Martial arts of the Israeli Special Forces

The Development of Israeli KAPAP/CQB

Unfortunately, Israel is the most experienced nation in the world when it comes to terrorism and that is why it has developed one of the most valued CQB training systems in the world - the Israeli martial art of KAPAP-Lotar/CQB, which has been written in special ink called blood. The knowledge gained in developing the martial art of KAPAP/CQB came from not only the experience of successful operations against terrorist attacks, but many times it came by making tragic mistakes. It was after these mistakes occurred that better techniques were developed to avoid making the same tragic mistakes again. For this reason, the Israeli martial art of KAPAP/CQB is about evaluation and evolution.

Even today, the weapons of warfare and self-defense have evolved from earlier techniques and strategies. For example, a few hundred years ago the bow and arrow was a combat tool, while today we have guns - the bow and arrow of modern times and of modern martial arts. Just as the arrow was once the edged weapon projected towards a target, it is now the bullet that is the edged weapon. And instead of the bow as the force delivering the arrow, gunpowder now takes on the same role to deliver the bullet. That is why today, in the evolution of Israeli martial arts such as Kapap-Lotar, we see guns being used as an integral part of the training, especially when it comes to gun disarming.

Not only is it important to know how to disarm a gun, but you must also know how to retain it and, if necessary, use it. Israeli CQB training, as well as KAPAP, owes its development to many different individuals. Though most of their names are missing from any list you will find, they have all contributed to the art and that is why no one individual can claim sole ownership of having developed it. As with any martial art, it is important to understand the origin of Israeli martial arts and to recognize the culture from which it began. For Israeli’s, the roots of Israeli CQB came from anti-Semitism and the Nazis desire to kill the Jews. It is the same feeling that some radical groups have today. It is from this climate of hatred that has given Israeli’s their fighting spirit and to fight back, if needed in order to survive. This is what Israeli martial arts is all about - to do whatever it takes to survive the fight, since it’s a fight for your life.

For Israelis, the reality is that when you’re in a fight for your life it’s not important how good you look delivering a spinning kick if there is a chance the technique will kill you. And why will it kill you? Simply because the spinning back kick is useless and the person you were fighting against used ugly, but practical, techniques to live another day.

What is Kapap?

Prior to 1948 the modern state of Israel did not exist. 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 (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 Palmach (a Hebrew acronym for Plugot Machatz, which means strike platoon).

The original numbers of personnel sanctioned for Palmach training under British supervision was only supposed 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 Palmach commandos received was called Kapap (Hebrew acronym for Krav Panim le Panim, face-to-face combat). The word 'krav' 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 Palmach'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 Palmach used guerilla tactics against the British military and police installations.

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 into 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 (known in English as the Israeli Defense Forces or IDF).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 Matkal (Unit 216) was formed by intelligence officer Avraham Aran who closely modelled it after the British SAS.

In the 1970s this unit gained worldwide fame after a series of spectacular counter terrorist 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 (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 neighbour 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.