Publications on Operation Protective Edge

The essays compiled in The Lessons of Operation Protective Edge cover a wide range of key topics, among them: the implications of Israel’s Iron Dome anti-rocket/missile defense system; the challenge of the tunnels; the legal aspect of Israel’s military action; the potential demilitarization of Gaza; relations between Israel and the Palestinians and the balance of power in the Palestinian arena itself; the civilian front in wartime; Israeli public opinion; the implications for Jewish-Arab relations in Israel; economic ramifications;...

In the current Middle East reality, the foundation for strategic interests common to the area’s so-called pragmatic nations, led by Egypt and Saudi Arabia, has grown. These interests are also shared by Israel. The Arab Peace Initiative could emerge as a conceptual and operational basis for realizing two shared strategic interests: weakening Hamas and foiling the threat posed by ISIS. As such, a regional coalition based on shared strategic interests can be formed on the basis of the seminal idea behind the Arab Peace Initiative to...

While Hamas accepted the ceasefire with virtually none of its many demands met, Israel, for its part, did not succeed in imposing on the terrorist organization one of the central demands presented by Prime Minister Netanyahu as an objective of the operation: the demilitarization of Gaza and the establishment of mechanisms that would deny Hamas the ability to reconstruct its force. However, the latter goal, disregarded after previous rounds of fighting, must be central to Israel’s demands in the negotiations on a long term...

Although the IDF’s abilities to handle the rocket and attack tunnel threats have garnered most of the attention during the latest campaign in the Gaza Strip, it is now clear that Israel was also forced to confront cyber challenges during Operation Protective Edge. More specifically, in the course of the campaign Iranian elements launched a widespread cyber offensive against Israeli targets, including attempts to damage security and financial networks. While these attempts were neutralized relatively easily and quickly by Israeli...