Zion's Dilemmas: How Israel Makes National Security Policy

Zion’s

Dilemmas

How Israel Makes National Security Policy

CHARLES D. FREILICH

Cornell University Press

Ithaca and London

To Lior and Tal, in the fervent hope that their children,

or at least grandchildren, may know peace and no longer

have to bear arms in Israel’s defense

Contents

Preface and Acknowledgments

Acronyms

Dramatis Personae

Introduction

PART I. THE SETTING

1.   Constraints and Players: The External Environment, Proportional Representation System, and National Security Establishment

Israel’s National Security Environment

The Proportional Representation System

The National Security Establishment

2.   The Decision-Making Process: How the System Actually Works

Pathology 1: An Unplanned Process

Pathology 2: A Highly Politicized Process

Pathology 3: Semiorganized Anarchy; or, Is Anyone at the Helm?

Pathology 4: An Uninstitutionalized Process

Pathology 5: Primacy of the Defense Establishment

Something Must Be Good: Strengths of the Israeli System

PART II. THE CASE STUDIES

3.   Camp David I: Making Peace with Egypt, 1977–1979

4.   The Makings of a Young Lion: The Lavi Combat Aircraft, 1980–1987

5.   The Invasion of Lebanon, 1982

6.   Leaving Lebanon: The Unilateral Withdrawal, 2000

7.   Camp David II: The Israeli-Palestinian Negotiations, 1999–2000

8.   Disengaging from Gaza, 2005

9.   Back Again: The Second Lebanon War, 2006

PART III. FINAL THOUGHTS

Conclusions and Recommendations

The Case Studies in Comparative Perspective

Key Findings

Past Attempts at Reform

Failings Tolerable No Longer

Future Reforms

Appendix 1: The INSC Law, 2008

Appendix 2: Recommendations of the Winograd Commission and the Shahak Committee

List of Interviews

Notes

Bibliography

Preface and Acknowledgments

Israel’s history, its travails and accomplishments, especially in the area of national security, have been a lifelong passion. Having been born in the United States in the post–World War II era, following the Holocaust, I have always felt extraordinarily privileged to have been able to enjoy the magnificent freedoms and opportunities America affords and for which I bear an unabashed reverence. But for a geographic accident of birth, neither my family nor I might have been alive to share these blessings. After the Jewish people’s two-thousand-year saga of exile, persecution, and achievement, I have always felt especially fortunate to have been born shortly after Israel’s rebirth and that it was important that I make my life in Israel, participate in some small way in its stormy and dramatic history, and enjoy the freedoms and opportunities it, too, affords.

As such, this is a work of love, embedded in a lifelong commitment to Zionism, along with deeply felt frustration over Israel’s shortcomings and failings, which I have long observed as a citizen, soldier, civil servant, and now scholar. This book is not part of the revisionist history popular in recent years among some Israeli scholars, whose often highly biased attempts to redress the biases of some of their predecessors have added little to our objective understanding of the Israeli experience. It is an attempt to describe Israel’s national security decision-making processes as they truly are. I wish that the picture presented could have been far more positive and laudatory. I would have greatly preferred to extol than to criticize, but only a cold, unforgiving, and objective analysis, to the extent that I am capable of it, does justice to the importance of the subject and as such truly serves Israel’s cause.

Perhaps the most frustrating part of my writing experience was to discuss my findings with former colleagues, senior officials, and academic experts and see them shrug their shoulders in a so what else is new? response. Indeed, many of the decision-making pathologies depicted in this book have long been known to those familiar with Israel. What is truly new, in addition to important specific observations and findings, is that the book constitutes the first attempt to set these pathologies out systematically and to submit them to rigorous analysis. To the extent that it contributes to our understanding of the problems and, I hope, to their partial alleviation, it will have more than justified the time and effort invested.

This book would not have been completed without the help of many others. First and foremost, I wish to express my deep thanks and admiration to the indomitable Professor Graham Allison, director of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at the Harvard Kennedy School. In what was the shortest meeting I have ever had prior to being offered a position, Graham immediately understood the importance of this work and undertook to provide the Belfer Center’s outstanding academic auspices as the home base for my work. He is one of the all-time political science greats, and working with him on the book and a variety of other areas has been a true pleasure. His insights have proved invaluable. The Belfer Center, under his direction, is one of the more intellectually stimulating places one could want to be.

Similarly, I thank Professor Steven Miller, director of the International Studies Program (ISP) at the Belfer Center, for being my direct host, for his warmth and support throughout, and for the numerous fascinating conversations we have had on a variety of issues. I have benefited greatly from Steve’s encyclopedic knowledge and penetrating analyses.

My warm appreciation to Professors Robert Jervis and Richard Pious for nurturing a much earlier version of this work through a lengthy gestation period at Columbia University. I am indebted to Professor Jervis for opening up the world of decision-making theory to me, including his own outstanding works, and for facilitating this project in its final book form. Professor Pious’s rapier Socratic teaching methods provided for the most challenging class of my life, not a few missed heart beats, and an unparalleled learning experience.

I am particularly indebted to Professor Robert Art of Brandeis University, who reviewed this book on behalf of the Cornell Security Studies series, for his truly extraordinary assistance. Bob is an author’s dream. Not only does he immediately spot a manuscript’s strengths and weaknesses, but also, and more important, he suggests how to build on the former and redress the latter. His comments were invaluable in strengthening the overall argument. I could have asked for no more. My thanks also to Roger Haydon, executive editor at Cornell University Press, for bringing this work to fruition, and to the copy editor, Julie Palmer-Hoffman.

Thanks also to Joshua Hantman, a former student at Harvard, for his critique of an early draft, and to Susan Lynch, ISP’s miraculous administrator, who manages to create order and coherence in what would otherwise be chaos. Finally, let me note that an earlier version of Chapters 1 and 2 appeared in my 2006 article National Security Decision Making in Israel: Processes, Strengths and Pathologies, Middle East Journal, October 2006, pages 635–663.

All of these special people share greatly in whatever merit this work may bear. I alone am responsible for its shortcomings.

I am deeply indebted to various people and foundations whose support enabled me to write this book. First of all, to Bette and Gene Kassanof. I have known Bette, with whom I share a birthday, since childhood, and the Kassanofs’ support is very deeply appreciated.

My special appreciation to Lynne Schusterman and the dedicated staff of the Schusterman Foundation, Sandy Cardin and Lisa Eisen, as well as Dr. Mitchell Bard of their partner organization, the America Israel Cooperative Enterprise. Without their friendship and support, this project would not have been possible.

My thanks also to William Lee Frost, president of the Littauer Foundation, for its support, and to Haim and Edna Weizman, who started out as benefactors and in the process became friends. Many thanks also to Professor Shinasi Rama of NYU, whose friendship has proven invaluable. Much belated thanks to the Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture and to the National Foundation for Jewish culture, which provided generous support for my doctoral dissertation on this same subject.

I have a lifelong debt of gratitude to Bruce Heiman, who has truly been a best friend, always there when needed, always the best guy around to talk to. My deepest thanks go to my parents, Anne and Ted Freilich, for whom education has always been a supreme value, as they have proved four times over, and, in that regard, to my three extraordinarily accomplished siblings, Shani, Dani, and Yael, for their love and for being there. Finally, to my children, Lior and Tal, who give new meaning to the words parental love and in whose lives and accomplishments I rejoice.

Acronyms

Dramatis Personae

(Primary Positions Held)

Introduction

A country that sees itself living on the lip of a volcano, or inside the eerie halls of Yad Vashem,* does not plan for the future and does not think about bold initiatives. It only holds on for dear life.

—Tom Friedman, former New York Times Israel correspondent

Ever since Israel’s establishment it has confronted an external environment characterized by nearly overwhelming and unremitting hostility, punctuated in recent decades by periods of opportunity and hope. Repeated wars, perpetual hostilities at lower levels, the failed peace processes with the Palestinians and Syria, even the cold peace with Egypt and Jordan, have all reinforced a sense of siege. Indeed, Israel’s national security situation, according to former Premier Yitzhak Rabin, is one of dormant warfare, which erupts into active conflict every few years.¹ As a result, national security has been at the forefront of Israeli political life for over six decades.

Israel has responded to these circumstances by building a disproportionate defense capability designed to forestall the threats to its security and by developing a hunkering down national security decision-making style. Indeed, by the 1980s Israel’s national security establishment had not only earned a reputation for quality but had become one of the world’s largest in absolute terms. Ever since, it has continued to grow substantially, in size, sophistication, and organizational complexity.

At the cabinet level, however, Israel has not developed a sophisticated decision-making process (DMP) commensurate with the vital importance of national security issues for the nation and with the quality and size of the policy instruments it has developed. The process certainly served Israel well in the early decades, when its national achievements were remarkable, in both the domestic and national security areas, but today it is fundamentally flawed and has a highly deleterious influence on Israel’s conduct of policy and ability to achieve its objectives.

Indeed, it has become apparent in recent decades, to both practitioners and informed observers alike, that Israel’s DMP is increasingly inadequate to the demands placed on it by the nation’s extraordinarily difficult external circumstances. Consequently, we see a growing discrepancy between Israel’s policy objectives, the resources it has devoted to national security, and the outcomes actually achieved. Although Israel has had numerous operational successes during these decades, some of them dramatic, it has not unequivocally won a major military confrontation since 1967 and has failed to achieve its objectives in most of the major diplomatic efforts it has undertaken as well—in some cases losing control over the process. These failures are particularly troubling because in many cases the initiative was largely in Israel’s hands, and its ability to shape the course of events should have been far greater. If Israel has experienced an ongoing crisis of domestic governability, many believe that the costs associated with its national security failures have become untenable.

The literature on government and politics in Israel is extensive, though skewed in nature. Almost all studies have taken a historical approach, with virtually every incident and major event in Israeli history chronicled extensively. A fair amount of attention has also been given to the formal institutions of Israeli governance, to Israel’s politics and its defense policy. Very little attention has been devoted, however, to the actual processes of Israeli national security decision making.

Brownstein’s (1977) unfortunately brief article is an early exception to this rule. Brecher’s works (1973 and 1977) were the first to deal with decision making in Israel in depth but did not provide an overall conceptual framework for understanding the process and are now dated. Ben-Meir’s monograph on national security decision making (1986) was a major step forward and set out many of the issues of importance. His later work on civil-military relations (1995) is the seminal treatment of this dimension of Israeli decision making. Dror’s works in 1989 and 1992 were breakthroughs in the more general study of Israeli decision making. All of Dror’s work, including his most recent (2011), adds invaluable insights to the field. Other works of note include Peri (2006) and Maoz (2006), though both authors unfortunately allow personal biases to taint what are otherwise important contributions. This list, notably brief, covers the relevant works on the issue.

The present work seeks, for the first time, to present an overall characterization and model of national security decision-making processes in Israel. This model is structured around three primary causal factors, or in de pendent variables, which result in five major decision-making pathologies, the dependent variables.

The first of these independent variables, described in detail in Chapter 1, is the uniquely harsh and dangerous external environment that Israel faces. Characterized by extraordinarily rapid and sweeping change and only limited malleability, this highly compelling external environment greatly shapes and circumscribes Israel’s national security choices.

Second is Israel’s proportional representation system, which causes deep political fragmentation and a resulting need to govern through coalition governments. This has clear consequences for the roles of the premier, cabinet, and subcabinet forums and for governability generally.

Third, the decision-making capabilities and political and bureaucratic stature of the primary civilian national security organs (i.e., the ministries of foreign affairs and defense and the National Security Council) remain weak. This is particularly the case in comparison with the highly developed capabilities and stature of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and intelligence services.

The resulting five pathologies, presented in Chapter 2, form the dependent variables of the conceptual framework. The first of these is an unplanned process. Israel’s national security DMP is marked by an overwhelming preoccupation with the present and immediate future, rather than the medium and long terms. Consequently, it is largely reactive in nature, though this study will argue that it has become more proactive in recent decades, and is characterized to an inordinate degree by an absence of sufficient forethought and policy planning. Its consequences include a failure to formulate clear policy objectives, priorities, and options; continual improvisation and crisis management; and sequential decision making.

Second, the DMP at the cabinet level is highly politicized. The need to maintain the coalition means that political considerations often reign supreme, with a focus on politics making, not policymaking. The basis for decisions is commonly what will fly, that is, the minimum common denominator necessary for a cabinet majority, rather than what is truly needed. In these circumstances, the cabinet and Ministerial Committee on Defense (MCoD) are the foci of strident partisan debate, not serious policy deliberation; options are foreclosed or channeled in certain directions; and procrastination and even paralysis often result. To prevent issues from becoming politicized and thereby restricting their freedom of maneuver, premiers and ministers come to prefer ambiguity and refrain from clearly defining policy objectives and options. Public opinion has a major impact on the process.

Third, Israel’s government is characterized by a degree of semiorganized anarchy. The premier has few formal prerogatives; his ability to govern is almost entirely dependent on his political skills and de facto power at any given moment. A powerful leader when in firm control of his party and coalition, the premier is often at their mercy, forced into endless political give and take. The cabinet has become dysfunctional due to its unmanageable size, politicized character, and dependence on policy advocates for information, options, and recommendations—a problem only partially alleviated by the establishment of the Israel National Security Council (INSC). Designed to deal with important national security issues discreetly and expeditiously, the MCoD suffers from most of the same problems as the cabinet plenum, and consequently most decision making is done in small, informal groups, leaving Israel without an effective statutory forum for policy formulation. In many areas, even the most important, there simply is no coherent policy, and the national security establishment has to guesstimate government policy. In a dysfunctional and politicized cabinet, leaks are rampant.

Fourth, although Israel is no longer a young state and the DMP has become increasingly institutionalized, it remains unusual for its informal character. Rather than rely on a formal policy-planning process, the DMP is highly idiosyncratic, with leaders’ beliefs and preferences bearing an inordinate impact on the decisions made. This tendency is further reinforced by a limited culture of consultation and the inadequacy of institutional checks and balances. The process tends to be fluid, often changes from case to case, and is based to an unusual extent on personal ties and oral communications. Coordination and integration between the different ministries and agencies are insufficient, and there is often a disconnect between policy inputs and outputs (i.e., the information and assessments provided and the decisions made), including the allocation of resources.

Finally, the defense establishment, first and foremost the IDF, and defense considerations have an unusual degree of influence on the process, far beyond that typical of other Western democracies. The IDF has by far the most highly developed policymaking capabilities in Israel, at all stages: situational assessment, policy planning, and implementation. As such, it is the primary bureaucratic player, framing issues and presenting objectives, priorities, options, and recommendations. The IDF does not always prevail, indeed numerous major decisions have been made over its objections or even without its knowledge, but it is the single most powerful bureaucratic player. In fact, it is not the primacy of the IDF and defense establishment that is the problem—their capabilities are a national asset—but the weakness of the civilian national security agencies.

In analyzing the Israeli DMP this book focuses primarily on the prime-ministerial and cabinet levels and on their interaction with the organs of the national security establishment, though some mention is made of the latter’s internal processes. Seven in-depth case studies are presented to substantiate the posited causal relationship between the independent variables and consequent pathologies, and numerous other cases are mentioned briefly to illustrate specific points. The seven cases are diverse and include three dealing with Lebanon (the invasion in 1982, unilateral withdrawal in 2000, and war in 2006), the peace processes with Egypt in 1977–1978 and with the Palestinians in 2000, the unilateral withdrawal from Gaza in 2005, and the development of the Lavi fighter aircraft in the 1980s.

These cases were chosen for several reasons. First, they cover many of the most momentous decisions Israel has faced in recent decades. With one exception, the Lavi, all dealt with historic issues of war and peacemaking, critical high-risk decisions involving fundamental political, ideological, and strategic considerations.

Second, although Israel was reacting to strong environmental pressures in all seven cases, those pressures were not so extreme as to compel decision makers to respond in a particular manner, and they consequently enjoyed the freedom to choose from a number of options. The Yom Kippur War, for example, a surprise attack, is not included.

To provide a current picture of Israeli decision making, relevant for policymaking purposes, all of the cases date from the Yom Kippur War, which marked a turning point in the size and sophistication of the national security establishment. Four cases are from the 2000s, only three earlier. Many of the secondary cases cited are far more recent.

The cases occurred under a variety of coalitions, Likud, Labor, and Kadima. In this manner, potential differences stemming from the character of a given coalition or party were at least partly neutralized, and a broader picture of the Israeli DMP emerges.

The case of the Lavi fighter was chosen precisely because it appeared, a priori, to be so different from the others, a case of cold calculation of financial, technological, and strategic factors, not highly charged ideological and political ones. If the pathologies found in the more charged cases also manifested themselves in the Lavi, this would add further credence to the findings. Similarly, issues such as Israel’s settlement policy and the future of Jerusalem, which are so ideologically and politically driven as to make them aberrations in terms of overall Israeli decision making, were excluded, to demonstrate that the posited pathologies are not manifested just in extreme cases.

All but one of the case studies involved deeply flawed DMPs. The sole exception, the negotiations with the Palestinians at Camp David, entailed a comparatively good process but resulted in a failed outcome. Conversely, the peace talks with Egypt, a case of a successful outcome, had a deeply flawed process. The other five cases had both flawed processes and failed outcomes. The focus on unsuccessful cases risks introducing a methodological bias, and an attempt was thus made, with little success, to identify major cases characterized both by effective DMPs and by successful outcomes. The difficulty encountered in identifying such cases is itself an indication of the problems Israel faces, but should also be a focus of future research. It is important to note that the terms successful or failed do not reflect a subjective or normative judgment. Both terms, as herein used, refer solely to the degree to which Israel’s policy objectives, as formulated by the decision makers themselves, were actually met in practice.

The case studies are intended not to be definitive histories but to illustrate how and to what extent the posited causal relationships were manifested. All of the cases have been chronicled extensively, but there is little doubt that when the archives are eventually opened, some of the details and contentions presented herein will prove to have been in error, while others will be substantiated. As long as the overall picture presented is accurate, this is sufficient for the purposes of the book.

No claim is made that the pathologies studied are unique to Israel. Indeed, it is assumed that observers of other governmental systems will find many, if not all, to be familiar. What is assumed to be unique are three factors: the fundamental nature or at least severity of the three in de pen dent variables noted above, the consequent intensity with which at least some of the pathologies are manifested, and given the threats Israel faces, the price it risks for its policy failures. The book’s three parts are designed to substantiate this claim.

Part I provides an overview of the basic determinants of Israel’s national security decision making, including its uniquely harsh external environment, the nature of its single-constituency PR system, and the formal structure and functions of the national security establishment, with its unusual influence on the national DMP. This section concludes with a broad characterization of how the process actually works in practice, the heart of the book. Part II presents the seven case studies and assesses the intensity with which the posited pathologies manifested in each. Part III presents a comparative summary of the findings in the case studies and past attempts to reform the process, with particular emphasis on the INSC. It argues that Israel can no longer afford its decision-making ills and concludes with a discussion of further reforms needed on both the institutional and electoral levels.

Given the focus on the Israeli DMP as it is today, the sources used come overwhelmingly from the 1990s and 2000s. While substantiated claims can thus not be made regarding the DMP during earlier decades, an overall familiarity with Israel suggests that a rigorous analysis would yield a similar picture. Furthermore, it appears that the processes depicted are typical of decision making in domestic affairs as well; if anything, the pathologies in this area are even more pronounced.

A word regarding some of the terms used throughout the book:

• Incremental decision making refers to cases where leaders formulate an overall strategy from the beginning, with a defined end-state, but pursue it in increments. That is, they seek to achieve their goals through a step-by-step process, assessing their progress at each stage and deciding whether they can continue their pursuit of the predefined end-state.

• Sequential decision making, conversely, refers to situations in which the overall strategy and desired end-state have not been fully elucidated in advance. In this case, decision makers identify separate goals for each stage, or sequence, but not an overall strategy; they assess their progress toward achieving these goals; and then they decide on objectives and options for the next sequence.

• National security policy refers to foreign and defense affairs, as well as to those aspects of socioeconomic policy of relevance to national power.

• Reference is made at different times to Israel’s defense or national security establishment. The former refers to the IDF, Ministry of Defense, and intelligence services. The latter is broader and includes the Foreign Ministry, National Security Council, and military industries as well.

Ideal academic models notwithstanding, in the real world there is no such thing as a correct process. No process ensures success, each must be suited to the demands and exigencies of the specific country, and reforms typically breed new pathologies. Indeed, flawed processes can at times result in positive outcomes, while good processes do not ensure success. Nevertheless, both the academic literature and the experience of nations around the word indicate that better processes will at least diminish the likelihood of failure. It is the conviction that this is the case, and not a view of decision-making reform as a panacea, that animates this work. The importance of the challenges Israel faces requires no less.

* Yad Vashem is Israel’s national Holocaust memorial.

I. THE SETTING

By wise counsel thou shalt make war and in a multitude of councilors there is victory.

—Proverbs 24:6

CHAPTER ONE

Constraints and Players

The External Environment, Proportional Representation System, and National Security Establishment

The messiah arrived, gathered in Israel’s exiles, triumphed over all the peoples around, conquered the Land of Israel…and then had to take a seat in a coalition.

—An intimate of Ben-Gurion on the reasons for his resignation from the premiership

Israel is a nation without a memory. Memory, for most of us, is a luxury of societies that have the time to study their past, because their present is not pressing and their future is assured. Our history is written in the weekend newspaper magazines and goes to sleep with the fishes on Sunday morning.

—Raviv Drucker and Ofer Shelah, Israeli journalists

Everything in Israel is political.

—Minister Silvan Shalom

National security decision making in Israel takes place within the context of a uniquely harsh external environment, a proportional representation (PR) electoral system in which the entire country comprises one national constituency, and the structure of the national security establishment. These three factors, the in de pen dent variables presented in the Introduction, are set out in detail in the following.

This chapter is divided into three sections to more fully explore each of these variables. The first presents the basic characteristics of Israel’s external environment, including extreme danger, the extraordinary rate and breadth of change, and an unusual degree of complexity and uncertainty. The second section discusses the primary characteristics of the PR system, including a fractious Knesset and cabinet, coalition-cabinet governance, and chronic instability. The final section sets out the formal structure of the organs involved in national security affairs. Together, the three parts serve as the basis for the overall characterization of the Israeli DMP developed in Chapter 2.

Israel’s National Security Environment

EXISTENTIAL DECISION MAKING

From the pre-state days to the present, Israel’s national security policy has been predicated on the assumption that the nation faces a realistic threat of both politicide (destruction of a state) and even genocide. Six wars, numerous major confrontations, and ongoing violence, from low-level terrorism to massive rocket attacks, have been basic features of Israel’s external environment. A sense of nearly unremitting Arab enmity prevails, of a conflict of unlimited hostility and objectives. With multiple threats at any one time, the external environment is one of perpetual tension, punctuated by brief outbreaks of hostilities and a need for constant vigilance. Each war, and in the past every battle, was viewed as one of survival: Israel had to be prepared to fight and to win every time.¹

The dangers posed to Israel’s national security have few analogues in either magnitude or persistence.² Few states have faced, as Israel has, repeated wars and ongoing lower-level hostilities for decades. Although many states have faced threats of politicide, few, if any, have perceived a concrete threat of genocide. A nuclear holocaust could have erupted during the Cold War, but this was never intended and the actors avidly sought to avert it.

In these circumstances, national security issues in Israel are commonly addressed in existential terms. Defense Minister Dayan’s infamous warning, during the bleak early days of the Yom Kippur War, regarding the possible end of the Third Temple is the most extreme expression of this deep-seated fear, but it has been manifested often, even when the dangers were far more limited, such as in the two Gulf wars. During the 2006 Lebanon War, Mossad Director Dagan went so far as to say that if we do not win this war, the hourglass of our existence will start running (out).³ Iran is widely thought to pose an existential threat, and other players, such as Syria, Hezbollah, and Hamas, are also assumed to seek Israel’s destruction, capability permitting. Experience has further demonstrated that national security decisions contain the potential to fundamentally transform the nation’s course, even when they do not threaten its destruction, as happened following the Six-Day War and the Oslo Agreement. Decision making in Israel is thus uniquely critical and fateful.

In recent decades the threat of all-out conventional warfare has receded and Israel’s overall strategic posture has improved greatly, although Iran and others potentially in pursuit of nuclear weaponry do represent a severe threat. This improvement notwithstanding, a Masada Complex, or Holocaust Syndrome, continue to color the perceptions of both leaders and the publicalike. Public statements, even by younger, native-born leaders, such as Premier Netanyahu, are replete with references to the Holocaust. Both Holocaust Remembrance Day and the Memorial Day commemorations for fallen soldiers, observed one week apart, are poignant annual reminders of the dangers the nation continues to face. Countless offices are decorated with a famous picture of Israeli F-15s flying over Auschwitz. Each year, on Passover, virtually all of Israel’s Jewish population recites the warning that in every generation they have risen up against us to annihilate us. A centuries-old ritual this may be, but for much of Israel it strongly resonates with modern-day realities.

Israel does not have a formal national security doctrine, but most decision makers share a fairly coherent, if informal, Operational Code,⁴ a series of basic strategic axioms and perceptional prisms. Central to this is the shared perception of fundamental Arab hostility, Israel’s isolation, the Middle East’s almost inherent volatility and uncertainty, the need for military activism in self-defense, and Israel’s only limited capacity to materially affect its external environment.

Arab and other foreign observers often fail to comprehend Israel’s national psyche, how a regional power with advanced conventional military capabilities, thought by many to be a nuclear state, can harbor such deep fears. Nevertheless, Israeli national security policy and decision making cannot be understood without comprehending this primal fear. Six decades after independence, Israel remains very much what the Bible refers to as a nation dwelling alone, a latter-day heir to the scourges of Jewish history, destined to face new predators.

EXTREME UNCERTAINTY

Israel’s national security environment is extraordinarily volatile, extreme in the breadth and frequency of change and in its level of uncertainty. Time and again, Israel has been forced to adapt to unexpected, sweeping changes in its external environment, requiring that it rethink basic concepts and gear up for new missions. It can be said, with only some hyperbole, that crises are the expected situation in Israel.⁵

The IDF responded to the Yom Kippur War fiasco, and huge Arab military buildup that followed, by transforming its capabilities. The postwar focus on revitalized military strength, however, was soon followed by the need for a historic change in outlook, with the 1977 Sadat initiative, and by 1982 the IDF had fully withdrawn from Sinai. In 1981 Israel was forced to confront an unprecedented strategic threat, in the form of Iraq’s nuclear program, culminating in its attack on the Osirak reactor. The 1982 invasion of Lebanon led to the rise of Hezbollah and to a new and far more capable kind of guerilla warfare, which has continued intermittently to this day. In 1987 Israel again had to gear up for a new type of warfare, in the form of a violent civil uprising, the First Intifada. The Gulf War in 1991 posed unpre ce dented challenges, in terms of both the magnitude of the threat and Israel’s potential responses, but was soon followed by the Madrid Conference, peace with Jordan, and negotiations with the Palestinians and Syrians. The Oslo Agreement transformed Israeli-Palestinian relations.

The negotiations with Syria in the 1990s forced Israel to confront the ramifications of a withdrawal from the Golan Heights, though its rejection of Israel’s historic proposal at the Geneva Summit in 2000 forestalled this. The negotiations with the Palestinians reached a peak at the 2000 Camp David Summit and ensuing Clinton Param e ters, at which time Israel made dramatic concessions, including indicating its willingness to withdraw from most of the West Bank; what followed instead was the Second Intifada and unpre ce dented terrorism. In April 2000 Israel withdrew from Lebanon unilaterally, a concept that had previously been strategic anathema, and the second Gulf War again posed significant strategic quandaries for Israel. Sharon’s belief that Israel did not have a Palestinian partner for peace led to a second unilateral withdrawal, from Gaza, in 2005. Olmert then declared his intention to withdraw unilaterally from most of the West Bank, a dramatic proposal derailed by events in Gaza and Lebanon in 2006. The Ira ni an nuclear program evolved during this period and came to be seen as the primary threat to Israel’s security. In 2007 Israel reportedly destroyed a Syrian nuclear reactor, a newly disclosed part of a far more advanced Syrian nuclear program than had previously been known. In 2011 the Arab Spring overturned a decades-long regional order and led to fears regarding the future of the peace agreements with Egypt and Jordan.

A further manifestation of the problem of uncertainty is the extreme dif-ficulty Israel faces in predicting the causal link between policy options and the actual outcomes achieved. For example, few observers would have predicted that Arafat would reject Barak’s far-reaching proposals at Camp David and the Clinton Parameters, that Assad would reject the similarly dramatic proposal at the Geneva summit, or that Israel would face such difficulty in turning its military victories into diplomatic achievements.

A COMPLEX ENVIRONMENT WORTHY OF A MAJOR POWER

A smallnation, a virtual city-state by international standards, Israel faces numerous and complex national security environments: diplomatic, military, economic, and technological. Although true to varying extents of all states, Israel is affected by changes in a far broader external environment than most and to a far greater degree. Indeed, by the 1990s, Israel’s national security environment had