When it comes to Iran, Israel’s defense policy can’t be based on panic

By Gershon Hacohen

There is no doubting the existence of an objective Iranian threat to Israeli security, but how severe that threat is and what risks Israel should take in dealing with it are issues that are more complex than meets the eye.

Iran is marching toward nuclear weapons, although Israel reserves the option of striking Tehran’s nuclear program.

Nuclear weapons are not new, and obtaining them is far from impossible for a regional power like Iran. Public vows by Israeli defense officials that Iran will “never” get nuclear weapons are irresponsible.

Yes, Israel should and will try very hard to prevent Iran from going nuclear. But the Iranian nuclear program is unlike the Iraqi and Syrian programs. These were focused on single sites that were attacked and destroyed by the Israeli Air Force. After studying Israel’s modus operandi for years, the Iranians spread out their nuclear sites and dug them deep underground.

In addition, Iran’s nuclear knowledge is based on local capabilities. In light of the fact that Iran is a developed nation, with highly educated scientists, mathematicians, and engineers, killing some members of its nuclear weapons group will only result in their substitution with others. It is not possible to assassinate knowledge once a country has obtained it.

A more important question is why Iran wants nuclear weapons in the first place. Why is possessing this 20th-century weapon so important for Tehran?

Addressing this question is an intelligence challenge that goes beyond modern data processing systems and artificial intelligence tools that some in the intelligence community are so infatuated with today.  

It is a question that is also tied to another key question – is it inevitable that Iran will always be our biggest enemy?

Such strategic intelligence is vital for knowing which general direction to take. Israel’s founder, David Ben-Gurion, relied on human intelligence sources to figure out the intentions of Egypt, Jordan, and Syria before the 1948 War of Independence, and this is the definition of strategic intelligence – the type of knowledge we now need on Iran.

Even if Iran wants to destroy Israel, this does not mean it would be prepared to pay any price to do so. It is not clear that Iran is prepared to destroy itself in order to destroy Israel. Yet when Israelis think about the Iranian threat, existential threats immediately surface, and Holocaust associations rise in the collective subconscious.

This is too simplistic. Israel cannot manage its defense policy based on deterministic concepts about its enemies.

Iran is not a monolithic country, and ongoing power struggles between the conservative camp and the reformists are a fixture of political life in that country.

Holocaust traumas do not make sound policy guides for a sovereign nation. The year is not 1942 when Jews could not retaliate or exact prices. Former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s flagship messaging to Israelis was that he would not allow an ‘Auschwitz 2.0’ in the form of a nuclear Iran.

But the security of a state cannot be based on panic.

It was easy for Netanyahu to unite the people behind the need to fight this threat, which is uncontroversial and is not subject to the ideological divisions that plague Israeli society.

Netanyahu presented the issue in ‘no choice war’ terms and was able to get the people behind him. He was able to achieve this unity on Iran in ways that he could not do on other fateful, ideological questions closer to home, such as guaranteeing that Jerusalem would never be divided.

This is because ideological positions have lost their legitimacy – yet fighting against a nuclear Iran is not an ideological position, it is purely a security matter.

As a result, Netanyahu was far more vocal on Iran than on issues such as defending Israel’s rights in Area C of Judea and Samaria, or when an Arab uprising over Jerusalem erupted within the State of Israel in May 2021.

In addition, a commitment to stopping Iran’s nuclear program at all costs increases Israel’s dependence on the United States, since any objective analysis cannot avoid the conclusion that Israel needs the U.S. to deal with Iran.

Israel alone cannot fight a war against the Iranians, and this means Israel enslaving its other interests to American directives in many areas. This is particularly true of Israeli policy in Judea and Samaria. The fact that Israel is in fact doing this is already a major achievement for Iran.

From a physical perspective, the nuclear weapon involves launching the weapon and its detonation upon impact, but from a wider strategic-holistic perspective, the Iranian nuclear project has already for years been generating a highly significant process that requires recognition. This process has led Israeli policy to focus its resources and attention on the Iranian bomb, to make its interests subservient to American interests, and to act with containment and restraint in other arenas, while giving up on active operative initiatives. This represents an unprecedented achievement for the Iranian bomb – an achievement that has been entirely overlooked in Israel and one that has not been taken into consideration in the map of policy calculations.

Furthermore, the level of preparations that the Israeli defense establishment must undertake to prepare for a strike on Iran harms the ability of the IDF Ground Forces to prepare for other, closer threats in Israel’s environment, by taking resources away from those preparations.

 Ultimately, the State of Israel must be prepared for the Iranian threat, and it must reserve the option of attacking. But it cannot completely devote itself to this threat at the expense of all other interests and preparations for other threats that it faces.

---

Major General Gershon Hacohen served as Commander of the Northern Corps of the IDF. He previously held various positions, including Commander of the IDF Colleges, Head of Training & Doctrine Division in the General Staff, Reserve Division Commander of the Northern Command and Commander of the 7th Brigade of the IDF Armor Division. Read full bio here.

To Address crime in Arab sector, Israel Must re-establish sovereignty

By Gershon Hacohen

The Israeli government recently approved a new plan for fighting rampant crime in the Arab-Israeli sector, but this plan is just the latest example of a refusal by the state to recognize the deep structural issues behind the problem.

At a superficial level, the problem is violent crime, and the requisite solution would be to battle inequality, as well as treating the phenomenon as a crime problem only.

In reality, the criminal patterns on display are deeply intertwined with nationalistic sentiments that reject the sovereignty of Israel as a Jewish state.

Between the lines, it is this sentiment that guided several Arab-Israeli Knesset Members to reject an initiative to send in the IDF and the Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet) into the Arab sector to take on crime.

But if the police alone face the problem, it is doomed to fail, as police lack the critical mass of personnel required to focus on crime hotspots.

Sufficiently massing forces, and persistence, are the twin tools needed to truly begin lowering crime levels in the Arab-Israeli sector. A lack of either will guarantee mission failure.

Part of the blindness to the problem stems from the idea that all problems in human societies are universal and all people are the same. But such wishful philosophies should be replaced with more accurate theories, such as the one proposed by the American Jewish thinker Daniel Goldhagen, who clearly grasps that particular issues affect particular people, and that not all afflictions are universal. Societies also have differing wishes and expectations.

When dealing with human action, it is essential to always ask what the overall rationale is, unlike the analysis of natural phenomenon, which can be explained purely through a break-down of unintentional processes.

Those who cling to universalist explanations will not be able to drill down to the real motivations behind crises faced by different societies.

While the idea of improving socio-economic conditions in parts of the Arab Israeli sector is a legitimate goal, it is not an adequate explanation for the spiraling levels of violence. Nor can merely ‘bringing in professionals’ to diagnose socio-economic ills and prescribe remedies seriously change the situation.

Rather, Israel must do as the French philosopher, Emmanuel Levinas, recommends, and to ‘love others as they are different.’

This means recognizing the ‘otherness’ and responding to it in policies designed to deal with cultural uniqueness, rather than universalism.

In light of the above, throwing more money at the problem of violent crime is ignoring the rationale being manifested through widespread lawless behavior.

That rationale is a religious-nationalist undercurrent that rejects the very sovereignty of the Israeli state.

Failing to recognize and respond to this emerging phenomenon will result in a further loss of control.

In 1976, after the first Land Day, in which Arab Israelis held demonstrations and disturbances, and clashed with security forces, resulting in six people killed, former Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin set up a committee of inquiry.

He later accepted that inquiry’s recommendations to improve Arab civil rights – a worthy goal in and of itself - but he also stressed that what the state is offering is a fostering of religious-cultural existence – not a separate ethnic-national Palestinian entity within the Jewish state.

Rabin’s clarity on that matter must guide Israel today as it deals with raging violent crime in the Arab sector.

While the vast majority of victims of Arab crime are themselves Arab-Israelis, the drug dealer who feels he can open fire in a drive-by shooting acts with immunity because he has the backing of his family and clan. Even if the gunman’s family goes on to fear him, they initially enabled him to act because his crimes were perceived as a chipping away of sovereignty.

The power projection and ‘respect’ placed on violent criminals goes hand in hand with a perception that the Jewish state should not be applying its sovereignty.

As a result, we have today reached a situation in which special police units have to accompany the Tax Authority when it collects taxes. Once sovereignty fails to be applied, the meaning is clear: Sovereignty has been lost.

This is visible in the Negev and the Galilee in the most explicit manner. It is also why criminal guns were turned against Jews during the May escalation with Hamas in Gaza.

This then is the underlying structure fueling the violence within Israel.

There is no doubt that many Arab Israeli citizens are actively asking the state for help, and many are suffering greatly from the crime raging in their communities.

But helping them – and the state – means recognizing that the criminals are operating with substantial nationalistic-religious baggage as well.

Understanding this will enable the state to win the campaign. Israel has no option but to activate force – in a moderate and selective manner – by focusing large-scale deployments on violent hotspots. 

In recent days, the government announced that it would send two Border Police battalions – around 1,000 personnel – to the Negev to deal with Bedouin crime issues. When I was commander of the Gaza disengagement, I focused 20,000 security forces on the Nave Dekalim Jewish community which was being evacuated, an area the size of one neighborhood in Beersheba, and the entire disengagement ended within five days without a single casualty.

This is the advantage created by injecting a critical mass of forces. When dealing with national events, sending in inadequate forces can create dangerous situations that actually increase the chance that deadly force would be required.

Large forces, on the other hand, accomplish just the opposite, enabling greater control.  

Persistence and the deployment of large-scale forces are therefore the basic conditions needed to restore Israeli sovereignty and to really bring down violent crime that is plaguing the Arab-Israeli sector today.  

---

Major General Gershon Hacohen served as Commander of the Northern Corps of the IDF. He previously held various positions, including Commander of the IDF Colleges, Head of Training & Doctrine Division in the General Staff, Reserve Division Commander of the Northern Command and Commander of the 7th Brigade of the IDF Armor Division. Read full bio here.

PODCAST: I Implemented The Gaza Withdrawal, Retrospective & Lessons Learned

Maj Gen. Gershon Hacohen DIscusses the Gaza Disengagement 16 Years Later

The Six Day War: A turning point that shaped our reality

By Gershon Hacohen

The 1967 Six Day War acted as a critical turning point for Israel, its adversaries, the Middle East, and the global perception of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Its after-effects continue to be acutely felt to this very day.

 The war consolidated Israel’s security, and the idea that Israel can be destroyed by an Arab land invasion through organized armored formations was permanently discredited following her decisive victory over Egypt, Syria, and Jordan.

Israel no longer faced a classical existential threat.

In terms of the doctrine of the militaries involved, the Six Day War was a close echo of the ground warfare and air tactics used in the Second World War.

While the weapons were somewhat more advanced, and the jet revolution had upgraded fighter aircraft, the basic concepts of warfare as seen in World War Two remained very much in effect. The Israeli Air Force was modelled on the Royal Air Force, where Ezer Weizman, who built up the IAF ahead of the Six Day War, had flown during the Second World War. It took its inspiration from the air-to-air combat doctrines employed by the RAF in the Battle of Britain: Preventing enemy aircraft from achieving air superiority to devastate cities on the ground.

On land, both sides employed World War Two doctrines with their armored forces. The IDF relied on upgraded American-made Sherman and British Centurion tanks, U.S.-made Patton tanks, and M3 armored personnel carriers bought cheaply from the U.S.

The Syrians relied on Soviet T-34 tanks, and also had some German Panzer tanks, as well as Soviet T-55 and T-44 tanks in their inventory. The Egyptians relied on T-55s. These ground platforms are similar to those used in the Second World War.

Ground combat was fought in open areas, with defensive and offensive tactics. The resemblance to Second World War-era doctrine is no coincidence. In 1965, when Maj. Gen. Israel Tal, who was commander of the armored wartime formations, and  Maj. Gen. Zvi Zamir, head of the Doctrine Department, saw that the Syrians and Egyptians were employing Soviet tank doctrines, they travelled to Germany to learn from former German military commanders who battled the Soviet army. 

Had World War Two-era generals, such as George S. Patton or Erich Von Meinstein, arrived at the Six Day War battle arenas, they would have fully understood what was going on.  

The failure of the Arab armies to engage with Israel in classic ground and air combat in 1967 led to a rapid learning of lessons on the Arab side, and a change of tactics by Egyptian President Anwar Sadat. He understood that the Israeli victory in 1967 came from a highly temporary constellation of conditions that provided Israel with superiority. Israel had an advantage in the number of high school graduates it could call upon to operate machines – tanks and planes – giving it both a technical and conceptual edge. The Israeli field officers enjoyed a high degree of freedom, known as mission-oriented command and control, during battle, meaning that Egyptian and Syrian military high commands, with their centralized, slow-moving command chains, could not keep up with Israel.

This advantage was largely created by Moshe Dayan, who was defense minister during the war, and who was IDF Chief of Staff ten years previously, during the Sinai Campaign (Operation Kadesh), when he devised an operational concept based on creating momentum for Israel. This rested on granting field commanders broad decision-making freedom and freeing them from cumbersome chains of command.

Sadat understood that he had no chance of dealing head-on with Israel’s qualitative edge, and devised a plan for the 1973 Yom Kippur War that took away Israel’s advantages by denying the IDF the ability to move freely, in the air and on the ground, through the use of anti-tank and surface-to-air missiles.

This asymmetric approach created stagnation on the battlefield that worked against Israel, and went on to influence future adversaries of Israel to come up with ways to rob Israel’s of its built-in military advantages.

Putting the Palestinian cause in the spotlight

The Six Day War led to the Palestinian cause gaining a prominent place both on the regional and world stages.

In the eyes of the PLO, which was founded in 1964, the war validated the objective of terrorism. The late PLO chief Yasser Arafat viewed terrorism as a means to spark a regional war with Israel, and recruit Arab armies to ‘finish’ the job they started in 1948.

Even though Palestinian terrorism caused small-scale damage to Israel in the 1960s, it played a definitive role in escalating the Syrian front, creating a significant catalyst for the outbreak of the Six Day War.

Arafat was able to put his doctrine into practice soon enough, when the Fatah-faction of the PLO, based in Syria, began attacking Israel’s National Water Carrier, which drew water from the Sea of Galilee. 

This occurred after Syria began diverting water away from the carrier from its side of the border.

The Syrians built their own water carrier in their territory and in Lebanon, diverting water from the natural springs that nourish the Jordan River, which feeds the Sea of Galilee. 

Syria also began shelling Israeli construction work on the Israeli carrier in the Galilee from the Golan Heights. Israel retaliated against these actions with air strikes on Syrian targets.

In 1965, with Israel facing restrictions on the use of its French-made fighter jets for offensive missions, Maj. Gen. Tal took the decision to take advantage of Syria border incidents by responding in a different manner than air strikes.

He used Israeli tank fire to systematically destroy Syrian tractors that were diverting water away from Israel instead. This caused the Syrians to abandon their efforts to divert water from Israel and call a truce.

After Syria stopped its 'water campaign' and announced a ceasefire, it activated the PLO from Jordan and Lebanon (not directly from Syria), employing proxy warfare against Israel.

The situation continued to escalate in the run-up to the Six Day War.  In April 1967, two months before the war, the Syrian military began shelling northern Israeli communities.  IDF Chief of Staff Yitzhak Rabin received approval from Prime Minister Levi Eshkol to use aircraft if Israeli communities came under fire, and the IAF launched eighty sorties against Syria that day. Six Syrian MiG jets were shot down in air battles that raged between the Galilee and Damascus. Rabin was prepared to engage Syria in a broader conflict if necessary to eliminate PLO bases from its territory. But he did not believe that Egypt would get involved.

At this stage, the Soviet Union falsely told Syria that Israel was planning a large-scale military assault on it, and the Syrians activated a defense pact with Egypt, causing Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser to withdraw Egyptian forces from Yemen, and deploy them in the Sinai Peninsula, violating a demilitarization truce agreement.

The deterioration to war after these developments was rapid. And in line with Arafat’s vision, Palestinian terrorism was one of the sparks.

Following the Six Day War, the PLO became a far more significant element in the region, pioneering terrorism to get worldwide attention. Its raids from Jordan on Israel, its plane hijackings, and the Munich attacks all helped promote the Palestinian narrative as an underdog fighting the Israeli occupation.

And this narrative fit hand to glove with the new Western worldview that was taking hold in North America and Europe.

The creation of the Islamic religious fighter

A central after-shock of the Six Day War was the development of the Islamic religious fighter that replaced the collapsed Arab nationalist movements that were dominant until that time.

As Arab nationalism and Pan-Arabism fell by the historical roadside, Arab nationalist adversaries were, over the years, replaced with belief-based enemy entities such as Hezbollah, Hamas, and Iran.

The Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood ideologue, Sheikh Yussuf Qaradawi, saw the Zionist zeal of Israel’s soldiers, identified it as a religious ethos (despite the self-view of Israel’s leading secular Zionists), and concluded that secular Arab movements cannot defeat Israel.

At this time, pan-Arabism also began its dramatic collapse, which was made final by the Lebanese civil war and the sectarian Arab on Arab fighting that accompanied it. Islamism began to emerge as a successor movement.

The jihadist Palestinian ideologue Abdullah Azzam, born near Jenin, travelled to Afghanistan in the 1980s and called for jihadist fighters from across the Islamic world to join him, laying the foundation for Al Qaeda.

 Al Qaeda grew out of Muslim Brotherhood ideology – the same ideology that led to the creation of Hamas, which benefits from being both a local movement and is connected to a global Islamist network.

Today, it is the Islamists who form the central adversary against Israel, and working with the Shi’ite Islamists of Iran, are planning to destroy Israel by collapsing its morale from within.

 A turning point in Israeli society

The Six Day War had a profound effect on Israeli society. Between 1948 and 1967, Israelis under the leadership of the ruling Mapai party were led by a powerful Zionist redemptive vision. Following the war, young Israelis found themselves in a stagnant society that lacked new compelling narratives.

Volunteers from around the world came to Kibbutzim, which went from being symbols of Zionist pioneers redeeming land to symbols of hippies, free love, and the flower power generation.

There was no new leadership in Israel to tell a new story.

In this crisis of identity, young Israelis embraced the international peace movement that had taken hold of the West in the late 1960s as part of the cultural counter-revolution and the reaction to the Vietnam war.

Israelis adopted global universalist narratives, which themselves were developed by a new Western generation that grew up in the booming post-war years.

Following World War Two the older Western generation that fought in and managed to survive the global conflict came home exhausted and depleted of energy, spending what little resources in had left to rebuild a world ravaged by tens of millions of casualties, wrecked cities, destroyed economies, and untold mental damage. This generation clung to the ideal of normality in the post-war years. 

The next generation that grew up in the stable West saw that conservative values and the idealization of the status quo had little to offer them. Young people began to look for their own life-affirming role in a world that had been frozen, and the counter-culture movement began as a result.

Israeli youths underwent a similar process. Those born in Israel after the 1948 War of Independence, children of Holocaust survivors or new immigrants who arrived in Israel with nothing, found themselves searching for new meaning in the late 1960s. They needed a new order, and this need opened them up to the Western peace movement, which deeply influenced Israeli society following the Six Day War.

Ultimately, all of these factors came together to turn the Six Day War into a moment that is more than just a transition phase in history. The war is a historical framework that provided new context to a range of national, regional, and global perceptions that continue to reverberate to this day.

---

Major General Gershon Hacohen served as Commander of the Northern Corps of the IDF. He previously held various positions, including Commander of the IDF Colleges, Head of Training & Doctrine Division in the General Staff, Reserve Division Commander of the Northern Command and Commander of the 7th Brigade of the IDF Armor Division. Read full bio here.

PODCAST: MirYam Institute Six Day War Special Featuring: Maj. Gen. Gershon Hacohen (IDF, Ret.)

Maj. Gen. Gershon Hacohen (IDF, Ret.) in conversation with Benjamin Anthony

THE SIX DAY WAR: A PARADIGM FROM A PREVIOUS CENTURY

By Gershon Hacohen

Following the publication of the Trump peace plan, scores of retired senior members of Israel’s defense establishment campaigned in opposition to the application of Israeli sovereignty over areas that are vital to Israel's security in Judea and Samaria and the Jordan Valley. 

They assert that Israel will retain its ability to defend itself even if it withdraws from most of the territories conquered during the Six Day War, believing that the IDF can replicate its 1967 achievements, on demand. 

Such perspectives reflect a blindness and obliviousness to the changes that have taken place over the course of several decades in the area of warfare - both in Israel, and generally. 

They overestimate the IDF's power and grossly underestimate the capabilities of Israel's enemies. 

The storied successes of the Six Day War resulted from unique military phenomena that nobody should reasonably expect to be repeated.

On both the Israeli Right and Left, Israel’s success continues to stir an expectation of a future ‘victory’ to which the IDF is unrealistically held.

Those former generals and commanders who took part in the 1967 conflict who still expect the IDF to achieve a victory similar to the one it did then fail to realize how fundamental the changes are between the 1967 battlefield and the theatre of today. 

The Six Day War was the last military clash that occurred along the patterns of the Second World War.   

The IDF operated against conventional, regular militaries that fought on the basis of British or Soviet doctrines, with full symmetry. That enabled Israel to achieve tactical and operational supremacy at every encounter. 

Mechanized combat in desert surroundings, or in the open settings of the Golan Heights, enabled the IDF to identify a clear advantage over its adversaries - despite the odds it faced. 

The lightning attack against the Jordanian Legion in Judea and Samaria followed similar patterns. Using a moderate number of armored and mechanized brigades, made up of conscripted and reserve forces and backed by outstanding air power, the State of Israel maximized the potency of a powerful military force, suited to the arenas in which it fought, drawn from a society of some two million citizens. 

The IDF's armored formations channeled the swift offensive tactic of the German blitzkrieg of the Second World War. In the open areas of Sinai and the Golan Heights, the IDF overcame its adversaries by using modern, mechanized combat. 

Since that time, Arab militaries have metamorphosized, something first demonstrated during the 1973 Yom Kippur War, under the direction of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat. Just a few years after The Six Day War, Arab militaries had adapted to a military process better suited to them. 

Anti-tank missiles were widely distributed among infantry units - and a dense air defense system based on surface-to-air missiles, combined to create a significant obstacle that blocked and impeded a swift IDF offensive; by air, or on land. 

These challenges and adaptations, designed to blunt the momentum of Israeli maneuvers, have only mutated and intensified since then. 

In the modern era, and particularly after the IDF's withdrawal from Lebanon, Hezbollah has played an important role in the overall conceptual upgrade undertaken by Israel's enemies. The creativity used by Hezbollah to design its operations, out of a cognizance of where it is inferior to the IDF, is a strong example of organizational adaptation, both at the tactical and the operational levels.

Hezbollah's unique system of organization was demonstrated in its force build-up and actions; something particularly visible in the realm of widespread, unprecedented rocket fire, and its use of dense defensive systems that are dug into bunkers. 

These rockets and bunkers were placed in villages, both above and below ground, and in mountainous terrain. Such diversity demonstrates their ability to exploit the environment in which it seeks to achieve its objectives, while reducing and even overcoming the IDF's areas of supremacy. 

Such thinking, adapted for the environment at play, has also been applied in the Gaza Strip since 2006. 

In the past three rounds of conflict between the IDF and Hamas, two core components - rocket fire and defensive strongholds - challenged the IDF and drew it into broad, multi-domain conflicts. 

Israel's adversaries have traded open terrain for urban battlefields. A tank brigade is now forced to adapt itself to warfare in built-up areas and to function as a combined force with the infantry and engineering units. But unlike in the open, an infantry battalion consisting of over 400 soldiers can be swallowed whole by a single street as it tries to cleanse it of combatants. That reality has dulled the IDF’s abilities. 

Additionally, as radical Islamic forces grow in numbers, so too does the fierce belief of Islamist fighters, who demonstrate a willingness and readiness to die for their cause; a reality with which we must contend in the modern battlefield.

None of these factors was at play during the Six Day War.

Each of these developments lead directly back to the heart of Israel’s domestic division over the application of sovereignty to the vital areas obtained during the Six Day War. 

Those who support the traditional two-state solution do so based upon a totally false assumption; namely that Israel will be able to defend itself, by itself despite a withdrawal to pre-1967 armistice lines, something they recommend albeit with minor adaptations, and despite the surrender of any strategic depth. 

Supporters of the two state solution evoke the victory of the Six Day War in order to support their position, while ignoring the massive changes that have occurred since then.

Expecting a victory similar to one Israel won in 1967 is akin to expecting a second parting of the Red Sea. 

The Six Day War configuration cannot be replicated, nor can the advantageous conditions enjoyed by the IDF in 1967. 

Those circumstances, and the crushing victories that resulted, belong in the previous century - as does the two state solution, for which too many commanders of the past continue to call!

---

Major General Gershon Hacohen served as Commander of the Northern Corps of the IDF. He previously held various positions, including Commander of the IDF Colleges, Head of Training & Doctrine Division in the General Staff, Reserve Division Commander of the Northern Command and Commander of the 7th Brigade of the IDF Armor Division.

VIDEO: Gershon Hacohen speaks to the I-SAP Tour (2019)

The Israel Strategy and Policy tour (I-SAP) is a unique initiative, specifically tailored for military cadets and future officers of the United States Armed Forces. Cadets are recruited from the US Military Academy at West Point, the US Air Force Academy at Colorado Springs and Virginia Military Institute, Virginia. This video was filmed during I-SAP, 2019.