Page 372 - עלי זית וחרב - כרך כ

Prof. Yossi Ben-Artzi (chairman), Prof. Yoav Gelber, Prof. Alon
Kadish and Prof. Yigal Sheffy

Forging the Defence Force: from the Histadrut
Workshop to the Army of the State-in-the-Making

On reaching the Hagana's 100th anniversary, a panel of military historians was
convened with the participation of Prof. Yossi Ben Artzi (chairman), Prof. Yoav
Gelber, Prof. Alon Kadish and Prof. Yigal Sheffy to discuss issues related to the
Hagana's security concept – the circumstances of the organization's establishment
and its sources of inspiration, development of the Hagana's foundations and its
combat doctrine, the formulation of the relationships between the civilian echelon
in control and the military echelon under underground conditions, etc.

From a purely military viewpoint, at the outset, the discussing focused on three
prominent characteristics of the development of the Hagana's security concept.
The local structure – the Hagana organization came into being as a local militia
for protecting isolated settlements; the method of operational service – until the
establishment of the Palmach in May 1941 the Hagana was structured as a popular
militia with a minimal regular staff; and the source of the Yishuv's authority – at
its inception the Hagana was the brainchild of the Histadrut and only in the 1930s
did the National Institutions take over its supervision. These three characteristics
had a decisive influence over the development of the army of the state-in-the-
making, on the campaign for independence and on the structure of the Israel
Defence Force and the national security outlook.

The second part of the discussion was dedicated to issues of the historiography
of the Hagana – analysis of the changes in the study of the defence force from the
documentary base to a critical academic research, their characterization, and
pointing out trends and directions of future research.

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