Beginnings:
Orde Wingate
Before the formation of the State of Israel there was effectively a government in waiting with its own military wing called the Haganah. This was effectively a militia developed to protect various communities scattered around the colony of mandate Palestine. It was a ramshackle organisation primarily made up of amateurs with various levels of training and supplies. What helped to change this group into the nucleus of the Israel Defence Force and create the foundation of Israeli SF was the introduction into the mix of the British General (then 33 years old) Orde Wingate.
It was Wingate who argued that there was potential in the Jews for combat ability and he formed small strike units called the "Special Night Squads" (SNS). The units were trained to operate using small unit tactics. They conducted ambushes and raids as their preferred method of combat. Their primary years of operation were during the Arab Revolt that lasted from 1936-9. After this time Wingate was posted away and the SNS were disbanded. The future Chief of Staff and Defence Minister, Moshe Dayan was one of the commandos of the SNS.
Pal Mach:
Once the Haganah had the experience derived from the SNS they formed covert units that were essentially the same but larger. These were called Plugot Machatz (Strike Companies), abbreviated to Pal Mach. These men and women were really the elite wing of the Haganah and were instrumental during the Israeli War of Independence as the most experienced, best trained and best equipped fighters in the army. They were soon disbanded however, in favour of the creation of a more egalitarian army not based on soldiers held above others.
Unit 101, Arik Sharon and the Paratroopers:
After the armistice of 1949 that marked the conclusion of the War of Independence the new state faced a great deal of security problems that would today be categorised as low intensity. Infiltration by Guerillas was the main issue they faced and the response was one of reprisal. Without the Pal Mach there was no one to launch reprisal raids against Guerilla camps and the countries supplying them. In stepped Ariel Sharon. A young platoon commander during the War of Independence he was tasked with raising a unit to undertake commando operations behind enemy lines.
His answer was called Unit 101 and was formed in August 1953. By January 1954 the unit had already been integrated into Batallion 890 of the new Israeli Paratroopers. Although they had been incredibly successful in deterring attacks and in their operations over the Israel borders in enemy territory the short history of the unit had been incredibly bloody, culminating in the Qibya Operation, in which villagers were killed.
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| From left to right: Lieutenant Meir Har zion, Ariel Sharon, Moshe Dayan,Captain Dani Matt, Lieutant Moshe Efron, Major General Asaf Simchoni, sitting from left to right: Captain Aharon Davidi, Lieutenant Ya'akov Ya'akov, Captain Raful Eitan |
Sayeret Matkal:
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| Sayeret Matkal unit insignia |
They were formed in the late 1950's after the Sinai campaign. The man most directly associated with the unit was Avraham Arnan who is thought to be the "father" of the unit and the chief agitator for a unit specially trained to carry out operations in conjunction with military intelligence. The premise for the unit was that even the reconnaissance element (Sayeret) of the paratroopers were untrained for missions involving infiltration behind enemy lines with the objective of observation or planting sensitive intelligence gathering equipment.
the unit was administratively under the jurisdiction of Military Intelligence from its inception, though ultimately it would soon come to be regarded as the unit that was under the direct command of the Chief of Staff of the IDF himself. One of the first members was the future commander of Sayeret Matkal, Chief of Staff, Prime Minister and Defence Minister, Ehud Barak.
Over time the unit assumed responsibility for a whole range of roles, including hostage rescue, intelligence gathering and assassination (outside of the occupied territories). Though many of their missions are still secret many are not. The unit has met some failure as well as success, most notably during the Lebanon War in 2006 along with a range of other Israeli SF units, mainly due to poor intelligence.
The Evolution of Modern Israeli SF:
Through the 1960's-1973
There are a multitude of Special forces in the Israeli order of battle, far more than exist in the United States or British military. These units have grown up organically where a missing element in the Israeli order of battle was determined to exist. Originally there were two premiere Special forces Units who were subordinate to the very top of the IDF high command in the form of the above mentioned Sayeret Matkal and the Navy's Shayatet 13 (Israel's Navy SEALs). These two units served as the basis for all the units that followed.
As the Israeli strategy of reprisals began to take shape the demand for Special Forces among all arms of the army grew. This saw the growth of localised Special forces units in the IDF in the mid to late 1960's. These took the form of a Sayeret unit attached to each of the IDF infantry brigades (Nahal, Tzanhanim, Golani and Giva'ati) and also in the form of Special Forces units under the direct command of regional military commanders.
The IDF is broken down into three regional commands and in the Southern Command, Sayeret Shaked was formed, Central Command raised Sayeret Haruv and Northern Command raised Sayeret Egoz. Now a second tier of Israeli Special Forces existed and provided regional commanders with the flexibility of launching missions in their own area of operations without having to call on the limited manpower of Sayeret Matkal or Shayatet 13. These units (now decommissioned or with their roles drastically changed) bore the imprint of the officers responsible for creating them. In many cases it was soldiers from one or both of the two existing Special Forces units who were sent to aid in their creation. In his (highly recommended) book Secret Soldier, Muki Betser, originally from Sayeret Tzanhanim and then Sayeret Matkal, talks at some length about the training and selection for a platoon in one of these regional Sayeret units.
The regional Sayerot (plural for Sayeret) proved to be an interesting experiment though they did not last long. By the mid 1970's they had been disbanded and their fighters absorbed into other combat units. their problem was that they tended to compete with the infantry brigade's own Sayerot units as well as Sayeret Matkal and Shayatet 13. This led to a rather unhealthy atmosphere in the SF community. The next phase of Israeli SF development marked the formation units according to a specific skill need.
1973-1987
The Yom Kippur War of October 1973 came as an earthquake for the whole of the IDF including the SF community. Suddenly faced with attacks by new weapons, including man portable, anti tank, Sagger missiles and huge numbers of Surface to Air Missiles (SAM's) the IDF needed to reorganise in order to deal with these new threats.
The first innovation came when the Sayerot for the infantry brigades was given a sister unit known as the Orev (or Raven) These units were specifically trained around the Tube launched Optically tracked Wire guided (TOW) missile system and provided their brigades with a state of the art anti tank capability. The second innovation was the entry by the Israeli Air Force into the Special Forces arena with the creation of Sayeret Shaldag. This new unit took pride of place at the very top of the IDF SF community alongside Sayeret Matkal and Shayatet 13. The unit was designated with providing laser designation as well as intelligence collection and is highly skilled in conducting raids.
At an unknown point the unit Sayeret Maglan was also formed, their objective was to use anti tank as well as anti aircraft missiles deep behind enemy lines. They were akin to the anti tank units attached to the infantry brigades in certain respects though their inception was more strategic in nature and the idea is that they be used much deeper behind enemy lines than the Orev units. They sit just under the big three units in the second tier of Israeli SF.
1982 Lebanon
With the Israeli involvement in Lebanon came a need to be able to ambush Hezbollah fighters in the rural territory of South Lebanon. The Golani Brigade are concentrated in the North of the country and are specialised towards fighting in the kind of mountainous, rural terrain of South Lebanon. They created Sayeret Egoz as a specialist unit for counter guerilla operations placing specific focus on camouflage and ambush techniques.
With the frequent placing of booby traps by Hezbollah forces the engineering corps found themselves being called upon over and over again to find and remove enemy
1987 The Intifada
The uprising by Palestinians in the occupied territories of the West Bank and Gaza that is known as The Intifada took the IDF completely by surprise. The whole army needed to retrain and refocus on urban combat operations as well as riot control. New SF units were created in order to blend in with the local populace, gather intelligence, make arrests and assassinate terrorists.
Two new units were created, one to operate in Gaza, Sayeret Shimshon, another for the West Bank, Sayeret Duvduvan. Both units proved to be highly effective as well as highly controversial. Instructed in local dialects as well as the influential clans and personalities within their areas of operations the Mista'aravim (meaning false Arabs) came to change the rules of the game and were blended into the Special forces hierarchy underneath the big 3 units. The border guard followed the example set by the army and created their own unit almost exclusively from Israeli Arabs. This unit called YAMAS is known and revered in the IDF as the epitome of what Mista'aravim can achieve.
