Book Reviews : Military and Politics in Israel: Nation-Building and Role Expansion. By AMOS PERLMUTTER. ( New York : Praeger, 1969. Pp. 161. $6.50.)

• DOI: 10.1177/106591297002300119
• Published date: 01 March 1970
• Date: 01 March 1970
• Subject Matter: Articles

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For political scientists interested in either state politics or political leadership,
Hill and Cannon provide bountiful raw material for the models, explanatory
devices, and analytic frameworks we so dearly love.
ALAN J. WYNER
University of California, Santa Barbara
Military and Politics in Israel: Nation-Building and Role Expansion. By AMOS
PERLMUTTER. ( New York : Praeger, 1969. Pp. 161. $6.50.)
Perlmutter’s theme can be expressed simply: Zahal (Israel Defense Forces) is
Israel but Israel is not Zahal. Without a strong military capable of warding off
hostile Arab neighbors, there would be no Israel. As the enemy grows stronger in
weaponry, numbers, and international support, so Israel must always be one step
ahead. As a result, defense expenditures have accelerated, taking up an increasing
proportion of the gross national product, the military career has grown in status and
importance where once it barely played any part in Zionist ideology, and the defense
industries have become dominant in the diversification and expansion of the
economy. In time, the industrial-military complex has had an increasing impact
on foreign affairs, education, national ideology and migrant assimilation. It is a
moot point whether the very success of the military in nation-building has not con-
tributed to Arab fears that Israel intends to conquer the whole of the Middle East.
On the other hand, there can be little doubt that Arab refusal to accept Jewish
immigration has created from nothing a most effective fighting machine in just two
generations. Perlmutter has done a great service to English readers in tracing the
tortuous history of Zahal from the early watchman phase, through the Jewish
legions of two world wars and the semi-underground Haganah, the right wing
guerrilla groups and the left wing Palmach shock troops, to the unified, depoliti-
cized professional military forces of today. No doubt some will criticize the stress on
the political and ideological wrangles at the...