Levi Eshkol's Contribution To Building Up Israel's Military Power


By Prof. Yoav Gelber - University of Haifa






Renowned particularly for his role in developing Israel's economic infrastructure, Levy Eshkol was intermittently deeply involved in defense and security matters, directly and indirectly, throughout his career.
During the Second World War he represented MAPAI in the Haganah's Command Council, the organization's supreme authority. In this capacity, he was active in preparing the Yishuv (the Jewish community in Palestine) for the contingency of an Axis invasion of Palestine in 1942 and the prospective confrontation with the Arabs under these circumstances. Eshkol advocated a massive enlistment into the British army as the most practical way to build up the Jewish military power for present and future contingencies. His approach was pragmatic, stressing the enormous potentialities and the economic gain if during the war the Jewish youth was maintained, equipped and trained by the British. This stance brought him into a dispute with the advocates of the alternative, "independent", approach that preferred building up the Yishuv's military force through the PALMAH.
During the early months of 1948 Eshkol was Ben Gurion's right hand in preparing the Yishuv for the crucial tests awaiting it after the Mandate's end and the prospective invasion of the Arab armies. He was especially helpful in overcoming the political obstacles that hindered rebuilding the Haganah as a regular army and in establishing the people's executive (later: the provisional government) to centralize control of the national war effort. At certain points Eshkol was alone in his support for Ben Gurion's reforms, but he managed to mobilize MAPAI to back them politically.
As head of the Jewish Agency's department of colonization and as Minister of Agriculture in the early 1950s, Eshkol had a major role in filling the void along the state's new borders, thus turning them from lines drawn on maps into a political and military reality. The massive establishment of new settlements in the frontier areas in those years was an essential prerequisite for combatting Arab infiltration and substantiating Israel's sovereignty within the "green" lines.
More than any other Minister of the Treasury before or after him, Eshkol was aware of defense's requirements and responsive to the army's demands. When He assumed the posts of PM and Minister of Defense in 1963 he inherited an army in the midst of a structural reform which he embarked on continuing and developing.
This reform's essence was transforming the traditional character that the IDF's had developed since the early 1950s. In the wake of the Sinai war in 1956, it turned from an infantry force supported and assisted by the other arms and services into a modern army. In the early 1960s the IDF purchased and improved technologically advanced weapon systems in the air (Mirage jet fighters), on land (Centurion and Paton tanks, anti-tank missiles and modern field artillery) and in the sea (Missile Vessels).
Although this process had begun before his term, Eshkol gave it a fresh impetus by defining priorities in a way that clearly preferred the airforce and armored corps; by reorganizing accordingly the defense budget and by focusing on getting access to American sources of armaments' supply. The Skyhawk's transaction which he completed in 1966 was a breakthrough that opened the way for remodelling the IAF, and later the entire IDF, on an American array of aircraft and other weapon systems.
Concurrently with building up Israel's military power, Eshkol faced during his term of office a series of situations requiring crucial decisions of first priority. In the background loomed the Arab states' excited response after Israel had completed its central water project, transferring water from Kinneret to Negev, and the reemergence of Palestinian terrorism.
In the summer of 1964 Eshkol authorized for the first time since 1951 the use of aircraft in incidents along the Syrian border. On the next year he sanctioned the campaign against Syria's attempts to divert Banias and Hazbani. This led to several major incidents along the northern border, culminating in shooting down six Syrian jets on 7 April 1967.
In response to the Fatah's early terrorist acts against Israeli targets since the beginning of 1965 Eshkol decided on a series of warning and retaliation raids. These strikes, that had begun with demolishing petrol stations, mills and wells across the border, grew in scope and culminated in the daylight armored forays on Samo'a and other objectives on 13 November 1966.
In the covert field of intelligence, Eshkol promoted military intelligence under Aharon Yariv to the role of the national assessor. Unlike his predecessor Ben-Gurion, he was more in need of professional intelligence advice and made the best use of it. Concurrently, the Mossad under Meir 'Amit turned during his term and under his guidance into a highly efficient tool of collecting invaluable information.
Both the long-term process of building up the army's power for future contingencies and the series of decisions on current security matters converged in May--June 1967 into the crucial decisions of mobilizing the army, embarking on the Six Day War and occupying the Golan heights. Despite the criticism of Eshkol and Rabin's faltering in the three weeks that had lapsed between the IDF's mobilization and the war's opening, the triumph manifested unequivocally the fruits of the long and careful preparations for a total war in the previous years under their leadership as Minister of Defense and Chief of Staff.