Israel elections: Israel is in for a wild campaign season

By Danielle Roth-Avneri

After the upcoming Jewish holidays, Israelis will go to the polls on November 1. That means Israelis are in for a four-month-long election season instead of the usual three and thus face one of the longest campaign seasons in the country’s history.

Four months of spin, promises and manipulations are in store for Israelis as political parties work to try and conquer the hearts and minds of voters – voters who are already saturated by the unfulfilled promises of four elections in the past five years.

Instead of a prime minister leading a small six-member party, Israel now has a caretaker prime minister, which is just another way of saying a temporary prime minister in office for four months.

Lapid and Yesh Atid

Many things can be said about Yesh Atid, chairman and caretaker Prime Minister Yair Lapid, but one thing cannot be taken away from him: He managed to realize his dream of becoming premier. That’s not something many in politics can say.

But that achievement is a mere step in Lapid’s grand strategy of being voted in as prime minister, which he is pursuing with a lot more planning and political calculation than meets the eye. For example, Lapid’s decision to let former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett be first in the rotation between the two was not, as is often presented, a gentleman-like act, but rather, the result of a consideration that whoever enters elections as serving prime minister has an advantage.

There’s an Israeli saying that says that nothing is more permanent than the temporary and Lapid understands the political aspects of this very well. His temporary step up is part of a bigger goal to lead a real government.

The catch is, however, that Lapid’s ability to assemble a government will depend not only on his maneuvers but also on those of his fellow members in the center-left bloc.

Gantz and Sa'ar

Unlike in the last, exhausting four rounds of elections, this time around, the Israeli political map appears to be changing somewhat. Recently, Defense Minister Benny Gantz, Chairman of the Blue and White party, who was a political partner of Lapid, decided to challenge Lapid’s bid to become prime minister by forming a joint list together with Justice Minister Gideon Sa’ar, head of the rightist New Hope Party.

This pushes Lapid more to the left of the political map. For Sa’ar the maneuver makes good political sense since polls show him barely scraping across the threshold in the next elections if he runs alone. Gantz, for his part, becomes a real candidate for prime minister in the face-off against the opposition led by Benjamin Netanyahu and Gantz’s new joint list could lure some center-right voters who are fed up with the Netanyahu-led bloc.

These advantages, however, could all be undermined by the fact that Gantz’s messaging is too confused to clearly position himself politically.

Gantz attempts to satisfy everyone – the Left, the Right, the middle class, the Arabs and the ultra-Orthodox. In both politics and life, one can’t satisfy everyone. At this time, it seems that it is Sa’ar who closed an excellent deal for himself and is riding on Gantz’s shoulders, saving himself from erasure from the political map.

Ayelet Shaked

Meanwhile, Within the rightist bloc the Likud party grows stronger, according to the polls, despite the multiple trials that Netanyahu is facing. His base of voters remains loyal and seems to be getting stronger. Still, Netanyahu’s bloc would have to reach 61 Knesset seats to gain power and it may turn out that the only way he could do this is with the help of Interior Minister and Yamina party chairwoman, Ayelet Shaked, known to some as the princess of the right.

Shaked is still recovering from finding out very late, while on a state visit to Morocco, that the government she was a part of had fallen apart. She was practically the last person to know about the fall of the government despite her full loyalty to Bennett, her former Yamina colleague.

The shock and sense of treachery she felt in the face of Bennett’s failure to update her was clearly visible. Shaked’s party has been deeply scarred by the departure of members from the party itself and from the previous government, and her situation in the polls isn’t great. But if she joins forces with Netanyahu, this could be the push that the bloc needs to get into government.

Shaked has four months to reinvent herself, and she has a big advantage going into the elections since she is able to market herself as a right-wing force operating for the benefit of all.

As a result, it is worth closely tracking Shaked’s progress over the next four months. She could well be the decisive factor regarding what kind of government Israel has after the elections.

Labor and Meretz

Meanwhile, on the Left, Labor and Meretz find themselves under Lapid’s leadership. Meretz has more than its fair share of trouble. Health Minister and Party Chairman Nitzan Horowitz announced that he will not compete in the upcoming primaries for the party leadership, and the party’s number two, Environmental Protection Minister Tamar Zandberg, announced that she is taking a pause from political life.

Both of them understand that the ship is sinking and that they must jump off it. Meretz is scratching the electoral threshold in polls, and its sister party, Labor, refuses to merge with it. This week, former Meretz chairwoman Zehava Galon declared that she will return to politics to run for the party leadership. This move is designed to revive the party and could certainly prove effective since Galon is considered a skilled and highly esteemed political operative.

United Arab List

The Arab sector, for its part, will soon answer an important question as well: How many votes will the United Arab List party of Mansour Abbas gain after making history and becoming the first Arab party to serve in the ruling coalition government?

Will the Arab Israeli population reward Abbas for his actions or will they erase him from the political map?

Former IDF Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot, who declared his intention to enter politics, is currently shopping for parties and could run with either Lapid or Gantz-Sa’ar. It’s important to remember, however, that the Israeli population is no longer automatically enthralled with generals and former chiefs of staff, and demands someone who puts their quality of life at the top of their list of priorities.

In Israel, every day is dramatic and this is true all the more so in politics. The situation is highly fluid and the political arena is filled with capricious actors pursuing their dreams and ambitions, alongside “mere ideology.”

What remains certain, however, is that this campaign will be primal and highly charged.

Danielle Roth-Avneri is a political commentator & panelist on Morning World and various current affairs news programs on television. She is a former Knesset reporter, news editor and columnist for the newspaper Israel Hayom. Read full bio here.

Founding a Middle Eastern NATO

By Henrique Cymerman

The Middle East is experiencing a geostrategic earthquake, and its epicenter is in Saudi Arabia. This seismic shift is leading to the creation of a military alliance between countries that, at least technically, are still enemies.

The political and commercial contacts between Israel and the six Gulf Cooperation Council countries, led by Saudi Arabia, stopped being a secret in August 2020 when the dramatic signing of the Abraham Accords between Israel, the United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain took place. Later, Morocco and Sudan joined the framework.  

Now, however, the new alliance is on the cusp of evolving into a regional NATO-type system, with states cooperating under an all-for-one and one-for-all logic. There have been a series of recent reports regarding regular meetings between military chiefs from Israel, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Jordan, as well as ongoing discussions about joint defense agreements against missile and drone attacks from Iran, or its proxies.

The publicizing of joint Israeli–Emirati air force drills employing F-15 and F-16 fighter jet pilots flying side by side would have been the stuff of science fiction just a few years ago. Today, it is a concrete reality.  

During recent trips to the Gulf cities of Jeddah, Abu Dhabi, and Doha, I received explanations that cast light on these developments. The Iranian threat – both nuclear and conventional – is the glue that binds together this unique coalition.

According to senior military officials say, as early as 1973, after the Yom Kippur War, the Arab powers already understood that there is no military option against Israel. A former Saudi intelligence chief explained this reasoning to me in detail, saying, “We surprised you on your Day of Atonement. You started the war on your knees, but in the end, you won it. And now Israel is much stronger, it is the greatest power between Indonesia and Gibraltar."

The rulers of Abu Dhabi, the capital city-state of the UAE, do not hide their dream of turning the Israeli "startup nation" into a "startup region.”

"What we are looking for is not to buy and sell like in a bazaar, but to do joint ventures," a prominent Emirati businessman told me. According to him, for the UAE, peace with Israel is a strategic bet on the future.

Many secret and private flights have occurred in recent years between Israel and Saudi Arabia. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and heads of the Mossad have reportedly made such journeys.

Even a few weeks ago, a private jet with prominent Israeli businessmen and women was reported to have made this journey. All of them first landed in Jordan just for a few minutes so that they could not be tracked by any app and so that no questions were raised, and then they continued to Saudi Arabia.

In his first tour as American president in the Middle East, Joe Biden, who ultimately understood the extraordinary potential of the Abraham Accords achieved by the previous Republican administration, decided that Air Force One would be the first plane to fly directly from Tel Aviv, Israel to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, where a summit was scheduled to take place under the leadership of the Saudi kingdom.

Some say that Mohammed Bin Salman (MBS), Crown Prince and strong man of the kingdom, is carrying out a revolution and that if his grandfather and some of his uncles saw it, they would roll over in their graves.

Many of the internal Saudi dynamics that enable this change are tied to a demographic factor that is so noticeable on the streets of Jeddah, Riyadh, and the rest of the Gulf’s capitals: 70% of the population is aged under 30. And for most of them, the 20th-century wars between Israel and the Arabs are as ancient and irrelevant as the wars of the Romans.

The Saudis have removed all antisemitic references from their school curriculum textbooks, and even the Secretary General of the Muslim World League, Mohammed al-Issa made it a point to visit Auschwitz and maintain close relations with rabbis from Israel and from around the world. His critics call him "the Zionist Imam". Last week, he was chosen by the Saudi authorities to deliver the main sermon for the festivity of Eid Al-Adha.

MBS, together with his Abu Dhabi mentor and the new Emirati President, Mohammed Bin Zayed (MBZ), Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, and Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid, are now betting on Biden's help to push the Abraham Accords into a new phase.

The American president is seeking to reach an agreement that will be a win-win for the four countries.

According to this arrangement, Saudi Arabia will grant Israel complete freedom of flights over its airspace for all Israeli and foreign airlines operating out of Israel, effectively shortening all flights from Tel Aviv to many Asian capitals.

On the other hand, Saudi Arabia will receive approval from Israel for the transfer of two strategic Egyptian-controlled islands in the Red Sea, Sanafir and Tiran, off the coast of the Sinai Peninsula, to Saudi hands (Israel’s approval for this is stipulated by the 1979 Egypt – Israel Peace Treaty).

Cairo will be financially rewarded significantly by Riyadh, and this will pump plenty of financial oxygen into the very poor and fragile Egyptian economy.

Finally, the US will achieve an increase in oil production from Saudi Arabia, which is necessary to replace the black gold lost by the West as a result of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Biden, who throughout his political career was one of the champions of the 80-year-old strategic alliance between the United States and Israel, also visited East Jerusalem and Bethlehem, to remind the region that the Palestinian issue remains pending. The Palestinians do not hide their concern that they have been relegated to the sidelines in world politics by the new cold war, the global energy crisis, and the ongoing normalization process between Israel and a growing number of Arab and non-Arab Muslim countries.

It is said that what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas. The events of recent times prove once again that what happens in the Middle East does not stay in the Middle East. And that, although American presidents want to leave the region, the Middle East will pursue them wherever they go.

Henrique Cymerman is a journalist of global renown whose writings regularly appear in media publications in Europe, the USA, Latin America and Israel. He lectures in five languages. Henrique has covered current affairs in the Middle East for over 30 years and has been nominated "Comendador," a title of nobility, by the King of Spain and the President of Portugal. Read full bio here.

Israel is politically gridlocked

By Sharon Roffe Ofir

As all Israelis are painfully aware, the country is quite literally stuck in a traffic jam. But Israel is also stuck in a figurative gridlock. Over the past few years, the lives of Israeli citizens have been disrupted by one man, who is fleeing his trials and is attempting, in every way, to obstruct the state’s systems.

Citizens who are upset about the spending of NIS 2.4 billion on the upcoming November 1 elections should not be deceived into thinking that the opposition is working earnestly for the public good: It is working in the interests of Benjamin Netanyahu, the leader of the opposition.

Let us look, for example, at the Metro Bill. The traffic jams that afflict greater Tel Aviv have become one of Israel’s most acute problems. To address the causes of this chronic congestion, the government decided to turn words into policy, and after years of promises made by its predecessors, launched the largest infrastructure project in the country’s history of Israel, at a cost of NIS 200 billion.

While many European cities have operated metro railways since the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Israel’s metropolises still lack underground mass transit systems. The project is no less than historic.

The planned metro project stretches out across the whole of the Dan Region, from Rehovot in the south to Hod Hasharon in the north, and it is designed to offer a real solution to the chronic problem of traffic, as well as to housing and employment issues. The projected benefits from this national project are estimated to surpass NIS 420 billion, and some NIS 25 billion per year.

The Metro Bill was a flagship initiative for Finance Minister Avigdor Liberman. It successfully passed its first reading in the Knesset and was put up for debate before the Knesset’s Special National Infrastructure Projects Committee.

But then the opposition stepped in. Those who believed there could be no reason to sabotage such an important bill, one that serves the citizens of Israel, irrespective of what side of the political spectrum they are on, were proved to be mistaken. At the National Infrastructure Projects Committee, the opposition caused a gridlock by submitting endless reservations leaving it stuck in committee, waiting for approval.

Liberman, who understood that soon the bill would be lost, together with an investment of billions of shekels, fought to save the bill, turning to every faction, including coalition factions that were showing signs of giving up and pleaded with them to put politics aside.

Trying to pass the bill

After the bill finally made it through the National Infrastructure Committee, Liberman made a desperate attempt to push the bill through second and third readings in the Knesset on the eve of parliament’s dissolution, pleading with opposition factions to put politics aside and telling them that a vote against the bill was a vote against the citizens of Israel.

“This is not about opposition and coalition, or religious or secular, or Left and Right. This is the most important infrastructure project in the history of the State of Israel, and it is being sacrificed on the altar of political interests,” Liberman said.

Even now, as Israel heads to elections, Liberman is asking the Knesset to convene to approve the bill, yet without the opposition’s cooperation, it seems this will not happen.

At first, it seemed as if the opposition, having achieved its goal of toppling the government, had decided to support the bill. But then it changed course again, making new, bizarre demands that had nothing to do with the interests of Israel’s citizens.

Just a few examples to illustrate the point. The opposition said it would consider voting for the Metro Bill if Yamina, headed by former prime minister Naftali Bennett, would revoke Chikli’s rebel status – a move that would have enabled him to run with the Likud party in the next elections.

Or, consider a demand to increase election funding to NIS 1.66 million shekels per MK.

MK Yoav Kisch (Likud) went a step further. He said he would be prepared to pass the Metro bill only if the coalition would be willing to bring forward elections by a week, as this would boost the Likud-led bloc’s chance of winning more votes because yeshiva students will be home on holiday that week.

Could the opposition’s demands be any more effective in highlighting its priorities, which clearly put the national interest second to its political interests?

And now, Israel is, once again, heading to elections for the fifth time in three-and-a-half years, and it’s not only its roads that are at a standstill: Israelis can no longer bear the endless gridlock in the political system. They deserve a sane and functioning country, and leaders who place the public interests before their personal and political interests.

When Israelis ask themselves “Are these elections necessary?” and “What could have been done with the NIS 2.4 billion shekels that they will cost?” they would do well to remember the story of the Metro bill. 

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.

Making Technology Work for Humanitarian Purposes in War

 

By Daphne Richemond Barak & Laurie Blank

Although targeting technology continues to make significant progress, it is important for governments and militaries, including Israel and the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), to consider how technology can assist civilians stuck in battle zones, facilitate communication between adversaries, and rebuild communities post-conflict.

We see already the use of apps, databases, and social media to gather and share evidence of war crimes in Ukraine, providing real-time documentation of atrocities even as the war is still ongoing. These efforts will contribute to bringing justice to the victims in international and domestic courts.

But new and emerging technologies can do so much more. Modern technology can provide a real boost to family reunification through facial recognition software and other biometric tools, enhance identification of areas that require humanitarian relief and reconstruction assistance using satellite imagery, and help ensure that various fighting factions are aware, in real-time, of when and where ceasefires go into effect.

During war, any and all tools to reduce vulnerability are essential. Civilians are vulnerable to attack and starvation, internment, disease, adverse weather, and many other hardships. Combatants captured by the adversary are also vulnerable—to mistreatment, loss of rights and privileges, disappearance, and other harms.

Any tools that can minimize such vulnerabilities must be harnessed, such as the real-time databases and background checks to screen for traffickers taking advantage of displaced persons and refugees launched at the Ukraine-Poland border, or biometric identification of captured soldiers and war dead, through to proper treatment and return of personnel.

And as conflict comes to an end, uncertainty can be a substantial obstacle to progress towards peace. Imagine technological tools that could enable warring parties to verify and trust information about the position of forces, the adherence to ceasefires, or the demobilization of forces, such as blockchain and other means of securing information flows. Mitigating uncertainty can help smooth the path to peace by removing common obstacles and sources of re-escalation.

In recent months, we have worked to bring relevant stakeholders around the table to explore how technology may be channeled for humanitarian purposes as wars wind down. Policymakers, militaries, humanitarian organizations, and technology experts are all essential participants in moving beyond the limited conception of technology as a warfighting tool and beginning to harness new and emerging technologies to ameliorate the consequences of war.

Although such technologies may not appear to fit into traditional military perspectives or mission definitions at first glance, a policy shift would be easier than some may think. Israel serves as a good case study for this potential. The IDF, for example, will have to address the needs and safety of millions of civilians in the event of war breaking out in Gaza or Lebanon, and as such, this discussion is extremely relevant to it.

A number of military technologies, particularly air defense systems like Iron Dome, are already defined as defensive systems that protect and have an ultimately humanitarian mission, as are the red alert (tzeva adom) warning systems designed to notify civilians of impending rocket attacks. Well beyond the narrower mission of targeting and boosting lethality, these existing technologies open the door to inserting other humanitarian applications into the mix.

Until now, the lack of any substantive discussion about the use of technology to enhance the protection of civilian populations caught up in conflicts and facilitate the end of war has been striking. Although the United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross are already using new technological capabilities for several of these purposes, and NATO has held simulations on using artificial intelligence in disasters, the conversation too often focuses on the downside of technology rather than its potential upside.

Ultimately, there are countless ways in which technology can be used to bolster protections for civilians, facilitate the end of conflict, and better inform reunification and reconstruction after the war. The ever-increasing use of technology to cope with humanitarian disasters not linked to war, such as earthquakes, major flooding, and storms, highlights the breadth of this potential.

Breaking the stigma that views technology in war as solely about attacks and lethality can enable international organizations, humanitarians, militaries, tech companies, and scholars to work together to shape this new and promising humanitarian role.

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.

Prof. Laurie Blank is Clinical Professor of Law at Emory Law School. Together they co-founded the End of War Project under the auspices of the International Institute for Counter-Terrorism and Emory’s Center for International and Comparative Law.

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.