Strategic Assessment

On the shelves of the Israeli defense establishment lie many documents defining Israel’s defense concept and painting a relatively clear and consistent picture of the IDF’s strategy and doctrine – although two recent documents, the National Security Council’s draft defense concept and “IDF Strategy,” which is signed by the IDF Chief of Staff, indicate a new trend. Perhaps the recent documents bespeak the awareness that in its last six major campaigns, the IDF has operated repeatedly according to patterns that were inconsistent with the written defense concept at that time. Indeed, there is a broad common denominator between Operation Accountability (1993), Operation Grapes of Wrath (1996), the Second Lebanon War (2006), Operation Cast Lead (2008-2009), Operation Pillar of Defense (2012), and Operation Protective Edge (2014). This article will probe the second, unwritten Israeli doctrine that was applied in practice in these six campaigns.