Israel's Reprisal Policy, 1953-1956

The Dynamics of Military Retaliation

Ze'ev Drory

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN: 9780714685519
• eBook ISBN: 9781135754051
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Middle Eastern History
• Index: History

Following Israel's War of Independence in 1948 and 1949, the anticipated peace did not materialize and the new nation soon found itself embroiled in protracted military conflict with neighbouring Arab states. Demobilization of its armed forces led to the formation of special elite unit under the command of Ariel Sharon to cope with cross-border infiltration, pillage and murder. A policy of deterrence was governed by the tactic of retaliation, which contained the seeds of escalation. At the same time, a military dynamic unfolded in which the logic of field unit response dictated both military and political policy and caught the imagination of a demoralized and war-weary Israeli society.The myth of the Israeli paratroopers at the beginning of the 1950s, and their heroic deeds in the reprisal raids, embodied the new Zionist ethos for which the current Prime Minister of Israel, Ariel Sharon, claims much of the credit. The book thus provides historical insight into some of the most intractable developments of the current Arab-Israeli conflict.

1

Conceptualizing the Policy of Military Retaliation

The Israeli Path to Civilian Colonization and Local Imperialism

The Theoretical Debate

‘The Utopians have only one aim in war – to gain that object which would have prevented them from going to war if they had previously won it. Or if circumstances prevent this, they exact so terrible a penalty from their enemy that fear restrains others from attempting the same.’

(Sir Thomas More, Utopia)

The unwritten security doctrine of the State of Israel maintains as its starting point that the state is a victim of continuing aggression. Thus its military operations come under the rubric of self-defence even when they become offensive actions.¹ The distinction between offensive and defensive actions is not simply a matter of aligning the use of offensive and defensive weapons used by parties to a conflict or accepting a belligerent’s motives. The well-entrenched concepts of ‘just war’, ‘preventive war’ and ‘wars of national liberation’ are contested terms that tend to weaken the utility of differentiating between the aggressor and the defender. Kenneth Boulding, who recognized that offensive weaponry could be used for defensive purposes, spoke of ‘an intermediate reaction – the offensive defense’, but failed to develop his term since he regarded continuous conflict as characteristic of economic competition among firms and less suitable to international conflict, which was interrupted by agreements and treaties introducing periods of peace.² However, some military scenarios are characterized by protracted conflict, a situation which has also been termed a cycle of violence in which there is neither peace nor war between the antagonists. The elongated nature of these bellicose encounters tends to blur the attacker/attacked distinction and, as in the Trojan War related by Homer, the initial cause is long forgotten and the rage engendered by battlefield events provides the motivating animus for continued strife.

Israel’s automatic assumption of a defensive orientation in its military representations is in part a response to two thousand years of Jewish exile and minority standing among the nations. At the same time, in contemporary Israel, there is an anticipatory edge to this posture, the impetus for which resides in a determination to overcome an ingrained sense of Jewish powerlessness.

The traditional reluctance of the Zionist leadership to identify with the joy of battle did not only arise from the universal recognition of the abhorrence of war and the desirability of peace but from deeper psychological predispositions. This reluctance stemmed from a Jewish aversion to the use of force…. The appearance of a national Jewish movement was not accompanied by a dramatic change with regard to this orientation. The self-image of the Jews… as a nation which had a disdain for violence in any form was deeply embedded in the national psyche and could not be changed overnight.⁴

Yoram Peri offers an even more blanket assessment for the contemporary period: the IDF is ‘a professional army with antimilitarist values’.⁵ The foregoing views have been strongly contested along two lines of analysis: a culturally implanted religious trait and a socially acquired attribute brought about by a hostile environment. The former orientation asserts that Jewish tradition eschews the use of force, that Jewish normalcy is ethically rooted in a ‘commitment to powerless-ness’⁶ or the inverse claim, once raised by the philosopher/mystic Simone Weil in the late 1930s, that Jewish power in state form would release a dormant striving for domination.⁷ Even the Jewish philosopher, Martin Buber, a member of the pacifist-oriented Ichud group, which espoused a conciliatory approach to the Arab-Jewish conflict in Palestine, could write in a letter to Mahatma Gandhi that he was prepared to ‘fight lovingly’ for justice.⁸ The Israeli sociologist, Baruch Kimmerling, argues that Israeli militarism is ‘one of the central organizational principles of the society’ and attributes this to societal immersion in a protracted external conflict.⁹ Revisionist Israeli historians such as Avi Shlaim, Simha Flapham and Benny Morris ascribe aggressive intentions to Israeli leadership in their military campaigns against the Arab states.¹⁰

Current Israeli martial terminology distinguishes between ‘wars of no choice’ and ‘elective wars’, a conceptual substitute for ‘defensive’ and ‘offensive’ war. It is a sign of the times and to the credit of constructive military criticism in Israel that these concepts are openly addressed and that apologetic defence establishment and regime arguments which every military and political establishment parades for its actions are eschewed rather than automatically, and often patriotically, accepted without question.

The contrast between defender and aggressor is also blurred by the intimate connection between the narrative of military policy and its implementation. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the language that came to dominate political/military parlance after World War Two. The orientation towards the use of power terminology and power politics was part of the international and national political culture of the period. ‘Balance of power’, ‘major powers’ and the disdain of power models found in the term ‘non-aligned nations’ (in effect, attempting to set up a moral power bloc of the weak and formerly oppressed) arose against the background of the events of World War Two. Power formulations were reinforced in Israel during the War of Independence and the border wars which followed in its wake. State leadership in Israel accepted the need to use power and military means and the lexicon of power fitted comfortably with several ideological streams of Zionism. Ben-Gurion likened the War of Independence to the struggle of the Maccabees. He greatly admired Jewish military prowess, cultivated individual officers, and waxed exuberant over the prospect of the military ethos eradicating the accretions of two thousand years of exilic powerlessness.

Many of the terms that made their debut in the academic political literature and among statesmen in the 1950s, such as ‘pre-emptive strike’, ‘preventive war’, ‘compellence’ and ‘deterrence’, were widely used and translated into the languages of the Middle East. In Israel, those who headed the political and military system developed and employed nuanced interpretations of this terminology in connection with the defensive and punitive policies and operations which they authorized. Several of the embedded expressions of Israeli military policy during this period – deterrence, compellence, reprisal policy and escalation – exemplify par excellence both the descriptive and justificatory narrative for military actions.

What Is Deterrence?

In its abstract formulation, deterrence is a method arising in the context of social or political relations in which one side tries to influence the behaviour of the other side in order to prevent the implementation of a programme or certain intention. Side A tries to influence side B from performing a certain deed by threatening the latter with the infliction of pain should it carry out its intention.

From the military point of view, deterrence is a situation, or series of actions prior to war or to a warlike act, designed to prevent war. Deterrence in the military sense has always been a practical method. In Raymond Aron’s formulation:

Arms have always presented as a means designed to preclude or deflect the enemy from his intentions to go to war. Fortification is often, if not always, considered as an expression of deterrent strength in that it prevents the enemy not from going to war, but rather from undertaking certain steps and thus inducing a shift of his operation to an area where he thinks he has a greater chance to succeed.¹¹

Deterrence is a threat against the enemy that should he employ certain means, the result will be a deadly reprisal operation. It may be conveyed by oral and written messages and/or certain acts. The aim of deterrence is to present the enemy with a cost/benefit calculation. What will be the damage or, in other words, what injury would he sustain should he carry out his programme, as against the benefit accruing from refraining to carry it out? Deterrence deals in intentions. It is concerned not only with an assessment of the enemy’s intentions but with influencing these intentions. Thus deterrence should be viewed as part of a general policy and not only as an act or a military capability. If it is defined or restricted to its military aspect alone, its overall significance is impaired. Yaniv supplies a broad definition of the concept: ‘Deterrence is a mode of thinking, the way in which one sees oneself and one’s opponent, his deployment, his grasp of organization, the conception upon which governments operate in the sphere of national security.’¹²

Two levels of deterrence may be defined: comprehensive deterrence and immediately specified deterrence. General deterrence refers to the overall potential military threat. The power of the weaponry and the threat of its use are expressed in general terms. It is an expression of the strategic stature of the state, the sum total of the components of its strength. Immediate deterrence relates to a specific threat, either an intended or specific plan of the enemy. The shift from general to immediate deterrence indicates that a certain component or factor of deterrence is overturned. The ability to launch a preventive or pre-emptive strike is the term associated with immediate deterrence.

Paul Lauren emphasizes the characteristic lines of negotiation that accompany the threat of the use of force.¹³ They comprise both strategy and tactics. Negotiations contain signals and communication between states. Lauren stresses the asymmetry in both the power and the motivation of the two sides. Above all is the credibility that the enemy will in fact carry out his threat.

Deterrence relates to decision-making processes and the opposition to them, and hence the great weight and decisiveness of the following factors:

1. The rationality and irrationality of the decision-makers, and extent to which the objectives of the leaders are perceived as rational. Sometimes what is seen as irrational behaviour is actually faked behaviour that has a rational purpose.
2. Concepts and their distortions of the enemy and his intentions. This may originate in different cultural codes, different value systems and different hierarchies within that value system.
3. Credible communication of deterrence. How should the threat be conveyed and be authenticated? According to Schelling ‘the most difficult part is to bring our intentions to the attention of the enemy’.
4. The decision-makers and the process of decision-making – the entire complicated web of decision-making and collective thinking. In a state of continuous threat of aggression, the decision-making process is restricted to a very limited group (e.g. cabinet) which tends to adopt a hawkish position. Even the soft-liner may become a hawk. The group of decision-makers becomes very coherent and looks for a strong leader who will get them out of this constant threat of aggression and put pressure on those members who waiver to adopt a more activist line against the enemy. In this case, the role of devil’s advocate is abolished and the person who fulfils that role may even be regarded as a traitor who is challenging the leadership.
5. The status of the army in relation to the civil authorities and the political echelon. In a situation of protracted conflict, the army is perceived as the sole guardian of the security of the state and its citizens. The political echelon is in need of the military when diplomacy has failed and it realizes that the status of the army has risen in the eyes of the citizens.
6. Political and army bureaucracies. From the moment that a decision has been made in the highest political levels (e.g. cabinet) until the implementation of the decision, there are power struggles and influences on the political intent and performance guidelines which are liable to distort the original formulations.

All these factors and processes play a strong role in conveying understanding and messages between states caught up in a process of conflict and mounting tension. Each one of the subjects is a topic of study in itself for understanding the multiple difficulties in the decision-making processes of political and military leaders whose states are engaged in an armed struggle which could deteriorate to a situation of all-out war.

There is no question that successful deterrence also depends upon the personalities of both sides’ leaders. ‘Deterrent threats are a matter of resolve, impetuosity, plain obstinacy’, writes Schelling – a formulation which applies to Israeli leadership during this period.¹⁴

Compellence

The terms deterrence and compellence are often used interchangeably among Israelis. The distinctions made by Schelling help to sharpen the different meanings of the two terms. According to Schelling, deterrence is in general passive whereas compellence is active. Schelling sees compellence as a specific instance of deterrence. ‘There is, then, a difference between deterrence and what we might, for want of a better word, call compellence. The dictionary’s definition of “deter” corresponds to contemporary usage: to turn aside or discourage through fear; hence, to prevent from action by fear of consequences.’¹⁵

Compellence is a military act or step designed to bring about the cessation of action which the enemy has undertaken. Mordechai Bar-On regards the policy of compellence as directly derivative from deterrence, as an act which draws its strength and sustenance from deterrence.¹⁶ A necessary condition for the success of compellence is that the enemy will not only understand the message but also will have the vital interest and capacity to act according to the conditions of the side that is attacking:

The amount of pain that compellence by the deterrent side must inflict against the deterred must be clearly and tangibly greater than the price that the deterred may pay for the restraining action that he must undertake. In other words, compellence is designed to impact upon the ability of the deterred to control the situation by means of a drastic increase of the motivation to do so.¹⁷

Reprisal Actions As Compellence

The declared objective of reprisal actions is to break the chain – to bring an end to acts of violence at a certain point through a final and conclusive military operation. H. Brocher, a French lawyer in the nineteenth century, wrote that reprisals are a means of preventing war from becoming barbarous. Walzer writes:

Reprisals of this sort have as their purpose the enforcement of the war convention. In international society (as in Locke’s state of nature) every individual member (every belligerent power) claims the right to enforce the law. The content of this right is the same as it is in domestic society; it is first of all a right of retribution, to punish guilty men and women; it is secondly a right of deterrence, to protect oneself and others against criminal activity.¹⁸

One may conclude from this that compellence must be guided by clear criteria which respond to the ‘just’ objectives that form its basis. It is significant that the execution of the military operation must be based upon a just cause and find its justification beyond the fact of success on the battlefield.

Compellence must be defined in terms of time, space, form, and quantity and quality of the participating forces. To the extent that the operation is not clearly defined by the political an...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Foreword and acknowledgements
• Introduction
• 1. Conceptualizing the policy of military retaliation: the Israeli path to civilian colonization and local imperialism
• 2. Grasping the reins of power: Israeli leadership and security policy
• 3. Israel in the 1950s: the search for security
• 4. The IDF following the War of Independence: the implications of immigrant integration for the army
• 5. Reprisal operations: the victory of activism
• 6. Conclusion
• Appendix: statistics on terrorism and violence 1953–1956
• Glossary of Hebrew terms
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index