The last time the world heard anything about Israel was in 70 A.D.
when Roman legions under General Titus brutally squashed a Jewish revolt,
dispersed the majority of the Jewish population throughout the Roman Empire,
and vengefully renamed the nation to Palestina
(the Latin word for Israel’s ancient enemy Philistine),
which is today the Gaza strip and Tel-Aviv area.
Although there has always been a remnant of Jews living in the Holy Land
for the past 1,932 years, they have been under constant subjugation by foreign powers:
the Byzantines, the Arabs, the Crusaders, again the Arabs, and the Ottomans (the Turks).
The Ottoman Empire (1300 – 1918) ruled over both the indigenous Jews and Arabs
in the region until their defeat in World War I (1914 – 1918),
and the implementation of the British Mandate of 1919.
In this same year the Jews formed an underground army,
known as the Haganah הגנה (the Hebrew word for defense) to deal with the ongoing
conflict with Arab gangs, and in anticipation of the creation of a Jewish state
promised to them by the British in the Balfour Declaration.
Yet, despite the popularity of the Zionist movement and increased Jewish immigration,
statehood was slow in the making. Instead the colonial powers allowed the local police
to form an elite unit called the Notrim (guards) to defend isolated
Jewish agricultural settlements against marauding Arabs,
and to quell ongoing racial riots steadily growing in the urban centers.
Although the Notrim was successful at protecting the small outposts,
they were not as effective in handling the deadly riots,
or pursuing the enemy back behind his own lines.
A Haganah officer named Yitzhak Sadeh (considered the father of the Israeli Special Forces),
understood the police unit’s shortcomings and formed a new army unit
called the Nodedot (wanderers).
When World War II (1939 – 1945) brought British forces once again into global conflict
(against the Axis powers of Germany, Japan, and Italy) the need for oil was paramount.
However, this rare commodity was threatened by German troops advancing eastward
in North Africa and many Arab tribes openly siding with the Nazis.
Reluctant at first, the British turned once again to Jewish fighters
and formed the first official Israeli Special Forces unit on May 14, 1941
known as Pal’mach פלמ"ח (a Hebrew acronym for Plugot Machatz, פלוגות מחץ
which means strike platoon).
The original numbers of personnel sanctioned for Pal’mach training under British supervision
was only suppose to be 1,000 fighters, but the Haganah overstepped their bounds
and trained roughly 3,000 men in preparation
for a future Jewish army to be used after the war.
The training that the Pal’mach commandos received was called Kapap קפ"פ
(Hebrew acronym for Krav Panim l’Panim, קרב פנים לפנים face-to-face combat).
The word “krav” קרב is also translated commonly as “fight.”
Kapap was not one system, but a mixture of rigorous physical conditioning,
firearms and explosives training, radio communications, wilderness survival training,
combat first aid and foreign language courses (the enemy languages of German and Arabic).
The empty hand combat training was a combination of Western fighting systems
such as boxing (London Prize Ring Rules), Greco-Roman wrestling,
and standard British military knife and baton training.
At this time there was no one single vocabulary word or term used for
the self-defense techniques in the program, Kapap was an all inclusive term.
The Pal’mach’s three combat brigades went onto assist the British
in a variety of victorious campaigns:
the invasion of Vichy (the French pro-Nazi government) Lebanon and Syria,
espionage missions in Jordan
and fighting along side the British SAS (Special Air Service) in the Balkans.
When the war ended, so did the Jewish-British cooperation.
The Jews expected the Brits to hold up their end of the bargain for a homeland.
When it was apparent that the deal would not go through the Pal’mach used guerilla tactics
against the British military and police installations.
There were also terrorist attacks carried out by the Jewish ran Stern Gang and Irgun,
but they were strongly condemned by the Haganah.
The newly formed United Nations (formed in 1945) knew that it was only a matter of time
before an all out war between the Jews and Arabs would break out when
the frustrated British vacated, so they tried to intervene by partitioning the region –
a Jewish state on the west side of the Jordan River and an Arab state
on the east side of the river (today’s Jordan).
When the British lowered the Union Jack and left the region,
the Jews declared their Independence on May 14, 1948.
Hours later the forces of Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq, Egypt, Syria and the Palestinians
attacked the newborn nation of Israel.
The unofficial-turned-legitimate Haganah faced its greatest challenge
and was officially renamed the Tzava Haganah Le’Yisrael צבא הגנה לישראל
(transliteration army defense to Israel or known in English as
the Israeli Defense Forces or IDF צה"ל).
In the War of Independence the Israelis managed to not only survive,
though greatly outnumbered and poorly equipped,
but went on to form one of the most respected militaries in the world.
In 1957, the ultra-secret unit named Sayeret Mat’kal (Unit 216) was formed by
intelligence officer Avraham Aran who closely modeled it after the British SAS.
In the 1970s this unit gained worldwide fame after a series
of spectacular conterterrorist operations,
the most famous of which was Operation Thunderball July 3-4, 1976
(known in the U.S. as the Raid on Entebbe) where operators flew into the hostile
African nation of Uganda and rescued 103 hostages who had been
hijacked by German and Palestinian terrorists.
In the IDF the Special Forces units had a monopoly on the martial arts training
and Kapap came to be known as Lochama Zehira לוחמה זעירה (micro fighting or micro combat)
in the 1970s. The system included a variety of military skills in addition
to hand-to-hand combat. However, with Israel being at war with one Arab neighbor
or another with unrelenting cross-border terrorist attacks,
regular units also needed some sort of hand-to-hand fighting system.
What they got was a basic no-nonsense system.
Extra Information
"Krav Maga is a combat in between fighters that fight face to face"
"Kapap (short) Krav Panim Le Panim - combat with direct contact with the
enemiy , combat with spear , guns , submechin guns ,rifles,and any other
hand weopen"
Dictionary Definition (Hebrew)
State of Israel
Ministry of Defense
IDF (Israeli Defense Forces) and Israel security forces Archives Unit
The Unit for Documentation and Cataloging
Tel Hashomer
September 19 2004
Request No. 200407878
To Mr.Tzion Dayan
HaYarden 32
Ramat Gan
Re: Definition of the terms Krav Maga and Krav Panim le Panim (kapap) in
response to your request on 8.24.04 (by fax)
The following definition appears in the 1965 Army dictionary:
Krav Panim Le Panim (Kapap) (close combat) - combat in the range of manual
contact with the enemy, which uses spears, rifles, machine guns and other
hand weapons.
The term Krav Maga is not defined in the army dictionary.
Sincerely,
Doron Avi-Ad
The Original Letter (Hebrew)
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