The current situation in the Gaza Strip is marked by several primary phenomena, led by Gaza’s severe economic plight and deteriorated infrastructure. These hardships aggravate humanitarian distress, which in turn motivates belligerent tendencies and heightens the danger of security escalation between Israel and Hamas and other terrorist forces operating in the Strip. Additional parameters include Hamas’s comprehensive and stable control of the region; the organization’s proven capacity for destructive activity, both in the Israeli-...
The Russian interference in the presidential elections in the United States and in France raises questions about the need and ability of democratic countries to protect their election processes. This article indicates the importance of relating to elections in a democratic country as both critical infrastructure and as a critical process, and it presents the threats to elections posed by both cyber and cultural developments. This article addresses the reality in which the extensive use of social networks and direct communications...
This chapter focuses on trends in the Israeli-Palestinian arena, exploring in particular developments with the potential to help thaw the deadlock and policy recommendations to facilitate realization of this potential. Proposed measures can both help remove obstacles to upgraded relations between Israel and pragmatic Arab countries, and encourage the expansion of these relations to the public stage.
This essay discusses four principal disputes in Israeli society related to national security, focusing on approaches to these issues among the Israeli Jewish public (hereafter, “the public”). It outlines the connection between these disputes and different world views among the public, based on respective approaches to the country’s core values. To this end, the essay discusses the significance of Israel’s definition as a “Jewish and democratic state,” the role of liberal values in the Israeli democratic context, and possible ways to...
Seven years after the onset of the upheaval in the Middle East and two years since the implementation of the nuclear deal between the world powers and Iran, the main contours of the region’s emerging reality – including the actors, rivalries, partnerships, front lines, power relations, and behavior of the major powers – are becoming clear. Now, after nearly one full year at the Washington helm, the nature of the Trump administration and its influence on the domestic arena, the Middle East, and the global stage are also coming into...
As 2017 draws to a close, the Middle East is witnessing the convergence of several important developments that will potentially have a broad impact on Israeli national security. The civil war in Syria is subsiding through a process dominated by Russia, Iran, and Turkey – which poses the danger that Israel’s interests will not be taken into account in the deliberations and steps toward an agreement to stabilize the arena. The jihadist territorial Islamic State established in Iraq and Syria has been obliterated, although the underlying...
There has reportedly been a significant decline in motivation to enlist in IDF combat units. Advances in technology and their wide ranging (and some would say excessive) use by the IDF have shifted the center of gravity in recruitment from the combat field units to the Special Forces, Flight and Naval Academies, technological units, and Military Intelligence directorate. To remedy the problem, the IDF must build a holistic perception that addresses a variety of fundamental issues, including: a balanced division of high quality...
The perspective of twelve years since Israel’s disengagement from the Gaza Strip and the northern West Bank confirms that this significant political and security-related event was a correct strategic decision. Regarding the West Bank, it appears that unilateral disengagement as a stand-alone event will not repeat itself. However, a political and security independent process with similar attributes could enable Israel to continue striving for a reality of two states for two peoples, based on a gradual, secure, and responsible end to...
Securing the Electrical System in Israel: Proposing a Grand Strategy examines the major external threats facing Israel’s electrical system and the current responses to these threats. It offers an assessment of the Israeli situation and looks at tools that have been implemented abroad, particularly in the United States, that might be useful models for Israel. This analysis provides a basis for recommendations regarding what should be done in order to improve the preparedness of the electrical system to cope with signifוcant risks to...
The stabbing and car-ramming terrorist attacks that started in the fall of 2015 were not one of the main scenarios for which Israel’s complex emergency management system had prepared or drilled. Since the Second Lebanon War in 2006, the institutions charged with preparing for emergencies have focused most of their efforts on different scenarios involving missiles and rockets. Indeed, Israel has made significant progress in preparedness for such attacks, but the stabbings and car-rammings highlight the complexity and...
The essay analyzes Israel’s strategic situation and proposes policy recommendations that can constitute an overall political and security strategy for the coming years. Positive factors in the strategic picture include Israel’s military strength and the declining conventional threat posed by countries and non-state groups; the diminishing prominence of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on the regional and international agenda; the absence of any immediate damage to Israel resulting from the nuclear deal between the major powers and...
The test of Israel’s national resilience is discussed in the following article. The author emphasizes that Israeli resilience has successfully met the challenges of terrorism, rockets, and missiles, which have replaced the conventional threat as Israel’s principal challenge. Yet in addition, Israel must exhibit social and cognitive resilience, which encompasses several internal factors that threaten to undermine this stamina: efforts at DE legitimization, economic gaps, the debate on the Palestinian conflict, the reduced adulation of...
