- Is Israel prepared for a multi-front campaign in which the vectors will converge – an external Iranian attack and an internal Arab revolt?
- Is Israel conceptualizing its situation correctly as a national campaign?
- Has Israel’s security apparatus shifted to an emergency mindset and is preparing strategic plans to tackle these threats?
Read the full executive summary: IDSF-Habithonistim – Strategic Assessment for Israel 2022-5782
The Israel Defense and Security Forum (IDSF-Habithonistim) is laying on the table a Strategic Assessment for Israel: the Integrated Campaign Against Zionism, which presents a hybrid analysis of the threat circles in and around the country, asking the essential questions regarding Israel’s short-medium -term as well as long-term national security, alongside recommended modus operandi.
The assessment was and is being presented to senior officials in Israel’s security apparatus, political system, and decision-makers. In these meetings, IDSF-Habithonistim’s officers and commanders are laying out a national security-oriented worldview with no partisan dependence or affiliation, with only Israel’s best national interests in mind.
Facing Israel currently are powerful and coordinated forces that are operating in a multi-vector, concerted effort and at full throttle toward a common goal: the undermining, attrition, and eventually downfall of the State of Israel. These strategic centers of gravity are positioned in multi-theatre and multi-collaborative circles, which are moving toward their epicenter into a single, integrated campaign against Israel. These are massive force building processes that are aimed toward a consolidated strike which, in the absence of a suitable counteraction, may occur in a short to medium term.
Israel will not be able to operate against this constellation of threats from a position of decentralized logic. It is imperative that decision-makers adopt a counterstrategy, such that suitably corresponds to the integrated characteristics of the threat, places the nation’s systems on a war-footing and prepares them for a multilayered emergency under a single unifying principle: cessation followed by a multi-theater reversal of momentum. Such a strategy can allow Israel to systematically neutralize the aforementioned centers of gravity.
In the current state of affairs, Israel is losing battle after battle, and if it continues in this vein, it might end up losing the war – an option that cannot be entertained no matter the cost.
This could be the point of no return for the Zionist enterprise.
The moves and strategies that have been designed against Israel for years are now culminating, poised to eradicate Zionism.
- Iran is closer than ever to military nuclear capabilities dedicated to the express purpose of annihilating the state of Israel. These capabilities would also provide it with a “nuclear umbrella” that would spread its octopus tentacles throughout the region. Iran has been building a multi-theater system around and within Israel which includes proxies in Lebanon, Syria, Hamas in Gaza and elsewhere. Hezbollah is currently equipped with 150,000 rockets, precision guided missiles, mortar shells and combat drones – with the number of the latter rising from 50 to 2,000 within a decade.
- Hamas continues to rear its head, contriving to merge the internal theater of Judea and Samaria, Gaza and even Lebanon, in recent years increasing carving itself swaths of influence over Israeli Arabs and the Palestinians at the expense of Fatah’s power. Hamas aspires to become a key player that yields control over Jerusalem, and is amassing progressively stronger support among the Palestinians, Arabs and Bedouins alike. The organization has demonstrated significantly improved artillery capability during Israel’s Operation “Guardian of the Walls” (the May 2021 conflict), so much so that it was able to disrupt the daily lives of Israelis in ever larger parts of Israel.
- Throughout Israel – Judea and Samaria included – we are witnessing a convergence of Israeli Arabs, Bedouins and the Palestinians around an ideological platform that champions sympathy toward Palestinian nationalism and particularly with Hamas. The riots during Operation “Guardian of the Walls”, the unrest surrounding the tree plantings in the Negev, the rioting on Temple Mount and the increasingly bold demonstrations throughout the country, wherein Hamas and PLO flags were raised, all reflect deep-seated processes of disengagement and isolationism among a significant swath of the Arab-Bedouin sector.
- The “conflict management” policy collaboration with the Palestinian Authority has reached its limit, due to the growing influence of other players in the theater, Hamas in particular, the acceleration of “political encroachment” construction, the increasing political brazenness of the Palestinian Authority (evident in its lawsuits at the International Criminal Court in The Hague, and bolstered by the tailwind it received by its acceptance to international forums), the rampant incitement in its education system and the ongoing policy of support of the armed conflict against Israel, not the least of which is evident in its “Pay for Slay” monetary compensation plan for terrorists, which puts in place a standing legal framework to turn citizens into killers.
- The synchronized and coordinated “political encroachment” construction all across the country – The “Fayyad Plan” in Area C, illegal construction by Bedouins in the Negev, and illegal construction of Arabs in the Triangle area, Jerusalem and northern Israel – threatens to snag from Israel its hold over its territorial depth and poses a developing potential existential threat.
- Personal security is increasingly undermined through tactics such as rock throwing and use of Molotov cocktails against vehicles on the country’s routes; stabbing and shooting attacks in the heart of Israel’s cities; the intensification of subversive Jihad activity such as protection racketeering; shootings on main roads and in populated areas; wildfire arson; and the imposition of a dominant Islamist presence in mixed cities under heavy incitement on the part of local Arab leaders, with neither legal countermeasures nor operational deterrence applied by Israel.
- The orchestrated delegitimization campaign reflects a fully synchronized “closed circuit” involving organizations within Israel, foreign organizations, anarchistic elements, financing and influential entities such as the European Union and the UN, the “legal” stronghold provided by the International Criminal Court in The Hague, the publicity buzz created by global media and the BDS movement – all following the lead of the Palestinian Authority, Hamas and other terrorist entities.
There is a national need for decision-makers to devise an exit strategy from its stalemate in the face of the cluster of integrated threats. At the heart of every strategy is stratagem. In order to affect a reversal of momentum, the integrated map of threats must firstly be internalized on a systemic level; the nation’s systems must be positioned on a war-footing, prepared for all mentioned threats and focused on emergency preparedness. Once these preliminary measures are put into place, Israel must then initiate preemptive multi-theatre action. This type of process demands considerable resources, preparation and a systemic force buildup – civilian, legal and military – but most of all, it requires a substantive paradigm shift stemming from an understanding of the gravity of the situation.
With these existential threats looming over its head, Israel is slow to take to the playfield. However, it must choose between a crippling blow or a charge to victory of Zionism.
Israel must switch from a “troubleshooting mode” to preemptive initiative!