Strategic Assessment

In the early 1990s, Israel adopted a new policy whose immediate and practical objective was to achieve normal relations with the Arab world. Two of the factors that helped Israel assume the risks of the peace process were the US’s rising status as a hegemon in the Middle East, and the assessment that the military balance of power increasingly favored Israel. The article examines whether these assumptions are still valid, whether strategic turning points require that they be revisited, and what the implications are for Israeli policy.