Israels New Strategic Dilemmas

Israel's New Strategic Dilemmas: Survival or Revival? details the strategic problems facing Israel today as a result of the asymmetrical terrorist wars imposed on it. With the motive of delegitimizing Israel, and forcing it to react against civilian terrorists who dwell amidst other civilian populations and who do not have any legal or international standing, these wars create an untenable situation of retaliation and casualties. Unless Israel succeeds in making the necessary reforms in the strategic areas of security and domestic affairs, its chances for survival are dwindling. An important and fascinating reading experience, Israel's New Strategic Dilemmas: Survival or Revival? will shift your perspective on a highly contentious and complex topic. About the Author: Raphael Israeli grew up in Morocco and Israel, and currently resides in Jerusalem, where he is a University Professor. He was motivated to write Israel's New Strategic Dilemmas: Survival or Revival? by the exposure and criticism of Israel in the world media due to its counterattacks against terrorism in the second Lebanese War (2006) and the Gaza War (2008-9.) He is working on his next book about the death camps in Bosnia and Croatia during WW II, and the alliance between the Nazis and their Muslim collaborators. Publisher's website: http: //www.SBPRA.com/RaphaelIsraeli

In Zion's Dilemmas, a former deputy national security adviser to the State of Israel details the history and, in many cases, the chronic inadequacies in the making of Israeli national security policy. Chuck Freilich identifies profound, ongoing problems that he ascribes to a series of factors: a hostile and highly volatile regional environment, Israel's proportional representation electoral system, and structural peculiarities of the Israeli government and bureaucracy.Freilich uses his insider understanding and substantial archival and interview research to describe how Israel has made strategic decisions and to present a first of its kind model of national security decision-making in Israel. He analyzes the major events of the last thirty years, from Camp David I to the 1982 invasion of Lebanon, through Camp David II, the Gaza Disengagement Plan of 2005, and the second Lebanon war of 2006.In these and other cases he identifies opportunities forgone, failures that resulted from a flawed decision-making process, and the entanglement of Israeli leaders in an inconsistent, highly politicized, and sometimes improvisational planning process. The cabinet is dysfunctional and Israel does not have an effective statutory forum for its decision-making—most of which is thus conducted in informal settings. In many cases policy objectives and options are poorly formulated. For all these problems, however, the Israeli decision-making process does have some strengths, among them the ability to make rapid and flexible responses, generally pragmatic decision-making, effective planning within the defense establishment, and the skills and motivation of those involved. Freilich concludes with cogent and timely recommendations for reform.

"The war in Lebanon has been a moment of truth for the Israeli nation", Avner Yaniv writes. "It has led to tormenting soul searching, deep doubts, and for many Israelis even guilt." In Delemmas of Security, Yaniv provides the most comprehensive study to date of the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon and its painful aftermath. It looks at what factors were involved in Israeli decision-making, shows who the actors were, and demonstrates how a hard "realpolitik" mentality shaped Israeli thinking. Drawing on extensive research and his own first-hand knowledge of how the Israeli government and military operate, Yaniv confronts the difficult questions that the Lebanese conflict and occupation have thrown into sharp relief. Why has Israel so often resorted to force to solve its problems? Is Israel still locked into the blunt mindset of its founding generation? Or is it merely reacting to a relentless, organized Arab drive to erase it from the map of the Middle East? Is Israeli behavior still largely shaped by a small group of decision-makers who are themselves conditioned by the memory of past Jewish traumas? Or is it more accurate to ascribe Israeli conduct to the response of decision-makers to a turbulent domestic environment? Or, finally, are not Israeli leaders reacting to a fundamental strategic dilemma that has haunted the state since its inception? Yaniv's search for answers is both broad and penetrating. After examining the fundamental sources of Israeli conduct, he moves into a detailed account of the Israeli encounter with Lebanon, tracing its origins and development from World War I to 1981. Then, in a detailed investigation of the war, he focuses on the agonizing interaction of strategic considerations with the complexities of the Israeli political system, showing how the turbulence of domestic politics affected critical decisions in a tragic way. He closes with a detailed analysis of the Israeli decision to withdraw from Lebanon. Issues running throughout the book include Israeli-Syrian relations, U.S.-Israeli relations, and the role of the PLO. Also discussed is the rise of the Shiite militants in south Lebanon.

Divided into two clear parts, the first part of this book examines political and economic factors in the global strategic environment including, the approach of US and EU foreign policies towards Israel, global trends in the field of defence industries and the energy sector and their implications for the Middle East and Israel. The second part focuses on Israel’s strategic agenda as reflected in its military force design and doctrine, the dilemmas the country has faced in the course of fighting its wars of attrition, the relations between military and civil sectors in Israel, the struggle against Israel on the part of non-governmental organizations, Israel’s main security challenges and national grand strategy. This book was previously published as a special issue of Israel Affairs.

The most comprehensive study to date of Israel's national security. It combines an exhaustive analysis of the military, diplomatic, demographic and societal challenges Israel faces, with the responses it has developed, to present a detailed proposal for an overall new national security strategy, the first such Israeli strategy ever published.

This book examines in depth the fundamental problems, factors and issues in current US-Israeli relations, which will have implications both for the Middle East and for world peace and prosperity. The US and Israel have established an exceptional relationship, which has significant effects on events and processes in the entire Middle East. Israel depends on the US for military hardware, for support against hostile international organizations, and for economic and financial aid. In turn, it is viewed by the US as a strong and reliable ally, and the US has adopted strategic concepts that for decades have governed Israel's national security, such as pre-emptive strikes and counter-terrorist strategies. However, politicians and scholars have accused Israel and pro-Israeli organizations of exerting too much influence on US policy in the Middle East. Here, a collection of international experts present original research and findings on a wide variety of critical bilateral and regional issues in American-Israeli relations, approaching the topics from both theoretical and practical angles.

Originally published in 1994, Yair Evron opens the book with an account of the development of Israel's nuclear doctrine and the internal disagreements within the Israeli political and strategic elite over how nuclear policy should be conducted. There follows an analysis of the reactions from Arab states and of how, with the exception of Iraq, they have so far refrained from developing their own nuclear weapons.

"The U.S.-Israel relationship is in trouble," warn Council on Foreign Relations Senior Fellows Robert D. Blackwill and Philip H. Gordon in a new Council Special Report, Repairing the U.S.-Israel Relationship. Significant policy differences over issues in the Middle East, as well as changing demographics and politics within both the United States and Israel, have pushed the two countries apart. Blackwill, a former senior official in the Bush administration, and Gordon, a former senior official in the Obama administration, call for "a deliberate and sustained effort by policymakers and opinion leaders in both countries" to repair the relationship and to avoid divisions "that no one who cares about Israel's security or America's values and interests in the Middle East should want."

This volume analyzes the conduct of the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) counter-insurgency operations during the two major Palestinian uprisings (1987-1993 and 2000-2005) in the Territories of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. It employs primary and secondary resources to produce a comprehensive analysis on whether or not the IDF has been able to adapt it