ABSTRACT
The main difficulty in dealing with the sensitive subject of the relationship between the government and the armed forces in Israel lies in the danger of generalizing. Israel is a thoroughly democratic country, but on the eve of the war and in its initial phases something which can only be described as a putsch—a novel kind of putsch, in which the army and its operations were commandeered to flout governmental decisions in matters of crucial importance. Reservists are integrated at all levels of command and at all times. Even among the regular army there are a great many men who have stayed on only for a few years—and not as a lifetime career. The first minister of defense in first government was Ever Weizman who was considered a warmonger as an army man, but a moderate as a political leader.
