Strategic Assessment

This article aims to identify the new challenges that confront Israel in a hostile environment, and focuses on the change in manifestations of enmity. Israel was capable of defeating enemies that used hard power, and is still capable of countering or defeating them in the event of a direct confrontation through the use of military power, deterrence, and a sound strategic balance. Today Israel faces new patterns of hostility that draw on different resources. Among such patterns is the surge in the use of “soft power tools,” which include delegitimization campaigns, economic boycotts, scientific and academic boycotts, media and world public opinion campaigns, and confrontations at the level of regional and international organizations, as well as legal battles.