The NPT Review Conference: Israel’s diplomatic predicament

By Eitan Barak

After repeated delays since April 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the tenth Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference (RevCon) is set to convene in August 2022. Israel’s non-membership has been a hot issue in all NPT RevCon meetings for two decades to the point of being a truly diplomatic predicament and we anticipate no surprises in August: harsh diplomatic pressures will be directed toward Israel to relinquish her alleged nuclear weapons (NWs) stockpile by joining a regional would-be Weapons of Mass Destruction Free Zone (WMDFZ).  As in the past, Israel’s refusal to join the NPT or a WMDFZ entailed limited if any diplomatic costs, and because the 1969 Golda-Nixon “Understating” granting Israel immunity from pressure from the United States to join the treaty[1] has no expiration date, one can ask: What went wrong in the 21st Century?

The answer, we suggest, is to be found in two distinct developments during the 1990s, which converged in the 1995 NPT Review and Extension Conference:

(a) The Arab states’ decision to alter their approach according to which Israel has no NWs.

The Arabs’ former approach, either a result of an assessment that Israel may have not crossed the nuclear threshold (i.e., the weaponization stage) or, perhaps, a “ploy” meant to eliminate anticipated internal Arab pressure to follow suit, had been considered a major advantage of Israel’s ambiguity policy. A formal Israeli admission ― so goes the rationale ― would force Arab leaders to pursue their own programs given anticipated public pressures. In the late 1980s however, some Arab states, mainly Egypt, did change their minds. [2]

A sign of this change was already visible during the Paris Conference on the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (CWs, January 1989), at the end of which the Council of the Arab League issued an unexpected communiqué linking progress on the CW Convention’s drafting process to progress on nuclear disarmament (the onset of the Arabs’ so-called "linkage policy”).[3] A year later, in April 1990, after Iraq’s president Saddam Hussein threatened to use CWs against Israel in response to a supposed Israeli attack against his country, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak presented a plan to establish a regional WMDFZ.[4]

In January 1992, Amr Moussa, Egypt’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, raised the issue of regional nuclear disarmament in his opening address at the 1992 plenary session of the Arms Control and Regional Security (ACRS) held in Moscow following the October 1991 Madrid Peace Conference. Later, in September 1992, Egypt orchestrated an Arab League Resolution, No. 5232, officially pledging member states to boycott the CWC until Israel joined the NPT, or, at least, announced its commitment to join.[5] Similar statements by Jordanian and Qatari high-ranking officials during the ACRS talks (1992-1994) reflect the demise of the Arabs’ “game of pretense”.[6]

(b) The firm US policy to extend the NPT indefinitely, without a vote.

Unlike global arms control (AC) agreements having indefinite duration, Article X(2) provides that 25 years after the NPT’s entry into force (EIF), a conference would be convened to decide, by majority vote, the treaty’s duration. As the NPT’s EIF was March 1970, renewal was set for the 1995 Five RevCon (the “NPT Review and Extension Conference”). Due to complex legal considerations regarding an additional limited extension, for the U.S. the strongest supporter of indefinite extension, unlimited extension was to come at even higher costs.[7] 

While the US overcame initial objections to an indefinite extension voiced by many states belonging to the Non-Aligned Movement (e.g., South Africa or Indonesia) already before the Conference, Egypt was a different case.[8]

Thomas Graham, the U.S. ambassador charged to ensure indefinite extension, recalled Egypt’s FM Amr Moussa as stating during his visit to Cairo in April 1994 “in the strongest of terms” that “Egypt, although devoted to the NPT, would not support indefinite extension or even a long extension, unless Israel, prior to the conference, took ‘concrete steps’ in the direction of eventual NPT membership”.[9]  The Egyptian stance was supported by other Arab states despite the milder positions expressed in their own bilateral discussions with U.S. representatives.[10]    

Hence, despite numerous discussions by the U.S. and other NPT parties’ senior officials with Egyptian and Israeli officials, the issue was resolved only at the very last moment: the night before the extension was approved.  Egypt had found a golden opportunity to extract significant gains from the international community and had no intention of squandering it. According to the May 11, 1995 Resolution, the parties “call upon all states of the Middle East …without exception, to accede to the Treaty as soon as possible“ (Para. 4)  ―as well as― “to take practical steps...aimed at making progress towards, inter alia, the establishment of an effectively verifiable” WMDFZ and WMD’s [sic] delivery systems. [11]

In retrospect, Egypt’s notable achievement was transforming the Israeli nuclear issue from a bilateral to an Arab-Israeli issue and eventually to an international issue. The “compromise” which allowed indefinite extension without voting was sponsored by the three NPT depositaries:  Israel’s “best friend”, the U.S., the UK, and Russia. All have taken a moral, if not legal, commitment to establish a regional WMDFZ. Given the US pressures, however, Israel, at that time, considered the Resolution an impressive diplomatic success.[12]

As the U.S. had achieved her goal of indefinite extension and had no intention of breaching the 1969 Understanding and jeopardizing Israel, one of her truest allies, it was just a matter of time before Egypt and her Arab supporters realized that they had been cheated. A strong sense of humiliation was inevitable; as such, this resolution’s promotion has become a contested issue at every NPT RevCon held since. Egypt has uncompromisingly waged battles over this issue during the last four NPT RevCons (mainly in 2005, 2010, and 2015) and, since 2018, in the UN First Committee and the IAEA General Conference. These battles as well as Egypt’s substantial gain in the 2010 RevCon go beyond the limits of this short piece. Yet, one thing is assured: the August 2022 venue will serve as another opportunity for her. As the 2020 RevCon’s designated President, Amb. Gustavo Zlauvinen, stated in April 2021 in the wake of his numerous talks with state parties: “... State Parties have also been focused on regional issues – primarily the implementation of the long unfulfilled 1995 resolution on the Middle East. Progress on this issue is essential for many States Parties”.[13]  

Ironically, despite not being an NPT member state, Israel – clearly the most responsible among the four nuclear non-member states vis-a-vis NWs –has paid the highest political price for the treaty’s indefinite extension.

[1] On the understandings forged with every new Administration see, e.g., Avner Cohen, Israel and the Bomb, (New York: Columbia University Press), 1998, p. 337.

[2]  For suggestions regarding the main reason for Egypt’s new approach see, e.g., Levite and Landau, Israel's Nuclear Image: Arab Perceptions of Israel's Nuclear Posture”, (Tel-Aviv: Papyrus) 1994 (Heb.), pp. 78-79. 

[3] See CWCB 4 (May 1989), p. 7.

[4] See CD document no. CD/989, 3. The plan was also presented to the UNGA. See UNGA document no. S/21252; A/45/219.

[5] See CWCB 18 (December 1992), p. 14. In retrospect, all the Arab states have joined the CWC, implying the linkage policy’s failure. As to the motives behind Egypt's decision to lead the assault against Israel’s nuclear program, see, e.g., Feldman Shai, Nuclear Weapons and arms control in the Middle East, (Cambridge, MA: Harvard UPS), 1997, p. 221.

[6] See Feldman, Id., p. 212.

[7] For the legal considerations see Thomas Graham, Disarmament Sketches: Three Decades of Arms Control and International Law, (Seattle: University of Washington Press), 2002, p.258.

[8] Besides various US gestures to key states, this was achieved by introducing two additional decisions alongside the extension decision. On the ME “Package Deal”, see Daryl G. Kimball and Randy Rydell, “The NPT in 1995: The Terms for Indefinite Extension” ACT Vol. 50(4), (May 2020), pp. 35-36.

[9] Graham, Id.p. 268.

[10] Jayantha Dhanapala, as the Conference President and chairman of the crucial discussions recalled: “This resolution…brought all the Arab countries on board”.  Jayantha Dhanapala, "The 2015 Review Conference for the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons: A Review of a Requiem," Global Governance Vol.21(1), (January-March 2015): 1-8, at 4.

[11]  NPT/CONF.1995/32 (Part I), Annex (operative para.5)

[12]  See for instance, Gerald Steinberg, “The Nuclear Deterrence - Israel vs the US”, Nativ, Vol. 50(3), May 1996, pp. 41-46, at p.41 (Heb.).

[13] Emphasis added. Statement by HE Gustavo Zlauvinen, President-designated, in “Promoting a Successful Outcome to the 2021 NPT Review Conference”- Event organized by Austria, Kazakhstan and Switzerland,  April 28, 2021, https://www.un.org/sites/un2.un.org/files/2021/04/gz_speech_-_promoting_a_successful_outcome_to_the_2021_npt_review_conference_-_28_apr_2021_.pdf, at p.4

Dr. Eitan Barak is a faculty member at the Program in Strategy, Diplomacy, and Security (SDS) at the Shalem College. Prior to joining the Program, Dr. Barak was a long-time member of the faculty of the Department of International Relations and a senior researcher in the Hebrew University, Jerusalem. Read full bio here.

Hamas is preparing to exploit the PA’s security vacuum

By David Hacham

The Hamas terror organization is preparing to exploit what it believes to be an impending security vacuum in the West Bank to undermine the stability of its rival, the Fatah-run Palestinian Authority.

In recent days, Palestinian media reports said PA security forces uncovered a Hamas bomb lab near Ramallah, which was part of a wider reported bomb plot to attack the PA’s government headquarters in the West Bank city. The report is the latest sign of Hamas’s plans to destabilize the PA.

Hamas senses that the PA will soon enter into an internal power struggle. Since taking power in elections in January 2005, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has ruled, but now, according to senior Fatah sources, he is considering ending his historic 17-year term.

While rumors of Abbas’s departure have so far been premature – rumors that Hamas made sure to spread and amplify – the succession battle is inevitably heating up as the countdown to the end of his rule continues to gain speed.

Hamas sees an opportunity to boost its status and influence through increased terror attacks against both Israeli and Fatah targets. It believes this will strengthen its attractiveness on the Palestinian street and enable it to challenge the PA’s leadership.

Abbas eventually quashed rumors of his death in a telephoned speech to a conference in Ramallah on the Al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, in which he vowed that “Jerusalem is not for sale” and promised to fight the Israeli “occupation” of the Temple Mount. Abbas also held an official visit to Cyprus on June 13 to boost his visibility and counter rumors of his demise.

While he is certainly aware that he cannot remain in power for much longer, the leader, who turns 87 this November, is also interested in grasping the steering wheel for as long as possible. In line with calls from the PLO Central Committee, Abbas is threatening to take unprecedented steps in the PA’s diplomatic conflict with Israel, such as terminating its recognition of Israel and ending security coordination with it.

These threats, Abbas believes, improve his image as a Palestinian leader who is committed to patriotic goals, such as not “giving up” on Jerusalem, the so-called right of return for Palestinian refugees, and gaining recognition of east Jerusalem as the capital of a future Palestinian state. Abbas also remains committed to the goal of a full Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank to the 1967 borders.

On a personal level, Abbas is also seeking to ensure the economic well-being of his sons.

Meanwhile, it appears that Abbas has begun actively grooming his preferred successor, Civilian Affairs Minister Hussein al-Sheikh, who was recently appointed Secretary-General of the PLO Executive Committee.

Abbas is increasingly showing preferential treatment to Al-Sheikh, including through the PLO Central Committee appointment, a step that was seen as provocative by other candidates to succeed Abbas as they view it as harming their chances.

With Al-Sheikh’s influence clearly on the rise, rivals like Jibril Rajoub are watching, and quietly preparing themselves for the future power struggle. There are several potential successors in the ring, but Al-Sheikh, who has the backing of the influential head of the PA General Intelligence Service, Majed Faraj, and Rajoub, are the two most prominent ones. The imprisoned Fatah terrorist Marwan Barghouti; the Deputy Chairman of Fatah’s Central Committee,  Mahmoud al-Aloul; and the UAE-based exile, Muhammad Dahlan, who has been banished from Fatah’s ranks, are all candidates as well.

 Hamas too is preparing itself. In addition to its covert terror cells, it is using social media to entrench its status as the leading force on the Palestinian street, and as part of its propaganda campaign aimed at eroding the PA’s influence.

Hamas candidates are winning elections on West Bank Palestinian university campuses and Hamas rhetoric routinely accuses Abbas of being a “collaborator” with Israel and Fatah of being a corrupt entity that has abandoned the Palestinian fight for east Jerusalem.

Other, external actors are trying to stabilize the situation, as demonstrated by recent visits to Ramallah by the Jordanian Foreign Minister, Ayman Safadi, and U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs, Barbara Leaf.

These visits are aimed at assisting efforts for calm and preventing the development of chaos and escalation following Abbas’s departure. These actors are joined by Israel in the common desire to see as smooth a transition of power as possible.

The U.S. should now continue to persistently seek stability and prevent a violent power struggle, which would only benefit extremist terrorist elements. The U.S. should also seek to establish channels of contact with would-be successors to Abbas.

Israel too has to prepare for all scenarios, and it too has a central role to play. While it cannot intervene overtly, Israel must prepare for the possible scenario of an attempted Hamas takeover of the West Bank, a red line that Israel can never accept.

This means being prepared to rebuff any Hamas efforts to capture PA posts or sites, based on the understanding that Israel has no option to allow a repeat of the Hamas violent coup in Gaza to play out in the West Bank – an area that overlooks the heart of Israel’s population center and economic hub.

All moderate Sunni-Arab states share the same interest in preventing a Hamas takeover, including Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

Israel, in the meantime, must continue its contacts with the Palestinian Authority and seek to allow Abbas to complete his term honorably. At the same time, it must prepare for multiple scenarios that may emerge and preserve its freedom of action in the West Bank.

David Hacham served for 30 years in IDF intelligence, is a former Commander of Coordination of Govt. Activities in the Territories (COGAT) and was advisor for Arab Affairs to seven Israeli Ministers of Defense. Read full bio here.

Israel’s flag was once a consensus and it should be again

By Sharon Roffe Ofir

Israel’s flag was once a national consensus, in the same way that the national anthem and Hebrew are. The time has come for the flag to once again play the same role. A national flag should not be an expression of one political stance or another; but rather, the symbol of the state.

So how did the Israeli flag turn into a controversial issue over the years here in Israel? A flag that is raised proudly by one sector of society, but less so by another?

Israel recently celebrated 74 years of independence. Its founders selected the young state’s flag and anthem close to the time of independence, following discussions and feedback from the public. Tens of proposals were examined before the current flag was chosen.

Soon afterward, in 1949, the young Knesset passed the Flag, Symbol, and Anthem Law, which has seen multiple amendments over the years. One of those amendments, passed in 1997, determined, among other things, that the Israeli flag should be flown at government buildings and every public and educational institution.

In 1992, when I studied for my BA at the University of Haifa, I was surprised to see there was no Israeli flag flying prominently over the university building. When students asked why there was no flag, we received a strange answer: To avoid offending the feelings of Arab students.

20 years later and the question of the national flag continues to create storms of controversy. The public recently saw an absurd sight: Under the pretense of freedom of expression, PLO flags have been proudly displayed in demonstrations held by students at Tel Aviv University and Ben Gurion University in Beersheba.

Imagine students proudly raising the ISIS flag at a leading American university or a group of Israelis demonstrating with Israeli flags in the heart of the Gaza Strip.

In Israel, this is not in the realm of the imaginary, it is reality. The excuse that this is a democracy simply does not hold up, since in other democratic states, waving the enemy’s flag is something that simply does not happen.

Finance Minister Avigdor Liberman said in response to events that he is unwilling to accept incidents such as that which took place at Ben Gurion University. He instructed his ministry to examine the university’s conduct and seek to cut its budget following the Nakba Day demonstration held on its premises. Liberman said the university’s conduct harmed national and Jewish values that legislation has sought to protect.

Days later, the Jerusalem Day flag march took place, attracting a record number of marchers. One year ago, under the rule of former Prime Minister Netanyahu, the route of the march was diverted and marchers carrying the Israeli flag were ordered to pass through the Old City’s Jaffa Gate instead of the Damascus Gate; nevertheless, Hamas fired a barrage of rockets at Israel. Those developments speak for themselves.

In our country, there is only room for one flag: the Israeli flag. In this sense, Israel is no different from the rest of the world. Western states feature common ethical foundations and minorities in such countries understand that harming these values constitutes the crossing of a red line. This fact does not contradict the text of the Israeli Declaration of Independence, which states that the country “will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex; it will guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, language, education, and culture.”

74 years after the establishment of Israel, the time has come for us to understand that political maneuvers should not come at the expense of the flag.

Sharon Roffe Ofir is a former Knesset Member on behalf of the Yisrael Beiteinu party and served as the deputy head of the Kiryat Tivon Regional Council. She is a former journalist . Read full bio here.

In War, Economics Outflank Tanks

By Doron Tamir

Russia’s ongoing war against Ukraine serves as a global reminder that economic factors can be even more decisive than military campaigns in achieving long-term victory., Nevertheless, the economic dimension is rarely factored into war planning.

Usually, when states plan for the option of war, militaries conduct headquarters planning, including intelligence on the latest situation on the adversary’s side, its order of battle, weapons, air force, personnel, and technological capabilities. This data is then compared with one’s own order of battle. Planning groups then form to determine the objectives of a military campaign, which can be both military or political, and are usually the latter.

During such planning, military officials will examine two to three main scenarios that could develop, in which the campaign could prove successful, indecisive, or end in failure. The planners seek to utilize their own side’s advantages and exploit the enemy’s disadvantages. The end result of this process is the production of a war plan.

Yet states often forget that the military domain is not the only decisive factor when it comes to winning wars. The political and economic elements are very influential today too – now perhaps more than ever.

While planners seek to account for political factors, they rarely look at the economic-financial dimension of war.

This, even though such calculations touch on the widest of circles, affecting national economies, and in the case of Russia and Ukraine the lives of hundreds of millions of people beyond the battlefield itself,

Ukraine is a powerhouse of corn, potatoes, and steel exports, as well as sunflower oil, and other agricultural and natural resources.

Since the start of the war, Ukraine’s GDP has crashed by 45%, a disastrous figure, while Russia’s has declined by 12%, which is extremely damaging and will be felt in every Russian home.  Russia could soon be going back to pre-Cold War scenes of empty supermarket shelves. This will have a deep impact on the fabric of society and could undermine support for the war.

Russia and Ukraine combined are responsible for some 30% of the world’s wheat supplies, while much of Europe and beyond became hooked over the years on Russian oil and gas. As the West implements unprecedented sanctions on Moscow, both Russia and the countries that relied on its natural resources will experience severe shockwaves.

None of this economic fallout was planned. Russia was focused on winning military battles and did not invest much thought in the economic war. It is clear that Russia did not plan for such a harsh fallout, or for a scenario in which Germany stops importing Russian oil and gas, and the United States halts oil imports too.

Chinese energy imports from Russia will not be able to compensate for this damage, though the Saudis will pump up their exports by 50% and reap the dividends.

All of this is a warning sign about the consequences of failing to plan for economics in war, even though the longer a war draws on, the more decisive economic factors become. The influence of these factors takes on even greater significance when economics start to impact weapons and ammunition production, something that has a direct knock-on effect on the battlefield.

If war becomes a campaign of attrition, no clear winners emerge, and then the importance of raw materials becomes even more influential, affecting a state’s ability to sustain a war effort, including even the production of vehicles.

In Israel’s experience, short wars can lead to periods of economic prosperity, as the Six-Day War did in 1967, ending a period of lengthy stagnation, and creating an atmosphere of development, production, and the formation of new companies. But the War of Attrition that followed it knocked economic performance back down again.

Today, Israel faces adversaries that have the potential to immediately disrupt its economy, particularly Hezbollah, which can paralyze the home front and economic activity with massive rocket attacks.

This means that Israel must stockpile food, medicine, and energy sources, and ensure that every sector can function, requiring planning that goes far beyond military strategy and tactics.

It is difficult for states to plan the military, political, and economic domains in an integrated manner and sew them together into a single coherent plan.

Most cognitive resources end up being invested in the military side. Russia planned for a three-week war of victory in Ukraine, and the decision-making echelon did not account for the broad economic chain reactions of a lengthy war.

The lesson to draw is that military headquarters preparations must undergo a revolution. At the state and strategic level, it is vital to ensure that economic experts take an active role in the full military planning process.

This also helps ensure that civilian morale levels in a warring state remain reasonably high -- a factor that directly influences the morale of soldiers. If a state fighting a complex war fails to achieve this, it is practically guaranteed to run into serious trouble.

Looking ahead, it is clear that Russia will feel the pain of economic crisis for a very long time. Even if it makes new military progress in the field, Russia can still lose because of economics, and the influence of economics on politics.

Russia provides a classic case study of what happens when planners fail to include worst-case scenarios in their possible courses of action.

Any life-affirming state that finds itself having to plan for wars should learn from Russia’s costly mistake.

Brigadier General Doron Tamir General Doron Tamir had a distinguished military career spanning over 2 decades in the Intelligence Corps and Special forces - as the Chief Intelligence Officer in the Israeli military, where he commanded numerous military units in all aspects of the intelligence field, from signal, visual, and human intelligence, through technology and cyber, to combat and special operations. Read full bio here.

In light of Hamas’s new ‘Jerusalem strategy,’ Israel must update Gaza policy

By Eitan Dangot

Jerusalem Day, marked this year on May 28 – 29, brought with it predictable threats and tensions with Hamas in the Gaza Strip. These tensions came close to bringing the region to a new round of conflict, exactly one year after the last, but stopped short of doing that.

Now that Israel got past this potential flashpoint on the calendar without a significant escalation, it will need to update its policy regarding Hamas in Gaza immediately going forward.

Ever since Hamas fired multiple rockets at Jerusalem at the end of Ramadan in 2021, sparking the 12-day Guardian of the Walls conflict during the start of a Jerusalem Day flag march, it has been pursuing a new game plan.

The rocket fire came after days in which Hamas warned Israel about events underway in east Jerusalem, including at the Al Aqsa Mosque, and disputes over homes in the Sheikh Jarah neighborhood.

The decision by Hamas to launch a military conflict last year was not, in reality, a tactical event, but rather the planting of the seeds of a new Hamas strategy, which remains in place to this day.

According to this strategy, Hamas will do whatever is necessary to market itself to Palestinians, and the wider Muslim world, as the ‘guardian of Jerusalem.’

Its target audience is first and foremost Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank, as well as Arab-Israelis, and its marketing strategy is designed to promote the idea that Hamas is the defender of Jerusalem and the Al Aqsa Mosque.

More recently, this very same strategy found expression in the form of rockets fired into Israel from Lebanon. The rockets turned out to have been fired by Hamas operatives, likely from the Tyre region.

Through this strategy, Hamas is expanding its activities away from its core area in Gaza and seeking to boost its foothold in the West Bank where it relies on support from the general population. Hamas is stepping up incitement to violence on social media, creating the conditions for a wave of terrorism that has thus far claimed the lives of nineteen people.

Thus, Hamas is engineering a broader atmosphere of terrorism among Palestinians in the West Bank who do not formally belong to the faction.

As Hamas continues to build up military force in Gaza, it is also building terror cells in the West Bank and enjoys the backing of Turkey, Qatar, and Hezbollah – despite Sunni-Shi’ite complexities.

Hamas maintains an open channel with Iran, which enables it to benefit from weapons, know-how, and financial support.

When Hamas began applying its new strategy in May 2021, Israel chose a military response against Hamas targets in Gaza. The Israeli operation was mainly directed at the power and status of Hamas in Gaza as the second-largest military-terror threat to Israel in the region, after Hezbollah.

During Operation Guardian of the Walls, Israel caused significant damage to Hamas, disrupted its capabilities, and somewhat damaged the organization’s sovereignty in Gaza – but it did not do much more than that.

At the end of the conflict, the region saw the return of a familiar mechanism: Egypt filled, and continues to fill, a central mediating role between Hamas and Israel, and, taking advantage of the fact that it is the only outlet that Hamas has to the world via the Rafah Border Crossing, Egypt even worked with its hated rival Qatar, to stabilize the Strip. Over the past year, quiet was for the most part preserved in this manner.

In exchange for not launching attacks from Gaza, Hamas received from Israel humanitarian concessions for the residents of Gaza, as well as the start of reconstruction of buildings and infrastructure in the Strip damaged in the 2021 conflict.

Israel then went a step further and enabled 12,000 Gazans to enter Israel for work, creating direct economic relief for Gaza’s population – and indirect assistance to Hamas’s sovereignty.

In doing so, Israel gave up on pre-conditions it previously set for such relief, such as the release of two Israeli civilians illegally held captive by Hamas, and the return of the bodies of two IDF personnel killed in the 2014 Hamas-Israel conflict.

Yet Israel’s approach has not been effective in combating Hamas’s new strategy of building itself up as the ‘defender of Jerusalem,’ and increasing its influence in the courtyard of the Al Aqsa Mosque, Jerusalem, and the West Bank.

Hamas is also fighting for the attention and affiliation of younger Israeli Arabs, albeit in relatively small numbers.

In the West Bank, a generation has grown up that does not remember the traumas of the Second Intifada and Operation Defensive Shield in 2002. This generation has adopted the Hamas-led narrative that connects religious faith, nationalism, and a confrontational approach with Israel, leading to a spike in murderous attacks by terrorists that have various affiliations.

All the while, Hamas is enjoying the calm Israel is enabling in Gaza and taking advantage to build up new capabilities such as UAVs, and ground and sea commando cells.

Hamas has not stopped for even a minute its maneuvering and preparations for the day Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas departs the scene.  

In response to all of this, Israel has chosen a policy based on differentiating Hamas Gaza from the West Bank. In the latter, Israel launched a series of counter-terrorism operations. In Lebanon, Israel is working in a minor way against Hamas, and diplomatically, it is working individually with Turkey and Qatar to search for formulas to contain Hamas.

Yet this does not deal with the dangerous connection Hamas has been able to create between religious war cries under the banner of the Al Aqsa Mosque and the confrontational attitude it has instilled in Palestinians beyond Gaza.

Now that Jerusalem Day has passed without major escalation, Israel must recalculate its route and adopt a proactive stance against Hamas’s religious-nationalist incitement.

Israel’s toolkit must include a renewal of targeted assassinations of senior Hamas personnel, such as Salah Al-Arouri, who heads the West Bank terror ‘file,’ and is mostly based in Lebanon. Initiating moves against Hamas and taking it by surprise is crucial. The more this is done covertly, the better.

This change will not lead to instant solutions, but rather, to a process in which Israel will damage Hamas’s centers of gravity, including its leadership structure, and will go beyond just responding to Hamas as a Gazan territorial unit.

In any case, Hamas will end up escalating the situation, so Israel should choose to take the initiative and go beyond what Jerusalem has done in the past.

This also means maintaining total sovereignty over Jerusalem, while ensuring Muslim freedom of worship, and cooperating with moderate Arab elements that can help stabilize the Temple Mount, including Jordan, despite its weakening presence there.

The PA too is increasingly weak and losing power and is already transitioning to the post-Abbas era. Israel has to strengthen the PA in various ways, as part of a bigger effort to prevent its collapse on the day after Abbas’s departure.

Major-General Eitan Dangot concluded his extensive career as the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (C.O.G.A.T.) in 2014. Prior to that post he served as the Military Secretary to three Ministers of Defense; Shaul Mofaz, Amir Peretz and Ehud Barak. Read full bio here.

55 Years Later: How the Six-Day War Forever Changed Israel

By Chuck Freilich

 

Today marks fifty-five years since the start of the 1967 Six-Day War. Few are familiar today with the strategic circumstances and dramatic crisis atmosphere that surrounded the war’s outbreak. Most probably recall, vaguely, that Israel won some big victory and associate it more with the contemporary West Bank and settlements issues. In fact, the war was a turning point in the entire history of the Arab-Israeli conflict.

The war changed the conflict’s primary focus, from Arab opposition to Israel’s very existence, to the attempt to regain the territories lost in 1967. During Israel’s War of Independence, from 1948-1949, no Arab state lost territory, just the putative Palestinian state that was to have been established under the 1947 UN Partition Plan, but which was rejected both by the Arab states and Palestinians. Egypt, Jordan, and Syria’s traumatic loss of territory in 1967—Sinai, the West Bank, and Golan Heights, respectively—began a long-term transformation of the conflict from an existential one, into an ultimately more resolvable dispute over territory.

Israel’s crushing victory forced the Arab world to begin to come to terms with the reality of its existence. The nascent process was not about recognition of Israel’s legitimacy, nor reconciliation, but acceptance of a bitter reality. Until 1967, much of the Arab world believed that Israel’s existence was an aberration of history, that it would soon put right with Israel’s destruction in the battlefield. Arab defeats, up to that time, were written off by various conspiratorial theories. The defeat in 1967 was so overwhelming, however, that it could no longer be explained away, and the recognition began to set in that Israel was here to stay. The process is still ongoing, but has taken hold, to varying extents, throughout the Arab world.

The war ended with Israel in control of strategically important territory and, for the first time, “defensible borders.” Sinai became a wide buffer with Egypt, the West Bank added over thirty miles to Israel’s 8.7 mile-wide “narrow waist,” and the Golan Heights placed much of Israel’s north out of Syrian range. The new borders enabled Israel to absorb the surprise attack in 1973 without preempting, but did not prevent it, nor repeated hostilities since then. Moreover, the loss of territory in 1967 strengthened Arab motivation to go to war, sowing the seeds for the 1973 war.

The Six-Day War transformed Israel’s sense of security and that of the entire Jewish people. The extermination of 6 million Jews, just two decades earlier, following two millennia of dispersal, persecution, pogroms, and vulnerability, was still very much a living memory, and fear of a second Holocaust was palpable. Israel, just nineteen years old at the time, still did not quite believe that it had survived the earlier wars and won its independence. Rabbis in Israel consecrated parks and other public spaces as cemeteries in preparation for mass casualties. Jews around the world prayed for Israel’s survival, in desperate need of proof that its existence was not merely a fleeting historical moment, that Jews were not just fodder for concentration camp ovens and that they could stand up for themselves. When the war ended with Israel’s victory, diaspora Jews took new pride in their Jewishness. The effect on many heretofore assimilated American Jews was dramatic. Identification with Israel, among Jews and non-Jews alike, became chic.

The war’s immediate aftermath dashed hopes that an exchange of “land for peace” would rapidly put an end to the conflict. The Arab League, at its annual summit held that year in Khartoum, just three months after the war, enunciated the infamous “three no’s of Khartoum”—no recognition of Israel, no negotiations, and no peace. Israel prepared for long-term occupation and positions on all sides hardened.

The above notwithstanding, the war was a critical stage on the road to peace. The nascent process of Israel’s acceptance engendered by the war was greatly reinforced by the 1973 war. If Israel could not be defeated even after being taken totally by surprise, the Arabs’ only realistic hope of regaining the 1967 territories was through diplomacy. It would take another decade and another war, but by sowing the seeds of Israel’s acceptance and focusing the conflict on lost territory, the Six-Day War laid the basis for future peace with Egypt in 1979. Peace with Egypt, the most powerful Arab state, transformed Israel’s strategic circumstances. Without Egypt, the Arabs no longer had a conventional military option against Israel. It is not by chance that there have been no major wars since Egypt made peace.

The “land for peace” formula ultimately proved successful only with Egypt. Syria was unwilling to sign a peace agreement despite Israel’s willingness to withdraw from the Golan Heights in 2000, and the Palestinians rejected three peace proposals that would have given them an independent state on essentially all of the West Bank and Gaza (two in 2001 and one in 2008). Questions thus arose whether the conflict had, indeed, become a territorial and resolvable one, or continued to be about Israel’s existence.

The war had a major impact on U.S.-Israeli relations, setting the stage for the later emergence of the “special relationship.” U.S.-Israeli relations were quite limited at the time. The United States had long viewed Israel as a weak state and feared that Israel might become a moral and strategic burden on it. Given the Arabs’ numerical superiority and oil wealth, this was a burden that the United States was loath to assume, especially at the height of the Cold War. Following 1967, the United States realized that Israel had become a militarily capable state and military ties began to expand. 1973 was the true turning point and today’s institutionalized and strategic relationship only began evolving in the 1980s and 1990s.

The 1967 war reinforced Israel’s fundamental belief in the principles of self-reliance and strategic autonomy. Russia severed relations; France, Israel’s strategic ally at the time, abandoned it shortly thereafter, and the United States declared neutrality. Indeed, the American failure to live up to a pre-existing commitment, to ensure Israel’s freedom of navigation in the Red Sea, was a critical factor in its decision to go to war.  

The humiliating defeat weakened the Arab regimes, especially that of Egypt’s heretofore electrifying leader, Abdul Nasser, easing their grip over the Palestinian national movement. Yasser Arafat emerged as the head of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) in 1968 and in 1974 the Arab League, at its Rabat summit, recognized the PLO as the “sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people,” ending Egypt’s and Jordan’s historic claim to represent them. Occupation of the West Bank brought the Palestinian problem into Israel itself. Until 1967, most Palestinians had lived either under Egyptian control, in Gaza, or Jordanian control, in the West Bank. Israel now assumed the burden both of their day-to-day affairs and national aspirations. The conflict became one of two opposing national movements.

Palestinian terrorism began long before the Six-Day War and subsequent occupation, indeed, long before Israel’s establishment. Israel had successfully kept terrorism to a level that its society could tolerate, but it became a factor of strategic importance, nevertheless. The massive wave of Palestinian terrorism during the second intifada (2000-2004), at the height of the peace process, together with the Palestinians’ repeated rejections of the dramatic peace proposals, decimated Israel’s peace camp, swayed a few elections in favor of the right-wing and led to its overall ascendancy in Israeli politics to this day.

The Six-Day War began the political divide and stalemate in Israel over the future of the West Bank, which has only deepened over the decades. Less than two weeks after the war, Israel offered to withdraw from Sinai and the Golan, in exchange for peace and security arrangements. The cabinet decision was silent, however, regarding the West Bank, a reflection of the political divisions that already existed at that early stage. For many Jews, control over the entire land of Israel, for the first time in 2,000 years, including Judea and Samaria, where the primary biblical story took place, and Jerusalem, the very heart of Judaism, was the realization of prophecy and the beginning of an almost messianic era. For others, it marked the emergence of religious and nationalist forces in Israeli society that have come to pose a threat to its national future.

The initial settlements, following the war, were designed primarily for defensive purposes, to ensure control over critical bits of territory just beyond the pre-existing border. With the “three no’s” in the background, and the religious fervor inspired by control of Judea and Samaria, the settlements took on a momentum of their own and, over the decades, spread throughout the area. The settler movement has become the most highly mobilized and single most powerful political force in Israel, able to impose its will on a general public that is less involved and, in any event, divided over the nature of a diplomatic solution.

By settling the West Bank, Israel is turning itself into a binational state. 40 percent of the combined populations of Israel and the West Bank is Muslim, hardly a Jewish state. Surprisingly, perhaps, polls demonstrate unequivocally that an overwhelming majority of Israelis, well over 90 percent, oppose a binational, one-state, outcome. There are many examples in democracies of people voting counter to their interests and beliefs. Few cases are quite so stark.

Many believe that Israel faces a binary choice today: it can either give the Palestinians the right to vote, in which case Israel will lose its predominantly Jewish character, or deny them this right and lose Israel’s democratic character. The current stalemate undoubtedly cannot continue indefinitely, but real life is more complex.

Three million American citizens, residents of Puerto Rico, as well as those of the Virgin Islands and other U.S. “territories,” cannot vote for Congress or the presidency, just local government. Despite this blatant discrimination, no one would argue that the United States is not a democracy, just an imperfect one. Essentially, the same will hold true of Israel. Israelis will vote for the Knesset, Palestinians for the Palestinian Authority, as they are entitled to do today, or a future state. The quality of Israeli democracy will certainly take a hit, but this will not spell its demise. The real problem is the inability to separate and reach a two-state solution.

Fifty-five years after the Six-Day War, Israel has become an established state, whose existence is no longer truly in doubt. Israel has relations with more states today than ever before, including six Arab ones, and informal ties with others. It has become a global center of high-tech and a leading cyber power. The Six-Day War ensured Israel’s physical survival but posed new challenges of existential importance.

Professor Chuck Freilich, serves as Adjunct Associate Professor of Political Science, Dept of Political Science at Columbia University. He is a former deputy national security adviser in Israel and long-time senior fellow at Harvard's Belfer Center, has taught political science at Harvard, Columbia, NYU and Tel Aviv University. Read full bio here.

Jordan’s complex balancing act on the Temple Mount

By Tomer Barak

The Temple Mount (known in Arabic as the Haram al-Sharif) is not only one of the holiest places on the planet for Jews and Muslims but is also the focal point of the Israeli-Arab conflict.

Like clockwork, the holy site becomes ‘the hottest show in town’ on several `trigger dates` that amplify day-to-day tensions surrounding the routine management of the Mount. The most sensitive dates are religious ones such as the month of Ramadan and the three Jewish pilgrimage holidays, as well as secular national dates like Israeli Independence Day (The Palestinians mark the “Nakba,” or the “catastrophe”, the day after Israel marks Independence Day) and Jerusalem Day.

On those occasions, local clashes regularly erupt between worshippers and law enforcement personnel. This is accompanied by an oft-repeated Palestinian narrative, according to which, there is a ‘Jewish Zionist attack’ on the Al Aqsa Mosque, and it is time to mobilize to ‘save it’ from Zionist attempts to ‘change the status quo.’

Jordan’s traditional role regarding Jerusalem and the Temple Mount is important. Jordan remains in possession of a key role at the site, a role accepted by Israel in the peace agreement with the Hashemite Kingdom (1994) and later by establishing the Jordanian Islamic trust, the Waqf, which has official control over the sensitive site.

Over the years, Jordan has capitalized on its ability to control and calm tensions, sometimes intervening only at the last moment, before disaster strikes to show the stature of King Abdullah in the region.

A couple of months ago, it became clear to all regional observers that the Ramadan month will form an especially hot flashpoint, and multiple parties, particularly the Jordanian leadership, made an effort to prevent a security deterioration. The Jordanian need for calm derived from the King`s attention to his internal arena -- the economy and relations within the royal family. Moreover, the King had no wish to see a return to last year’s efforts by Hamas to link Gaza and Jerusalem - pushing Jordan out of the equation in the Holy City.  

Nevertheless, the King`s efforts to coordinate between Israel and the Palestinians failed due to inflammatory acts from both sides.

At that point, Jordan changed its behavior and became increasingly confrontational toward Israel. The rationale behind this posture was to take advantage of the situation – bolstering the Kingdom`s status in Jerusalem vis-a-vis regional competition (Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Hamas), and amplifying the King`s regional role in the eyes of the Biden administration.

The Jordanian rhetoric was very harsh, blaming Israel for initiating escalation in Jerusalem, and “denying” Muslims freedom of worship, as well as allowing Jews to pray on the Temple Mount under police supervision. Meanwhile, Jordan initiated several regional and international diplomatic meetings, utilizing them to attack Israeli policy.

Jordan’s rhetoric came to a peak on April 18, when Prime Minister, Bisher al-Khasawneh, went further than any Jordanian official had done until then, stating, “I salute every Palestinian, and all the employees of the Jordanian Islamic Waqf, who proudly stand like minarets, hurling their stones in a volley of clay at the Zionist sympathizers defiling the Al-Aqsa Mosque under the protection of the Israeli occupation government.”

This was active encouragement of violence -- an unprecedented message from Amman.

But it wasn’t all bad news. In order to maintain the ability to de-escalate, Jordan did not sever its diplomatic ties with Israel, and the fact that such messages were not repeated is an indication that Jordan sought to walk them back behind the scenes.

Moreover, King Abdullah intervened and pressed the need for calm during a meeting with United States President Joe Biden on April 25 in which he reaffirmed Jordan’s regional importance and its role in Jerusalem. According to several outlets, Jordan pressed the need to formulate new security arrangements on the Mount that would remove certain powers from Israeli security forces and transfer them to the Waqf.  

As for the Israeli response, Jordan has, for several years, assessed that Israel can contain many of its anti-Israeli sentiments and moves. This assessment was proven right again when Israel decided to respond harshly to the Jordanian rhetoric only through official channels, due to an Israeli wish to get through the high-tension period and past Jerusalem Day without a major eruption, and based on the assumption that relations with Jordan will normalize again.

In trying to assess the Jordanian game plan, it is clear that the inflammatory rhetoric and escalatory actions, especially by the prime minister, were a sign of distress – but they were not accidental.

Jordan lives under a continuous sense of a threat to the Kingdom`s special role in Jerusalem and the image of the king as the custodian of the holy places. It perceives that erosion of this role will lead to a real threat to the Hashemite system as a whole.

Firstly, from the Jordanian perspective, Israel’s decision to increase the number of visitors to the Temple Mount and grant police new powers of enforcement there is perceived as an encroachment on the status quo. The reality is that there is a large increase in the flow of non-Muslim visitors to the Mount, with record-high numbers of more than 30,000 visitors since the beginning of the year.

At the same time, attempts by Hamas to ‘take ownership’ of the Mosque very much disturb the Hashemite Kingdom.

In Jordan’s net assessment, the Kingdom has, over the years, been able to successfully maneuver by fending off challenges to this status from Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and the Northern Branch of the Islamic Movement in Israel. However, the recent rapprochement of Israel with both Saudi Arabia due to the Abraham Accords, and Turkey, are alarming from the Jordanian perspective - even though neither of those countries is looking, especially publicly, to replace the Jordanian role in Jerusalem. Both countries state publicly that there is a need to preserve the status quo, and Jordan's role, in Jerusalem. 

In that regard, when the latest escalation erupted, although Jordan did not want the escalation to happen after it had already broken out it sought to leverage the violent incidents to improve its weak position.  

Israel has a clear interest in safeguarding its peace treaty with Jordan, which is a strategic asset. A stable and prosperous Jordan is an explicit Israeli interest.

At the same time, since the Palestinian conflict is not going to vanish, and the Temple Mount will likely produce further outbreaks, Israel and Jordan should continue to work together to control stability in Jerusalem, especially on the Mount.

Israel did well in restraining its public responses to provocative Jordanian statements while making clear its dissatisfaction.

Israel and Jordan, alongside their neighbors, can have a better future. The Abraham Accords have already enabled a trilateral agreement with the UAE (with the U.S, as a facilitator) on water and electricity swaps between the countries.

But to press on and move forward, it is critical to work on trust.  A mature discussion is needed to tackle differences. This would send an important message to the Jordanian public about the need to work with Israel, while also calming Israeli public opinion, which has grown increasingly flustered by Jordan’s hostile public posture.

Lieutenant Colonel Tomer Barak concluded his military career in 2021 after 21 years of service in the Israeli Military Intelligence and in the Strategic Planning Division. Read full bio here.

From Gaza to Ukraine: Three Principles of Underground Warfare

 

By Daphne Richemond Barak

The ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine offers a timely reminder of the fact that underground passageways and facilities can be used in a wide variety of ways by both state and non-state actors, and that this form of warfare isn’t going anywhere. Tunnel detection technology improves every day, yet the appeal of tunnels remains.

Underground warfare in the Russian-Ukrainian war stands out, first and foremost, because it is used by a state (Ukraine). Since 2001, the tactic of subterranean warfare has evolved primarily in the hands of violent non-state groups like Hamas, Al Qaeda, ISIS and Hezbollah. For a state like Ukraine to make use of underground networks is somewhat unusual, if one takes a contemporary view of this old military tactic.

The Ukrainian military is using tunnels and underground facilities that are civilian infrastructure sites, not dug for military use. This enables the Ukrainians to reap the benefits of tunnels without having to dig them. In fact, they have been able to use them to hamper Russia’s offensive, most visibly in Mariupol.

In what constitutes a rather traditional use of the tactic, the Ukrainians are using tunnels to defend against a Russian land invasion. As in Syria, the civilian population was the first to go underground – particularly in subways – to seek protection from the fighting. Fighters later understood that they, too, could make use of this highly strategic terrain.

In the steel underground monster of Azovstal in Mariupol, civilians and fighters cohabited – much like in the infamous and dangerous Vietcong tunnels where women were giving birth. President Vladimir Putin, for his part, operates from major underground command-and-control structures built deep into the earth, which are not so dissimilar from underground American facilities. Ukraine does not have this level of state subterranean capabilities, but its use of the underground similarly attempts to ensure the continuity of its command-and-control structure.

One could argue that Ukraine’s use of tunnels is purely defensive. This could be contrasted with how Israel’s non-state adversaries have dug extensive networks of tunnels as a means to infiltrate Israeli territory, carry out attacks, and counter Israeli capabilities by operating underground.

But such a defensive-offensive take on the tactic would be fallacious. The first core principle of underground warfare could be summed up as such: a tunnel is a tunnel, is a tunnel. Once a tunnel exists or has been dug, it can be used for any purpose.

Hamas in Gaza, for example, used a smuggling tunnel to kidnap Gilad Schalit.

And for years, the US did not fully grasp the security risk posed by drug smuggling tunnels dug on the Mexican side of its border. Yet once a tunnel has been dug, it can be used – simultaneously or not – for smuggling or carrying out terrorist acts.

A second core principle when it comes to tunnel warfare is that every actor will use underground terrain in alignment with their capabilities. Hamas cannot build an enormous Russian-style command and control facility underground. States, therefore, tend to use tunnels differently than non-state actors.

Since 9/11, non-state belligerents have used the underground arena in challenging manners, to reestablish a degree of symmetry in asymmetrical wars.

Fighting sophisticated Western enemies that are better equipped than them has led such actors to go underground, thereby neutralizing intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance capabilities. For these types of actors, which include Hamas and Hezbollah, using tunnels evens out the playing field, and that is the reason for underground warfare’s unabating popularity. It serves as the great equalizer in contemporary warfare.

EVEN WHEN two states are at war, as Russia and Ukraine are, those that feel they are at a military disadvantage will fall back on tunnel use to even the field – just as Ukraine has done.

Such tactics deter or slow down Russian advances, and the idea of raiding such tunnels – let alone burning them down – is disheartening. Tunnels will not win Ukraine’s war, but they can help force the Russians to struggle and cause them to lose personnel and time. Tunnels, in this context, are a drain on the attacking force.

History of tunnels

As the Second World War was coming to an end, the Japanese resorted to tunnel warfare against American forces in the Pacific, causing significant losses among US forces and forcing more mobilization of resources.

Decades earlier, in Vietnam, the Vietcong, seeking to embarrass the Americans, attacked them from underground, causing severe casualties and a sense of helplessness. The Americans struggled to deal with this threat coming from below ground, employing B-52 bombers to carpet bomb tunnel-ridden areas.

In war, tunnels create a valuable distraction, offering those who dig them an ephemeral strategic advantage. It is no surprise that ISIS’s last stronghold was a tunnel network in northeastern Syria, or that the late ISIS leader Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi was eventually found and killed in a tunnel during a US raid on his compound in Syria, in 2019.

Returning to the war that has taken up the world’s attention, Russia knows from fighting the Mujahideen in Afghanistan in the 1980s and the war in Syria that there is no easy way to neutralize subterranean threats.

Russia eliminated ISIS forces hiding in tunnels in Syria using ultra-violent means including the flamethrower, a weapon that burns down the tunnels and anyone inside them. This could not possibly be replicated in the urban jungle of Mariupol.

The use of tunnels in Ukraine reveals that tunnels remain a part of all wars – even between states. States must anticipate future subterranean threats and contemplate how these might differ, depending on the type of actor that uses the tactic and its military capabilities. Though tunnel warfare in Ukraine does not display a high level of innovation, this does not mean that other states will not innovate. Innovation should also come in the form of reclaiming the underground strategic environment. There is no reason why states should not exploit the underground to their advantage.

The third principle is that subterranean threats are here to stay. Technology will not significantly change this in the near future. Pakistan is digging cross-border tunnels into India, according to media reports, despite increasingly powerful Indian tunnel detection technology.

Hezbollah, for its part, has built a disturbingly complex network of tunnels and bunkers in Lebanon. It takes a considerable amount of time to excavate the hard rock, and the likelihood that the digging will be discovered is high. Yet, Hezbollah continues to see tunnels as a key part of its strategy.

On a different scale, China has built underground maritime bases, and Iran is moving parts of its nuclear program underground. It has also built underground missile cities – missile launch bases that are more than 1600 feet down below ground. Those who step up their ability to combine traditional and innovative uses of the underground will be sure to reap the benefits. Anti-tunnel technology has improved but it is unlikely to ever provide a one-size-fits-all solution.

In the meantime, tunnels will continue to exercise their appeal and unabated pull vis-a-vis states and non-states alike.

Dr. Daphné Richemond-Barak is Assistant Professor at the Lauder School of Government, Diplomacy, and Strategy, and Senior Researcher at the International Institute for Counter-Terrorism (ICT) at the IDC Herzliya. She is also an Adjunct Scholar at the Modern War Institute at West Point and a publishing Expert at The MirYam Institute. Read full bio here.

Iran’s nuclear program is creeping towards a dangerous twilight zone

By Yaakov Lappin

The May 22 assassination in Tehran of a key Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps officer, who reportedly was busy plotting attacks on Israelis abroad, is a reminder of the fact that the Iranian regime poses a clear and present danger to the security of Israelis, and the wider Middle East.

Seeking regional hegemony, and a great ‘Shi’ite revival,’ the Islamist regime in Tehran has utilized its IRGC’s Quds Force, an elite, secretive international unit that traffics weapons, funds, and training to Iran’s terrorist proxies in the Middle East, including Hezbollah in Lebanon, armed Shi’ite militias in Syria and Iraq, and the Houthis in Yemen. Iran is turning these entities into some of the most heavily armed non-state actors in the world, complete with arsenals of surface-to-surface firepower. Hezbollah’s inventory dwarfs the firepower of many standard armies.

The Quds Force actively plots attacks on Israeli targets, as well as threatening moderate Sunni states in the region, among them Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Strategic targets of these countries, such as airports, oil refineries, and military bases come under routine attack.

But an even more significant threat – the most critical of them all – that emanates from Iran has all but vanished from the headlines. One can be forgiven for thinking that the Iranian nuclear program is not the gravest issue currently facing the Middle East (as well as constituting a potential flashpoint with global ramifications).

Yet that is exactly what Iran’s nuclear program is. It has become the elephant in the room: A problem too big to be discussed daily outside of defense establishments, and an issue that is ‘falling between the cracks,’ subject to neither diplomatic solutions nor military operations. Instead, a creeping nuclear breakout is underway.

A nuclear-armed Iran, or even a threshold state, would provide a nuclear umbrella over the entire Iranian-led radical axis, accelerating destabilization in the region, emboldening Iran and its Islamist partners to step up attacks on Israel and Sunni states, and sparking a regional nuclear arms race in which Sunni states rush to obtain nuclear weapons, refusing to live under an Iranian nuclear shadow without a suitable reply.

With nuclear negotiations between Iran and world powers led by the United States currently stuck, the Iranian nuclear program is hovering in a bizarre twilight zone, in a no-man's-land that is not subject to regular public discussion or significant international scrutiny.

Meanwhile, Iran is racing ahead. According to a recent statement by Israel Defense Minister Benny Gantz, Iran already has 60 kilograms of uranium enriched to the 60% level, putting it just weeks away from having enough enriched uranium for its first bomb.

This does not mean that Iran is weeks away from having an operational nuclear weapon. Other aspects of the program, like building a nuclear warhead, learning how to place it on a missile, and completing the process to build a nuclear explosive mechanism appear to be frozen at this time.

These additional processes, collectively known as “the weapons group,” would need another year and a half to two years to reach fruition. But the uranium enrichment process is the most difficult aspect of building the bomb, and Iran’s nuclear scientists have all but mastered it.

Iran is building and installing centrifuges that enrich uranium much faster than its first-generation centrifuges did. Some of these new centrifuges have been placed in a recently built underground hall at the Natanz uranium site. A second site, in Fordow, also hosts advanced centrifuges, known as IR-6 type centrifuges.

According to Iranian state television, in March, the IRGC detected and foiled an Israeli sabotage plot to attack the site at Fordow, which is buried in a mountain.

According to international media reports, Natanz was attacked twice by sabotage operations, once in July 2020, and again in April 2021, with the second reported attack taking out Natanz’s centrifuges. In June, a mysterious blast targeted a centrifuge factory at Karaj, near Tehran.

If Israel is indeed conducting covert operations to attack Iran’s nuclear program, these are having a delaying influence, but Iran can and does bounce back, building back its program with new and improved uranium enrichment facilities.

With talks frozen, it seems that sabotage and Iranian determination are currently the only game in town.

Looking ahead, two main potential scenarios could play out.

The first is that the Biden administration is successful in its ability to revive the 2015 JCPOA. In light of Iran’s nuclear progress made since the Trump administration’s unilateral exit from the agreement in 2018, and the sunset clauses contained in the JCPOA that all expire between 2025 to 2031, leaving Iran to enrich as much uranium as it wants and to stockpile as much fissile material as it wants, reviving of the 2015 deal seems like no more than a temporary reprieve, which does almost nothing to solve the fundamental issues of the Iranian nuclear program.

If an agreement is signed, Iran would fill its war chest with oil trade income, and funds from other international business transactions, and be able to inject its proxies like Hezbollah with new funds, further contributing to the conventional threat to Israel and regional security.

The path to conflict from this scenario seems short.

A second scenario could involve a formal collapse of talks between the US and Iran. The talks are currently stuck on Iran’s demand to remove the IRGC from Washington’s foreign terror organization list, as well as additional Iranian demands.

This scenario could then develop into several follow-on scenarios.

The first would involve a renewed American maximum pressure campaign, designed to circumvent the diplomatic channel as a mechanism for controlling Iran’s nuclear program and to apply economic and diplomatic pressure, backed by the threat of military force.

However, the ability of the US to recruit others in the world to this campaign seems limited. It is unclear if Europe would get on board, and it is clear that Russia and China would not (unlike the pre-JCPOA round of sanctions that led to the 2015 deal).

America’s determination to reinstate a military deterrent against Iran is also highly questionable. This is due to its formal decision to prioritize great power competition with Russia and China, and to de-prioritize its Middle Eastern commitments, as the Afghanistan withdrawal and Iraqi draw-down demonstrate.

Therefore, a limited American pressure campaign seems more likely a fallout from collapsed talks, combined with an Israeli military deterrent, and possibly, stepped up Israeli covert action.

This reality would contain no guarantees against an Iranian decision to break out to full nuclear weapons capability, should Ayatollah Khamenei, the IRGC, and the Iranian Supreme National Security Council so choose.

It is safe to assume that Israel has marked out red lines for itself on Iranian nuclear progress which, if triggered would spark an Israeli aerial assault on key sites of the program.

That, in turn, would likely lead to full-scale conflict with Hezbollah in Lebanon, and possibly with Shi’ite militias in Syria and Iraq, as well as Gazan terror factions.

This appeared to be the scenario drilled in the Chariots of War IDF exercise in May, the largest held by the Israeli military in decades.

Ultimately, Israel’s objective is to keep delaying the nuclear program until a fundamental change in the ideology of the Iran regime occurs, or the regime itself is replaced by a moderate successor.

Yaakov Lappin is an Israel-based military affairs correspondent and analyst. He provides insight and analysis for a number of media outlets, including Jane's Defense Weekly, a leading global military affairs magazine, and JNS.org, a news agency with wide distribution among Jewish communities in the U.S. Read full bio here.

Dealing with asymmetrical enemies, Israel’s legal toolkit is limited

By Shaul Gordon

Israeli security forces have been actively combating a spike in terrorism and widespread disturbances by Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem in recent weeks.

However, the asymmetrical nature of the threat means that ultimately, Israel’s legal toolkit is limited, a restriction that often leads to frustrations among the Israeli public.

In defining the enemy in this context, Israel has been dealing with a range of threats, including terrorists who hide their firearms until the moment of attack, meaning they cannot be defined as regular combatants; lone-wolf terrorists; small terror cells made up of civilians who have been incited to commit murderous violence; and gunmen, such as those in Jenin, who loosely fall into the combatant category.

The terror wave has been dominated by attackers who decided on their own to launch indiscriminate attacks on Israelis, rather than organized terrorist infrastructures that directly dispatch suicide bombers or armed assailants. 

In response, Israel, acting on precise intelligence, has initiated nightly counter-terror raids aimed at apprehending security suspects in their homes before they reach Israeli streets.

In East Jerusalem and the Old City, these are police raids, but in the West Bank or refugee camps on the outskirts of northern Jerusalem, these become military operations.

In Jenin, and other northern West Bank locations, IDF operations now run into hundreds of gunmen who fire thousands of bullets – a very different reality than a police counter-terror raid that occurs in Israel itself.

Israeli-Arabs arrested by police are brought before a magistrate’s court for hearings -- but Palestinians, who are not residents or citizens of Israel -- appear before military courts.

And here is where Israel’s case becomes complex and unique. When a counter-terror raid is conducted in Germany or France, the forces there operate in clearly-defined sovereign territory where they have full legal authority and face none of the operational difficulties encountered by Israel.

Israeli forces operating in cities in Area A of the West Bank do so in an area legally designated by an intermediate peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA) as under full PA security and civilian control. Since the PA cannot neutralize such threats on its own, Israel has to, and the status of the intermediate agreement suffers erosion.

The IDF sometimes notifies the PA that it is about to enter an area for a raid, usually at the last moment, but on other occasions, in order to ensure the success of the operation, the Palestinians are not notified. When the coordination mechanism is active, the PA moves aside and lets the IDF conduct its operation.

Operationally, each such arrest raid may turn into an armed exchange with well-armed gunmen, and this creates dangers for Palestinian civilians and journalists around the zone of the raid. The IDF is, of course, fully within its rights under national and international law to fire back at any threat firing at it.

Beyond the raids, Israel employs a set of unique yet limited legal responses in an effort to prevent and deter attacks. A common tool is the use of home demolitions following Palestinian terror attacks. After every significant attack, the IDF enters the terrorist’s home, surveys it, and prepares it for demolition.

The legal basis for this act comes from Article 119 of the emergency regulations enacted by the British Mandate in 1945. Legal challenges to the measure state that it constitutes a type of collective punishment, due to the fact that others live in the same home.

Yet Israel has sound legal counter-arguments. When Israel captured the West Bank during the 1967 Six-Day War, it adhered to international law which states that a new occupying power must implement the same law that was in place prior to its arrival. In this case, this would be Jordan’s law enabling home demolitions, which, like Israel’s emergency regulations, was inherited from the British, and which legalizes the practice.

The separate question of whether home demolitions lead to deterrence does not produce clear-cut answers. In 2005, the Israeli government set up a committee to seek answers to this question, but it was unable to reach firm conclusions. The committee recommended that the practice be used more judiciously, but did not call for its cancellation.

In 2015, at the start of a wave of lone-wolf terrorism, Israel returned to this tactic in a selective way, only in response to major terror attacks, and has stuck to it until this day. The truth is that no one knows how effective it is. We have individual testimonies that support the idea that it can act as a deterrent by causing families to turn in sons plotting terrorist attacks. We have seen police investigations of would-be terrorists result in confessions by the suspect and cases of suspects aborting the attack - due to fears of demolitions and their effect on family members.

On the other hand, only in the last two weeks, we have seen tens of terror attacks – how could this be if the measure is clearly effective in deterrence?

The fact is that when extremist ideology is involved, some will throw concerns about their families to the wind.

This situation is a far cry from the question of the effectiveness of administrative detention. I can personally testify that the placement of persons plotting terrorist attacks in administrative detention has saved thousands of Israeli lives over the years.

Recently, Justice Minister Gideon Sa’ar called for a new measure to be introduced –the expulsion of relatives of terrorists from the West Bank to the Gaza Strip.

However, under international law, this is a problematic measure, since there is a ban on forcibly moving civilians from one location to another. Such a measure would be considered collective punishment and would represent a new opening for Palestinians to legally assault Israel at the International Criminal Court. Israel is not even legally allowed to transfer relatives of terrorists from one West Bank city to another.

Operationally, the measure is also of questionable value, since expulsions of terrorists in the past from the West Bank to Gaza, as occurred following the end of the siege of the Church of Nativity in Bethlehem in 2002, saw terror operatives upgrade their activities and capabilities in Gaza after arriving there.

Ultimately, the above points to a sobering yet important conclusion. Israel’s counter-terror legal toolkit, while critical, is relatively small. The tendency to search for new solutions is understandable, and the idea of ‘sitting around and doing nothing is frustrating, particularly for citizens of a strong state with a powerful military.

Yet this is an inseparable part of the reality of asymmetrical warfare. The IDF, with all of its advanced capabilities, finds itself, in the end, fighting enemies with knives, axes, and assault rifles.

The era of symmetrical clashes has largely passed from our region, and conflicts are growing more complex by the year. The struggle to find new solutions is a symptom of this wider problem.

Brigadier General Shaul Gordon has extensive experience serving in a legal capacity within the Israel National Police (INP) and the Israel Defense Forces, including holding the position of Senior Legal Advisor to the INP from 2006-2016. Read full bio here.

Israel Is Hardly ‘Indifferent’ on Ukraine

By Chuck Freilich

 

Israel’s response to the war in Ukraine has encountered withering criticism from without and within. In a speech to the Knesset, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky charged that “indifference kills.” The Washington Post, in a lead editorial, singled out Israel and just a few other states, for hedging. A senior former Israeli diplomat and astute observer, Alon Pinkas, decried Israel’s “immoral and imprudent policy.” Shlomo Ben-Ami, a former Israeli foreign minister known for his wisdom and moderation, was even more scathing, arguing that Israel’s moral and strategic considerations align in Ukraine, that it can thus unequivocally support the Western position, and that the price to be paid would be a mere “tactical” loss of Israel’s freedom of maneuver over Syrian airspace.

A clear majority in Israel would like to come out staunchly and unequivocally in favor of Ukraine. Not only was Russia the clear aggressor, but its cruel indifference to fundamental norms of behavior, and war crimes, leave little desire for evenhandedness. Russia should be punished.

National leaders, however, do not have the luxury of stating their feelings quite so clearly. There are critical interests at stake. The war will have far-reaching ramifications for the entire global system, including the U.S.-Russian-Chinese balance of power, Israel’s relationship with the United States and place in the world, and Russia’s role in a variety of areas of great importance for Israel. This is most certainly not a matter of mere tactics for Israel, but one of foremost strategic importance and it requires a prudent and cautious hand at the tiller.

Israel’s initial response in support of Ukraine was, indeed, a few days behind the international community and it refused to support a United States Security Council resolution condemning Russia. Prime Minister Naftali Bennett has intentionally left it to his foreign minister and intended successor, Yair Lapid, to stake out a vocally critical position of Russia, whereas he has spoken in more moderate terms, designed to minimize the blow to Israel’s relations with it. Israel has refused to provide Ukraine with weapons of any kind.

Three questions arise: whether Israel’s response has been significantly different from that of most countries, whether its unique national history, drawing on millennia of Jewish weakness and persecution, culminating in the Holocaust, imposes upon it a special moral burden and, finally, what more could it actually do.

The fact that much of the Holocaust took place in Ukraine makes these questions especially poignant. If, however, one looks at things openly, without predispositions, the Israeli response to date has been reasonable and in accord with others. Israel did not support the condemnation of Russia in the Security Council, which Russia vetoed in any event, but did support two General Assembly resolutions and joined in the call for Russia’s expulsion from the Human Rights Council.

In practical terms, Israeli assistance has been significant, especially in the medical area. It provided Ukraine with a fully equipped and staffed 150-bed field hospital, for a period of six weeks, which treated over 6,000 patients. It further provided six large generators for a Ukrainian hospital, ten ambulances, and 100 tons of humanitarian assistance, including food, clothing, and water purification equipment. It admitted 24,000 refugees, of whom two-thirds are not Jewish.

In the military area, Israel’s response has been less forthcoming. Until mid-April, it refused to provide military assistance of any kind, offensive or defensive, including the Iron Dome anti-aircraft and anti-missile system. As the war evolved, Israel began modifying this position, with the announcement that it would provide Ukraine with protective gear, such as helmets and vests, and its participation in a U.S.-led international forum designed to provide Ukraine with ongoing military and other assistance. Israel reportedly already conducted intelligence cooperation with Ukraine. An interagency team is now exploring ways of increasing assistance.

This response may not be fully satisfying, many of us would like to strike out, but other states have weighed their strategic considerations with similar care. The United States has truly risen to the occasion and responded magnificently, but it, too, has set clear limits on its assistance. Ukraine is not a NATO ally, so no U.S. forces would be sent to directly defend it or be deployed in its territory. A no-fly zone would not be imposed. The United States would do everything it could to avoid a direct clash with Russia and possible World War III. As U.S. confidence in its ability to aid Ukraine without sparking a war with Russia has grown, the nature of American military assistance evolved. Now that the tide has changed, American strategists fear the consequences of overly strong assistance to Ukraine and of pushing Putin into a corner.

Germany, after weeks of indecision, is now providing modest military aid to Ukraine. France has provided limited economic assistance and only minimal military aid. Both have emphasized the importance of avoiding a direct conflict with Russia, implicitly indicating the limits to their support. The European Union, which blithely ignored the dangers of its growing energy dependence on Russia for years, and still pays it $1.1 billion each day for oil and gas, has been reluctant to increase sanctions on Russia.

Japan, dependent on Russia for 8 percent of its electric power, had provided Ukraine with just $28 million worth of humanitarian aid, as of early April. South Korea recently pledged $30 million in support but had only actually provided a meager $800,000 in nonlethal military and humanitarian aid. The list goes on. When grappling with a raging bear, even major powers act with caution.

In the end, a state’s policy is not just a question of how it and its allies perceive it, but even more importantly, how it is perceived by the target state. At least as far as Russia is concerned, there is no room for misinterpretation. Israel has placed itself squarely in the U.S. camp and Russia has begun expressing its displeasure in clear and threatening terms.

Israel, Russia avers, is “still” a friend, but one from which Russia expects more. In what may warrant first prize for chutzpah, Russia decided that this was the appropriate time to condemn Israel’s occupation of the Golan Heights, an area 0.29 percent the size of the Ukraine. It further placed the blame for the recent violence in Jerusalem entirely on Israel, accused Israel of trying to divert international attention from its own misdeeds, and expressed its diplomatic support for the Palestinians generally. Even more ominously, a Russian general implicitly threatened Israel’s freedom of area maneuver over Syria. So, “still” friends, but conditionally.

Israel has very good reasons for wishing to avoid a confrontation with Russia, which are highly reminiscent of those of the great powers above. Russian S-400 anti-aircraft systems, already deployed in Syria, could inhibit and even shut-down Israel’s efforts to prevent Iran from turning Syria into a forward operating base against it and a transit point for the delivery of highly advanced weapons to Hezbollah in Lebanon. Hezbollah already has a gargantuan arsenal in Lebanon of some 150,000 Iranian-supplied rockets aimed at Israel, and Iran is now trying to replicate it in Syria and build up its own military capabilities there.

Russia has been a partial counterbalance to Iran’s growing influence in Syria and has helped contain the situation, at least somewhat, by pressing Iran and Hezbollah to keep their forces away from Israel’s border. Even more importantly, an agreement with Russia has allowed Israel to operate over Syrian skies without fear of the S-400s, but this could change at any time of Russia’s choosing. In the next round with Hezbollah and Iran, Israel’s home front will likely suffer devastating damage, of a magnitude that it has never experienced before. Russia has the ability to affect just how bad it is. For Israel, these considerations are most certainly not a matter of “petty” tactics, but actually the greatest threat to its national security today, short of a nuclear Iran.

Russia is an important player in regard to the Iranian nuclear issue, as well, where it is a party to the nuclear agreement and negotiations in Vienna. Barring an unexpected change in U.S. retrenchment from the Middle East, following the war in Ukraine, Russia is likely to remain the primary superpower in the region, even if a weakened one. A superpower that has concluded sales of major weapons systems and nuclear power reactors to Turkey and Egypt and has held negotiations in this regard with the Saudis and others.

Approximately 15 percent of Israel’s population was either born in the former Soviet Union, or are the descendants thereof, and about 600,000 Jews still live in Russia and 200,000-300,00 in Ukraine. Their ability to emigrate to Israel, or simply remain in contact with family members and friends, is critical for Israel.

For all of the above reasons, Israel has very good reasons for not wanting to anger the Russian bear. Nevertheless, the entire world is gearing up to help Ukraine, the United States is leading an unprecedented international alliance, and Israel must be able to do more. Some have suggested defensive weapons or at least defensive cyber capabilities.

In reality, the distinction between offensive and defensive weapons systems, and between lethal and non-lethal ones, is largely moot. Israel’s Iron Dome may be an air-defense system but would pose a major threat to Russian offensive capabilities. Russia is unlikely to look favorably on the downing of its combat aircraft or missiles. Radar and communications gear are nonlethal, but critical for offensive operations The difference between offensive and defensive cyber weapons is just a few lines of code.

What Israel can do, is make a national effort to provide outsized humanitarian aid, such as food, clothing, and protective gear. It should send the field hospital back to Ukraine , if necessary by turning it into an Israel Defense Forces operation and calling up reservists, as opposed to its previously purely civilian nature. Search and rescue teams from the Home Front Command, an area in which Israel’s capabilities are global frontrunners, should be dispatched to Ukraine. An airlift to fly out refugees, to Israel or preferred locations in Europe, Jewish or otherwise, should be launched.

These measures alone would constitute a disproportionate contribution and others are under consideration. Israel’s leaders would undoubtedly like to do even more. Unfortunately, reality has a nasty tendency of getting in the way of the best of intentions. As the recent Hamas-inspired wave of violence and Iranian actions remind us once again, Israel still faces genocidal enemies who seek its extinction. The burden of Jewish history means that Israel can and should do more to assist Ukraine, but like all states, its foremost moral commitment must be to its own security. It may not be the message that many wish to hear, but that is the preeminent burden that Jewish history places on it.

Professor Chuck Freilich, serves as Adjunct Associate Professor of Political Science, Dept of Political Science at Columbia University. He is a former deputy national security adviser in Israel and long-time senior fellow at Harvard's Belfer Center, has taught political science at Harvard, Columbia, NYU and Tel Aviv University. Read full bio here.