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45-675: At the end of 1940, the JSP had about 15,000 members. A field army based on the force was estimated to be 16,000 men and women strong in 1946. According to a statement made by the Palestine Government in June 1947 and referenced by the United Nations Palestine Commission, the force itself was 1,929 men strong at the time. In early 1948 the force was about 2,000 strong. The Settlement Police cooperated with

90-623: A despot, but about a novel form of terrorism aiming at the dissolution of all state order and territorial boundaries in the whole region. Only the Alawite soldiers of the Assad regime were willing to die fighting the terrorists, whereas the European and American attempts to avoid bloodshed concentrating on airstrikes, were useless against Guerrilla troops as history had shown. Losing the war against IS and Al Nusra would have incalculable consequences for

135-554: A forerunner of the Special Air Service (SAS). The Special Night Squads' primary task was to defend the Iraq Petroleum Company pipeline, which was frequently attacked by Arab insurgents. The squads also raided known insurgent bases, such as the villages of Daburiyya and Khirbat Lid . The force's success caused the cessation of attacks on the pipeline and brought a decrease of insurgent activity in

180-438: A form of state terrorism , and its mode of operation eventually led to allegations that Wingate had effectively organized these nights squads into Jewish 'murder gangs' or 'death squads'. According to Israeli military historian Martin van Creveld , their training included "how to kill without compunction, how to interrogate prisoners by shooting every tenth man to make the rest talk; and how to deter future terrorists by pushing

225-680: A reference to the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest . His analysis included harsh criticism of the Bush administration , comparing the war to the Vietnam war. Moreover, he said that " Bush deserves to be impeached and, once he has been removed from office, put on trial." In 2007, van Creveld commented that Iran is the real victor in Iraq, and the world must now learn to live with a nuclear Iran

270-740: A result of the war, "since the middle of August 2006, all over southern Lebanon hardly a shot has been fired." In an opinion piece published in The Jewish Daily Forward in 2010, van Creveld argued that the West Bank , far from being vital to Israel's security, is a territory "that Israel can easily afford to give up." Van Creveld contended that the West Bank offers no defense against ballistic missiles from Israel's two chief enemies, Iran and Syria. Furthermore, provided that it would be demilitarized in any future peace settlement with

315-606: A scoundrel... if you let him kill you, then you are an idiot. So here is a dilemma which others have suffered before us, and for which as far as I can see there is simply no escape. Now the Israeli army has not by any means been the worst of the lot. It has not done what for instance the Americans did in Vietnam... it did not use napalm, it did not kill millions of people. So everything is relative, but by definition, to return to what I said earlier if you are strong and you are fighting

360-541: Is experiencing a level of calm on its Lebanon border not seen since the mid-1960s. More recently, in an article published in Infinity Journal in June 2011, titled "The Second Lebanon War: A Reassessment", Martin van Creveld argued that contrary to the common view, and despite "clumsy, heavy-handed, and slow" ground operations, the Second Lebanon War was a great victory for Israel. He states that as

405-697: The 1936–1939 Arab revolt . The SNS basically comprised British infantry soldiers, together with some men drawn from the Jewish Supernumerary Police . Total unit strength was 100 by 1938. Wingate selected his men personally, among them Yigal Allon and Moshe Dayan , and trained them to form small mobile striking units. Wingate also collaborated with the Jewish paramilitary formation, the Haganah , reinforcing his unit with some of Haganah's Fosh commandos. Historian Simon Anglim noted that

450-585: The London School of Economics and received a PhD . His thesis was titled Greece and Yugoslavia in Hitler's strategy, 1940–1941 . Van Creveld's doctoral dissertation on Hitler's strategy in the Balkans during the early years of World War II was published as a book in 1973: "Hitler's Strategy, 1940–41. The Balkan Clue." After completing his PhD in 1971, van Creveld returned to Israel and began teaching at

495-628: The Manchester Regiment (squad commanded by commanded by Lt. Robert "Rex" King-Clark ). Twenty-five Jews were assigned to the unit as supernumerary policemen, all of them Haganah members. The Jews were selected by Haganah regional commanders and by Yitzhak Sadeh , commander of the FOSH units in the Haganah. Later, 50 more Jews were assigned to the SNS, also from Haganah cadres. The success of

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540-582: The Netherlands in the city of Rotterdam to a Jewish family. His parents, Leon and Margaret, were staunch Zionists who had managed to evade the gestapo during World War II . In 1950, his family immigrated to Israel, and Creveld grew up in Ramat Gan . From 1964 to 1969, he studied history at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and earned an M.A. From 1969 to 1971, he studied history at

585-501: The non-trinitarian theory of warfare, which he juxtaposes to the famous work by Clausewitz , On War . Clausewitz's trinitarian model of war (a term of van Creveld's) distinguishes between the affairs of the population, the army, and the government. Van Creveld criticizes this philosophy as too narrow and state-focused, thus inapplicable to the study of those conflicts involving one or more non-state actors. Instead, he proposes five key issues of war: Van Creveld notes that many of

630-429: The 2011 Arab revolts across the face of North Africa causes many journalists to portray the current Libyan uprising as fueled by similar factors to those at play in neighboring Tunisia and Egypt. There are more differences than similarities." Van Creveld noted that Tunisia and Egypt "have been coherent nation-states for well over a century," while Libyan society is still pervasively tribalist . He also observed that whereas

675-578: The Arab insurgents. However, the Jewish Agency had opposed this venture at first, resulting in its postponement until early June. The new GOC in Palestine, Lieutenant-General Robert Haining , had also approved Wingate's proposal to establish a "Night Movement Group", and the SNS became operative on early June, 1938. The military historian Hew Strachan has described the tactics Wingate employed as

720-611: The British Army's General Headquarters (GHQ) in Jerusalem , examined sabotage and weapon smuggling operations in northern Palestine ( Galilee ). During March 1938, after several weeks of experimental ambushes and patrols, he had gained permission from the General Officer Commanding (GOC) in Palestine, Lieutenant-General Archibald Wavell , to establish a joint British-Jewish unit for night operations against

765-682: The British about Wingate's brutality and harsh punitive methods. Even members of the field squads complained... that during the raids on Bedouin encampments Wingate would behave with extreme viciousness and fire mercilessly. Wingate believed in the principle of surprise in punishment, which was designed to confine the gangs to their villages. More than once he had lined rioters up in a row and shot them in cold blood. Wingate did not try to justify himself; weapons and war cannot be pure. Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery, 1st Viscount Montgomery of Alamein , who as commander of Northern Palestine had authorized

810-564: The British to form a joint British-Jewish unit known as the Special Night Squads . These were commanded by a "fervent Christian Zionist " British officer called Charles Orde Wingate , who was posted to Palestine in 1936. The Special Night Squads fought Arab guerrillas who attacked the Iraqi Petroleum Company pipeline. The Haganah used the force as a "Training Centre" and put as many of its members through

855-731: The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He became a professor in 1988. In 2007, he retired from teaching at Hebrew University, and began teaching at Tel Aviv University 's Security Studies Program. Van Creveld has been married twice and has three children. He lives in Mevaseret Zion . Van Creveld is the author of thirty-three books on military history, strategy, and other topics, of which Command in War (1985), Supplying War: Logistics from Wallenstein to Patton (1977, 2nd edition 2004), The Transformation of War (1991), The Sword and

900-505: The Israeli government has "vastly exaggerated the threat that a nuclear Iran poses to its security, as well as Israel's capacity to halt it." In 2016, in a commentary for the German magazine Focus , Creveld advocated an alliance with the Assad regime. "If the West wants to win the war against the caliphate of terror, they cannot be picky about their allies". The regional conflict was not about

945-454: The JSP as possible: 13,455 between its formation and the end of 1945. The British authorities provided special uniforms, guns , light trucks and some machine guns and allowed the force to control sections of land around Jewish villages and Kibbutzim. The JSP also provided paramilitary training to Haganah units. The force thus expanded the assets of the Haganah and helped to provide a legal basis for much of their activities. One notable member of

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990-501: The Jewish SNS served mainly on prison guard and garrison duties. They were disbanded during September 1939. The British government eventually considered Wingate to be a security risk. He was posted out of Palestine and his passport was stamped "NOT ALLOWED TO ENTER PALESTINE". The Special Night Squads came to be considered one of the first special forces units constituted by the British and have been seen by some historians as being

1035-509: The Middle East and for Europe. In comparison, Assad would appear as the "lesser devil". As early as 2013, again in the magazine Focus , he regarded support for Assad as important to avoid the destabilization of the Middle East as a whole. Assad would continue the war only to prevent a still larger carnage, the annihilation of the 1.2 million Alawites . "Instead of complaining about humanitarian concerns and arguing about arms deliveries to

1080-576: The Olive (1998) and The Rise and Decline of the State (1999) are among the best known. Van Creveld has lectured or taught at numerous civilian and military institutes of higher learning all over the world. Of particular significance is his 1991 book The Transformation of War (UK: On Future War ), which was translated into French, German (New German edition in 2004), Russian, and Spanish. In this treatise of military theory, van Creveld develops what he calls

1125-503: The Palestinians, the West Bank would act as a natural barrier impeding the advance of any army endeavoring to invade Israel by land from the east. Lastly, Israel could defend itself against terrorism from the West Bank by means of a wall coupled with offensive campaigns the likes of Operation Cast Lead and the Second Lebanon War , which successfully restored Israel's deterrence factor when the level of terrorism exceeded what Israel

1170-779: The SNS caused the establishment of a fourth SNS-like unit in the Plain of Sharon , tasked with guarding the electric power line. During 1939, every British brigade in Palestine established their own Special Night Squads, although without Jewish participation. Wingate left the SNS in October 1938, for a leave in England. During his leave he was involved with the Zionist opposition to the Woodhead Commission report, meeting with such notables as Malcolm MacDonald , then secretary of

1215-458: The SNS, told Moshe Dayan in 1966 that he considered Wingate to have "been mentally unbalanced and that the best thing he ever did was to get killed in a plane crash in 1944." Martin van Creveld Martin Levi van Creveld ( Hebrew : מרטין לוי ון קרפלד , [ˈmartin leˈvi ˌvan kreˈfeld] ; born 5 March 1946) is an Israeli military historian and theorist. Van Creveld was born in

1260-702: The Special Night Squads were preceded by similar units, such as the "Corps of Gurkha Scouts", organized for carrying out night-time ambushes in the North-West Frontier Province of British India 1919, and by the paramilitary Auxiliary Division of the Royal Irish Constabulary which conducted counter-insurgency operations during the Irish War of Independence . Orde Wingate , an intelligence officer of

1305-485: The ability of the Israeli army to defeat the Palestinians: They [Israeli soldiers] are very brave people... they are idealists... they want to serve their country and they want to prove themselves. The problem is that you cannot prove yourself against someone who is much weaker than yourself. They are in a lose-lose situation. If you are strong and fighting the weak, then if you kill your opponent then you are

1350-814: The area. It is presumed that about 12.5% of all guerrilla casualties during 1938 were caused by the SNS, which had lost only two of its men (Pvt. Stephen Chapman from the Royal West Kents and supernumerary Yosef Ben-Moshe) in action. For the unit's actions in Palestine, Wingate was awarded the Distinguished Service Order (DSO), and three SNS officers were awarded the Military Cross (MC). Several soldiers and supernumeraries were also awarded medals and citations. Israeli historian Yoram Kaniuk writes: The operations came more frequently and became more ruthless. The Arabs complained to

1395-467: The armies of Tunisia and Egypt could mediate the transitions between the old regimes and the new, "Libya lacks a professional, non-tribal army" that could function in such a role. Van Creveld blamed Gaddafi's son Saif al-Islam Gaddafi for squandering a crucial opportunity to restore order to the country and confidence – both domestic and international – in the Gaddafi regime. Van Creveld has stated that

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1440-408: The book, van Creveld argues that the systematical oppression of women (as claimed by feminists ) is a myth unsupported by any serious data and that women tend to enjoy more social protections and privileges than do men. In addition to writing on military history, van Creveld also comments, often pointedly, on contemporary societies and politics. In a TV interview in 2002, he expressed doubts as to

1485-645: The capability to take the world down with us. And I can assure you that that will happen before Israel goes under. On 21 August 2004 edition of the International Herald Tribune van Creveld wrote, "Had the Iranians not tried to build nuclear weapons, they would be crazy." In 2005, van Creveld made headlines when he said in an interview that the 2003 invasion of Iraq was "the most foolish war since Emperor Augustus in 9 BC [ sic ] sent his legions into Germany and lost them",

1530-470: The colonies, Beaverbrook and Churchill . This was frowned upon by Wingate's commanders, who dismissed him from command of the SNS and returned him to GHQ intelligence during November 1938. Bredin replaced Wingate as commander of the SNS, until it was disbanded. The SNS continued to operate in the original form until January 1939 when, due to British policy change, the Jewish supernumeraries were forbidden from participating in offensive operations. Thereafter,

1575-586: The force was Ariel Sharon who joined the JSP in 1945 and became an instructor. Another notable member was Yigal Allon . Both later served as Ministers in the Israeli government, Sharon also as Prime Minister ; Allon was interim Prime Minister. Special Night Squads The Special Night Squads (SNS) was a joint British–Jewish counter-insurgency military unit, established by Captain Orde Wingate in Mandatory Palestine in 1938 during

1620-554: The heads of captured ones into pools of oil and then freeing them to tell the story." The 16th Infantry Brigade , under Brigadier John Fullerton Evetts , supplied three twelve-man squads, including officers, to the new unit. The men were taken from the Royal Ulster Rifles (squad commanded by Lieutenant Bala Bredin ), the Royal West Kent Regiment (squad commanded by Lt. Michael "Mike" Grove) and

1665-456: The list as well. In a commander's quest for certainty in battlefield information, Van Creveld popularized "directed telescope" as a term to describe the use of specially selected and trusted officers as special agents or observers for the commander". In addition to his books on military history, van Creveld has written several books on other issues. The most prominent of these is perhaps his anti-feminist polemic The Privileged Sex (2013). In

1710-713: The rebels, the West should join Russia and press for a negotiation solution. If necessary, the West should help the rebels and allow Assad to stay on his post: he is the only person who can hold the country together." Van Creveld quoted Bismarck: "Politics is the choice between the bad and the worse." In a lecture at the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung in Brandenburg he pleaded to follow a "pragmatic path" in Syria. In 2011, looking back at Bashar's father, he analyzed

1755-483: The strategy of Hafez Al-Assad against the town of Hama in 1982, then the center of the Muslim Brothers . Without this action, seen as extremely brutal and as a war crime by Creveld, Assad's regime would probably have been overthrown. Assad himself and many members of the Alawite community would have been killed. After Assad's removal, perhaps a stable regime would have been established by non-Alawite Muslims, or –

1800-415: The training of their armed forces and rethink their weapon procurement programs. The book's significance is attested to by the fact that until the middle of 2008, it was included on the list of required reading for United States Army officers, and (with Sun Tzu and Clausewitz) the third non-American entry on the list. Van Creveld's Supplying War: Logistics from Wallenstein to Patton is now included on

1845-463: The wars fought after 1945 were low-intensity conflicts (LICs) which powerful states ended up losing. The book argues that we are seeing a decline of the nation-state, without a comparable decline in organized violence. Moreover, in his view, armies consistently train and equip to fight a conventional war, rather than the LICs they are likely to face. Consequently, it is imperative that nation-states change

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1890-530: The way we learned to live with the nuclear Soviet Union and a nuclear China.... We Israelis have what it takes to deter an Iranian attack. We are in no danger at all of having an Iranian nuclear weapon dropped on us.... thanks to the Iranian threat, we are getting weapons from the U.S. and Germany. Van Creveld viewed the Second Lebanon War as a strategic success for Israel and a Hezbollah defeat. He

1935-556: The weak, then anything you do is criminal. In a September 2003 interview in Elsevier , a Dutch weekly, on Israel and the dangers it faces from Iran , the Palestinians and world opinion van Creveld stated, referring to the Samson Option : We possess several hundred atomic warheads and rockets and can launch them at targets in all directions, perhaps even at Rome . Most European capitals are targets for our air force…. We have

1980-484: Was also highly critical of the Winograd Commission 's report for its failure to note the many successes brought about by Israel's military campaign. He noted that Hezbollah "had the fight knocked out of it," lost hundreds of its members and that the organization was "thrown out of South Lebanon," replaced by "a fairly robust United Nations peacekeeping force." He also noted that as a result of the war, Israel

2025-579: Was willing to tolerate. In an article co-authored with a Cambridge researcher of Middle Eastern history, Jason Pack , addressing the 2011 Libyan civil war , van Creveld challenged the media's tendency to portray the circumstances in Libya as being largely equivalent to those that formed the backdrop to the overthrow of ben-Ali in Tunisia and Mubarak in Egypt earlier in the year. "The remarkable spread of

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