How Israel Should Respond to the New American National Security Strategy

After broadly praising the National Security Strategy recently released by the White House, Amos Yadlin and Avner Golov identify some lacunae—particularly with respect to Iran—that affect Israel, and urge Jerusalem to work with Washington to see that they are filled.

[T]he document . . . does not describe specific steps to convert the administration’s declared strategy into coherent policy. Thus, one source of concern is that [its] approach may not be fully translated into action, and, as a result, Iran will be allowed to broaden its influence in the region further without much interference. This gap will likely be examined in the talks among the various branches of the administration, . . . particularly in the field of military strategy. [Therefore], in the short term, Israel might in fact influence the formation of American policy. . . .

[Jerusalem should work with Washington to] draft a coordinated American-Israeli strategy against Iran that will ensure the implementation of the principles described in the National Security Strategy, while also protecting Israeli interests. This joint strategy should include an agreement . . . that [outlines] principles for coordinated action in the event of various Iranian breaches of the nuclear deal, to which Israel is not a party. Such a “parallel agreement” should guarantee Israel’s independent ability, as a last resort, to stop Iran from crossing the nuclear threshold. . . . In addition, Israel and the United States must coordinate their moves against Iranian threats that are not linked to the nuclear program—particularly the proliferation of terror and weapons in the Middle East, and growing Iranian influence in Syria.

The American response to the Iranian threat as outlined in the National Security Strategy is described in defensive terms: its objective is to neutralize Iranian activity, mainly through a united front [made up of Israel and anti-Iranian Arab states] to create a regional balance of power. In other words, it focuses on curbing Iran and containing the damage it causes, and on cooperating with the pro-American players in the region as a precondition for achieving these objectives.

America and Israel, Golov and Yadlin conclude, must prepare for the possibility that efforts to form such a coordinated regional alliance will fail, which is especially likely, in their view, if Saudi-Israeli rapprochement proves impossible.

Read more at Institute for National Security Studies

More about: Iran, Israel & Zionism, Israel-Arab relations, U.S. Foreign policy

It’s Time for Haredi Jews to Become Part of Israel’s Story

Unless the Supreme Court grants an extension from a recent ruling, on Monday the Israeli government will be required to withhold state funds from all yeshivas whose students don’t enlist in the IDF. The issue of draft exemptions for Haredim was already becoming more contentious than ever last year; it grew even more urgent after the beginning of the war, as the army for the first time in decades found itself suffering from a manpower crunch. Yehoshua Pfeffer, a haredi rabbi and writer, argues that haredi opposition to army service has become entirely disconnected from its original rationale:

The old imperative of “those outside of full-time Torah study must go to the army” was all but forgotten. . . . The fact that we do not enlist, all of us, regardless of how deeply we might be immersed in the sea of Torah, brings the wrath of Israeli society upon us, gives a bad name to all of haredi society, and desecrates the Name of Heaven. It might still bring harsh decrees upon the yeshiva world. It is time for us to engage in damage limitation.

In Pfeffer’s analysis, today’s haredi leaders, by declaring that they will fight the draft tooth and nail, are violating the explicit teachings of the very rabbis who created and supported the exemptions. He finds the current attempts by haredi publications to justify the status quo not only unconvincing but insincere. At the heart of the matter, according to Pfeffer, is a lack of haredi identification with Israel as a whole, a lack of feeling that the Israeli story is also the haredi story:

Today, it is high time we changed our tune. The new response to the demand for enlistment needs to state, first and foremost to ourselves, that this is our story. On the one hand, it is crucial to maintain and even strengthen our isolation from secular values and culture. . . . On the other hand, this cultural isolationism must not create alienation from our shared story with our fellow brethren living in the Holy Land. Participation in the army is one crucial element of this belonging.

Read more at Tzarich Iyun

More about: Haredim, IDF, Israeli society