to downgrade its security scheme in exchange for a more balanced analysis of its regional threats, a solution to conflict could never materialize.

It would appear that in every Arab-Israeli conflict since 1949, Israel was party to a non-negotiate attitude coupled with poor intelligence information and policy based on unfounded fears. In short, Israel could potentially be to blame for part if not all ongoing conflict within its borders due to its outdated and erroneous interpretation of current and past events. Israel is not the `David' against the `Goliath' Arabs as Maoz puts it but instead should be the responsible regional power and approach regional relations with accountability. Maoz inserts that Israel should be the responsible player; using its more capable tools towards peace and not pass the blame. This book makes Israel look almost wholly responsible for continued regional conflict but this could be mostly due to Maoz's approach in presenting the information from Israel's standpoint and mentioning less of the Arab mind and policies.

If nothing else, the Arab-Israeli conflict is the prime example of the security dilemma. Maoz concludes that on too many occasions, the false perceptions between regional enemies led to unwanted wars. Israel has thrived because it has consistently dominated in technological advancement, military structure and developmental foresight. With Israel's longstanding policies of retaliation, it is doubtful that any small amount of offensive action towards its Jewish population would end in Israel's forgiveness.

Israel has been met with more than self-defense challenges but also `entrepreneur' challenges. Maoz paints the picture of young modern Israel needing a strategic publicity apparatus and a solid appealing persona, like good advertising, to encourage the immigration that Israel needed (13). Granted, other Western policies pushed Jews to Israel but early Israeli leaders were concerned about propping up the appeal of Israel, something that would be lost in a disastrous failure in self-defense. In a way, Israel's being and policies have served as good `business practice' if Israel as the nation was the business `product'. To this end as well, Maoz would claim that Israeli policies have lost touch with their `customers' who have begun to contemplate the moral and ethical qualities lacking in Israel.

Maoz ends his book with a few possible ways forward. His analysis is based on the Israel of 2003 with only the rising threat of Iran, prior to the Hamas dominated Gaza strip and prior to the Israeli bombing of Hezballah in 2006. Maoz calls for many policy changes in Israel and wisely also suggests deeper studies of exactly what those policy changes would bring. Does the current threat of a nuclear Iran change the policy potential of Israel's own program? Does Iran's support to and recent arms buildup of Hezballah change the idealist potential of Maoz's policy suggestions?

This exemplifies the importance of timing in the Arab-Israeli crisis. It has been said the best possible hope for Palestine was the 1970s. Hindsight rarely provides a hopeful picture. In the middle of every negotiation for peace, every element of power struggle within the PLO, the dynamics of the latest terrorist attack, the number of casualties in the following Israeli retaliation, the rhetoric of Iran and Syria, is the question of timing in a peace treaty. In 1993, the PLO was weak, poor timing amidst a power struggle. In fact, Maoz mentions that if today's peace negotiations were offered 20 (now 30) years ago, the parties would have reached consensus. In some ways, Arab countries are now more willing to compromise then they have been but the fractured PLO increases the challenges of settlement. If the perfect timing is only a `pipe dream', to use a favorite term of Maoz's, then there are two options: eternal conflict in the security dilemma or at least one side absorbing shock long enough to show the other side its intention to peace. As of now, neither side is convinced the other is serious about peace, a topic described in NS3330 class lectures and readings.

Maoz includes in his book an excellent list of possible counter-examples to his argument. It is in these counter examples that much of NS3330 class discussion becomes evident. While anti-Israeli sentiment had been at times a polarizing factor in Arab nationalism, Arab states also went through their own `cold war' of sorts. Arab solidarity was never as strong as Israel perceived it to be and this is exemplified in the numerous failed efforts at unified force against Israel. If Israel's strategies had been so poor, they were beneficial if only in the light of the region's extremely poor economic and military power. Israel may have had poor strategy but Arab nations, weak from colonial strangle holds, internal disputes, fake boundaries and power struggles were far more crippled.

Maoz puts forth a persuasive and concise argument against the longstanding and unchecked policies of Israel's government. Even though he did not mention in detail the foreign policies and perceptions of Arab neighbors, that perspective could present a small challenge to his argument. Walid Kazziha, writing in 1983, well after Maoz claimed the Arab nations were growing increasingly in favor of an Israeli state, voiced an interesting curiosity on the policies of Israel's military. Kazziha was at a loss to understand why Israel did not engage in more long-range strikes in the region. The strike against Iraq's nuclear facility was only one example of what many thought would be commonplace. Did Arab nations truly regard Israel in an offensive realist sense, striving to gain more land outside the immediate Palestine area? What Israel may have regarded as a bargaining chip, is it possible that other Arab's viewed as an expression of regional hegemonic intent?

Israel benefited from the discord of its Arab neighbors. To examine the other side of the coin, if Arab nationalism was often unified under anti-Israeli sentiment, Maoz suggests that diverse and pluralistic young Israel was unified only in its anti-Arab policies. Sadat took the first step in peace towards Israel in 1977. His motive was most likely one of self-interest but it has brought Egypt a lasting peace, so far, with Israel. Israel's compromise on Palestinian refugee agreements, settlements and land swaps could surely bring it greater prosperity in the future.

The following two paragraphs summarize the ideas the author discusses in the book:

* P 35 "(...) most of the wars in which Israel was involved were the result of deliberate Israeli aggressive design (...) None of these wars -with the possible exception of the 1948 War of independence- was what Israel refers to as Milhemet Ein Berah(" war of necessity"). They were all wars of choice"
* P 40 "I review a number of peace-related opportunities ranging from the Zionist-Hashemite collusion in 1947 through the collapse of the Oslo Process in 2000. In all those cases I find that Israeli decision makers-who had been willing to embark upon bold and daring military adventures- were extremely reluctant to make even the smallest concessions for peace (...) I also find in many cases Israel was engaged in sysrematic violations of agreements and tacit understandings between itself and its neibours."

Zeev Maoz, an Israeli citizen, is Professor of Political Science at the University of California, Davis. He is the former head of the Graduate School of Government and Policy and the prestigious Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv University, as well as the former academic director of the M. A. Program at the Israeli Defense Forces' National Defense college.

The book is meticulously researched and the author knows his stuff, I highly recommend this book for those who want to understand why there is no peace in Israel/ Palestine.

A truly great book! Maoz has shown that Israel, like other nations, has failed to take in the best interests of its people by failing to see the outcome of their actions. That's not to say they always tried to do the wrong thing, but unfortunately it comes across that way. The United States and its disastrous war in Iraq is another example. Read and learn!

This is a truly weird book. It is really big and thick, with all sorts of references. It's very scholarly. And it even discusses some interesting issues. But I still don't like it very much.

First of all, the topic is strange. Plenty of Arabs want to destroy Israel. Does it even make sense to ask what Israel ought to do? Israel is a small nation and it is at great risk no matter what it does. In any case, this book not only asks such a question but gives some answers.

Zeev Maoz appears to believe that most of Israel's wars were simply folly. After all, there are indications that with hindsight, Israel had other options! Well, maybe that's true. But most nations make plenty of errors when they have to make decisions about whether or not to fight a war. In my opinion, Israel has done an above average job here. And even Maoz points out that he is not trying to deny that other nations (especially the Arabs) have often made far worse decisions than has Israel; he just wants to point out where Israel could have done better in the past and where it could improve in the future.

I disagree most with the author when he characterizes various Israeli wars as optional. The Israelis might indeed have avoided war for a short time by doing something else. The Israelis might even have gotten a couple of pieces of paper in exchange for something of real value at various times. But such speculations are not only counterfactual (that's not what happened, so we can't be totally sure it could have), they also ignore much of what might have happened after that.

As an annoying aside, this characterization of Israel's wars makes it look a little like the Israeli people and their leaders simply did not want to survive. After all, when the easiest way to die is to get into a war, it's suicidal to choose war when peace is available! I don't believe that the Israelis or their leaders have been suicidal, and I doubt that Maoz believes it, so I am wary of a book that might imply such nonsense.

Time after time, Maoz criticizes Israel for doing something that seemed reasonable at the time. Israel's serious attempts to avoid or deter the 1973 war look as though they are dismissed out of hand. When we get to the Arab attacks on Israel in 2000, Maoz casually (and very dubiously) blames the start of the violence on Sharon's visit to the Temple Mount! I don't mind asking a lot of tough questions, but I think Maoz goes overboard when he implies that virtually everything Israel has done has been wrong. He should have done a better job of separating really clear errors from decisions which made far more sense (and may even have been ideal).

Still, there is good news about the book. Maoz does ask about various Israeli strategies for retaliation against attacks (including limited ones). And I think these are very good questions to ask, even though they may, quite unfairly, imply that everything would be just fine were Israel to do the right thing all the time. There is also an interesting section dealing with Israel's nuclear strategy. Here, Israel is encouraged to give up its nuclear weapons as part of a deal to make the region free of such weapons. If it were that simple to make such a deal and have it honored, I think there would already be peace in the Middle East, so I am not so sure how brilliant Maoz is being here.

With all due respect to the author, I think this book exaggerates Israel's ability to influence its own future. I suspect that Maoz would (possibly quite correctly) reply that I am underestimating Israel's ability to do just that.

The author claims that he did not set out to write history. Unfortunately, all he did was document history which is followed by a brief list of unrealistic, one-sided suggestions.

The author is a self-described "revisionist" historian who is abusing his military and academic experience and authority to write an ideology serving manifesto that cherry picks facts and ignores obvious truths while painstakingly constructing nonsense for the reader to conclude.

Save your money!