The Foreign Minister’s recent proposal for a “second disengagement” from Gaza may reflect a growing recognition that prioritizing political and diplomatic concerns is crucial to formulating an optimal national security strategy for Israel.
Writing in Haaretz, Shlomo Avineri argues that the defense establishment “has tended to look at the Gaza issue solely from a narrow security perspective, while ignoring the tremendous damage that the blockade has caused to Israel.”
Israel’s Gaza headache can best be understood as the result of an obsolete policy rooted in the assumption that the primary threat arising from the territory is military. This mindset does not adequately account for an increasingly significant dimension of the conflict: the growing number of Israel’s adversaries—key organizers of the flotilla among them—who aim their primary assault directly at Israel’s political legitimacy.
In this context, it is no longer sufficient to pursue victory on the battlefield at the expense of victory in the diplomatic arena. Israel’s defense and foreign policy establishment must develop a comprehensive national security strategy to achieve what Reut calls “synchronized victories,” or success in several spheres—military, diplomatic, media, legal and others—simultaneously. By taking a more holistic view of national security that reflects its military and political-diplomatic elements, Israel can better achieve the strategic superiority it seeks.
General
Amit Granek
Yuval Holtzmann
Ronit Gudes
Gidi Grinstein
Gaddy Weissman
Calev Ben Dor
Yossi Horesh
Dana Preisler
Omri Dagan
Eran Shayshon
Liran Bainvol
Merav Pick
Noa Ecker
Netaly Ophir
Yariv Mann
Reut Institute
Omri Zegen
Yael Weisz
Toni Hasson
Talia Gorodess
Gil Murciano
Anat Horowitz
Abed Assli
Daphna Kaufman
Shay Gurion
Elad Leshem
Aliza Petrack
Jessica Brandt
Yael Brendel
Martin Ben Moreh
yotamhacohen
About time !!!
In 2007 Gideon Meir presented this concept as the new policy of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Now another Israeli politician discovers it again !
Israel has to consider more about what the outside world thinks about it.
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Of course military policy must follow political policy. Wars all end in political settlements as they begin in political disagreements or clash of political interests.
Wars should never be left to general to determine more than the means of carrying out political directives. It was not by accident that Leon Trotsky was the head of the Russian army during the revolution and that political commissars were attached to every field unit as well as the navy.
As the old joke goes, wars are too important to be left to generals.