The PIJ – Israel conflict places Hamas in a trap

BY Grisha Yakubovich

The latest round of conflict between Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Israel has produced a key conclusion: Hamas is the only ‘resistance’ element in the Palestinian arena that can impose an equation of its making on Israel.

Palestinian Islamic Jihad has been seeking to copy Hamas: It tried to mimic Hamas’s strategy of linking the West Bank to the Gazan arena and responding to events in the former by threatening and activating force from the latter.

PIJ has failed in this task. On the one hand, this failure strengthens Hamas, because it provides proof that the ruling faction in Gaza and it alone has the ability to challenge Israel through its terrorist army in the Strip.

There is, however, a flip side to this coin. Hamas is under pressure to join the fighting and prove its credentials as a ‘resistance’ movement. Hamas is in a bind.

Operationally, there is no doubt that the Israeli action against PIJ in Gaza has been beneficial for Hamas. Israel has been targeting PIJ, a competitor to Hamas that is seeking to position itself as the ‘resistance’ entity and steal some of Hamas’s prestige.

PIJ has been able to take a lead position in the northern West Bank, particularly in Jenin, and it is seeking to bolster its position in Gaza too. This troubles Hamas.

Hamas, though it will never admit it publicly, could not ask for a better result than the battering PIJ has received from Israel. The end result, Hamas can hope, will be a message to the Palestinian arena: All smaller armed groups should follow its lead. If they try to wage war on Israel by themselves they are doomed to failure.

This strengthens Hamas significantly. But PIJ has been trying to obtain a different result by prolonging the conflict (although at the time of writing reports of ceasefire negotiations are surfacing) in the hope that Hamas will be entrapped into joining the hostilities.

Israel has understood this sensitive situation very well, and this understanding has been reflected in its precise, cautious targeting of PIJ targets in the Gaza Strip.

It wouldn’t have taken much for Hamas’s calculation to change, and to alter its position to remain out of the fighting.

Still, Hamas is keenly aware that such a result runs contrary to its core interests. At its core, Hamas represents an ideological concept based on the idea of rejecting diplomacy with Israel, rejecting the path of the Palestinian Authority, and continuing with armed conflict.

Both Hamas and PIJ represent the thinking of Palestinian Muslims who reject the path chosen by their secular brethren, who have opted for understanding that they have to live with Israel.

Now, with PIJ weakened by Israel, Hamas can not only rest assured that it has an exclusive lead position in Gaza, it can also begin to fill a void in the northern West Bank, where Israel has arrested large numbers of PIJ operatives.

All of this can significantly help Hamas position itself in the race for the Palestinian leadership when the 87-year-old Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas finally steps down. Hamas becomes the most relevant movement, outshining Fatah, and certainly outshining PIJ, as the only one that can force Israel to change its policies towards Gaza.

Still, these interests do not guarantee that Hamas would not get involved, if not in this round of fighting, then potentially in a future one under similar circumstances. If Hamas did feel compelled to act, it can be expected to do so with massive action, in a surprising manner, hitting Israel as hard as it can with rockets, armed drones, sea attacks, and cyber-attacks.

If that does not happen, however, in the near term future, then PIJ will be on record as failing to replicate Hamas’s impressive achievements at the cognitive-national level. 

The May 2021 conflict that Hamas fought with Israel stands as proof, as far as Hamas is concerned, that it is on the right path, leading as it did to increasing international and Israeli investment in Gaza’s economy, and a boost to Hamas’s status as ‘guardian of Jerusalem,’ the banner under which it sparked that confrontation last year.

PIJ’s pale imitation of this achievement saw the group fire rockets at Jerusalem on Sunday, at a time when Jews mounted the Temple Mount in the Old City to mark the holy Jewish day of Tisha B’Av. But unlike Hamas, that attack, like the remainder of PIJ’s attacks, are a shadow of Hamas’s capabilities.

Ultimately, PIJ’s attempt to be ‘the next Hamas’ failed, and the results of that failure will continue to be felt by Hamas, the PA, and Israel long after the next truce comes into effect.

At the same time, reality on the ground has demonstrated more than once that failure can form the basis for future success. Time will reveal if this will be the case.

Colonel Grisha Yakubovich serves as a policy and strategy consultant to various international NGO's. He concluded his military service in 2016 as the head of the civil department for the Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories (C.O.G.A.T.). Read full bio here.

Russia-Ukraine war: A driver for Israeli defense exports to Europe?

 

By YAIR RAMATI & Yaakov Lappin

As European states reassess their security situation amid the fallout of Russia’s war against Ukraine, signs are growing that acquisitions of Israeli defense products by European clients – and not only European clients – could substantially increase.

In 2021, according to Defense Ministry figures, Europe was the highest importer of Israeli defense technology. Overall exports hit a new record of $11.3 billion that year, with Europe accounting for 41% of that figure.

However, for this to increase further, European defense budgets will need to rise too, and the extent to which this will happen depends greatly on whether European states develop comprehensive defense strategies.

Such strategies go much further than decisions on defense budget increases.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz was one of the biggest opponents of former US President Donald Trump’s insistence that NATO states allocate 2% of their GDP to defense. Now, Scholz how pledged to create a 100 billion Euro defense fund, and exceed the 2% threshold. But will this commitment last into the long-term? It is too soon to answer that question and meanwhile, the annual defense budget that Scholz is proposing is based on a gradual increase, not an immediate jump.

The second key question pertaining to Israeli defense exports to Europe relates to Israeli portfolio adaptability. Are the lessons now emerging from the Russian – Ukraine war relevant to Israeli defense company specialty areas, in a manner that favors distinct products from Israel?

The answer to this is more complex than meets the eye. The United States, for example, can easily supply Ukraine with anti-tank Javelin missiles, or Stinger man-portable air defense systems, by taking them out of US Military storage sites, or from storage facilities allocated for allies. Israel is not in the same situation.

While Rafael has been able to mass produce spike missiles for European clients (Euro Spike), Israeli UAV makers must produce systems from scratch, as is the case with most Israeli defense exports.

The repertoire of Israeli defense companies is generally strongest when it comes to suites for intelligence, reconnaissance, and surveillance requirements, but not the platforms themselves.

Intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance elements such as radars, on the other hand, are easier for Israeli companies to supply in significant numbers.

Additionally, some of the battlefield lessons emerging from Ukraine have changed since Russia launched its offensive in February. At the start of the war, songs of praise were written for Turkey’s Bayraktar TB-2 armed UAVs from the medium altitude long endurance category. Yet limited release of video footage of Bayraktar strikes is testimony of the limited and sporadic use made of this system (unlike the Azeri use of the Bayraktar against Armenian forces in the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh war).

In the skies, Russia effectively controls the medium to high altitudes, while neutralizing the armed UAVs. It is reasonable to assume that Israeli-made lightweight UAVs or loitering munitions will perform in this environment.

Both Russia and Ukraine have abandoned the low-altitude arena. For Russia, this means precision strike and ground support fire capabilities were largely lost, and Russia reverted to artillery strikes and high-altitude air strikes, conducted by powerful assault helicopters and fighter jets.

These trends reveal three things to Israel’s defense industry. The first is the growing need for standoff weapons, enabling warfighters to avoid getting too close to the ranges of enemy firepower.

Additionally, there is a growing need for advanced soft and hard kill active defense suites for various platforms such as tanks, helicopters, etc.  

Thirdly, air defense requirements are diverse. The Ukrainians are armed with a multitude of shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles, and not all warfighters are covered under medium-long range air defense umbrella.

Thus, it is unsurprising that Germany and others are showing interest in Israeli missile defense systems, like the Arrow program, and airborne balloon-carrying radar systems, which can detect cruise missiles and UAVs better than ground-based radars.

Meanwhile, the role of precision surface-to-surface rockets is increasing in the war, as the US and UK supply the Ukrainians with such systems, for example, GMLRS. Even though their numbers are small so far, their influence is highly significant.

In the cyber sphere, Russia failed to achieve its objectives, causing limited damage to Ukraine. Still, Ukraine’s communications networks, water, and electricity, transportation, keep working – and this underlines the central importance of cyber defense systems.

Electronic warfare is undoubtedly growing more influential as the war progresses.

These are the essential lessons that Israel’s defense industry can take away thus far from the war raging in Europe.

Yair Ramati concluded his four-year service as Director of IMDO, the government agency charged with the development, production, and the delivery of missile defense systems including: Iron Dome, David's Sling and the Arrow weapons system, to the State of Israel. Mr. Ramati received his Bachelor's degree in Aeronautical Engineering. He earned a Master's Degree in Science and Engineering from the Technion, Israel. Read full bio here.

Yaakov Lappin provides insight and analysis for a number of media outlets, including JNS.org and a leading global military affairs magazine Jane's Defense Weekly. He is the author of Virtual Caliphate -
Exposing the Islamist state on the Internet. Read full bio here.

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.