Once President-elect Biden enters the White House, Israel will have to work with a president whose policy on Iran is expected to differ from that of the Trump administration. Both the incoming and outgoing administrations have made an identical fundamental commitment: to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons. Beyond this, however, they disagree about how to achieve the goal, and how to deal with the Iranian missile program and other negative elements of Iranian conduct in the region, which were not addressed in the JCPOA. For...
The prevailing assumption in the Israeli and international media, and among governments around the world, is that the assassination of the head of Iran’s military nuclear project, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, was carried out by Israel. If so, the costs and benefits of the assassination from Israel’s vantage point should be examined and weighed. To this end, certain questions must be answered: What was the strategic purpose of this action, and what is the likelihood of its ultimate success? In light of this goal, was the timing of the action...
President Trump’s recognition of Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights was well received by most of the Israeli public, but met with disapproval from most of the international community. The American measure clashes with the commonly held position in international law, anchored in the UN Charter, that a country’s sovereignty and territorial integrity must be respected, and that wartime acquisition of territory does not confer a right to sovereignty over that territory. Therefore, the international community...
Strategic Survey for Israel 2018-2019, the latest volume in the annual series published by the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS), reviews a period marked by distinct changes in Israel’s close strategic environment as well as events in its more distant circle that likewise have had a direct impact on the challenges and opportunities before it. The unfolding dynamics and trends that derive from these developments bring with them threats to Israel’s national security, which could spell military escalation or a standstill...
The Six Day War, the War of Attrition, and the Yom Kippur War led to a new understanding of deterrence and its place in Israel’s defense policy. Deterrence has been one of the main components in Israel’s defense policy since its independence. The nascent state emerged from the War of Independence understanding that it was only the first stage in the Arab world’s attempts to destroy it. The humiliating defeat of the Arab coalition in the War of Independence and the Arab countries’ recognition of a clear asymmetry between them and...
The Palestinian Authority (PA) in Ramallah, controlled by Fatah and Mahmoud Abbas, perceives the situation in the Gaza Strip, as well as its involvement in any reconstruction projects there, through the lens of its own political gains. Fatah’s main political interest remains to ensure its dominance, in terms of power and support, over the Hamas movement, which has ruled the Gaza Strip since the Palestinian legislative elections of 2006.
This chapter focuses on trends in the Israeli-Palestinian arena, exploring in particular developments with the potential to help thaw the deadlock and policy recommendations to facilitate realization of this potential. Proposed measures can both help remove obstacles to upgraded relations between Israel and pragmatic Arab countries, and encourage the expansion of these relations to the public stage.
As 2017 draws to a close, the Middle East is witnessing the convergence of several important developments that will potentially have a broad impact on Israeli national security. The civil war in Syria is subsiding through a process dominated by Russia, Iran, and Turkey – which poses the danger that Israel’s interests will not be taken into account in the deliberations and steps toward an agreement to stabilize the arena. The jihadist territorial Islamic State established in Iraq and Syria has been obliterated, although the underlying...
On October 12, 2017, Fatah and Hamas signed a new reconciliation agreement in Cairo, which confirms the implementation of the previous reconciliation agreement, formulated in 2011. The provisions regarding the transfer of civil government in the Gaza Strip to the government in Ramallah, and the lifting of the Ramallah sanctions against Gaza, are concrete and accompanied by a timetable. The other issues that were not resolved formerly and resulted in the collapse of the prior reconciliation agreements – including the fate of the...
For Israel’s right wing Israeli government, the Trump administration is easier to work with than the Obama administration, both with regard to continued limited construction in settlements and the apparent lack of objection to construction in Jewish neighborhoods in East Jerusalem. Nevertheless, the way that Netanyahu is handling the contacts with the Trump administration is liable to lead to another missed opportunity to solidify, together with the United States, the idea that in any solution, the settlement blocs close to the Green...
True to his campaign promise to be a disrupter of the status quo, U.S. President Donald Trump stood next to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at a press conference on February 15 and said, “So I’m looking at two-state and one-state, and I like the one both parties like. . . . I can live with either one.” The statement seemed to mark a departure from the long-standing U.S. policy of supporting the objective of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But when added to other assertions made by the same infant...
Without any formal ceremonies and far below the media’s radar, Egypt and Hamas have reached a series of security, political, and economic understandings in early 2017 aimed at establishing a basis for better relations between them. A Hamas delegation, headed by Vice-President of the Political Bureau Ismail Haniyeh and members of the Political Bureau Mousa Abu Marzook and Rawhi Mushtaha visited Cairo for several days in late January, during which the delegation met with Egyptian security personnel, led by Khaled Fawzy, the director...
