National Cyber Strategy: Issues for Discussion

This paper raises essential issues for discussion regarding the design of Israel’s national cyber strategy. It deals with aspects related to the promotion of national cyber security and the improvement of national resilience and the private sector’s ability to cope with major attacks that have security, economic and social impact. The paper concentrates on what the author considers to be the key issues. It neither pretends nor aims to encompass all the elements involved in formulating a national cyber security strategy. It is intended to point out the complexity of the issues concerned and create a basis for deepening discussions about them. In the service of the discourse, it does not contain decisive or unequivocal recommendations. Nor does it deal with the offensive component, which is a fundamental component of an overall national cyber strategy.

War With Iran: Israel’s Legal Obligation to Prevent Iranian Nuclear Weapons

Although the war in Gaza is still in its early stages, Israel must begin learning from it now. The next challenge, a war in the north, might be imminent. The primary lesson taught by the war in Gaza is that no military-size terror threat should ever again be allowed anywhere on Israel’s borders. Such threats should be removed by force on the other side of the border. A concentrated force-design process, focused on four or five plans, in addition to basic preparations will enable the creation of a sharper and readier military force. Israel should focus on embarking on about two years’ worth of preparations for the next war.

The War of October 7 – and the One to Follow

The Oslo Disaster 30 Years On

Thirty years after its euphoric launch, the “Oslo peace process” between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) stands as the worst calamity to have afflicted Israelis and Palestinians since the 1948 war, and the most catastrophic strategic blunder in Israel’s history. By replacing Israel’s control of the West Bank and Gaza Palestinians with corrupt and repressive terrorist entities that indoctrinated their subjects with burning hatred of Jews and Israelis, as well as murdered some 2,000 Israelis and rained thousands of rockets and missiles on their population centers, the Oslo process has made the prospects for peace and reconciliation ever more remote. By deflating the fighting spirit and combative ethos of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), it has weakened Israel’s national security and made the outbreak of a multi-front war—a scenario that effectively vanished after the 1973 war—a distinct possibility. By transforming the PLO (and, to a lesser extent, Hamas) into internationally accepted political actors without forcing them to shed their genocidal commitment to the Jewish state’s destruction, it weakened Israel’s international standing and subjected it to sustained de-legitimization campaigns. And by deepening Israel’s internal cleavages and destabilizing its sociopolitical system, it has created a clear and present danger to the Jewish State’s thriving democracy, indeed to its very existence.

The War in Ukraine: 16 Perspectives, 9 Key Insights

In February 2022, after a decade of conflict manifested in continuous low-intensity fighting in southeastern Ukraine and after many months of a gradual increase in tensions between them, Russia invaded Ukraine. The general expectation was that Ukraine would be swiftly defeated, but the Ukrainians maintained a stubborn defense and compelled the Russians to retreat from much of the area they had conquered. A war expected to last weeks has continued for 18 months and the end is not yet in sight. This war affects the entire world because of the political and economic ripples flowing from it.

Russia’s War Against Ukraine – Impacts on Israeli Nuclear Doctrine and Strategy

In essence, the world of statecraft and strategy is a world of systems. Derivatively, Israeli nuclear deterrence is a system-determined process, one that rests on fixed concepts and principles but varies according to shifts in the global balance of power. In view of world system impacts of Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, Israel’s defense planners will need to undertake certain re-calibrations of national nuclear doctrine...

Iran’s Nuclear Program: Where Is It Going?

The ambitions of Biden and the EU countries to reach an agreement with Iran are puzzling. The Iranian regime is essentially a criminal gang that seeks to take over its entire environment through violence. The words of those in charge in Tehran cannot be trusted, because they use lies and deceptions as weapons. Does it make sense to do business with these people?

A New Palestinian Authority NGO Decree Might Halt US Aid to the West Bank and Gaza

President Joe Biden has said he wants to resume aid to the Palestinians, but recent Palestinian laws are making it difficult for him. Congress has banned US aid to the Palestinian Authority (PA), citing the PA’s incitement of terrorists and financial rewards to terrorists and their families. To open the way for aid to Palestinians, the Biden team is distinguishing between the PA, which Congress has deemed pro-terrorist, and Palestinian non-governmental organizations (NGOs), which Congress has not classified as such. But the PA has blurred that distinction. If Congress determines that NGOs are no longer independent of the PA, or that US-provided NGO funding will be shunted into the PA treasury, it could compel the administration to suspend all US aid to the West Bank and Gaza.

The Radicalization of the Israeli Arabs

The May 2021 riots by the Israeli Arabs, like their October 2000 precursor, were not an act of social protest but a nationalist/Islamist insurrection in support of an external attack. It was not socioeconomic grievances that drove the Israeli Arabs to wreak wanton violence on their Jewish compatriots for the second time in 20 years but the growing radicalization attending the decades-long betterment of their socioeconomic condition.

The Laundromat: Hezbollah’s Money-Laundering and Drug-Trafficking Networks in Latin America

Over the past decades, Hezbollah has built a well-oiled, multibillion-dollar money-laundering and drug-trafficking machine in Latin America that cleans organized crime’s ill-gotten gains through multiple waypoints in the Western hemisphere, West Africa, Europe, and the Middle East. Based on dozens of interviews with confidential sources, documents obtained from regional intelligence informants, and open-source research, this study reveals the singular story of Nasser Abbas Bahmad and his foray into Latin America. His story in turn illustrates how Hezbollah established its largest financial laundromat in Latin America, and how, despite efforts by US and South American law enforcement agencies, it is running at full speed and bankrolling the arming of enemies of America and Israel.

Mideast Security and Policy Studies