Publications

Read the INSS Strategic Analysis for 2023

The strategic assessment for Israel for 2021 is shaped by significant uncertainty in three principal areas: the level of success in coping with COVID-19; the modus operandi and policies of the new administration in the United States; and the political developments in Israel. The current assessment is based on a broader conception of national security, which places greater weight than in the past on the domestic arena and on threats to internal stability, social cohesion, values, and fabric of life. This of course does not detract...

The strategic assessment for Israel for 2021 is shaped by significant uncertainty in three principal areas: the level of success in coping with COVID-19; the modus operandi and policies of the new administration in the United States; and the political developments in Israel. The current assessment is based on a broader conception of national security, which places greater weight than in the past on the domestic arena and on threats to internal stability, social cohesion, values, and fabric of life. This of course does not detract...

The strategic assessment for Israel for 2021 is shaped by significant uncertainty in three principal areas: the level of success in coping with COVID-19; the modus operandi and policies of the new administration in the United States; and the political developments in Israel. The current assessment is based on a broader conception of national security, which places greater weight than in the past on the domestic arena and on threats to internal stability, social cohesion, values, and fabric of life. This of course does not detract...

The State of Israel’s strategic balance in 2020 is the basis for the policy recommendations for the coming year. In implementing these recommendations, it is important to emphasize the State of Israel’s overarching objectives: to strengthen Israel as a Jewish, democratic, secure, prosperous, and just state that is at peace with its neighbors. These objectives define Israel’s purpose, both in the eyes of the Israeli public and in the eyes of the international community. The State of Israel’s strategic efforts and...

The INSS 12th annual international conference addressed the web of challenges and opportunities Israel faces at the start of 2019. As in previous years, we chose strategic issues from the different spheres – domestic, regional, and international – that make up Israel’s strategic reality, and examine these individually and in context of one another. Continuing a trend from our previous conferences, we approached Israel’s national security priorities critically from a variety of perspectives.

This study examines and measures the social resilience of the residents of the Gaza Strip area during Operation Protective Edge in summer 2014 and thereafter. We provide an overview of the concept of resilience, focusing on the phenomenon of bouncing back towards recovery following the functional decline as a result of stressful events. Social resilience is measured here by three behavioral yardsticks: demographics and evacuation, therapeutics and education, and employment and economics. We chose two regional councils to represent...

This essay seeks to view Operation Cast Lead as a piece in a developing sequence, beginning with the second intifada and continuing through the Second Lebanon War, in terms of two major components: the military response to the threat and the public understanding of the effectiveness of the military response. There is a close symbiotic relationship between the two components because Israel’s response to the threat involves military combat elements alongside civilian stamina and defense capabilities. The two components are...

At the end of the Second Lebanon War, many claimed that the State of Israel had not succeeded in strengthening Israel’s deterrence vis-à-vis Hizbollah. An examination of the organization’s response to Operation Cast Lead and a comparison with its response to Operation Defensive Shield demonstrate that Israel’s actions in the Second Lebanon War did in fact result in considerably stronger Israeli deterrence.

Evidence suggests that Israel’s public diplomacy efforts during Operation Cast Lead were planned as professionally and precisely as the IDF’s military operation. Clearly, both in terms of media relations and information security, lessons have been learned from past experience. Israel has put in place what seems to be a well-oiled, focused, disciplined, and well-navigated public diplomacy bureaucracy that disseminates messages and supporting materials in a timely and organized way.

On the morning of January 8, 2009, katyusha rockets were fired at Israel from Lebanon. Hizbollah hurried to deliver an official announcement that the organization had not carried out this operation. Muhammad Fneish, Labor Minister and Hizbollah’s senior representative in the Lebanese government, even added that Hizbollah had no idea who fired the rockets. To a great extent this response contradicts the spirit of Hizbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, who in a series of speeches at the beginning of the Israeli operation in Gaza...

Behind the scenes in the war underway between Hamas and Israel, there is a party playing a key role that aspires to be the big winner in the fighting – Iran. As in the Second Lebanon War between Israel and Hizbollah, Iran is gaining precious time to promote the leading strategic goal of its policy in recent years: attaining nuclear weapons capability.