Israel Facing a New Middle East by Brun Itai

Author:Brun, Itai
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Israel, Middle East, military thought, IDF, terrorism, Israeli security, Israeli national strategy, Gulf War, Lebanon, Arab Spring, Arab turmoil
Publisher: Hoover Institution Press
Published: 2016-03-12T16:00:00+00:00

WHAT DID ISRAEL TRY TO ACCOMPLISH?

It is commonly accepted that the war exposed serious flaws regarding decision making on the strategic level in Israel. It is clear today that even though the threat of abduction was concrete (it had been attempted by Hezbollah in November 2005), the political and military Israeli leadership lacked a comprehensive, coherent concept as to how to contend with such a challenge and its larger ramifications.

This state of affairs derived from several sources, some of which were the product of far-reaching changes in Israel’s political and military leadership. In January 2006, Ehud Olmert replaced Ariel Sharon, who was in a coma, as prime minister and was subsequently elected to that post. In May 2006, about a month prior to the war, Olmert appointed as minister of defense Amir Peretz, who had previously dealt primarily with social and economic issues. It was an exceptional moment in Israel’s history that both the prime minister and the minister of defense lacked significant defense or military experience. The IDF leadership had also undergone far-reaching changes in the year preceding the war. The chief of staff was Dan Halutz, the first air force officer to be appointed to this post. He started his tenure in May 2005, after serving about a year as deputy chief of staff, and his main challenge during his first year in office was the IDF’s withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, which was implemented successfully. Halutz’s GHQ was not essentially different from earlier ones. It was mostly composed of ground forces generals with two exceptions: the director of military intelligence, General Amos Yadlin, who was appointed by Halutz in January 2006, and the commander of the air force, General Eliezer Shkedi, who replaced Halutz in April 2004.

It is difficult to identify Israel’s goals in the Second Lebanon War, since the information that has been released clearly indicates that Israel entered the war without conducting a fundamental discussion of the war’s political aims. During the first discussion held by the government, it was not clear to most ministers that Israel was actually in the first phase of a war, and many of them referred to the military activity as a responsive act focused in time and scope. Most ministers were of the opinion that the abduction required a sharp response, but no serious discussion was held of the broader significance of the Israeli action and its general aims. At the end of the meeting, a government statement was published that cast responsibility on the government of Lebanon but singled out Hezbollah as responsible for the abduction and designated to pay the price for it. The statement warned of a possible significant attack on the home front and announced that a small team of cabinet members was being formed to approve specific military operations. This team did indeed meet several times to approve targets but not to conduct a broader discussion of the larger goals of the military operation and the relationship between such goals and specific targets.

The clearest

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.