Communications

IF the government moves ahead with the legislation, more refusals are expected. If these take root, and especially in the air force, the military’s performance will take a hit, said Idit Shafran Gittleman, a senior researcher at Israel’s Institute for National Security Studies. How big of a hit will depend on how widespread the refusals become and how the military responds to...

“The professionals and the conscripts are there to hold to the line, but you need the reservists to win the war,” said Chuck Freilich, a former deputy head of Israel’s National Security Council and a senior fellow at the Tel Aviv-based Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv. Reserve pilots in particular are central to keeping Israel on a war footing, he said,...

“The model of the IDF as the ‘people's army’ is at risk of dissolution,” cautioned the Institute for National Security Studies – a Tel Aviv-based research group with close ties to the defense establishment whose team includes multiple former senior IDF commanders and National Security Council members. “This can result in a weak military and lead Israel toward a precarious...

“There is real concern among the reservists that there will no longer be a democratic system that guarantees the orders they are receiving are legal,” said Dr. Idit Shafran Gittleman, a senior researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies.

The new organisation, born after a fierce internal split in the Anglo-Israel Association, attracted a high-profile audience, including Israeli ambassador Tzipi Hotovely, to celebrate Israel’s 75th anniversary. The keynote speaker was Israeli intelligence expert Major-General Tamir Hayman, managing director of Israel’s Institute for National Security Studies, and former chief...

It was unclear whether Netanyahu’s partial climbdown would end the roiling anger on the streets. “The protests will continue unless Netanyahu will note publicly that he was mistaken when leading that reform, and (that) he is holding all future motivations to renew the judicial reform,” Tamir Hayman, managing director of the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS), told...

Three months ago, Israel’s economy was booming. Israel still faced severe threats from Iran and Hezbollah and there had been an increase in Palestinian terrorism but overall Israel was never more secure. Its ties with states around the world were expanding and hopes for near-term normalization with the Saudis and others abounded. Israel was a vibrant democracy and viewed its...

The “legal reform” is an unsuccessful and dangerous disguise for a parliamentary coup. Its purpose is to concentrate all the governing power in the hands of the government. It limits the judiciary’s powers and the gatekeepers monitoring the government. This legal Reform is a threat to the national security of the State of Israel. The constitutional right to protest against the...

The Netanyahu-led government’s ongoing efforts to erode the independence and power of the court system now pose a strategic threat to the state of Israel, one of the country’s leading security think tanks issued a warning on Tuesday, declaring that legislation to overhaul the judicial system “must be stopped immediately.”

The Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) think tank issues a first-of-its-kind statement cautioning that the government’s judicial overhaul as currently being advanced “will seriously harm the functioning of the IDF, will reduce Israel’s ability to deal with its enemies, endanger relations with the USA and sabotage the economy.” In what it calls an “urgent strategic...