Publications

The war that broke out on October 7, 2023, has brought the Palestinian issue back to the forefront of the global, Middle Eastern, and Israeli agenda. The debate over how to address—let alone resolve—it continues as it has for the past half-century, and in various forms—for more than a century. Why have all attempts at an agreement failed since the Oslo Accords, and what does this suggest about the prospects for resolving the conflict? In light of its frustrating persistence, the conflict continues to generate a range of opposing...

Michael Walzer, the doyen of just war theory, has argued in a New York Times opinion piece that Israel’s “pager attack” on thousands of Hezbollah operatives throughout Lebanon was “an act of terrorism,” since it failed to respect “the distinction between combatants and civilians” crucial to the rules of just war. This is strange, because this attack was, as a matter of fact, one of the most “targeted” that a state can possibly launch against a terrorist or guerilla force operating amongst a civilian population. With greater precision...

After a year of war, it is time to reassess Israel’s fundamental strategic alternatives and the contrasting views that have figured prominently in the professional disputes, media opinions, and public discourse regarding the war, its trajectory, and continuation since its outbreak.

Hamas’s successful surprise attack on October 7, 2023, exactly 50 years after October 6, 1973, in the Yom Kippur War, has once again raised the question, in all seriousness, of why and how strategic surprises occur. After the trauma of the Yom Kippur War, which preoccupied the Israeli Military Intelligence Directorate (AMAN), defense establishment, and the public at large for decades, all the elements of that surprise recurred—with catastrophic results. It is well recognized in the literature on strategic surprise that historical...

The “concept” is a term that remains fixed in the Israeli public discourse after the 1973 Yom Kippur debacle. It refers to a failed overarching narrative that underlay Israel’s intelligence and security framework. As in 1973, the one that was shattered on October 7, 2023, was marked by overconfidence and complacency. When it shattered, Israel’s vulnerability to the Iranian “ring of fire” was exposed, adding to distressing matters directly involved in the war: The problem of the hostages in Gaza, overstretching of the military forces,...

Since Hamas’s attack and the outbreak of the war in the Gaza Strip, the public discourse has been impressed by the view, which Major General (res.) Itzhak Brik in particular voiced even before the war, that the IDF is too small given the threats; that reliance on technology has led to dangerous neglect and reduction of the ground forces; that the air force is disproportionately funded at the expense of the ground forces; and that there is a need to increase the defense budget significantly and permanently, beyond covering the...

This article proposes that the declared aims of the war in the Gaza Strip and the strategy chosen to promote them are fundamentally essential, appropriate for the situation, and achievable, even if they do not lead to a “solution” in the foreseeable future. It reviews the alternatives proposed with respect to the aims and conduct of the war and argues that they lack internal coherence and do not meet the test of reality.

This article contends that the full significance of the electronic revolution underway has yet to be fully realized in land warfare. This revolution has already generated far-reaching changes in air and sea warfare, and it is now exerting similar influence on land warfare. Heavy armor and kinetic weapons are becoming less important, replaced by electronic systems and counter-systems – both offensive and defensive – for detection, attack, and disruption. In this light, the war in Ukraine gives us little more than a partial glimpse of...