Texas has seceded from the United States. Israeli tanks thunder across the Southwest plains -- mercenaries hired by the nuclear-devastated federal government to drag the recalcitrant republic back into the Union.
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This is the cowboys vs. kippot world of The Texas-Israeli War: 1999, a 1974 science-fiction novel by Jake Saunders and Howard Waldrop, and one of the most bizarre SF books ever written. With this month marking Texan independence from Mexico in 1836, a petition to the White House for Texas secession already garnering 125,000 signatures, and the president of the United States in Jerusalem, it seems an appropriate moment to examine what will likely be the first and last war fought between Israel and Texas, as well as take a look back at how 1970s sci-fi foresaw the future. Besides, who can resist a book with a cover that shows an Israeli tank being charged by a horde of Native Americans on horseback?
The novel's premise is that the United States was devastated by a nuclear and biological war in 1992, after it supported a Russo-British alliance against a Chinese-Irish-Afrikaan South African triad. (Actually, the war is triggered when the IRA conquers Ulster and pours LSD into Britain's water supply, inducing British leaders to launch their nukes, presumably to enjoy the pretty colors.) The ensuing conflagration wipes out 90 percent of humanity and leaves the survivors sickly and starving -- except for Israel, which somehow emerges unscathed and prosperous.
To add another drop of lysergic acid to this alternate history trip, billionaire oil barons convince a neo-fascist Texas to secede from the Union and restore the Republic of Texas (ReTex) after 150 years. Desperate for Texan oil reserves but with the bulk of the shattered U.S. military fighting off a Chinese invasion of Alaska, the federal government hires a tank unit of Israeli mercenaries (other Israelis are hired by the Texans, including Ariel Sharon) to beef up its army and bring the renegade republic back into the Union. The story's protagonist, Sol Inglestein, is a veteran Israeli colonel leading a force of Israelis, Americans, and loyalist Texans on an armored commando mission to rescue the U.S. president, who was kidnapped by Texas Rangers during a peace conference. Their effort will be supported by an amphibious invasion of Cuban marines storming Galveston. Yes, it sounds like more like a game of Risk than real international politics. But then again, someone writing in 1974 that U.S. troops would fight in Afghanistan for 10 years would have been dismissed as a fantasist or a nut.
The Texas-Israeli War is solid Grade B sci-fi: punchy, page-turning prose with lots of action and a fair bit of sex (Sol gets it on with Myra, a dark-haired beauty who commands an all-female Israeli tank crew). This is one of those books that is funny even when you are not sure the authors mean to be humorous. Inglestein's Israeli mercenary unit has the radio call sign "Charlie Bagel," and dances the "Hora" and sings the "Hatikvah" after battles. The U.S. vice president, now president in the new capital of Pittsburgh, plots to dump his wife in a Minnesota lake and appoint a presidential consort. As for the Texans, their currency has John Wayne's portrait, and their secret police are "The Sons of the Alamo" (not-so-subtly abbreviated "SA" like the Nazi paramilitary organization), who wear SS-like lightning bolts on their collars. A final ingredient in this stew of clichés is the Confederate theme embodied by a ReTex general, portrayed as a reluctant, honorable warrior who talks like Robert E. Lee and acts like he could have stepped out of a painting of Appomattox (and lest this be judged as Yankee propaganda, the authors are Texans themselves).
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