Rating: 
Summary: A good bird's-eye view of Middle East conflict
Review: Arab-Israeli Wars is the story of the military conflicts between Israel and her Arab neighbors from the 1948 War of Independence to the operations in Lebanon in the early 1980s. Although author Chaim Herzog was personally involved in the events he describes, this work is not a memoir. Herzog seems to go out of his way, in fact, to avoid mentioning himself or his role. Instead, the book is a narrative of the military actions and an analysis of the causes of victory and defeat.Herzog does his best to be impartial, though his pride in his country's military accomplishments is unconcealed. Using rather simplistic logic, he initially blames the Arabs themselves for causing the Palestinian problem, but Herzog largely steers clear of the political side of the conflict. His narrative covers only the wars themselves, skipping over the interwar periods. This approach avoids many of the more controversial diplomatic and social issues, but it also neglects to summarize peacetime military developments. The text is clear, concise, and easy to follow using the excellent maps provided. Most of the action is described at the high command level, so we miss the occasional "view from the trenches" that other military histories often provide. And there are few clues to the actual makeup and character of the Israeli or Arab forces. The great strength of the book is that military actions and outcomes are always related back to the big strategic picture. We always know what the Arabs and Israelis were out to accomplish militarily and how the outcome of an engagement favored or thwarted these goals.
Rating:
Summary: Detailed account of the Arab-Israeli wars
Review: I knew nothing about Israeli history prior to reading this book and this book gave a very thorough account of the birth of Israel and the subsequent wars Israel had to fight against the Arabs for the country's very survival.
Although the book at times goes into excrutiating detail about the military battles, it was definetly worth the read. Some of the battle accounts are filled with hair-raising acts of courage and determination in the face of great odds.
The only downside - the book is more focused on the military facts than the politics and personalities involved - it left me wanting more information regarding the lives & history of the people involved. Also, the book stops in 1982, so if you are curious on what's been happening in the last 20 years, you won't get it here.
Overall, very good book and you will gain a thorough insight into
the Arab-Israeli wars.
Rating: 
Summary: A great read
Review: Mr Herzogs book is a winner. I have read it several times and find it informative. He explains in great detail each conflict and also gives us many details of the events that occurred between each conflict. I recommend this book to anyone interested in gaining a clear understanding of this part of the world.
Rating:
Summary: A great read
Review: Mr Herzogs book is a winner. I have read it several times and find it informative. He explains in great detail each conflict and also gives us many details of the events that occurred between each conflict. I recommend this book to anyone interested in gaining a clear understanding of this part of the world.
Rating:
Summary: A wonderful read for military and history fans
Review: The greatest compliment that can be paid to this book is that both arabs and Israeli scholars consider it a reasonably authoritiative text. That is even more amazing, given that Herzog was the President of Israel. The text is very readble, though it sometimes gets bogged down in very minor detail. That said, Herzog brings the story to life by introducing us to many of the front line commanders whose decisions often dramatically effected the tide of battle. In many ways, the history of the modern middle east is written by wars. This book provides a wonderful introduction to a most important aspect of this area of study.
Rating: 
Summary: Good, but a bit tedious
Review: There are many great things about this book. You will learn a lot if you can stay with it. Amazingly prescient is the last chapter, written in the 80's I assume. But I would only recommend this for students of military history. It is NOT an introduction into the story of the modern Middle East. Mr Herzog has certainly captured in detail the military aspect of the modern Arab-Israeli conflict, up to the 1980's. But for most readers, I think this book is going to be too detailed, and not enough big picture, and not enough story.
Though there is a smattering of background, this book is mostly about military actions taken. What the book is missing is the personal stories of those who were in the conflict. What you come away with is this: either the Israelis struck with a brilliant pre-emptive blow, or they eventually out-flanked and out-fought the Arabs. The style is very dry. Sort of like my review. By the way, you can safely ignore the fanatical rants about this book - I've actually read the book, and it is indeed fairly balanced in its reporting of how the Arab armies fought.
"Six Days of War" by Michael Oren, though limited in scope to the Six Day War, is fantastic, a much better read, and a great example of how to dramtically unfold the history of a conflict. There is also a great PBS video out called "The 50 Years War". This is a thorough introduction to the conflict.
Rating:
Summary: A solid record
Review: This account of the Wars of Israel from the War of Independence is written with fairness and a real attention to the facts. Herzog can fault Israel, and is aware of mistakes but points out to the essentially defensive character of the Jewish state's major military actions. As a participant in the War of Independence and as the major commentator and in fact ' national spokesman' in the 1967 war he well understands Israeli society from inside. He has great military knowledge and shows this in detailed explanations of the battle. Considering however the tremendous drama of the events involved the work is a bit less humanly moving than it could have been had he written more personally about the major characters involved.
Rating: 
Summary: Masterpiece of Machiavellian History Writing
Review: This book is a great example of how the victors can manipulate the facts to legitimize their gains. It tells you all these lengthy stories of infinitely heroic Jewish guys(!) driving cowardly, despicable Arabic invaders(!) from where they lived for 1400 years. How unfairly the Arabs insisted to keep living in spite of the fact that 3400 years ago some dude supposedly walked there... Classical zionist propaganda written to legitimize Israel`s legacy in the minds of innocent and utterly unaware Americans.
Apart from the implicit assumptions of the author which sinisterly smells racism, the book simply fails to deliver any realistic objective handling of the facts of Arab-Israeli conflict. The story of Jewish neighbors begging their loved Arab neighbor to stay in 1948 or stories fairly massacring Arabic villages. Single-sided, overly subjective and almost never realistic...
If you couple this book with New York Times articles about how barbaric it is for Palestinians to resist occupation, you can then have a glimpse of how tight a prehistoric tribalist movement grips American minds. Giving unaware unsuspecting american people a Star Wars story with loads of fancy Skywalkers, this book points to peaks of an ongoing disinformation campaign against the very basics of civilization and human dignity. I suggest you read Six Days of War by Michael B.Oren for a realistic account of 1967 war and Two O`Clock War for 1973.
Rating:
Summary: Detailed account of the Arab-Israeli wars
Review: This book, written by the former President of Israel, is a good look at the Israeli military events from the 1948 War of Independence to the 1982 invasion of Lebanon. Herzog's personal military experience makes this a somewhat technical book to read, but it does provide a lot of detailed and specific information about the four major wars, all of which the author was involved in. A good historical reference.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent, detailed study of historic regional conflicts.
Review: This excellent study is written by Chaim Herzog, who has been personally involved, in one way or another, in every war involving Israel during the time period covered, since joining the Haganah as a teenager. He further served as a Major General in the Israeli Army and as the country's Ambassador to the UN, and last but not least held the position of Israeli President. Covering all the Arab-Israeli conflicts in one volume is a remarkable achievement. Many of the principal figures on both sides of these wars & the UN have been interviewed for their own views and accounts in connection with this very objective publication. The book delves back into the archives surrounding the 1917 Balfour Declaration, the promises made by the British and the International Community to both the Jewish people and also to the region's Arabs. In so doing and extending this principle to the other conflcits, Chaim Herzog provides a valuable context/understanding to the origins of the subsequent wars. He also remarks on the UN General Assembly vote in 1947, which voted 33-13 (with 10 abstentions) in favour of partitioning `Palestine' west of the Jordan River into two states, one Jewish & one Arab, with Jerusalem as an internationally administered area. The reactions of both sides are studied and the consequent invasion of Israel by six Arab countries, (Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Lebanon), beginning Israel's War of Independence. The latter war is covered in some depth, as indeed are the much ignored Sinai Campaign of 1956, the Six Day War of 1967, the `War of Attrition', the Yom Kippur War of 1973, the `War Against Terrorism of that era' including the Entebbe incident and finally the `Operation Peace For Galilee' in Lebanon around 1982. (My copy of this book was published in 1984, so any reference to the Palestinian `intifadas' of more recent times is obviously missing.) The experiences learnt in all of these conflicts is also discussed from both an Israeli and Arab perspective, as is the conflict with the PLO. All these conflicts are covered in commendable detail in just one volume, making this quite an extraordinary book and a very valuable reference on the turbulent history of the Jewish state. Might I also recommend another book by Chaim Herzog entitled, "The War Of Atonement", which is solely devoted to the 1973 Yom Kippur War. An excellent work by this author in it's own right. Other recommended titles are Michael Oren's "Six Days Of War" which covers the 1967 conflict & "Operation Peace For Galilee" by Richard Gabriel which covers the Israeli-PLO war in Lebanon. All three of these additional books are highly recommended and cover the issues in considerable depth.
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