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By Root 747 0

this is their fourth war. They fought in World War II as part of the British Army, in their own war of independence against the Arabs in 1948, and in the Sinai campaign against Egypt in 1956. In 1941 when Palestine seemed in danger of invasion by Rommel’s forces in North Africa, its young Jewish citizens joined either the British Army or the Palmach, the professional nucleus of the Haganah, whose members were intensively trained for resistance to the expected invasion. It was then that their attention was first turned to the Sinai peninsula, for that would have been Rommel’s route. After 1945 the Palmach gained another kind of military experience in the illegal struggle to bring in the refugees. Its seagoing and coastal operations in that effort provided the early experience of Israel’s Navy. Facing the coming showdown with the Arabs upon end of the Mandate, the Palmach began that systematic study of the enemy which was to give the IDF of 1967 the most thorough and accurate information ever provided by any Intelligence to Operations.

The present Chief of Staff, the Deputy Chief, the Chiefs of Intelligence, of Operations, of the Air Force, and Armored Corps, as well as the three area commanders, are all veterans either of the British Army or the Palmach, and all but three are Palestine-born.

Most of the high command have studied briefly at the command and staff colleges in France, Britain, and the United States, but this is nothing they boast of; it has to be pried out of them. One theme they notably and unanimously maintain is refusal to acknowledge any debt to foreign methods or doctrines and insistence on their independent development. There are no foreign experts or advisers in the IDF.

The Israelis want to leave no doubt that they have grounded their armed forces on their own experience from the Palmach on. This effort too has been deliberate because, new to military endeavor and small in size, they have had to resist any temptation to follow some military father figure represented by one or another of the major powers. A deeper reason is the sense of uniqueness that has characterized the Jews since Abraham made his covenant with God. Recognizing both tendencies, General Ezer Weizmann, Chief of Operations of the IDF, said, “We had to guard against the extremes of being either too arrogant or too humble, saying, ‘Oh, we are so tiny, tell us what to do.’ ” What influenced him at the Ecole de l’Etat Major, said General Aharon Yariv, Chief of Intelligence, was la méthode, a way of thinking and analyzing a problem, not the problem itself. He and his colleagues, when setting up their own General Staff school, “copied nothing.” Doctrine and methods had to be of practical value for local circumstances, not just repetitions of accepted principle, however classic.

These officers have in common a self-assurance so confident that it can afford to be quiet, if not exactly modest. There is no reluctance whatever to acknowledge, in the most charming and friendly way, that “we’re good.” General Rabin, a subdued, thoughtful, intensely self-contained man and a chain smoker, conveying an impression of inner tension rigidly suppressed, is almost shy in company, but when talking on his subject, becomes magisterial. In all the staff and command officers an evident knowledge of their subject finds expression in readiness, even eagerness, to talk of it. They spill over with ideas. Because of the challenge and the need, the military profession in Israel can attract the finest energy of the country.

These are the officers and men who sprang into battle on June 5; who fought their way across Sinai almost without stopping for seventy-two hours except for refueling and one or two hours’ sleep; who in the case of one company of paratroopers fought on all three fronts, Sinai, Jerusalem, and Syria; who in the case of another unit continued to advance after all its officers one after the other were put out of action; who in the last two days plunged and scrambled up the Syrian heights against a position that even now, to anyone seeing its gun emplacements,