The recent series of interviews with Syrian President Bashar Asad in Arab and Western media reveals the extent of changes in the Middle East, in general, and Syria, in particular, in the wake of the confrontation between Israel and Hizbullah in the summer of 2006. Before that conflict, Asad hardly ever mentioned “Israeli aggression against Syria that can end in war” or the “state of alert” in the Syrian army, but since then, Asad has repeatedly stressed the readiness of his military forces.
In January 2002, Wafa Idris, a young Palestinian woman from the al-Amri refugee camp adjacent to Ramallah, blew herself up on a crowded Jerusalem street. The Israel Defense Forces, Israeli public opinion, and many in the West were taken by surprise, if not outright astounded. Conversely, the Arab press, and to a greater degree the Islamic press, reacted with elated jubilation. “It’s a woman!” cheered al-Sha’ab, an Islamic Egyptian newspaper, in a headline that played on an “It’s a boy!” greeting card announcement for the felicitous...
Female suicide terrorists have consistently attracted abundant media attention. Perhaps not surprisingly, the Israeli and Arab (mostly Palestinian) media have peddled competing versions of reality. In a certain sense, the Israeli version of reality perpetuates the chauvinism in Arab Islamic society, and portrays the female Palestinian suicide terrorist in a relatively sympathetic light, compared with the male suicide terrorist. This narrative portrays her as weak and subject to manipulation by a chauvinist society. As such, it...
Is it purely by chance that the phenomenon of Palestinian female suicide bombers occurred only during the height of the second Intifada and not at all during the first one? In order to answer this question, two main factors must be considered: developments within the Palestinian national-political arena and gender phenomena in Palestinian society.
On January 27, 2002, a terrorist bomb exploded in the handbag of Wafa Idris, a woman in her late twenties, on Jaffa Street in Jerusalem. The bomb killed Idris herself and an Israeli citizen, and wounded approximately fifty people. Idris, cast by the media as the first female Palestinian terrorist, was not intended to kill herself with her victims, according to the original plan of those who sent her. For some unknown reason, however, the bomb went off unexpectedly. Nonetheless, as part of the suicide terrorist cult that was greatly...
Over the past two weeks, Israel has been enmeshed in conflict precipitated by kidnappings in the south and in the north. Those two tactical events have deteriorated into fighting with strategic consequences. The tactical successes of Hamas and Hizbullah have exposed Israel to extortion and it may well have to pay some price for its failures and for the return of the kidnapped soldiers. In this situation, Israel’s objective is to turn tactical setbacks into strategic outcomes whose gains outweigh the losses. Understanding the...
The confrontation between Israel and Hizbullah that has unfolded since the abduction of two soldiers on July 12 has prompted considerable speculation about future Syrian policy. One school of thought argues that Syria under President Bashar al-Asad will not stop at the brink and will actively support Hizbullah. However, the regime’s behavior in this confrontation suggests that a rational calculation of vital interests will prompt Asad to adopt a pragmatic stance.
Early in the morning of June 27, Israel Air Force planes broke the sound barrier as they flew over the palace of Syrian President Bashar al-Asad in the Asad family’s hometown of Qardaha. That action was apparently driven by a lesson learned from a similar overflight four years before, in the fall of 2002, which was intended to warn Asad against escalation of the situation on the Israeli-Lebanese border but failed to impress him because he was completely unaware of the overflight at the time and only learned about it from...
Part I: Middle East Strategic Assessment
Introduction
The International Theater
Chapter 1
Political Trends in the Middle East: The Triumph of Identity over Democracy / Mark A. Heller
Chapter 2
US Policy in the Greater Middle East: A Rendezvous with Reality? / Eran Lerman
Centrality and Controversy
The Iraqi Crucible
Elsewhere in the War on Terror
The Palestinian and Israeli Arenas
Supporting Siniora: Hizbollah, Syria, and the Aftermath of the War
The Ultimate Challenge: Iran...
Operation “Summer Rains” was launched by Israel on June 28 in response to an attack by Hamas near Kerem Shalom. In that incident, a Hamas squad tunneled under the fence separating Israel from Gaza and attacked an armored unit from the rear, killing two soldiers and capturing another — Gilad Shalit — whom they took back to Gaza.
On May 11, Palestinian prisoners in Israel published a “National Reconciliation Document.” The document posed a serious challenge to the Hamas-led government and its endorsement by Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas sharpened the question hovering over the Palestinian political system for several years: “Who is the boss?”
The Palestinians are faced with the special challenge of fashioning a national security concept. This study, composed from a Palestinian viewpoint, proposes such a security concept. The authors contend that Palestinian security policy must be based on deterrence and prevention, which will be achieved first and foremost through a doctrine of non-offensive defense, and reflected in non-military defense, agreements, treaties, guarantees, international presence, and a limited military capability.
