14 March 2025
By Professor Paul Moorcraft; Biteback, 2024. CAD 46.50 / UK £20
ISBN: 978-1-78590-872-9
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has rumbled on at varying levels of intensity and open warfare since Israel declared its independence in 1948. That is, until 7 October 2023, when Hamas launched coordinated armed incursions into southern Israel from the Gaza Strip. It was one of the broadest invasions of Israeli territory in 50 years. Hamas’ attack, states Paul Moorcraft, ‘did not just shift the tectonic places in the Middle East – it tore them apart’(p.xxxi). He further asserts that the attack and Israel’s ferocious response, intensive aerial bombing campaign and large-scale military invasion of Gaza was the start of a new phase in the long-running conflict that could paradoxically lead to world war or peace. Somewhat surprisingly, because all the main belligerents currently reject it, Moorcraft argues that the best path to peace is still the long-promoted two-state solution. The alternative, he warns, should hope for a lasting peace vanish, is ‘forever war’, hence the title of Professor Moorcraft’s new book, Israel’s Forever War.
Moorcraft is eminently qualified to write this book. He has lived in Jerusalem and on the Gazan and Lebanese borders. He has had a stellar career as an academic teaching at the UK’s Joint Services Command, the Royal Military College Sandhurst, and several leading universities, working for the Ministry of Defence both in London and in the field, and as a war correspondent in more than thirty war zones. His insights and balanced perspectives are well-honed.
Chapters are short and well-defined with subtitles that focus the reader’s attention and enhances the author’s pacey and persuasive narrative. The book begins with the surprise terror attack by Hamas on Israel on 7 October 2023. Hamas’ initial popularity in Gaza, its seizure of control, internal leadership tensions, and rationale for the scale and timing of the attack are all addressed, as is the failure of the Israeli Defence Forces and Intelligence Services. Hubris is the reason the author cites for the failure of Israel’s vaunted deterrence strategy. Humiliation explains the disproportionate response. Both are sad recurrences of previous conflicts.
As the war in Gaza has expanded to the West Bank, Lebanon and Syria, and even Iran, how and when it will end has become increasingly unclear. Hardline Israeli generals and politicians resolutely believe that ‘If force doesn’t work, then applying more force will’(p.35). It is a strategy that has produced an unprecedented humanitarian crisis in Gaza, cost Israel many friends, and is entirely dependent on US support, political and military. Wars almost always end with agreements. Substantive negotiations are yet to start.
One of the book’s many strengths is that it is not a historical summary of the long Israeli-Palestinian enmity. Rather, the antecedents of the conflict are judiciously referenced to provide essential context to the current war and its uncertain end. The author’s approach is wide-ranging including Israel’s contested control of Gaza and the West Bank, the Lebanon and Syrian fronts bordering on northern Israel, Iran, the Iraqi connection, western allies and limitless US support for Israel, the Naval front in both the eastern Mediterranean and the new threat in the Red Sea from the Houthi movement in Yemen. At times, it makes for depressing reading: the greed, the hatred, the violence, and the seemingly intractable nature of the conflict regularly inflamed by hubris, hyperbole, and hypocrisy. No one involved emerges free from wrongdoing. The Israeli Home Front, the vexed question of Palestine, and the tantalising hope for peace darkened by the dread of forever war complete this impartial, intelligently argued, and well-written book.
Augmenting the book are a useful map of the Gaza Strip, a concise timeline from 1917 to 7 October 2023, dramatis personae, and a short list of abbreviations. It also has five appendices: an outline of the seven attempted peace deals from 1947 to 2007; an annotated chronicle of the 14 main Israel-Gaza conflicts from 1947 to 7 October 2023; a brief account of where Israel gets it weapons; a critical assessment of Britain’s arms trade in the region; and an evaluation of the controversial reporting of casualty figures in Gaza.
Overall, Israel’s Forever War is an authoritative introduction on the Israel-Gaza conflict, written by one of the most prolific defence authors today. Moorcraft elucidates the complexity and the many nuances of conflict in the Middle East as well as the increasingly dangerous military and political impasse to peace. His book should be required reading for policymakers, defence practitioners, and anyone who is concerned about the horrors in Gaza and the future of the Middle East.
I would strongly recommend this book to anyone with even a passing interest in these subjects. It is available at Amazon or Biteback Publishing.
Inset Photo: “Cover of Israel’s Forever War”, Biteback Publishing, 2025
Feature Photo: “Benny Gantz in a Situational Assessment”, Wikimedia Commons, 2025