Over the past five years, Iran’s activity in the arena of international terrorism has significantly intensified, spreading across vast geographic regions and incorporating criminal organizations in the execution of terrorist operations. Although most Iranian terrorism attempts have been thwarted, there is no guarantee that this success will persist in the future. It is therefore necessary to examine the characteristics of Iran’s use of terrorism in order to improve the chances of countering it.
This memorandum examines...
The delay in Iran’s promised military response against Israel, with the exception of Hezbollah’s targeted retaliation, raises the possibility that Iran could take revenge on the international stage. Over the past five years, Iran has significantly expanded the number and geographic scope of its international terror attacks, utilizing networks and terror cells that collaborate with criminal elements worldwide. Iran could leverage this established terror infrastructure to exact a price from Israel. The fact that most of Iran’s terror...
Over the past two years, about 13 terrorist attacks by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) against Israeli and Jewish targets were publicly revealed and foiled on four continents. In addition, attempts to attack former senior officials in the US administration and Iranian opposition targets in New York and London were thwarted. These events point to Iran’s focused activity in the use of terrorism in the international arena without being deterred by the results of this activity. Prominent in these events is the use of...
Over the last few months Hezbollah has waged an intensive cognitive campaign involving kinetic, diplomatic, and economic tools over the maritime border agreement between Israel and Lebanon, which would allow both countries, and not just Israel, to produce gas. With the announcement that an agreement was reached, Nasrallah and the leaders of Hezbollah declared they had achieved victory in this campaign against Israel. It is difficult to decide whose strategic achievements were greater in the current battle over the maritime border and...
Two of the attacks in the current wave of terror were carried out by three Arab citizens of Israel who identified with ISIS / Islamic State. However, the organization has not gained a grip on the Arab public in Israel, and while predictably it took credit for the attacks, it was not involved beyond providing inspiration. The assessment is that these trends are not expected to change. Noteworthy is the comprehensive public condemnation by Israel’s Arab citizens of the recent attacks, and above all, the condemnation of the attacks...
The recent terror events in Israel can be examined through two prisms. Perhaps this is a wave of terror, of limited duration and not indicative of a fundamental systemic change. Alternatively, a systemic approach suggests that this is a terror campaign waged by Hamas, in coordination with Islamic Jihad and with Iranian support, which aims to unite the fronts of the Palestinian struggle against Israel in a comprehensive campaign that is a joint “resistance” effort of the various factions. Israel should adopt a strategy...
Over the past five years there has been a clear downward trend in the number of suicide attacks worldwide, with a particularly sharp drop in 2021. This trend is apparently the combined result of the significant weakening of the Islamic State following its military defeat in Syria and Iraq, and the withdrawal or considerable reduction of Western military forces in combat areas in the Middle East and southern Asia. In 2021 there were about 42 percent fewer suicide attacks than in the previous year, with a 48.5 percent reduction in the...
In February 2019, on the eve of the dissolution of the 20th Knesset and the first of the recurring elections that paralyzed the political system in Israel, MK (and today Minister of Public Security) Omer Bar Lev and I issued a report about the ground forces, the need to decide about their role in military campaigns, and on that basis, the ensuing plans for military buildup. In the years prior we headed the two relevant subcommittees of the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee – I was the head of the Subcommittee on Defense Doctrine...
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 withdrawal from Afghanistan by the United States 20 years after it attacked the Taliban regime and al-Qaeda in response to the September 11 terrorist attacks closes a historic circle. Al-Qaeda’s attack against the American homeland and its iconic symbols challenged the United States, and led it to invade Afghanistan and drive the Taliban out of the country into Pakistan, and also hurt al-Qaeda severely. The United States later took advantage of the prevailing international atmosphere to invade Iraq and remove Saddam Hussein...
The impending United States withdrawal from Afghanistan fulfills the goals of the three administrations prior to the Biden administration to end the US role as liberator, policeman, and funder of this divided and riven country, which it entered following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. The American offensive in Afghanistan achieved its initial objectives, attacking al-Qaeda and toppling the Taliban regime, but subsequently the US failed to prevent the Taliban’s regaining power. The United States has vowed to respond...
