Yaakov Lappin

The time has come to topple Hamas but also think about what's next.

By YAAKOV LAPPIN

In the hours after Hamas’s massive and devastating onslaught against Israeli civilians in the south of the country, it has become clear that the die has been cast and that Israel can no longer accept Hamas’s regime in Gaza, Col. (res) David Hacham, a Miryam Institute senior associate and former Arab Affairs Advisor to several Israeli ministers of defense, assessed on Saturday.

“Israel will need to topple the Hamas regime – but it also must think about what happens on the day after,” said Hacham.

As Israel plans its response, the country’s defense establishment – which is fully cognizant of the cost in blood of such a war – will need to prepare for the possibility of a new military administration in Gaza, he cautioned.

The option of a partial campaign, striking Hamas and withdrawing, is unrealistic, said Hacham.

The wave of deadly cross-border attacks that began at 6:30 a.m. on Saturday demonstrated a severe strategic failure by Israel on a scale last seen in the 1973 Yom Kippur War, 50 years ago, he added.

“One difference stands out – the lack of a prior alert in 1973 affected military maneuvers, whereas today, they have had a terrible effect on the civilian home front,” Hacham stated.

Israel’s failure has three key components, according to the former advisor. “At the intelligence level, Israel failed to detect the plan to attack despite its advanced units, eavesdropping, surveillance, and the capabilities of Military Intelligence and the Shin Bet,” he stated. “It took Hamas many months to prepare the attack, and its ability to organize and maintain the elements of surprise, while keeping the onslaught under wraps, is a major success for it,” he added. “Hamas contributed to the deception by pretending that it was in routine mode, asking to increase the number of Gazan workers allowed into Israel.”

The heartbreaking scenes of civilians caught up in the attack, crying in terror for their children, yet with no help available, was the visual, tragic expression of this failure.

Another aspect of the colossal Israeli failure is the fact that IDF soldiers and officers, along with unarmed civilians, were taken to Gaza as hostages.

The unbelievable scope of Israel’s killed and injured count is difficult to internalize, Hacham said.

“Israel’s Maginot Line collapsed in this attack like a house of cards. Despite the billions of shekels invested by Israel in building its underground and overground wall to block tunnels and infiltrations, Hamas found and exploited its weak spots. Hamas simply breached the 65-kilometer barrier with bulldozers, creating a highway for terrorists and other Gazans who cleverly exploited it,” said Hacham.

In the air, meanwhile, terrorists simply flew over the barrier with powered paragliders.

Internally, Hamas saw the internal divisions in Israeli society created by the dispute over the judicial overhaul. They viewed these developments as a major sign of Israeli weakness, and they exploited it to harm the country, Hacham said.

This was further nourished, he argued, by the way Hamas interpreted the refusal by pilots and IDF officers to volunteer for reserve duty, a move that projected weakness as far as it was concerned.

The head of Hamas’s military wing, Mohammed Deif, claimed the attack was sparked by the “desecration” of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem when thousands of Jews ascended the site during Succot, as well as violence by settlers in Judea and Samaria.

Hacham also noted that Hamas views the Palestinian Authority and its President, Mahmoud Abbas, as traitors.

As Israel plans its next steps, he proposed that Israel coordinate to a certain degree with Egypt, which is a major element that it can engage with, as well as Qatar, due to the funding it provides for Gaza.

Hacham noted that Abbas “made his usual comments during a meeting of his chiefs of staff, once again blaming Israel,” and added that “in reality, he has no say on what occurs in Gaza.”

According to the former defense official, Iran’s role must also be scrutinized closely. “Iran is a central inciter and supporter of Hamas, providing over one hundred million dollars annually to the organization and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. It is reasonable to assume that Iran was in on the planned attack,” he stated.

Both Iran and Hamas have an interest in sabotaging the emerging trilateral Saudi – Israeli – United States agreement, which would blaze a trail for other Arab Muslim countries to follow suit and normalize relations with Israel, something that he said would create an enormous challenge to the Iranian-led regional axis.

As for Hamas itself, there is no doubt that its Gazan base is a central strategic asset for it and that it wants to continue to rule it, according to Hacham. “Yet Hamas miscalculated by going this far and not realizing that Israel will decide that it had enough and that it could well go for the option of toppling Hamas,” he said.

Moving forward, Hacham said the region will also need to be on alert for the potential threat of fundamentalist Islamist elements in Judea and Samaria – Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad – hitting senior Palestinian Authority operatives in targeted killings as part of the power struggle raging as Abbas’s rule draws to its end. “All sides are preparing for the start of the post-Abbas era,” Hacham said.

He noted that Deif warned the PA and Abbas to cease security cooperation with Israel during his speech.

Ultimately, the horrific events of October 8 mean that the spark has been lit and that it could set off an even bigger fire,” Hacham stated. “Hamas often speaks about the unity of arenas – Gaza, Judea and Samaria, east Jerusalem, southern Lebanon, and within Israel – with Iran orchestrating all of this from above. In Deif’s latest speech, he called for this unity to occur. This explains Israel’s warning to Hezbollah not to exploit this opportunity, but Israel still has to prepare for potential escalations in east Jerusalem, the Temple Mount, Judea and Samaria, and within its borders,” Hacham said.

“Israel’s interest is to isolate Gaza and avoid a multi-front arena while also preparing for exactly that scenario, at the same time as it seeks to start the painful process of moving forward after its colossal failure in Gaza,” Hacham concluded.

Yaakov Lappin is an Israel-based military affairs correspondent and analyst. He provides insight and analysis for a number of media outlets, including Jane's Defense Weekly, a leading global military affairs magazine, and JNS.org, a news agency with wide distribution among Jewish communities in the U.S. Read full bio here.

 

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What would be the security & strategic dimensions of an Israel-Saudi deal?

By YAAKOV LAPPIN

As the normalization of relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia gets ever-closer, it is reasonable to assume that Israel’s defense establishment is conducting a thorough analysis of the potential security ramifications of such a maneuver.

Normalization would be a part of a trilateral agreement between Saudi Arabia, the United States, and Israel, and has the potential to redefine regional alignments.

In due time, the Israeli government will be equipped with recommendations from the defense establishment to help it navigate this strategic junction. The proposed normalization of relations is predicated on Saudi Arabia's requests to purchase American F-35 fighter jets, cutting-edge air defense systems, and a civilian nuclear reactor that is outfitted with a uranium enrichment fuel cycle.

Saudi Arabia wishes to receive American security commitments and to build long-term stability to enable it to become an economic powerhouse. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s vision is to turn the desert kingdom into a regional powerhouse that attracts business and investment and is not reliant on oil for its economic prosperity.

In assessing these requests from an Israeli perspective, it is impossible to examine them in isolation. Beyond the undeniable fact that they would improve Riyadh's capacity to defend itself against Iranian aggression, the Saudi ‘asks’ should also be seen in the wider context of the ongoing arms race between Israel and Iran. In recent years, Iran has disturbingly closed the gap on Israel’s military edge over it and its axis of proxies. Equipping Saudi Arabia with new capabilities that would be pointed at Tehran would, therefore, boost Israel’s strategic interests, while also carrying implicit risks.

But first, an examination of recent developments in Iran’s capability force build-up is in order.

The ban on Iran possessing ballistic missiles imposed by the United Nations will be lifted in October, and this could be a significant event for the world and the region, due to the blossoming cooperation between Iran and Russia.

Europe may soon see Iranian ballistic missiles fired by Russia at Ukraine. Given the robust nature of Iran's military industry, which is capable of the mass production of missiles, drones, and a wide variety of other types of weaponry, Russia has become dependent on Iranian firepower.

 As a result of Iran's assistance to Russia in its conflict with Ukraine, Moscow owes Iran a debt; as repayment, Iran may receive Russian Sukhoi jets. Russia could also help Iran with spy satellites and with the development of a more sophisticated missile arsenal.

Even if Iran occasionally cuts corners in terms of quality, the rapidity with which it manufactures its arms and then distributes them to regional proxies via air, land, and sea channels is cause for concern. Iran is expanding its influence all over the region, including Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq, in addition to Yemen and the West Bank and Gaza.

Israel's goals in the region are clear: it wants to build an anti-Iran bloc of states that includes itself and other pragmatic Arab Sunni nations. In this context, the Abraham Accords, signed with the UAE and Bahrain in the year 2020, were a groundbreaking initiative. The normalization of relations with Saudi Arabia, the largest country in the Arab world, however, holds the promise of being the real game-changer.

A shift of this magnitude is monumental, and it gives rise to optimism for a more positive and stable future. Amid these seismic shifts, Israel's overarching goal continues to be to maximize strategic gains while managing the risks associated with these gains.

To craft a new Middle East, certain gambles are required; as a result, the potential arming of Saudi Arabia needs to be viewed within the context of this grand strategy.

Iran continues to arm and fund its proxies, such as Hezbollah in Lebanon, and the Houthis in Yemen, creating a clear joint Saudi-Israeli interest to contain these threats.

Israel's expanding influence in the region, on the other hand, has caused trepidation in Tehran. This may have been the trigger for the Iranian government to launch a charm offensive and to normalize ties with Saudi Arabia in March.

The Abraham Accords and their expansion should therefore be seen as Israel’s response to Iran’s strategy of encircling it with missile bases and well-armed enemies.

Throughout history, the attitude of many Arab nations toward normalization with Israel was cautious and their strategy was to wait for the Palestinian conflict to be resolved. This all began to change from 2020 onwards, when the acknowledgment of Israel's growing economic and military power, and its close ties with the United States—reshaped diplomatic priorities for Arab Sunni states.

These states identify Iran as the primary security threat to them.

All these processes have enabled Israel's integration into the Middle Eastern map in an unprecedented manner.

This shift is exemplified by the growing ties between the IDF and not only long-standing partners such as the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco, Jordan, and Egypt, but also rumored military-strategic relations that are kept secret for the time being.

In addition, the transfer of the IDF from the US European Command to the Central Command, which is responsible for the Middle East, following the signing of the Abraham Accords, has greatly enhanced Israel’s integration in the region.

Even though it does not signify the formation of a Middle Eastern NATO, it does encourage information sharing, deterrence, and defense cooperation among nations. These kinds of collaborations have the potential to be formidable obstacles in the way of Iran's goals.

As such, normalization of relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel is not merely another diplomatic effort. It is a possible harbinger of a new order in the Middle East, one in which Israel and Saudi Arabia, two Middle Eastern powerhouses, can combine their military, economic, and political power to push back against Iran in new ways.

These are the larger considerations that should guide the discussion on Saudi Arabia’s requests from the U.S. in exchange for normalization. 

Yaakov Lappin is an Israel-based military affairs correspondent and analyst. He provides insight and analysis for a number of media outlets, including Jane's Defense Weekly, a leading global military affairs magazine, and JNS.org, a news agency with wide distribution among Jewish communities in the U.S. Read full bio here.

 

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MirYam Exclusive: Yoav Gallant's Delicate Balancing Act.

By YAAKOV LAPPIN

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant has been in a very difficult position for several months, faced with the need to navigate between Israel's domestic judicial reform crisis and the interlinked crisis of unprecedented cracks in the cohesion of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).

Time and again, Gallant finds himself at a crossroads. Israel's national security and the cohesiveness of its defense establishment are in jeopardy as a result of the toxic interaction between politics, military preparedness, and the conflict between the government and the judicial branch.

For the time being, the IDF is equipped with the capabilities necessary to successfully carry out its activities. On the other hand, the ongoing pattern (at the time of this writing) of reservists not turning up for their scheduled active service, especially in essential units within the air force and intelligence, might have disastrous consequences if left unchecked.

If this pattern persists and becomes more widespread, it may compromise Israel's capacity to react to broader security challenges. There is no specific estimate of when this may happen, but the military establishment is on high alert in an effort to assuage the worries of the reserves and make the political echelons aware of the seriousness of the issue.

The fact that the IDF is now facing its greatest difficulty in maintaining unity since its founding in 1948 highlights the urgency of the problem, and this issue is eating up Gallant’s time, preventing him and IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi and the General Staff from spending the time they’d like to pour over readiness for war scenarios and Iran.

In order to prevent a schism from developing among the ranks of the armed forces, Gallant has been trying to apply his influence in government to bring the domestic upheaval under control and free the military from its current political impasse. In Gallant's view, the way to achieve this is to achieve a broad consensus over judicial reform and to move on as a nation as quickly as possible to a set of priorities that will serve rather than wreck Israeli interests.

His messages to the public and the ruling coalition, of which he is a part, have reflected this.

"The citizens of Israel and the IDF need unity. Now is the time to put aside our differences and to find what we have in common and what unites us," Gallant urged on September 5.

"I call on my friends in the Knesset to reach consensus and to do so quickly—for the sake of our country and the security of the State of Israel," he added.

Five days later, on September 10, during an address to the World Summit on Counter-Terrorism in Herzliya, Gallant issued one of his most detailed calls for the political system and civil society to rearrange their national priorities, following a description of Israel’s severe plethora of security threats.

"In the face of all these stands the State of Israel. Our military, intelligence, economic, and technological power allow our existence," he stated. In a hostile environment saturated with challenges, Israel has been able to defend itself due to the high-quality commanders and soldiers that it has, advanced weapons, breakthrough technology, and a deep understanding of enemy goals and modus operandi.

And yet, he warned, protecting the State of Israel is conditioned on the Israeli people being able to act in union and close rank.

This ability has been challenged disturbingly by a growing fissure in Israeli society over the feud regarding the balance of power between state authorities, he said.

"The price may be heavy—too heavy in national security contexts —and so major changes are made by broad consensus," he stressed.

"As the head of the security system, I declare here: The continuation of the internal struggle among different currents within the State of Israel seeps into the IDF and other security organizations and exacts a price that the IDF and the security system cannot bear," said Gallant in one of his sternest warnings to date.

"I'm not dealing with the question of who started or who is right. I say: The continuation of the internal struggle endangers national resilience, the Israel Defense Forces, and our ability to ensure security for the State of Israel and protect its citizens."

"How far are we willing to deepen the rift? When do we decide that it is our duty to return to the priorities suitable for the State of Israel?" he asked.

During his speech, Gallant laid out what he said was the correct national priority list, and it began with forming a broad national consensus on the major issues of the day.

"This is a prerequisite for ensuring the national security and continued prosperity of the State of Israel," he stressed.

He then listed the other priorities as preserving Israel's ability to defend itself against its enemies, chiefly against the Iranian nuclear threat and the terror arms sent towards Israel from its borders, followed by normalization with Saudi Arabia and through it with most of the Arab and Muslim world — an objective Gallant said could be missed by Israel if the internal rift continues.

In addition, he said, Israel’s security and political power are based on its economic capability and continued economic growth, which are themselves predicated on innovation and technology.

"It's important to remember that the condition for continued foreign investment, manufacturing, and innovation is stability. Social division and ongoing disputes also harm the vital economic effort for our future and existence," he stated.

Finally, he listed law and order and stopping serious crime in Israel's cities in general and in the Arab sector in particular as the final priorities to defend the social fabric of the country and Israel’s ability to function.

"Given the great challenges ahead, especially the security threats, which might become existential threats, we have to clearly tell ourselves—we have a duty to get back to the main issues. Security, normalization with our neighbors, a thriving economy, and the rule of law and order — all of these precede any other national effort and are more important than it," said Gallant.

"This is the priority; this is the precedence, and everything else can wait for the appropriate time and manner."

In July, indicators of the fissure in the military began to appear as 1,142 reservists, including many from the Israeli Air Force, conveyed an alarming message. They announced their intention to withdraw their participation in active service if an amendment to the Basic Law: The Judiciary, annulling the Reasonability Standard, which limits the Supreme Court's ability to oversee decisions made by the government, was approved. The amendment passed and Gallant has been dealing with the fallout ever since.

In fact, Gallant has been in crisis mode over this issue since at least March. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sought to fire Gallant on March 26, 2018, due to his issuing a public warning over the threat posed by the judicial reform issue to unity in the ranks.

There was an outpouring of public outrage that enveloped the whole country in response to the decision, which Netanyahu later overturned.

Ultimately, the unique composition of the IDF, which is comprised of both conscripts and reserve forces, means that no military technology or equipment can substitute a basic level of cohesion for the military to function properly, and this is what Gallant has been seeking to rescue from the fire of Israel’s domestic crisis.

Yaakov Lappin is an Israel-based military affairs correspondent and analyst. He provides insight and analysis for a number of media outlets, including Jane's Defense Weekly, a leading global military affairs magazine, and JNS.org, a news agency with wide distribution among Jewish communities in the U.S. Read full bio here.

 

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monthly brief: Three Key Strategic Events That Shaped Israel.

By YAAKOV LAPPIN

The month of September brings with it three key anniversaries of pivotal strategic events that have indelibly shaped Israel and the region.

The Gaza Disengagement

On September 22, 2005, Israel completed its unilateral disengagement from the Gaza Strip and North Samaria. The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) withdrew from Gaza, and Israel evacuated every civilian and community from the Strip, uprooting over 9,000 Israeli settlers from 25 settlements.

Proposed by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, this maneuver aimed to bolster Israel’s security, initiate a separation from the Palestinians, and boost the country’s international stature.

Yet, just two years later, in 2007, Hamas ousted Fatah in Gaza, transforming the Strip into an Iranian-backed rocket launchpad.

Since then, Israel has grappled with four major armed conflicts with Gazan terror factions and several smaller rounds of hostilities, involving Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. The skies over Israeli cities routinely blaze with rockets from Gazan terror factions.

Israel's pioneering Iron Dome air defense system, operational since 2011, has played a pivotal role in shielding its citizens and enabling the Israeli Air Force to lead campaigns against the terror groups by reducing pressure on Israeli governments to launch ground offensives. Meanwhile, Hamas’s ambitions extend beyond Gaza, as it eyes the West Bank with intent.

The Oslo Accords: Legacy of a Stalemate

Rewind to September 13, 1993. On the  White House lawn, President Bill Clinton, Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, and PLO chief Yasser Arafat inscribed their signatures on the Oslo Accords. Three decades later, hopes of a lasting Israeli-Palestinian peace appear to be buried. Yet, the Accords still profoundly influence the matrix of Israeli-Palestinian relations in the West Bank.

Today, the Palestinian Authority (PA) governs Area A of the West Bank and, despite numerous challenges, persists in its security collaboration with Israel. Notably, no Israeli government has abolished the Oslo agreements or disbanded Palestinian autonomy in major West Bank cities. The accords may have reached an impasse long ago, but the underlying arrangements continue to serve the mutual interests of both parties.

Echoes from 1973

This month, the Israel State Archive unveiled its most extensive dossier on the 1973 Yom Kippur War, shedding fresh light on the catastrophic intelligence lapses preceding Egypt and Syria's coordinated assault on Israel. The scars of the war, marked by Israel's unpreparedness and consequent heavy casualties, remain etched deep into its national consciousness.

Yet, the saga of the IDF rebounding from initial setbacks, summoning reserves, and launching counteroffensives that neared Cairo and Damascus is an enduring testament to Israeli resilience.

Today, the threats encircling Israel have metamorphosed. The specter of enemy infantry and tank brigades storming its borders has receded. In their place, terror armies, equipped with rocket and missile arsenals, lurk. Iran-backed terror armies such as Hezbollah, armed with an estimated 200,000 warheads and embedded within civilian enclaves, epitomize this threat.

While discerning enemy motives remains intricate in 2023, Israel’s extensive, technologically advanced intelligence infrastructure renders it far less vulnerable to strategic surprises than on the eve of the 1973 war.

Drawing lessons from the Yom Kippur debacle, Israel has spearheaded an intelligence renaissance. Today's IDF is backed by a cutting-edge sensor grid stretching across land, sea, air, and space, and fueled by artificial intelligence that processes vast quantities of intelligence.

Yaakov Lappin is an Israel-based military affairs correspondent and analyst. He provides insight and analysis for a number of media outlets, including Jane's Defense Weekly, a leading global military affairs magazine, and JNS.org, a news agency with wide distribution among Jewish communities in the U.S. Read full bio here.

 

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monthly brief: Constitutional Crisis Brewing? Israel Saudi Normalization & Israel-German Defense.

By YAAKOV LAPPIN

Israel's key institutions are finding themselves having to answer the question of how they would act in the event of a constitutional crisis.

Such a crisis could arise in a scenario in which the Israeli government refuses to adhere to a potential Supreme Court ruling striking down the government's amendment to Basic Law: The Judiciary that narrows the 'Reasonableness Standard ' and thus takes away the court's ability to cancel government decisions or legislation on the grounds of their lack of reasonability. 

The head of Israel's national trade union, the Histadrut Labor Federation, Arnon Bar David, warned on August 16 that if the government precipitated such a crisis, his organization would act to shut down the Israeli economy with mass strikes. 

"A refusal to adhere to Supreme Court decisions would be a violation of the status quo. We will not allow it to happen," he warned. 

It is believed that the IDF, the Israel Police, the intelligence community, the diplomatic corps, and the civil service would side with the court in such a scenario. However, on Thursday, August 17, the candidate favored by National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir to become the next Israel Police Commissioner, Cmdr. Yoram Sofer, refused to answer a media question on the issue, calling the question "irrelevant."

Government ministers and Members of Knesset have recently refused to answer questions on how they would act in the event of a Supreme Court ruling to strike down the reasonableness standard. 

Saudi Arabia covers its 'Palestinian bases' ahead of possible normalization with Israel

On August 14, Saudi Arabia announced that it had appointed its ambassador to Jordan, Nayef bin Bandar Al-Sudairi, as “non-resident ambassador to the State of Palestine and Consul General in Jerusalem.”

The Saudi move seeks to protect the Kingdom’s legitimacy both domestically and in the Arab world. It sends a message that it has not forgotten about the Palestinian issue as it moves forward with a process aimed at normalizing ties with Israel and gaining security guarantees, advanced weapons, and a civil nuclear program from the United States. 

The Saudi appointment can be seen as a signal to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, telling him that any normalization agreement will require significant concessions from Israel regarding the Palestinians, such as a commitment not to annex Area C of the West Bank, a halt to the construction of settlements deep within Area C, and possibly transferring parts of Area C to Palestinian Authority, as well as other steps designed to stabilize the PA's rule. 

It is unclear what kind of impact such steps would have on the stability of Israel's ruling coalition, which includes nationalist-religious elements ideologically opposed to the division of the Land of Israel. 

The Palestinian Authority welcomed the Saudi appointment, saying that the “timing of the decision reflects the interest of the brotherly Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in the Palestinian cause,” the Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates said in a statement Sunday.

Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen told Tel Aviv’s 103 FM radio station Sunday that Israel was aware of Saudi Arabia’s planned appointment, but that the kingdom did not coordinate with Israel on the matter.

US authorizes sale of Israel’s Arrow 3 air defense system to Germany

The Israeli Ministry of Defense, German Federal Ministry of Defense, and Israel Aerospace Industries confirmed on August 17 that they will sign a record-breaking $3.5 billion defense agreement – Israel’s largest-ever defense deal – for the supply of the Arrow 3 Israeli air-defense system to Germany.

The system will achieve initial operational capacity by 2025 and full capacity by 2030.

Germany’s investment in the Arrow 3 system, which intercepts ballistic missiles in space at exceptionally long ranges and high altitudes, comes against the backdrop of the threat posed by Russia and its missile arsenal.

IAI CEO Boaz Levy, whose mother was a Holocaust survivor, noted the powerful historical significance of the Jewish state providing a defense system for the German people 78 years after the Second World War.

Arrow 3 is the leading missile defense system of its kind for the interception of exo-atmospheric ballistic missiles, according to the Israeli Defense Ministry.

After receiving approval from the U.S. government, senior officials from the Israeli and German Ministries of Defense will partake in a ceremony to sign a Letter of Commitment (LOC), that marks the commencement of the agreement. The allocated commitment of $600 million will facilitate the immediate initiation of work on the project, said the Ministry.

As part of the deal, IAI and the Israeli Air Force will provide training to the German Air Force.

Yaakov Lappin is an Israel-based military affairs correspondent and analyst. He provides insight and analysis for a number of media outlets, including Jane's Defense Weekly, a leading global military affairs magazine, and JNS.org, a news agency with wide distribution among Jewish communities in the U.S. Read full bio here.

 

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MirYam In The Media: Israel ‘one of the world’s top cyber powers’

Yaakov Lappin IN CONVERSATION WITH: PROF. CHUCK FREILICH

Israel’s position as a cyber superpower places it in an exclusive club of world powers, despite having a population a little larger than New York City, according to former Israeli defense official Chuck Freilich.

Freilich, a senior research fellow at the MirYam Institute and the Institute for National Security Studies and a former deputy national security adviser in Israel, recently published a book on the subject, titled, “Israel and Cyber Threat: How the Startup Nation Became a Global Cyber Power.”

A former senior fellow at Harvard’s Kennedy School who teaches at Columbia and at Tel Aviv University, Freilich said Israel’s cyber capabilities are prominent at both the civilian and military levels. The number of cyber start-ups in Israel equals the total number of cyber start-ups in the world, excluding the United States, he noted.

“This is a stunning statistic. It’s the result of a really unique contribution to the Israeli hi-tech scene in general, and the cyber realm especially, by the defense establishment and intelligence agencies,” said Freilich.

Graduates of the Israel Defense Forces cyber units, mainly Unit 8200 and Unit 81, as well as intelligence agencies, enter the private sector and become a primary source of commercial start-ups, he explained.

This in turn acts as a driving force behind cyber innovation. The fact that the Israeli defense establishment funds incubators and technological innovation programs also contributes to this prosperity of the local cyber scene, according to Freilich.

The military units “find and train Israel’s cyber personnel, and most importantly, the really top-level personnel. In the cyber world, a few geniuses make all the difference,” he added.

Between 2011 and 2020, some 100 veterans of Unit 81, who served in the years between 2003 and 2010, went on to found 50 start-ups, with an accumulated evaluation of over $10 billion, Freilich noted. “That’s 100 veterans alone,” he said.

“Another mind blowing statistic is that the NSA [the U.S. National Security Agency] has about 40,000 personnel, while Unit 8200 [its Israeli equivalent] reportedly has a quarter of that, 10,000 people. Most of what Unit 8200 does is cyber based. Here you have little Israel on the scale of a global superpower. Each year, between a few hundred and a thousand cyber personnel are discharged in Israel. China’s 2022 graduating cyber school count was 1,300. So we have a cyber force on the scale of global superpowers,” he stated.

Pointing to compulsory military service as the core secret sauce behind this success, Freilich argues that this enables the IDF to track down the best and the brightest, with the military scouting high school databases and beginning to locate suitable youths by the 10th grade.

“One percent of the best high school graduates go to Atuda [a program that enables them to study and delay military service] and Talpiyot [a program that sends students to complete BAs in mathematics and natural sciences as part of their service]. Talpiyot looks at the top 2%, and then begins an intensive testing process. Only 10% of that 2% pass and are then further winnowed down through a grueling aptitude testing process,” said Freilich, describing the rigorous screening process.

With regard to Unit 81, while 10,000 candidates passed initial annual screening, only a few hundred went on to be selected.

“All told, the IDF trains 10,000 people a year in cyber programs. This is a huge training program, not only giving people computer skills, but also reaching the real geniuses,” he said.

Freilich added that a third of graduates of a Unit 8200 high school program that teaches university-level cyber come from peripheral areas.

He also drew attention to Israel’s national style, which he described in his book as “hutzpah gone viral.”

“Israeli society has a never-ending propensity to challenge authority and reject accepted norms, refusing to take no for an answer, and thirsting for new ways of achieving things,” said Freilich.

“Our strategic circumstances means we have a greater willingness to take risks, and we are non-hierarchical and informal,” he added. “That’s the same culture you find in R&D firms around the world. So cyber fits Israel like a glove.”

On Aug. 8, the Mayanei HaYeshua Medical Center in Bnei Brak announced that it had been struck by a cyber-attack, forcing personnel to switch to pen and paper before recovering computer networks.

Despite Israel’s cyber achievements, problems still exist in protecting the civil sector, Freilich admitted.

“There is reason to be concerned about that and critical national infrastructure, like water and communications—the type of sites that the Israel National Cyber Directorate defends the most. They get specially tailored defense packages, but there is still reason for concern,” said Freilich.

Iran, for its part, woke up to the cyber realm after sustaining the devastating 2009 Stuxnet attack, which international media reports attributed to Israel and the United States.

“Be wary of the law of unintended consequences,” said Freilich. “Until 2010, Iran wasn’t doing much in this area. By 2012, it was launching offensive attacks around the world.”

Yaakov Lappin is an Israel-based military affairs correspondent and analyst. He provides insight and analysis for a number of media outlets, including Jane's Defense Weekly, a leading global military affairs magazine, and JNS.org, a news agency with wide distribution among Jewish communities in the U.S. Read full bio here.

monthly brief: Israel On Edge As Reasonability Clause Moves Ahead.

By YAAKOV LAPPIN

The State of Israel is at a boiling point as the coalition and its opponents face off over the government’s bill to erase the judicial reasonableness standard as part of its controversial judicial reform program.

Members of the Israeli protest movement have been planning further "days of resistance" to express opposition to the reforms, which they say endanger Israeli democracy. The protests include disruption of train services, marches in cities, and mass rallies on Tel Aviv’s Kaplan Street, the epicenter of weekly nation-wide demonstrations.

The coalition plans to convene the Knesset plenum on July 23 to pass the so-called "reasonableness" bill, which seeks to prevent Israeli courts from using the reasonableness standard in evaluating government decisions.

Opposition members have requested more time to submit objections to the bill.

The bill will be sent to the Knesset plenum for its final second and third readings after all committee work on it was completed in recent days, according to Knesset Member Simcha Rothman (Religious Zionist party), Chairman of the Knesset Constitution, Law and Justice Committee.

Rothman’s handling of the procedure has drawn criticism from opposition legislators, who assert that the entire legislative process is flawed and being run by "messianic fanatics who shut their ears to the truth."

According to a poll published earlier this month by Israel’s public broadcaster, Kan, 43% of Israelis oppose the reasonableness bill.

Thirty one percent of respondents said they support the bill, while 25% stated they were unsure of their position. Furthermore, the poll found that 36% of Israelis believe police should act in a harsher manner against protesters blocking roads, while 24% believe police are already acting too harshly. A further 24% believe police are acting appropriately. 

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, speaking at the July 17 weekly cabinet meeting, addressed calls by a number of IDF reservists to stop volunteering for service if the bill is passed, stating, “To all those who wave the flag of democracy, I would like to say a few words about democracy: In a democracy, the military is subordinate to the elected government and not the opposite, whereas in a military regime, the government is subordinate to the military, or to be more precise, to a group within the military. This is the fundamental difference between a democracy and a military regime. Incitement to refusal to serve, and refusal to serve itself, are contrary to democracy and contrary to law. This is true in every democracy but in ours, incitement to refusal to serve, and refusal to serve, directly endanger the security of all citizens of Israel. They gnaw away at our deterrence of our enemies, and this could easily develop into aggression against us. Moreover, they undermine discipline within the military, and discipline is the foundation of the military's existence in the first place.”

The Palestinian Authority returns to Jenin

Israel watched closely as PA security forces returned to Jenin on July 10, after a two-day intensive security operation held in the northern West Bank city by the IDF on July 3 and 4. 

The operation saw a brigade-sized force of elite units enter Jenin after dozens of shooting attacks, as well as rocket and IED attacks, were carried out by terrorists from the city. The operation was aimed at making sure Jenin no longer served as a terrorist safe haven.

The IDF said it seized over a thousand terrorist weapons, including bombs, ammunition, and guns, and questioned over 300 suspects. Over 120 were detained, and the IDF destroyed command posts, hideouts, and bomb-making facilities.

Twelve Palestinian combatants and an IDF soldier were killed in the operation. Hundreds of terrorist gunmen fled Jenin, paving the path for the PA’s attempted return.

The IDF sent in elite units, including Maglan, Duvdevan, the Paratrooper Brigade Reconnaissance Unit, Nahal Reconnaissance Unit, and Egoz. The operational model employed by the IDF in Jenin may, if necessary, be applied to future raids in areas of the West Bank that experience a collapse of PA rule.

Nasrallah gambles, and wins (so far)

Israel's lack of response to a series of recent provocations by Hezbollah is a mistake and the effort to bring about a diplomatic resolution is a bad joke, said Prof. Eyal Zisser, a senior Middle East scholar at Tel Aviv University, in criticism of how Israel has handled an escalation by the Iran-backed terrorist army in Lebanon.

The 17th anniversary of the 2006 Second Lebanon War sees the prospect of another conflagration that could become the Third Lebanon War, Zisser warned. Hezbollah resolved to escalate the situation in March, sending a terrorist across the border to stage an IED attack on an Israeli highway. Israel chose not to respond and Hezbollah saw this as weakness, Zisser argued.

An April rocket attack from Lebanon, conveniently attributed to Hamas, gave Nasrallah plausible deniability. Now, Israel has to decide how to deal with a tent pitched by Hezbollah on Israeli territory and which houses armed operatives; Nasrallah has already threatened to launch kill squads into the Galilee region of Israel.

Nasrallah — who has a reputation as a gambler — is convinced that Israel is bogged down with internal strife and will not retaliate against his provocations. Zisser added that Nasrallah had upped his wager by firing an anti-tank missile at Israeli forces in early July, as well as through repeated attempts by Hezbollah operatives to sabotage the border fence with Israel.

UK MoD invests millions in Israeli active protection system

The Ministry of Defense of the United Kingdom announced July 13 that it had awarded a £20 million contract to secure the hardware for the next phase of tests on a cutting-edge new rocket and missile protection system for Britain’s Challenger 3 tanks.

The system in question is the Trophy Active Protection System (APS), produced by Israel’s Rafael defense company. Trophy will be tested and integrated with Challenger 3 to provide enhanced protection against rocket and missile threats, while simultaneously finding the origin of the hostile fire for immediate response, the statement said. “The system can locate an incoming rocket or missile in less than a second, destroying it by firing back its own ammunition,” the statement added.

In 2021, Rafael completed the supply of 400 Trophy systems for four US Army Abram tank brigades.

Yaakov Lappin is an Israel-based military affairs correspondent and analyst. He provides insight and analysis for a number of media outlets, including Jane's Defense Weekly, a leading global military affairs magazine, and JNS.org, a news agency with wide distribution among Jewish communities in the U.S. Read full bio here.

 

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Lessons from the Ukraine war

 

By YAIR RAMATI & Yaakov Lappin

Many lessons are emerging from Russia’s war on Ukraine, some of which are of much interest to Israel.

One key lesson Israel can learn at this stage is that its decision to install various defenses on armored vehicles is critical and will likely enable the success of future Israeli ground maneuvers—unlike those of Russia and Ukraine.

Before continuing, it is important to issue a disclaimer: The attempt to apply lessons from the war in Ukraine to the Middle East is by nature complex. Among other things, the two regions do not share the same geography, climate, population or adversarial forces.

At the same time, as the war in Ukraine goes on, strategists worldwide are busy taking notes and looking for tactical and strategic insights that can be applied elsewhere—and the same is true in Israel.

So, what can we learn?

During the initial stage of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, the war was marked by the failure of the Russian armored ground offensive, which invaded from the north towards Kyiv.

With time, we gradually learned that the offensive failed mainly due to logistical issues: Fuel and ammunition ran out and hundreds of tanks, APCs and trucks were abandoned or destroyed. Only some of these vehicles were hit and destroyed by anti-tank weapons, mainly Javelin missiles, which are devastatingly effective. It seems that armored maneuvers on long roads in dense anti-tank guided missile (ATGM) environments became too costly.

Israel, in contrast, has equipped a significant part of its armored brigades with active protection systems. This means Israeli maneuverability is relatively protected.

At the same time, using man-portable air defense systems (MANPADs), the Ukrainian military brought down about 200 Russian attack helicopters and close air-support craft.

Israeli close air support relies on stand-off precision strike munitions that eliminate the need to fly low and close.

In the first three weeks of the war, Ukraine used its Turkish armed UAVs—TB-2 Bayraktars. Their effectiveness was marginal and Russian air defenses downed the entire Ukrainian fleet fairly quickly. Is this scenario currently applicable to Middle Eastern arenas? For now, the likely answer is not yet.

With Russia failing to destroy all of Ukraine’s air defenses, it resorted to using huge numbers of cruise missiles—over 5,000—and hundreds of ballistic missiles to attack deep in Ukraine. This was before Iranian-made UAVs joined in the Russian attacks.

At first, Ukraine’s air defense systems struggled to intercept the cruise missiles, giving the Russians deep-strike precision stand-off capabilities for a while. But gradually, starting at the end of 2022, Western air defenses replaced the older Ukrainian Soviet-made systems, and Kyiv could shoot cruise missiles out of the sky alongside ballistic missiles and Iranian Shahed 131/136 UAVs. The U.S.-made Patriot Advanced Capability (PAC) 3 shot down  a few of Russia’s hypersonic Kinzhal missiles.

The arrival of the Shahed Iranian-made suicide drones, first used in Sept. 2019 against Saudi Aramco facilities, gave Russia a cheap, low-flying, precise firepower capability, which, together with the cruise missiles, are emptying out expensive Ukrainian air defense ammunition.

The warning here for Israel is clear. On the bright side, however, Israel’s Iron Dome interceptors are relatively cheap—up to 50 can be purchased for the cost of a single PAC 3 interceptor.

The bigger question for Israel stemming from the Russia-Ukraine war is whether Israel is correctly balancing its spending on armaments per million dollars as opposed to platforms. For example, should Israel purchase another squadron of F-35 fighter jets or spend the money on many more joint direct ammunition (JDAM) surface-to-air bombs, Iron Dome interceptors and 155-millimeter shells?

Meanwhile, Russia has fielded its own loitering munitions. One system, the Zala KYB, proved to be not very effective. The second, the Kalashnikov Lancet 3, has met with more success against Ukrainian targets such as radar installations, tanks, APCs and various air defense assets.

Ultimately, Russia’s long-range firepower threat remains substantial and Ukraine is using up ammunition in its air defenses at an alarming rate.

Ukraine, for its part, is missing key components in its arsenal that the United States has so far failed to deliver, such as heavy ground combat main battle tanks—the first Abrams tanks are not scheduled to arrive until the end of 2023)—aerial transport planes and long-range missiles.

However, Ukraine has made good use of anti-radiation missiles, such as high-speed radiation missiles (HARMs) that target enemy air defense radars and artillery-directing radars.

Ukraine is also heavily reliant on two types of U.S.-provided surface-to-surface guided multiple-launch rocket systems (GMLRS). There are two types: The M-142 launcher—a high mobility artillery rocket system (HIMAR)—and the M-270 guided rocket launcher.

Both of those systems provide Ukraine with a high and effective strike rate. The Russians are unable to intercept these weapons, forcing them to move their positions back from the front. This includes the relocation of key military headquarters and arms storage centers.

Ukraine has also received the Storm Shadow cruise missile from Britain, with a 250-kilometer range. The effectiveness of this weapon shows how important long-range, precision stand-off munitions are in modern warfare.

The West generally lacks precise surface-to-surface armaments that can reach targets 400 kilometers away. The U.S.’s own systems reach only around 300 kilometers, and they have yet to be delivered to Ukraine.

Israel, in contrast, has a range of high-precision long-range rockets in its inventory.

While the American weapons industry is supplying Ukraine with huge amounts of equipment and the White House keeps pumping cash into the Ukrainian war effort, it must be clear to Israel that no such precedent would be followed in its case. Israel will have to stand on its own two feet in the event of a major war.

Ukraine has 45 million people, not counting the five million refugees who have left the country. Russia's population is some 150 million. This means that both countries can put large numbers of soldiers on the ground. They have both sustained huge losses, but Ukraine has proven its long-standing fighting power, unity and national resilience.

These factors are not relevant to Israel, which can neither sustain such losses nor absorb warfare for that long without a rapid endgame due to its small geographical size and population. In Israel’s case, a ground maneuver will be essential as soon as the war begins.

The international community may condemn or even try to intervene in response to significant civilian casualties in a future Middle East war. Therefore, careful Israeli planning and strategic decision-making are crucial to executing a successful offensive while minimizing collateral damage.

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.

Monthly Brief: Terror Attack, Israel-Iran & The Economy

By Yaakov Lappin

Israel mourned four of its civilians on June 20 after they were murdered in a Palestinian shooting terror attack at a gas station near the settlement of Eli in Samaria. Armed with M-16s, two Palestinian gunmen affiliated with Hamas, but not official members of it, conducted the attack.

An armed Israeli bystander killed one of the terrorists at the scene, while the other escaped and two hour later was located and killed by a team of Israeli special forces and Shin Bet agents.

The attack is the latest escalation in what has been a long-standing deterioration of the security situation in the northern West Bank, prompting growing calls for a larger security operation.

The first signs of a new Israeli approach to security in the region emerged on June 21, when an Israeli unmanned aerial vehicle struck a vehicle carrying Palestinian gunmen on the way to carry out a terrorist attack, according to the IDF and Shin Bet.

Two days earlier, the Israel Defense Forces had to call in air assistance in the form of an Apache helicopter strike to assist stranded ground forces in Jenin on June 19

The use of air support reflects the worsening nature of the fighting in Samaria, where a routine security operation to arrest two terror suspects, one from Hamas and one from Palestinian Islamic Jihad, became entangled.

IDF and Border Police forces raided Jenin camp and engaged in intense exchanges of fire that resulted in the deaths of four to five Palestinian combatants. They, in turn, detonated powerful IEDs that caused a number of Israeli Panther armored vehicles to become stranded. Eight Israeli security personnel were injured in the incident.

When an IDF helicopter sent in to evacuate the wounded personnel came under fire, IDF commanders sent in air reinforcements, to enable the evacuation to proceed.

Looking at the bigger picture, it is clear that Jenin is out of control and that the likelihood of a large-scale IDF operation there is growing with time.

The Palestinian Authority in practice has no presence there, and it has become a major base of operations for terrorists, not only locally, but also from across the West Bank, who view it as a refuge. It seems that both terrorists and arms are flowing into the city.

The linkage between political instability and Israeli economic performance

After Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on June 18 that his coalition administration would go ahead with parts of its controversial judicial reform program, the shekel lost value, and Israeli shares were trading between losses and gains.

On June 19, a day after Netanyahu’s statement, the shekel fell as low as 3.61 to the dollar and was trading at 3.60 at the close of trade.

The blue-chip TA-35 index on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange was flat, while the benchmark TA-125 index fell 0.1%, the Times of Israel reported. The TA-5 Bank Index was down 0.4%, and the TA-Finance Index was down 0.6%.

The report cited Sabina Levy, head of research at Leader Capital Markets, as stating that volatility around trading in the exchange rate was mainly influenced by comments from Israeli government officials and reports around the plans for the judicial reform.

This is the latest unmistakable sign that Israel’s economy needs political stability and consensus politics if it is to continue to perform well, and that political instability threatens Israel’s economic future in a strategic manner.

The Israeli – Iranian arms race

On June 14th, Israeli defense company Rafael revealed that it is working on a new missile interceptor dubbed "Sky Sonic," which is specifically intended to counter the new threat of hypersonic missiles. The announcement came days after Iran announced that it is working on its first hypersonic missile, which it said is highly maneuverable and unpredictable.

Hypersonic missiles travel at high speeds like ballistic missiles do, but unlike ballistic missiles, employ high maneuverability to take unpredictable courses to their targets.

Ahead of the globally important Paris Air Show, Rafael released a statement calling its new interceptor a groundbreaking defensive response to the growing threat of hypersonic missiles.

A "major technological leap" with "exceptional maneuverability and high-speed capabilities," Sky Sonic "neutralizes hypersonic missiles, which travel at ten times the speed of sound, with unmatched precision and stealth," the company stated.

The interceptor operates above the 20-kilometer mark and below the 100-kilometer level, where hypersonic threats are active, and where current air defense systems are not.

According to the sources, the interceptor is programmed to intercept at an altitude and location that allows air defenders to avoid needing to know the precise onward trajectory of the threat, representing a breakthrough in air defenses.

A reliable source stated, "At that altitude, it doesn't matter where it [the threat] is going."

 When the system detects a hypersonic threat, the kill vehicle splits from the booster body and rapidly travels to a designated interception point.

Rafael sources further explained that the three-year development of Sky Sonic has been funded by the firm’s own research and development funds,  

According to the sources, the kill vehicle is equipped with its own sensors, but they would not elaborate on what those sensors are. The system will rely on a completely integrated "sky picture" provided by several radars, they added.

The system was presented to the US Missile Defense Agency.

Yaakov Lappin is an Israel-based military affairs correspondent and analyst. He provides insight and analysis for a number of media outlets, including Jane's Defense Weekly, a leading global military affairs magazine, and JNS.org, a news agency with wide distribution among Jewish communities in the U.S. Read full bio here.

Monthly Brief, Has Israel Strengthened Its Deterrence?

By Yaakov Lappin

Israel and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad terror faction in Gaza were embroiled in a five-day conflict, which ended on May 12, dubbed Operation Shield and Arrow by the Israel Defense Forces. At the time of this writing, the truce between the sides had entered its first day with a projectile fired from Gaza violating the ceasefire less than 24 hours after it was reached. The IDF responded by striking two Hamas military posts, representing a return to the Israeli policy of holding Hamas responsible for attacks out of Gaza.

These events may seem eerily similar to the security situation that existed before the launch of Shield and Arrow on May 9, but appearances can be deceptive.

At the strategic level, the operation was not designed to change the basic equation in Gaza. It is still ruled over by Hamas, a terrorist Islamist regime, with its own Iranian-funded army and rocket arsenal. It is still home to other, smaller, factions that do not have government responsibilities, but are just as murderous as Hamas, if not more so – with one Iranian proxy, PIJ, standing out.

After PIJ terrorized the residents of Sderot with a 102-rocket barrage on May 2, to ‘avenge’ the suicide of its hunger-striking prisoner in an Israeli prison, the Israeli defense establishment felt the time had come to stabilize the Southern and Gazan arena and to knock PIJ back down to size or face a broader escalation scenario involving Hamas.

As a result, on May 9, after days of intricate intelligence tracking, and waiting for operational opportunities to arise, within the space of three seconds, simultaneous Israeli airstrikes in three separate locations eliminated three of PIJ’s senior military commanders.

PIJ then set out to terrorize Israeli civilians for the next five days and thereby exposed its operatives and assets to accurate and devastating Israeli firepower, guided by the highest quality intelligence.

When the smoke cleared, PIJ had lost twenty-one of its operatives, including the decapitation of its entire operational command level – with six senior commanders killed. Many of its rocket launchers and weapons bases, as well as command and control centers, were destroyed. PIJ’s leader, Ziad al-Nakhalah, sitting comfortably on the Iranian payroll in Beirut, and under Iranian pressure to keep going, could no longer ignore the calls from his own embattled operatives to accept the truce. Israel had proven that it is prepared to launch surprise attacks, to overcome terrorist tactics of human shielding, and to employ precision air power anywhere it needed to. The obvious message reverberated among larger enemies, Hamas and Hezbollah. Their operatives aren’t immune either.

Air defenses

In five days of conflict, PIJ fired 1,469 rockets at Israel, of which 1,139 crossed into Israeli air space, while 291 misfired and fell in Gaza. Three Palestinian civilians were killed by PIJ rockets falling in Gaza.

More than 95% of projectiles aimed at inhabited areas were intercepted by Iron Dome. The system offers a very high – but not hermetic level of defense. The approximate 5 percent gap in defenses stopped being a dry statistic and took on tragic real-life form when a rocket slammed into a residential building in Rehovot, south of Tel Aviv, killing an 80-year-old woman in her living room. A Gazan worker was the second civilian killed in Israel by PIJ rockets, in the western Negev region.

David’s Sling, the intermediate altitude defense system, made its first operationally successful appearance since going online in 2017. The Israeli Air Force used it to intercept two projectiles, testing its capabilities.

In the coming year, Israel is expected to begin deploying its Iron Beam laser interceptor, first on the ground, and later, on-board UAVs, which will be used to intercept rockets, mortars, and drones at the speed of light, and at a fraction of the cost of kinetic interceptors.

With Hamas’s cross-border tunnels cut off by Israel’s underground barrier, and Israeli air defenses improving by the year, the growing technological gap gives Israeli decision-makers hope that they can contain the threats from Gaza, and even significantly reduce the number of sirens in the Israeli home front in the future with the help of the laser interception technology, which can destroy some of the rockets over Gaza before they enter Israeli airspace.  

Offense

The IDF struck 371 PIJ targets, including apartments used by PIJ for command and control, weapons storage facilities, rocket launchers, and bases.

Israeli aircraft, both manned and unmanned – jets, helicopters, unmanned aerial vehicles – were nourished with intelligence from a range of sources. The IDF Southern Command, Military Intelligence, and the Shin Bet intelligence agency worked hand-in-hand to locate targets and ensure they were free of large numbers of civilians. All of this, in dense difficult urban conditions, with PIJ cynically employing human shielding tactics, which are a core aspect of the doctrine of the region’s terror armies.

IDF officials shared accounts of watching PIJ commanders issue orders to rocket launching squads as they stood in apartments and drove in vehicles surrounded by their children. The IDF waited patiently for better opportunities and struck when they presented.

Looking ahead

The Gaza ceasefire seems likely to hold. On May 18, Israel will mark Jerusalem Day, celebrating the reunification of the city during the 1967 Six-Day War. This is always a period of high tension in Jerusalem, but one that Israel can manage in a manner that does not necessarily lead to new escalations in the capital or the West Bank.

Israel’s goal of stabilizing Gaza, without being drawn into a costly and major war, will be put to the test in the coming weeks. Other arenas are far more urgent: Iran is approaching dangerous nuclear thresholds, Hezbollah in Lebanon has amassed a monstrous arsenal of projectiles, including precision-guided missiles, and Iran is continuously trying to smuggle offensive capabilities into Syria, where it would like to build a second Hezbollah.

Israel’s multi-arena challenges mean that Gaza is but one arena among many.

Yaakov Lappin is an Israel-based military affairs correspondent and analyst. He provides insight and analysis for a number of media outlets, including Jane's Defense Weekly, a leading global military affairs magazine, and JNS.org, a news agency with wide distribution among Jewish communities in the U.S. Read full bio here.

MirYam In The Media: Hamas’s al-Arouri and the Iranian connection

Yaakov Lappin IN CONVERSATION WITH: COL. DAVID HACHAM

Hamas’s deputy political bureau chief, Saleh al-Arouri, currently based in Lebanon, is interested in surrounding Israel with rocket and terror bases, and so is Iran.
That common interest has enabled al-Arouri to create new levels of cooperation between his Sunni-Islamist terror faction and the radical Shi’ite regime in Tehran.

“This is actually one of the strong people within Hamas. I would actually say that he is among the top three of the movement,” said IDF Col. (res.) Michael Milshtein, head of the Palestinian Studies Forum at the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies at Tel Aviv University, and a senior researcher at the Institute for Policy and Strategy at Reichman University in Herzliya.

According to Milshtein, al-Arouri is responsible for the Judea and Samaria arena on behalf of Hamas, including Jerusalem. In addition, al-Arouri coordinates Hamas activity with other members of “the axis of resistance,” said Milshtein, ex-head of the Department for Palestinians Affairs in IDF Military Intelligence.

Al-Arouri is also responsible for a large portion of Hamas’s military operations abroad, said Milshtein. He “manages to direct tactical military activity but also be involved and think strategically, and basically ‘swim’ between the two worlds,” he added.

IDF Col. (res.) David Hacham, a senior research associate at the MirYam Institute and a former adviser on Arab affairs to seven Israeli defense ministers, said al-Arouri joined Hamas’s military in the early 1990s, during the First Intifada.’

“He was responsible for establishing Hamas’s military wing in the Judea and Samaria region. For his activities, he sat in an Israeli prison for 18 years. After his release, he went o to Syria, where he settled. Later, in 2012, he left Syria after the outbreak of the country’s civil war, and came to Turkey where he headed Hamas headquarters,” said Hacham.

“In 2015, after Israeli and American pressure on Turkey, he moved to Qatar along with most of Hamas’s overseas leadership. After a short stopover in Malaysia, he arrived in Lebanon where he currently operates,” Hacham said.

In 2014, the Israeli military demolished his home in the village of Aroura, near Ramallah, believing him to have been involved in the kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teenagers in Judea and Samaria.

Al-Arouri, like the head of Hamas in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar, represents the younger generation in the Hamas leadership, according to the Israeli observers. Both have operational experience and have served lengthy prison terms, speak Hebrew and are familiar with Israel, unlike members of the older Hamas generation, such as Khaled Mashaal, said Hacham.

Milshtein described al-Arouri as a major connector between Hamas and other members of the radical Islamist camp opposed to Israel’s existence. For example, al-Arouri’s role in the launch by Hamas of 34 rockets at northern Israel from Lebanon in April this year was a prominent one, he said.

Al-Arouri’s unique role is enabled by two factors, according to Milshtein. “One is Arouri’s location in Beirut. And the other is his basic approach for vigorous promotion of jihad in several arenas. Especially in Judea and Samaria and the newer arena—Lebanon. This makes him a favorite for Tehran and Hezbollah,” said Milshtein. “In this context, he is involved in formulating strategic relations, but also in practical terms, he is involved in weapons procurement, training, organization, military cooperation and more.”

Hacham cautioned that Arouri’s objective of unifying fronts against Israel directly contradicts Israel’s essential interest of differentiating between the arenas.

“This is particularly true for Israel’s differentiation between Gaza and Judea and Samaria. Hamas, on the other hand, wants to create as close a connection as possible between the various conflict arenas—Gaza, Judea and Samaria, Jerusalem, the Arab sector in Israel and Lebanon—and to gain effective control over the power switch of escalation,” he said.

“Hamas strives to ensure its ability to ignite and activate the arenas, individually or together, at an appropriate time according to the circumstances,” he added.

According to Milshtein, Al-Arouri’s intense efforts help him greatly with regard to fortifying his status within Hamas as someone who succeeds in preserving “the jihad,” and who found a way to activate arenas against Israel.

“I would describe al-Arouri and Sinwar as two halves of the same whole. Each is responsible for another major activity area in Hamas. They share the same concept, and I believe both are strategically coordinated,” said Milshtein.

Hacham said Israel has so far avoided eliminating al-Arouri for a number of reasons.

First, he spent many of the past 15 years in sovereign countries, some of which have diplomatic ties with Israel, Hacham noted. Second, previous targeted killings have shown that leaders are quickly replaced in terror factions, and third, there is concern that his elimination would increase motivation for terrorist revenge attacks on Israeli targets, or could spark a wider escalation.

Nevertheless, said Hacham, al-Arouri could certainly become a future target for assassination.

“Targeted killings are the number one worry of the Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad leaderships,” said Hacham, who spoke with JNS before Israel launched “Operation Shield and Arrow” on Tuesday with the assassination of three senior PIJ commanders in Gaza.

Yaakov Lappin is an Israel-based military affairs correspondent and analyst. He provides insight and analysis for a number of media outlets, including Jane's Defense Weekly, a leading global military affairs magazine, and JNS.org, a news agency with wide distribution among Jewish communities in the U.S. Read full bio here.

Professor Chuck Freilich, serves as Adjunct Associate Professor of Political Science, Dept of Political Science at Columbia University. He is a former deputy national security adviser in Israel and long-time senior fellow at Harvard's Belfer Center, has taught political science at Harvard, Columbia, NYU and Tel Aviv University. Read full bio here.

Monthly Brief, Israel marks Memorial Day; but will it bring national unity?

By Yaakov Lappin

Yom Hazikaron, Israel’s Memorial Day for Fallen Soldiers and Victims of Hostile Acts begins at 8 p.m. on Monday, April 24, with a nationwide siren that marks the start of ceremonies across the country. President Isaac Herzog and IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi will attend the opening ceremony at the Western Wall, where a memorial candle is lit.

On Tuesday, April 25, a two-minute nationwide siren will sound at 11 a.m. before the main ceremony at the Mount Herzl military cemetery commences. Bereaved family members attend military ceremonies across Israel.

Memorial Day commemorates those who fell in defense of the Israeli people, from the pre-state era to the present day. When the sirens sound, traffic on roads comes to a standstill, and members of the public stop what they are doing to stand in silence in honor of the fallen. Flags fly at half-mast throughout the day.

In an almost unfathomable shift, Memorial Day transitions into the start of celebrations of Israel's 75th Independence Day on the evening of April 25. This is a deliberately designed emotional rollercoaster to remind Israelis that their independence and security are inseparable from the ultimate sacrifices made by the fallen soldiers.  

The big question is whether these vitally important national days will succeed in alleviating to any degree the unprecedented polarization afflicting Israeli society and stemming from the political crisis over the government's judicial reform program, but now extending far beyond it.

In a sign of the times, Yair Lapid, the leader of the opposition, has announced his intention to boycott Independence Day celebrations.

With Iranian and Hezbollah assistance, Hamas tests out its multi-arena strategy.

This month, during Passover and Ramadan, Hamas made dangerous advances toward implementing its four-arena strategy against Israel. According to this doctrine, Hamas launches attacks (or encourages others to launch attacks) from the following arenas: Gaza, Lebanon, the West Bank, and Jerusalem and elsewhere within Israel.

Hamas's preference is to be able to activate the Lebanese, West Bank, and Jerusalem arenas without endangering its Gaza regime.

After Islamist students instigated clashes with the Israeli Police on the Temple Mount on April 5, some 50 rockets were fired by terrorists in Gaza at southern communities between April 5 and April 7, while 34 rockets were fired from Lebanon at northern Israel on April 6—the heaviest barrage from Lebanon since the 2006 Second Lebanon War. On April 8, three rockets were fired at the Golan Heights from Syria. Hamas is behind the Lebanese and Gazan rocket attacks.

In response, the Israeli Air Force launched airstrikes in Lebanon and mostly in Gaza, signaling to Hamas that its efforts to keep Gaza quiet would fail if the escalation continued.

All these developments contribute to Hamas's goal of promoting a violent Islamist conflict narrative with Israel. As a result, Hamas's main Palestinian competitor, the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, which Hamas accuses of being traitors and collaborators with Israel, sees its status diminish on the Palestinian street.

This aligns closely with the Iranian-Hezbollah axis's desire to surround Israel with a ring of fire, and it is improbable to believe that Hamas could have activated a Lebanese front at this scale without Hezbollah and Iranian approval, as well as Iranian assistance in rocket production.

The scenario of a multi-arena conflict is one that Iran is actively promoting to try and threaten and demoralize Israel and keep it busy with its borders. But this strategy can be a double-edged sword. Israel too can adopt a multi-arena logic in which, for example, it responds to Hamas in Gaza for attacks coming out of Lebanon. And it can respond to Iran anywhere in the Middle East for actions that the Islamic Republic takes to threaten Israel's security and violate its sovereignty. In other words, the multi-arena tool can be used by anyone in this conflict.

A glimpse into what Israel-Iran relations could one day be like

Reza Pahlavi, the son of the ousted Iranian Shah, made his first visit to Israel on Monday, April 17, together with his wife Yakima.

“We are very happy to be here and are dedicated to working toward the peaceful and prosperous future that the people of our region deserve," he tweeted after landing at Ben-Gurion Airport and being received by Israeli Intelligence Minister Gila Gamliel, who had helped plan his visit.

“From the children of Cyrus to the children of Israel, we will build this future together, in friendship,” he added, in reference to the Persian king who ended the Babylonian exile and facilitated the re-building of the Temple in Jerusalem

Pahlavi attended Israel’s Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Day ceremony on April 17. He provided a small glimpse into the future potential relationship between the Iranian people – 80 % of whom are now opposed to their regime, according to reported Israeli intelligence assessments – and the Israeli people, if one day the radical Islamic regime in Tehran falls. 

Yaakov Lappin is an Israel-based military affairs correspondent and analyst. He provides insight and analysis for a number of media outlets, including Jane's Defense Weekly, a leading global military affairs magazine, and JNS.org, a news agency with wide distribution among Jewish communities in the U.S. Read full bio here.

MirYam In The Media: Israel security forces face concrete terror alerts

By Yaakov Lappin

The Israeli security establishment has received dozens of concrete alerts about plots to carry out terrorist attacks, both in Judea and Samaria, commonly known as the West Bank, and within the Green Line, a former defense official tells JNS.

Col. (res.) David Hacham, a senior research associate at the MirYam Institute and a former advisor on Arab affairs to seven Israeli defense ministers, added that the March 13 roadside bombing attack by a terrorist who infiltrated Israel from Lebanon reflects an effort “to connect the arenas of conflict”—Lebanon and Judea and Samaria—likely by a coalition of Lebanese and Palestinian terrorist organizations.

“It seems the attack was initiated by elements of Hezbollah and Hamas, and perhaps by others. There is a desire here to integrate arenas of conflict against Israel. And I also link the attack to the domestic situation, the crisis gripping Israel [regarding the government’s judicial reform program]. Terrorist organizations view the crisis as an opportunity to take advantage of and attack,” said Hacham. “They see that Israel is busy now and they perceive it as weakened.”

Addressing Sunday’s regional summit in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, which was designed to secure a de-escalation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Hacham said the talks were “divorced from the reality on the ground.”

Officials from Israel, the Palestinian Authority, Egypt, Jordan and the U.S. met in the Sinai resort.

Jerusalem was represented by Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet) director Ronen Bar and National Security Council head Tzachi Hanegbi.

The Palestinian delegation was led by P.A. Civil Affairs Minister Hussein al-Sheikh and General Intelligence Service chief Majed Faraj.

Brett McGurk, National Security Council coordinator for the Middle East and North Africa, represented the United States, alongside Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi and Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry.

Hacham said that despite the positive images, a large gap remains between the discussions and “the situation on the ground.”

During the summit, Israel reportedly agreed to freeze construction in Judea and Samaria for four months and to stop recognizing unauthorized outposts for six months.

The P.A. reportedly committed to implementing its “legal right” to carry out security responsibilities in Area A of Judea and Samaria, where the great majority of the Palestinian population is located.

The sides also reportedly created a forum to further discuss Palestinian demands to receive tax funds that Israel has withheld after deducting the equivalent of the monthly stipends paid to terrorists.

“The P.A. is struggling to impose its authority on the ground. The agreements reached will not be worth the paper they were written on,” Hacham assessed.

Ramadan flashpoint?

Looking ahead, Hacham warned that with Ramadan set to start on Wednesday or Thursday night, what is already an escalation in Palestinian violence could get significantly worse.

He connected the period with religious emotions as well as deliberate incitement, especially from Hamas officials in the Gaza Strip, through the media and social networks.

“When combined, these elements are an almost certain prescription for a security deterioration and escalation,” Hacham warned.

“It is important to emphasize that according to extreme scenarios, the escalation trend could spread to the Gaza Strip and the Arab sector in Israel. These problematic scenarios must be taken seriously by the senior security and political echelon, and require Israel to prepare for them,” he said.

The Ramadan month is characterized by fasting from sunrise to sunset, creating feelings of ongoing pressure for some who observe it, and this could motivate potential attackers to more easily take part in violence against Israeli targets, according to Hacham. “In this state, any incident can push potential attackers into striking,” he said.

“In practice, we are beyond the stage of escalation in the conflict with the Palestinians. Every event has a major significance; it can lead to yet more escalations.”

The Israeli Defense Ministry’s unit for Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) meanwhile announced on Monday steps to facilitate Ramadan festivities.

COGAT said the measures reflect “the recommendations of the security services and are intended to provide freedom of worship for the Palestinian public.”

The measures include approving the entry of Palestinian worshippers onto the Temple Mount for Friday prayers during the month of Ramadan, but with restrictions for security purposes. 

“Females of all ages, and boys up to the age of 12, may enter with no need for an existing permit. Men 55 years of age and older may enter without a permit, and men 45 years of age and older, but less than 55, may enter provided they have a valid permit. All permits are contingent on receipt of security approval,” said COGAT.

“Also for Ramadan, visits to family in Israel have been approved for Palestinian residents of Judea and Samaria, as well as visits to relatives in Judea and Samaria by residents of foreign countries. We emphasize that issuance of all permits is subject to security approval,” it added.

Ultimately, said Hacham, of the three options available regarding the future of Judea and Samaria: strengthening the P.A. to enable it to continue to rule there; a Hamas takeover; and a return of the area to Israeli direct control, the first is the one that is aligned with Israel’s core security interests.

Israel should manage future events with this strategic reality in mind, he said.

Yaakov Lappin is an Israel-based military affairs correspondent and analyst. He provides insight and analysis for a number of media outlets, including Jane's Defense Weekly, a leading global military affairs magazine, and JNS.org, a news agency with wide distribution among Jewish communities in the U.S. Read full bio here.

Monthly Brief, Judicial Reform, Terror Threats & Israel Dubai Defense deal

By Yaakov Lappin

Israel’s Channel 12 News reported March 17 that Justice Minister Yariv Levin and Knesset Constitution Committee Chair Simcha Rothman are considering a one-year suspension of their judicial overhaul program, except for planned changes to the judicial selection committee, which stand at the heart of the reform.

If the changes are implemented, this would give the ruling government coalition a majority in the committee and allow it to appoint three Supreme Court judges this year, while also replacing the court's president.

The report is the latest sign of efforts underway by the coalition to search for a last minute compromise to the unprecedented political and societal crisis that is gripping Israel. The coalition wishes to pass at least part of its program by the end of the Knesset's winter session on April 2.

However, if no compromise is reached and the Supreme Court rules the measures to be illegal, the Court is likely to strike down the reform leading to an unprecedented a constitutional crisis.

In the event of a constitutional crisis, who will the IDF, the Israel Police, the civil service, and others listen to — the Supreme Court or the government? If Israel’s institutions are forced to make such a choice, this could lead to scenes of chaos on the streets, which are already filled with hundreds of thousands of anti-reform demonstrators, and it is one that the government will try to avoid.

Terrorist from Lebanon plants roadside bomb in North

A roadside bomb that severely wounded a motorist in northern Israel on March 13 was planted by a terrorist who infiltrated the country from Lebanon, security forces revealed.

Authorities said Israeli forces killed the terrorist as he attempted to return to Lebanon. The IDF has not yet named who they believe dispatched the terrorist but has not ruled out the possibility he was sent by Hezbollah.

Shareef ad-Din, 21, from the Israeli Arab town of Salem, was the Arab Israeli driver wounded when the explosive device detonated around 6 a.m. on Route 65 near Megiddo Junction. The bomb was planted behind a barrier by the side of the road, some 18 miles southeast of Haifa.

The Megiddo Junction is 37 miles from the border with Lebanon. Getting there by road would add another 12.5 miles to the trip.

After the blast, the IDF, Shin Bet, and Israel Police began a joint manhunt in an effort to catch the terrorist, including the establishment of roadblocks in northern Israel.

A checkpoint near the village of Ya'ara stopped a car with a suspect inside who was armed with suicide bomb vest and a gun. Israeli security forces shot and killed him. A second man, a driver, was arrested and later released.

Security sources say that the suspect probably planned to perpetrate another attack before returning to Lebanon.

In trying to ascertain which terror organization is behind the attack, Hezbollah is the immediate suspect, due to its control over southern Lebanon, though Hamas is also a suspect. A collaboration between both – with Iranian knowledge and assistance - is also a possibility.

Could the attack be an attempt by Israel’s enemies to exploit the political crisis?  Was it a response to the recent drone attack on Iran’s weapons site in Isfahan, or strikes on Iranian targets in Syria?

Whoever launched the attack is testing Israel’s response in a deniable manner, trying to avoid the threshold of war.

Israeli defense company Rafael and Dubai police jointly taking on drone threats

Israel's Rafael defense company announced March 16 that it will cooperate with Dubai Police in addressing regional drone challenges and strengthening the anti-drone capabilities of Dubai Police.

Rafael’s Drone Dome uses electronic jammers, advanced sensors, and AI algorithms to protect threatened airspace against drone intrusions.

 The goal of the partnership is to make the Emirati city safer and stop any possible threats from unmanned aerial systems. Dubai Police and Rafael agreed to install Drone Dome for the Dubai Police's air defense needs.

Major General Mohammed Nasser Al Razzoqi , Director of the General Department of Operations at Dubai Police said in a statement that  "At Dubai Police, we recognize the importance of staying ahead of emerging threats and utilizing cutting-edge technologies to enhance the safety and security of our community. Our collaboration with Rafael Advanced Defense Systems Ltd. is a testament to our commitment to addressing regional UAS [Unmanned Aerial Systems]challenges and safeguarding valued assets. Together, we are leveraging the power of multiple technologies and systems to strengthen our security and safety capabilities."

Brig. Gen. (res.) Shachar Shohat, Vice President of Strategy and Business Development, Air and Missile Defense Division at Rafael – who is also a senior research advisor at the MirYam Institute –, said, "We are proud to be standing alongside the Dubai Police and are committed to supporting the efforts to ensure that the regional threats and UAS challenges are met with the most advanced solutions. This cooperation is a step towards advancing defense capabilities and utilizing systems that have proven themselves effective in protecting an array of valued assets."

Yaakov Lappin is an Israel-based military affairs correspondent and analyst. He provides insight and analysis for a number of media outlets, including Jane's Defense Weekly, a leading global military affairs magazine, and JNS.org, a news agency with wide distribution among Jewish communities in the U.S. Read full bio here.