Victory, Defeat, or Draw Battlefield Decision in the Arab-Israeli Conflict, 1948-1982

Three outcomes are possible on the battlefield: victory, defeat, or draw. An adversary may defeat or be defeated by its adversary, or neither of the two may emerge victorious or vanquished. Observers of military history have long tried to identify the variables that determine victory, defeat, or draw. While most would certainly acknowledge that decisions on the battlefield are dictated by a combination of variables rather than by a lone circumstance, many observers nevertheless tend to stress a single variable—for example, the number of fighting men and fighting machines deployed by the adversaries, or the operational doctrines employed by the opposing forces—as far more significant to the explanations of these decisions than other variables. This book, in contrast, takes a multicausal approach to the question of victory, defeat, or draw, proposing that a combination of six organizational, matériel, and environmental variables are pivotal to the explanation of decision on the battlefield. Using the extensive history of the Israel Defense Forces, the book examines a sample of eight battles across the Arab–Israeli conflict from 1948 to 1982 in order to determine the collective impact of the six variables on the outcomes of these battles, concluding that this basket of variables captures much of the explanation behind victory, defeat, or draw on the battlefield, at least insofar as concerns the record of the IDF. While the research in this book is aimed primarily at military historians and military practitioners, it is fully accessible to any layperson interested in Israeli military history in particular or international military history in general.

David Rodman is the author of a number of books about Israeli diplomatic and military history. He has also published articles in peer-reviewed journals, including War in History, Intelligence and National Security, The Journal of Military History, The Journal of Strategic Studies, Middle Eastern Studies, Israel Affairs, Defence Studies, and The Israel Journal of Foreign Affairs.

Contents

Preface and Acknowledgements
Introduction
Part One    Conversos and Global Expansion
1.    Identity, Space, and Intercultural Contacts
2.    Participation in the Colonial Economic System of Pernambuco
3.    Isaac Aboab and the Sephardi Odyssey from the Old to the New World
Part Two    The Crisis of Jewish–Christian Relations
4.    The Jews’s Legal Status: The Dutch Republic versus Brazil
5.    Catholic and Calvinist Anti-Jewish Behaviour  
6.    The Crisis of New Christian Political Loyalty in Colonial Brazil
Part Three    Leadership in Times of Crisis
7.    Facing the Challenge of Change in Pernambuco
8.    The Revival of Community
9.    The Portuguese Siege of Recife
Part Four    The Literary Tools of Rejudaization
10.    Hebrew Language and Grammar
11.    Paraphrastic Biblical Commentaries
12.    Prayers, Confessions, and Supplications
Epilogue    Impact of the New World Experience: The Return to Amsterdam
Bibliography
Index