A recent FBI report reveals a Russian influence campaign targeting several countries, including the United States and Israel. The report highlights Russia’s attempts to sway Israeli public opinion, particularly during times of political upheavals, with the aim of encouraging support for its war against Ukraine. For the first time, it was publicly disclosed that the Arab population in Israel was also a target of Russian influence. The campaign utilized digital media and the creation of fake content, which was spread via social...
Since the outbreak of the war in Gaza, Russian agents have been carrying out hostile influence activities against the Israeli public, aimed to undermine public confidence in the actions of the Israeli army and harm the strategic alliance between Israel and the United States. These activities are part of a long-term information warfare that Russia is waging around the world, with the intent of strengthening its standing in the international arena at the expense of the United States and its allies. Russian agents have conducted...
Introduction
On January 30, 2020, Na’ama Issaschar, a 26-year old Israeli-American backpacker, landed in Israel. She was accompanied by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who traveled to Moscow especially to bring her home. The only words she uttered were: “Thank you... I am still shocked.”[2] Her shock was understandable. She was arrested in April 2019 at a Moscow airport for allegedly possessing a minuscule quantity of drugs, for which she was sentenced to 7.5 years in jail. She was released after lengthy high-level...
Since the October 7th massacre, Russia has stepped up its semi-covert disinformation attacks against Israel, as part of its global Doppelganger influence campaign, which began in 2022. These attacks align with Russia’s official stance, which has remained hostile to Israel in recent months. They signal a strategic shift in the Kremlin’s approach, by grouping Israel with countries it perceives as enemies. A policy shift by the Israeli government should reflect these dynamics and address the new risks to Israel posed by an increasingly...
The Gaza war that began after the murderous Hamas attack on October 7, 2023 in the western Negev is also a war in international public opinion. Although at the start of the war, due to the brutality of the attack, Israel received broad public sympathy, now it appears that Hamas is perceived as a victim that enjoys the decided advantage in the struggle for public sympathy in the international arena. One of the explanations for the Hamas success is that unlike Israel, which tries to justify itself to the world, Hamas clings to the...
Following President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw United States forces from the Kurdish zone in northern Syria, the international media and many political and military commentators hurried to crown Russia as the big winner in Syria and present it as the entity enjoying free rein there. The many summits President Putin has recently held with Middle East leaders (including a meeting with Turkish President Erdogan, a state visit to Saudi Arabia and the UAE, and a summit in Russia hosted jointly with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah...
Since the 1980s, we have witnessed rapid changes in a world characterized by a neo-liberal economy, increased human migration, and information technologies developing at an unprecedented pace. These transformations are putting stress on modern state structures and have allowed non-state players to enter the heart of global consciousness. These new entities pose new security challenges, including ethnic conflicts, civil wars, the use of robotics-based autonomous weapons, and terrorist attacks both in the physical sphere and...
This article seeks to bridge between sociological approaches and security studies in order to analyze how the characteristics of the current era—defined by sociologists as “late modernity”—construct the definition of the term “national security.” The premise of this article is that the concept of national security is steeped in classical modernity; it is an inseparable part of the world order of nation-states; and it is based on the scientific and technological thinking that underpins national security decision making. Yet, since the...
A planned meeting between the United States and Russian Presidents on the sidelines of the G20 Summit in Buenos Aires was canceled at the last minute by President Donald Trump, ostensibly in response to Russian aggression toward Ukraine in the Azov Sea, close to the Crimean peninsula. Cancellation of the meeting highlighted a new low point in the ongoing crisis of relations between the US and Russia. In the days following the cancellation, a positive change was evident in Russia’s tone regarding Israel, and it is not impossible that...
The downing of the Russian Il-20 plane by the Syrians on the night of September 17, 2018 has become one of the most complex incidents in the framework of Russia-Israel relations, at least since the start of Russia’s intervention in Syria in October 2015. Following an Israeli attack in the Latakia region, a Syrian SA-5 anti-aircraft battery struck a Russian reconnaissance plane, which crashed into the sea, killing its crew of 15. Although it was Syria that failed to identify the Russian plane, Russia chose to blame Israel for the...
