An Inside Look at Netanyahu’s National Security Council

In a remarkably frank interview with Ariel Kahane, Eran Lerman, a veteran of Israeli military intelligence who served on the country’s National Security Council from 2009 to 2015, discusses his experiences and sheds light on some of the Netanyahu government’s most significant decisions. Responding to the accusation that the prime minister is a “passive” leader who reacts without taking initiative, and is thus leading Israel “into a dead end,” Lerman comments:

It’s not true that Netanyahu is leading [Israel] into a dead end. Our situation is good. We are under threat, and we need to be careful, to maneuver, to act wisely, and to invest far greater efforts and resources into foreign policy than the Ministry of Finance currently allows. We’re not immune to harm, but hard work brings results. . . .

As for the claim about passivity, as far as I’m concerned, that’s a compliment. Grandiose attempts like the first Lebanon war and the Oslo Accords, which sought to redesign the Middle East and everything around it, [have failed]. Give me nine years of Yitzḥak Shamir [against whom similar accusations were made] in exchange for those two adventures. I think Shamir was given a country in a very problematic situation, and handed it over to Rabin in excellent condition. We don’t know how history will judge the current prime minister, but if it weighs factors such as the economic situation, the depth of relations with important countries around the world, and so on, then the data are good. . . .

Today Hamas is much worse off than it was in the past. It’s true that they are preparing for the next war, and there’s no reason the think they won’t start one, but the fact that Hamas says, “We need to kill the Zionists, but not this week”—that’s the best deterrence we can achieve.

Read more at BESA Center

More about: Benjamin Netanyahu, Hamas, Israel & Zionism, Israeli politics, Yitzhak Shamir

 

What a Strategic Victory in Gaza Can and Can’t Achieve

On Tuesday, the Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant met in Washington with Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin. Gallant says that he told the former that only “a decisive victory will bring this war to an end.” Shay Shabtai tries to outline what exactly this would entail, arguing that the IDF can and must attain a “strategic” victory, as opposed to merely a tactical or operational one. Yet even after a such a victory Israelis can’t expect to start beating their rifles into plowshares:

Strategic victory is the removal of the enemy’s ability to pose a military threat in the operational arena for many years to come. . . . This means the Israeli military will continue to fight guerrilla and terrorist operatives in the Strip alongside extensive activity by a local civilian government with an effective police force and international and regional economic and civil backing. This should lead in the coming years to the stabilization of the Gaza Strip without Hamas control over it.

In such a scenario, it will be possible to ensure relative quiet for a decade or more. However, it will not be possible to ensure quiet beyond that, since the absence of a fundamental change in the situation on the ground is likely to lead to a long-term erosion of security quiet and the re-creation of challenges to Israel. This is what happened in the West Bank after a decade of relative quiet, and in relatively stable Iraq after the withdrawal of the United States at the end of 2011.

Read more at BESA Center

More about: Gaza War 2023, Hamas, IDF