Yair Golan

Jenin Operation Was Successful, But Israel needs a strategy.

By YAIR GOLAN

The two-day IDF raid on Jenin, which, unusually, began with the activation of UAV air strikes, was an operational and tactical success but strategically will change nothing so long as Israel’s government remains on its current course.

The decision to send a brigade-sized Israeli military force to deal with a security hot spot in the West Bank is not as new as it might seem; This was done regularly in 2005 (I led operations like this as commander of the Judea and Samaria Division), at the end of the Second Intifada.

Ahead of Operation Home and Garden, which took place July 3 and 4, the IDF and Shin Bet diligently collected the needed intelligence and decided to use UAVs to strike targets that were physically difficult to reach in the opening phase of the operation – representing good adjustment of munitions to challenges.

Operationally, the IDF successfully learned from recent past failures and improved its responses to security challenges. Previously, in Jenin and Nablus, IDF operations featuring ordinary infantry units in small numbers produced very high levels of friction with Palestinians, resulting in Palestinian noncombatant deaths and escalating the situation instead of stabilizing it.  

The IDF Central Command and the Judea and Samaria Division Headquarters concluded that there was a gap in their operational readiness and decided to instead send in the best of Israel’s special forces. As a result of the use of these highly skilled units, trained for this very challenge, there were no noncombatant deaths in the Jenin operation.

The terrorists of Jenin lost their motivation to confront the IDF when it sent its elite units in. Despite the tragic death of a soldier from the Egoz unit, F.-Sgt. David Yitzchak, in the operation, the elite IDF forces completed their mission of destroying extensive terrorist infrastructures in the city.

Strategically, however, a major gap exists between the sober and responsible approach taken by the heads of Israel’s defense establishment-- who understand that there is no silver bullet against terrorism and who seek greater involvement by the Palestinian Authority on the ground -- and the Israeli government, which lacks any strategy at best, and which contains elements that have messianic aspirations at worst.

While the IDF General Staff and Central Command understand that ‘mowing the lawn’ is necessary on occasion, the political echelon is marketing the operation as a paradigm shift – and in doing so is promoting a baseless claim.

The government in Israel today is paralyzed, and its approach to the West Bank cannot be clearly discerned. In 2020, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu welcomed the Trump peace plan. The plan’s merits and faults can be debated legitimately, but it is a partition plan, which bypasses the painful issue of evacuating settlements and offers the Palestinians land compensation, including land from the Negev that would be annexed to the Gaza Strip.

Today, however, Netanyahu leads a coalition that is making every effort, including by elements like Finance Minister and Minister in the Defense Ministry Bezalel Smotrich, to advance full Israeli annexation of the West Bank.

Smotrich adheres to a vision he laid out in 2017, according to which, Israel will exercise full control of the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea; Palestinians who choose to live under Israeli rule will receive subject status, but not citizenship, those who decide to leave will be encouraged, and those who reject both options will be fought.

Who should we believe when it comes to West Bank policy? Netanyahu or Smotrich?

In all his years in power, Netanyahu has never made a strategic decision on this, the most sensitive of issues. Every day that Israel fails to decide, events on the ground decide for it, and the situation is drifting toward a one-state nightmare.

The overall silence in Israel over this state of affairs means that a minority on the far right has been able to force its view on the majority, leading to de facto annexation, fueled by a messianic ideology.

Those who believe Israel can annex millions of Palestinians are clueless about Israel’s international reality, dependence on the United States, and need for international trade.

Meanwhile, on the Palestinian side, Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad extremists are leading Palestinians to disaster. The result is that in the absence of any change of strategy, the area is heading toward further bloodshed, regardless of how successful the Jenin operation was at the tactical and operative levels.

It was Carl von Clausewitz who said that war is “a real political instrument, a continuation of political intercourse, a carrying out of the same by other means.” Military achievements are supposed to serve as the basis of political achievements, but if this does not happen, their effects erode quickly.

The deep emotional ties held by Jews to the West Bank, known in Israel as Judea and Samaria, are completely understandable; the region is the cradle of Jewish civilization, and there can be no way to unlink Jews from sites like the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron, or Shiloh, where the Bible tells us of seminal events in Jewish history. The land historically belongs to the Jewish people.

But this cannot translate into a reality in which Israel controls millions of Palestinians, a reality which, if unchanged, will eventually create international pressure that will lead to Israel’s collapse.

Hence, the operation in Jenin should be seen for what it is; the product of a highly competent military and intelligence community, capable of mapping out and dealing with security threats, but no substitute for real and needed strategy on the future of the West Bank. 

Maj.-Gen. Yair Golan (ret.) is a publishing expert with The MirYam Institute. He is a former deputy IDF chief of staff, and is Israel’s deputy minister of economics and industry. Read full bio here.

 

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IRGC terror designation should not prevent Iran nuclear deal

 

By Chuck Freilich & Yair Golan

A nuclear deal with Iran is critical to Israel’s national security. A lifting of the US designation of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist group, the primary outstanding obstacle to a renewed deal, is a symbolic issue that should not be allowed to get in the way, as distasteful as it is.

The US first designated the al-Quds Force, the IRGC’s terrorist arm, as a terrorist group, in 2007. The Trump administration expanded the designation to include the entire IRGC in 2017.

A return to the previous situation, reportedly the only concession contemplated by the Biden administration, would have essentially no practical impact on US policy. The IRGC would still be subject to a series of terrorism, nuclear and human rights related sanctions. Foreign firms would still be reluctant to do business with it because of the sanctions’ secondary effects.

Symbolism may actually be Iran’s primary reason for making this otherwise unimportant demand. We fully appreciate the importance of symbolism in international affairs and there is no doubt that the IRGC is a heinous terrorist organization, responsible for the murder of Americans, Israelis and others. There are, however, more important issues at stake. It is sufficient that the al-Quds Force remain designated.

Iran is now thought to be just weeks from having sufficient fissile material for the first few nuclear bombs. It is, however, still 1-2 years from an operational missile warhead with which to deliver the weapons, a position it has been in for well over a decade.

This is clearly an intentional decision by the regime, which appears to fear that an operational warhead would be a bridge too far and potentially invite attack. The only question of importance is which option best prevents Iran from crossing the final threshold.

The primary criticism of the putative new deal is that it fails to extend the expiration dates of the original deal. In practice, most of the important limitations on Iran’s nuclear program would remain in effect until 2031, a significant period, but certainly not the long-term resolution of the issue that we all hope for. Time has a way of passing.

The other primary criticisms are a rehash of those repeated by critics ever since the original agreement was negotiated: it does not address Iran’s ballistic and cruise missile programs, drones, or regional expansionism.

All of this is true and painful, but both the Obama and Biden administrations correctly prioritized the nuclear issue and left the others to be addressed separately. In the past, this was Israel’s approach, too, and it should still be. Nuclear weapons pose a potentially existential threat, Iran’s other weapons and activities do not.

The choice that the US and Israel faced today is not, as some would have us believe, between a good deal and a bad one, but between the decidedly imperfect deal signed in 2015 and no deal at all. The argument that no deal is better than a flawed one is clearly specious. As it is, Iran has essentially already become a nuclear threshold state and, in the absence of a deal, would be free to cross the final line at the time of its choosing.

We are in the current situation and forced to contemplate further painful concessions – because of the disastrously misguided decision by president Trump with the encouragement of then-prime minister Netanyahu– to withdraw from the nuclear deal in 2018. National security decision-making is often about choosing between bad alternatives. Should a new deal not be achieved, the US and Israel will be left with the following even more problematic options:

  • Sanctions – brought Iran to the negotiating table in 2015 and again now. In both cases, however, Iran steadfastly rejected anything beyond a temporary postponement of the nuclear program. Had the heightened sanctions imposed by the Trump administration remained in effect for a few more years, it is not inconceivable that they would have had the desired effect.

In reality, there is little precedent for international sanctions changing a state’s important policies or behavior and, in the meantime, the Iranian economy has adjusted and learned to live with the sanctions. Oil exports are up and trade is at pre-sanctions levels and expected to grow rapidly this year.

  • Covert action and sabotage – is an important means of delaying Iran’s nuclear, missile and drone programs and should be pursued. Time gained is important, but not a solution.

  • Regime change – has not occurred in the more than four decades since the revolution. If ever there was a regime that deserved to be toppled, it is Iran’s, but there is no reason to believe that it will happen in the foreseeable future, or, at least, in a time frame relevant to the nuclear issue.

  • Military action – barring an unlikely breakout move by Iran, US President Joe Biden, like his predecessors who dealt with the Iranian nuclear program, has no intention of taking direct military action. Former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu refrained from doing so during his years in office.

Two other former prime ministers, Ehud Barak and Ehud Olmert, stated recently that Israel does not have the military capability to achieve more than a brief postponement of the nuclear program, at least for now. Once again, time gained is important, but not a solution, and there are other consequences to weigh.

  • A regional security axis – with the Gulf and other Arab states with US backing – has now become a realistic option, thanks to the dramatic breakthrough in ties stemming from the Abraham Accords. This axis would probably focus on deterrence and defensive measures, such as a regional air defense system, i.e., management and mitigation of the threat, not resolve thereof.

Of the different options, only a renewal of the nuclear deal – if further extended – provides the basis for a long-term resolution of the issue, or at least postponement. The other options are means of managing the threat and, at best, gaining limited time.

Through a simple process of elimination, it is clear that a restoration of the nuclear deal is the best of the bad options for both the US and Israel. It is on an extension of the deal that the administration should focus, preferably during the current negotiations; unwaveringly, should this not be possible, as it nears its expiration date.

Some 40 years since the advent of Iranian terrorism and regional expansionism, thirty years after the nuclear threat first emerged, neither the US, nor Israel, have developed a coherent, comprehensive and long-term strategy for countering Iran. American policy has suffered from a lack of coherence and continuity, changing substantially with each new administration, often on the basis of questionable partisan preferences, rather than sound strategic assessment. Both the Obama and Biden administrations were perceived to be more eager to reach a deal than Iran and thus negotiated from a position of weakness.

Israel’s positions have also been strongly affected by domestic politics, but in contrast with the failings of American policy, have suffered from excessive continuity. The Bennett-Lapid government has wisely changed the atmospherics and avoided an overt conflict with the US, but essentially continued its predecessor’s policies towards Iran, restating many of the same hollow arguments against a restoration of the nuclear deal.

What is really needed, is not a choice between the above options, but a combination thereof. Diplomacy is most effective when backed up by a credible military option, indeed, the best way to ensure that one does not actually have to take military action, is to present a credible capability to do so.

This diplomatic-military strategy should be further buttressed by strong sanctions, covert operations and long-term pressure on the Iranian regime, designed to cause disruption and unrest and increase the costs associated with its malign activities.

The issue is too important to let symbolism get in the way.

Prof. Chuck Freilich, a former Israeli deputy national security adviser, is senior fellow at the MirYam Institute and author of Israeli National Security: a New Strategy for an Era of Change. Read full bio here.

Maj.-Gen. Yair Golan (ret.) is a publishing expert with The MirYam Institute. He is a former deputy IDF chief of staff, and is Israel’s deputy minister of economics and industry. Read full bio here.

Israel Needs A Clear Policy On The Palestinians & Israeli Arabs

By Yair Golan

In 2021, some 20% of the Israeli Arab public – 1.9 million people – have come to view themselves as a part of Israeli society. This has found expression in the ever-growing role played by Arab parties in the Knesset, the role that Arab parties play in determining the stability of ruling coalitions, and the engagement of the Arab public by Jewish politicians in ways not seen before.

Alongside the integration process, there are deep frustrations and feelings of discrimination by Arab Israelis, along economic and social lines. But it would be wrong to ignore the fact that a section of the Arab Israeli public expresses fervent Palestinian nationalist sentiments.

In responding to this picture, successive Israeli governments have not come up with one clear policy. There are elements of cooperation and partnership with the Arab public, but there has been no systematic government policy to integrate it. One prominent example of this is the situation of Bedouin in Southern Israel – almost 300,000 people, around a third of whom live in unrecognized communities, in conditions that are not suitable for a modern state.

Meanwhile, skyrocketing violence in the Arab sector has mostly been met with indifference. There have been many complaints about illegal Arab land takeovers and construction, yet nothing tangible has been done to promote a solution to enable legal construction. The issue of building rights is complex, but the State of Israel does not want to deal with it.

According to Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics, an Arab child gets a smaller education budget compared to his counterpart in Jewish state schools. This gap clearly does not serve the Israeli national interest in any way.

Hence, what has been happening is a failure by the state to embrace the Arab Israeli public and to create among it identification with the State of Israel. Such an affiliation could be created if the Arab minority were to feel that it has a stake in the country, enjoys equality, and can make progress. Instead, Arab youths who receive a poorer education and struggle to get into Israeli universities, often end up studying in universities in the West Bank and Jordan, run by elements hostile to the Jewish state. 

The eruption of violence in the Arab sector is inexcusable. Those who are guilty of violence need to be dealt with an iron fist, and to be imprisoned for their actions. Every single person, Arab or Jew, who uses violence must be held accountable.

But we must ask ourselves how to repair this situation. The answer lies in initiating a serous, systematic national project to integrate Arab Israelis.

The same lack of clear policy has plagued Israel’s dealings with Gaza. In 2008-9, Israel launched Operation Cast Lead against the Hamas terrorist organization in Gaza; at the time,  I served as head of the IDF Home Front Command.

The operation, which began with a surprise air raid on Hamas’s bases and a Hamas police ceremony, went on to achieve significant military gains, even as Israeli civilians were exposed to terrorist rocket fire without the Iron Dome missile defense system which was not yet operational.

And yet, Israel did not follow up on this achievement or try to leverage it for political gain. Israel could have explored the option of a long-term, stable arrangement with Hamas. The same mistake happened after the 51-day Operation Protective Edge in 2014, when Israel suffered 73 casualties. Nothing was done afterward to achieve political gains to stabilize the situation.

Former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu was not interested in paying the price for a long-term arrangement with Hamas.

Had he been willing to, we could by now have had the answer to the question of whether such an arrangement is possible. Had the answer turned out to be negative, Israel would have been able to know that the time may have truly arrived to dismantle Hamas’s military wing and treat it as a hostile army that needs to be smashed.

Yet Israel failed to choose either option –not an arrangement and not the destruction of Hamas’s military wing. Instead, it opted for the in-between grey zone, thus abandoning the citizens of the South to the brutal hands of Hamas.

The idea of restoring Israeli deterrence through firepower alone has been largely discredited. Hamas is prepared to pay a heavy price, and it is not really deterred for a long time. Hence, a clear decision must be made on this front too.

The same indecision has meant that Israel has not been able to deal correctly with the Palestinian Authority. There is no sense pretending that the PA is composed of Israel-lovers. The entity is obviously made up of Palestinians who are deeply hostile to Israel, yet they are able to cooperate with it at the practical level, leading to success on the ground.

For the past 12 years, the Netanyahu governments described the PA President as a terrorist supporter, and put the spotlight on his payments to the families of terrorists. But this focuses on the marginal issues, for it is clear that the PA’s competitor is Hamas, and that it is in Israel’s interest to make the PA looks more successful than Hamas.

Making the PA look like it is working well for its civilians, while Hamas is damaging them, is a core Israeli interest. Yet the opposite occurred. Instead of pointing out to Palestinians that the PA has superior economic development when compared to the Hamas regime, we have spent all of our time talking about how bad the PA is.

Despite the PA’s many and troubling problems, it is preferrable to Hamas, and in the real world, we must choose between bad and worse.

In summary, Israeli indecision has meant that developments have occurred that run contrary to our critical interests. This has enabled Arab Israelis to identify with Hamas and with West Bank Palestinians – in direct contradiction of Israel’s interests. And it has enabled Hamas to extort Israel and grow stronger on our southern border, but without any long-term stable arrangement.

The time for clear strategic decision making, which actually serves the national interest, is now – and the most prominent Israeli interest is to prevent annexation of millions of Palestinians while continuing to explore the possibility of living beside them peacefully.

Yair Golan is a publishing Expert at The MirYam Institute, a serving Member of Knesset and the immediate past Deputy Chief Of Staff of the Israel Defense Forces. Read full bio here.

THE SIX DAY WAR: INFLECTION POINT FOR NATIONAL AND REGIONAL TRENDS

By Yair Golan

Yair Golan.jpg

The Six Day War of 1967 was undoubtedly a great military victory. Israel's maneuvers were mostly successful, and while no war is perfect, most battles were well-fought and won; on the northern, eastern, and southern fronts. 

Tactically, at the command level – from the platoon and company level, to the division level, and beyond - were exemplary, as was Southern Command's handling of the Egyptian front. The war represented the height of the IDF's tactical success. 

Those tactical victories combined to form a strategic vector, marked by significant short and long-term ramifications for the State of Israel. 

In the short-term, the war led to the rise of a dangerous arrogance among the Israeli defense establishment, and a complacency that enabled Egypt and Syria to surprise Israel during the 1973 Yom Kippur War. 

The Six Day war led to the idea, among the military establishment and wider society, that Israel was invincible and to the trivialization of our adversaries. In the run-up to the 1973 war, Israeli leaders stated that there was no chance of another war breaking out. 

Israel paid a very heavy price for that complacency.

In the longer-term, the Six Day War represented a watershed moment for Israeli society. It went on to shape the entire political map; from that day to this. 

ISRAEL IN THE TERRITORIES

Our presence in the territories, which was originally intended to be short-term, and to serve as a strong bargaining chip, turned into a long-term occupation. In 1968, Prime Minister Levi Eshkol talked about returning the territories, once negotiations with Arab states ripened, but that day never came. 

Instead, in Israel, a messianic movement arose. It viewed the Six Day War as the continuation of a messianic process, one which began in the 1948 War of Independence.

For religious Zionists, this chain of seminal events represented an inevitable process of divine redemption. That led to large-scale settlement construction, beginning in Gush Etzion and Hebron, and spreading out from there. 

The Gush Emunim movement fueled this process further, and rightwing governments accelerated the construction. 

Our presence in these territories constitutes Israel’s greatest strategic challenge; above Iran, Hezbollah or Hamas. What is at stake is Israel's identity, and the ability of different components of our society to live together. 

Today, the political system is aligned along a deep fault line, created in 1967, between the pro-annexation camp and the camp that favors a separation from the Palestinians. 

The long-term impact of the Six Day War continues to confound Israeli opinion. On both sides of the fault line, whether one listens to those coming from the messianic bloc or the Israeli bloc that opposes annexation, one notes that both trace their roots and rationale back to the outcome of the war, pinning their logic upon the lessons they each draw from the same events. In simple terms, the Six Day War has directly shaped our contemporary, political reality. 

PALESTINIANS & PAN-ARABISM

For the Palestinians, the war demolished the hope that Arab states would come to the assistance of the Palestinian-Arabs, invade Israel, and turn back the clock. 

The war represents a breaking point in the Palestinian experience. It ended their trust in Arab states, birthing a new ethos of self-reliance. 

Prior to the Six Day War, Fatah was a small clique with limited resources, mostly relying upon Syrian support. After the Six Day War, it became the central Palestinian movement, and launched a series of terror attacks against Israel throughout the 1970s and 80s. 

The two intifadas that occurred in recent decades directly result from the Palestinian shift, toward a mindset of handling the conflict with Israel independently; one shocked into existence after the Six Day War.

In the Arab world, the war destroyed the Pan-Arab movement, which peaked under the leadership of Egyptian President Gammal Abdel Nasser. After the resounding defeat of 1967, and the death of Nasser in 1970, Pan-Arabism lost its influence in the Middle East. 

IMPACT ON THE IDF

Prior to 1967, the IDF enjoyed a healthy equilibrium among its air, land, and sea branches, and well-organized reconnaissance, artillery, and intelligence units. 

As a result, it fought well. 

That was undone after 1967. Based on the flawed conclusion that the tank is the most important element in the arsenal of victory, other sections of the ground forces – the infantry, artillery, and engineering – were allowed to erode.

As the IDF faced an entirely new kind of conflict – the War of Attrition launched by Arab states, with new forms of violent clashes, decision makers struggled to form clear objectives or to define what victory meant under the circumstances of attrition. 

Prior to the conflict, the IDF was almost constantly training. A mere eight companies was all it dedicated to continuous security missions. 

But following the conflict, the number of companies engaged in ongoing security and counter-insurgency missions grew to 66 by the eve of the 1973 Yom Kippur war.

Constant training was a thing of the past.

The burden continuous security missions place upon the IDF is a negative consequence of the war. Lacking warfare training, the IDF's combat readiness has been eroded.

While continuous security missions do instill some operational capabilities, they are no replacement for training for actual war.

The situation following the Six Day War enabled Israel's enemies to support Palestinian terrorism and insurgency, rather than seeking to tackle Israel directly; a new phenomenon that took the IDF many years to internalize and adapt to. 

Despite two Palestinian uprisings and waves of terror attacks, the area of counter-insurgency still remains underdeveloped as a professional military field in the IDF. 

Given the likelihood that Israel’s future generations will also have to engage in counter-insurgency missions, our military must increase its professional knowledge of this area.

The legacy of the Six Day War and the military victory that it was, looms large today. Whether we categorize those as an asset or a liability in terms of Israel’s long term future, depends on how we affix policy in the territories today.

Yair Golan is a publishing Expert at The MirYam Institute, a serving Member of Knesset and the immediate past Deputy Chief Of Staff of the Israel Defense Forces.