National Security and Democracy in Israel 9781685854706

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National Security and Democracy in Israel

An Israel Democracy Institute Policy Study

National Security and Democracy in Israel edited by

Avner Yaniv

Lynne Rienner Publishers • Boulder & London

Published in the United States of America in 1993 by Lynne Rienner Publishers, Inc. 1800 30th Street, Boulder, Colorado 80301 and in the United Kingdom by Lynne Rienner Publishers, Inc. 3 Henrietta Street, Covent Garden, London WC2E 8LU Published for the Israel Democracy Institute P.O.B. 4702 Jerusalem, Israel 91040 © 1993 by Lynne Rienner Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data National security and democracy in Israel / editor, Avner Yaniv. (An Israel Democracy Institute policy study) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 1-55587-324-3 (he) ISBN 1-55587-394-4 (pb). 1. Israel—National security. 2. Israel—Military policy. 3. Israel—Politics and government. I. Yaniv, A. (Avner) II. Series. JA853.I8N368 1992 356'.03305694—dc20 92-21085 CIP British Cataloguing in Publication Data A Cataloguing in Publication record for this book is available from the British Library.

Printed and bound in the United States of America The paper used in this publication meets the requirements of the American National Standard for Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials Z39.48-1984.

In Memory of Dan Horowitz,

1928-1991

Contents

Foreword Arye Carmon Preface 1 2 3 4

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6 7

8 9 10

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Introduction Avner Yaniv The Israeli Concept of National Security Dan Horowitz Civilian Components in the National Security Doctrine Moshe Lissak A Question of Survival: The Military and Politics Under Siege Avner Yaniv Part of the Problem or Part of the Solution: National Security and the Arab Minority Sammy Smooha Vox Populi: Public Opinion and National Security AsherArian National Security and the Rule of Law: A Critique of the Landau Commission's Report Mordechai Kremnitzer The Press and National Security Pnina Lahav Nuclear Weapons, Opacity, and Israeli Democracy Avner Cohen An Imperfect Democracy? Avner Yaniv

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Bibliography About the Contributors Index About the Israel Democracy Institute About the Book

231 245 247 256 257

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1 11 55

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105 129

153 173 197

Foreword Arye Carmon

As this book was on the point of being published, its editor, Avner Yaniv, a dear and close friend, a colleague, and a first-rate scholar, was suddenly taken from us. From the perspective of the Israel Democracy Institute (IDI), this book has unintentionally become a memorial to his wonderful soul. Not only was this book meant to be a milestone in the development of a special program within the institute on the relationships between national security and democracy but for us it serves as a model in the development of all the IDI's programs. Indeed, Avner Yaniv was more than a member of the IDI family; he was a supporter, catalyst, and facilitator in the development of the idea to establish a think tank in Israel modelled on those that he knew so well in Washington, D.C., a city that he loved. The programmatic interests of national security have always conflicted with the principles of democracy in the State of Israel. The critical possibility of reconciling these two groups of interests and principles is interwoven through the various chapters of this book. The tension between the two was also among the main interests of another leading scholar who has passed away—Dan ("Dindush") Horowitz—who contributed a chapter to this book and to whom the book is dedicated. A first-rate investigator, Dan Horowitz pioneered research and sought input in this sensitive area long before any other thinker invested any intellectual energies in the field. The intellectual community and decisionmakers in general, and the family of the IDI in particular, have been left orphans without these two pillars of thought. We shall continue in our efforts to develop this important program that will pragmatically deal with the tension between national security and democracy in the State of Israel. Arye Carmon President, Israel Democracy Institute Summer 1992

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The most forthright way to explain how and why this volume came into existence is to go back to December 9,1987, when a truck driven by a Jew hit a Palestinian in the Gaza Strip. This personal tragedy sparked a new phase in the century-old Jewish-Arab struggle over that small piece of land on the rim of the Mediterranean, which Jews call the Land of Israel and the Arabs identify as Palestine. The intifada, as this latest manifestation of the conflict has come to be known, touched off or at least accelerated a number of inter- and intranational processes. In the international arena it converged with the ramifications of the demise of the Soviet Union, including the Gulf War of 1991, and ultimately led to a new phase in the U.S. effort to bring about an Arab-Israeli peace. In the intranational sphere, both on the Israeli and on the Palestinian side of the divide, the intifada escalated the struggle between advocates of accommodation and militant opponents of any compromise. Among the Palestinians living under Israeli occupation in the West Bank and Gaza, this heightened sense that matters were coming to a head led to fierce infighting, manifested in myriad ways ranging from public debates, through newspaper articles, marches, and strikes, all the way to gruesome liquidations of suspected collaborators. On the Israeli side too, a wide range of methods were used to argue for or against a vigorous search for accommodation; but one element which made all the difference was absent: the use of violence in the service of party politics. To a very significant degree the lack of violence was a sign of Israel's far greater maturity as a political community. Though Israel is only forty-five years old, it has been in existence as a political community for almost a century. The Palestinians, on the other hand, suffered such a momentous shock in 1948 that irrespective of their efforts to form a political community under the British Mandate (1920-1948) it was only after the 1967 War that their awakening really began. The phrase "political maturity" is used here as shorthand to describe a psychological, social, cultural, as well as institutional state. Israel is more mature than the Palestinian community with which it is locked in conflict xi

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because its population has embraced a modern democratic order more deeply, because the fabric of its social relations is far more suitable as a foundation to a democratic order, because its culture is incomparably more imbued with modern, pluralistic, and liberal values, and, above all, because it has evolved a sophisticated network of institutions capable of maintaining a stable political order despite enormous social divisions within its own society. Yet for all its impressive sophistication, Israel too bears deeply engraved moral scars from the struggle with its neighbors. Where the Palestinians have resorted to ugly internecine violence, the Israelis have maintained a degree of tolerance toward practices that are patently at odds with the most fundamental values of democracy. In this sense the intifada represented an enormous challenge to Israel's ability not merely to maintain control over the occupied territories, but above all to remain faithful to the most sacred of its own cherished values. Yet to most Israeli Jews these challenges were hardly new. They had come into existence with the Jewish state itself and have been lurking in the background, occasionally forcing themselves on the attention of an Israeli public that had no simple solutions to offer and therefore preferred not to be reminded of them. Half a decade after the outbreak of the intifada it is clear that its impact has been so enormous that the traditional psychological mechanisms of suppression and obliviousness have partly broken down. The Israeli media has kept an incessant watch over the manner in which the security establishment has carried out its duties. The Knesset, Israel's unicameral legislature, has followed media reporting avidly, further amplifying all allegations of undemocratic practices by the authorities and, as is always the case, the intellectual community has followed suit. In this sense the present volume is an inseparable part of an ever-growing body of literature that focuses attention on the persisting, disturbing, and often enormously complex tension between Israel's struggle for security and its equally important commitment to democracy. Most of the chapters in this book are based on presentations to an international conference, "National Security and Democracy," sponsored by the Israel Democracy Institute (IDI) and held in Tel Aviv in March 1990. But due to a variety of editorial considerations not all contributions to the conference were included herein, whereas, on the other hand, a number of important chapters were commissioned after the conference for the purpose of this volume. I would like, therefore, to express my gratitude and appreciation to both the participants in the conference and the contributors to the present book. My thanks also to Arye Carmon, president of the IDI, and to his hard-working and patient staff for their help in the finance, organization, and promotion of this enterprise. Needless to say, I alone bear ultimate responsibility for the final product. Avner Yaniv

— 1 — Introduction Avner Yaniv

Democracy and national security often coexist in what can only be described as an uneasy partnership. As the British experience in World War II demonstrated, nothing spurs morale and induces dogged determination more effectively than the intense sense of legitimacy that democracies alone can claim. Yet beyond this level of absolute fundamentals, democracy and security invoke different and very often incompatible values. The term democracy puts the individual human being at the center of everything. It connotes privacy, human dignity, compassion, pluralism, variety, divergence, and competition moderated by equitable rules. It is extravagantly wasteful, sluggish, acrimonious, and anarchically decentralized in its very essence. Carried to its logical extension it encourages egotism, hedonism, and other forms of self-indulgence. Security, by contrast, is a state-centered concept. Its rationale may be the preservation of a democratic way of life or making the world safe for democracy. But whatever its ultimate justification, it puts the state at center stage, evoking grim images of hierarchy, division of labor, regimentation, mobilization, efficiency, concentration of effort, dedication, valor, and sacrifice. These inherently problematic relations between democracy and national security are entirely context-dependent. Democracies in a stable international environment, such as Switzerland, Sweden, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, have no problem reconciling the requirements of the rule of law with the imperatives of national security. In most of these countries a sizable national security establishment has existed for decades. Yet the absence of a clear and present danger has had a relaxing and civilianizing impact on the security-related sectors of their social and political systems. By the same token, however, any rise in the "threat barometer" of a democracy leads inescapably to tensions between the requirements of democracy and those of security. External threats at once breed xenophobia, anxieties about "the enemy within," cries of a pending "stab in the back," and, as a result, a well-intentioned willingness to tamper temporarily, carefully, and prophylactically with fundamental liberties. This was the case in wartime democracies from fifth-century Athens 1

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to the twentieth-century United States. Yet once the winds of war calm down, well-established republics are very quick to get back to their democratic senses. These casual observations can be expanded into a more general theory, distinguishing four types of relations between democracy and national security. The most obvious type consists of robust and longstanding democracies in a clearly defined state of war, the most likely result of which is a state of emergency lasting as long as the war that brought it about and ending as soon as the guns fall silent. The second type consists of fragile and insecure democracies in a well-defined state of war. In such cases the move away from democracy as the emergency takes shape is faster and far more decisive than the return to a democratic mode once the crisis is over. Indeed, a warlike shock to a fragile democracy can very well spell its demise and eventual conversion into a dictatorship of one kind or another. A third type of relationship between democracy and security encompasses cases of robust democracies in protracted conflict. In instances of this variety the pull toward suspension of democratic freedoms and the countervailing pull to stay the democratic course bring about a fiercer struggle than would arise in the same type of democracy during a brief and well-defined national security emergency. Ultimately, if it is a well-established democracy there will be strong antibodies resisting the slide down the slippery slope toward the suspension of democratic freedoms. But the struggle is likely to be very tough. Finally, there is the fourth kind of relationship between democracy and security, that which is typical of fragile democracies in protracted conflicts. Here, the likelihood that democracy will survive is predictably low. Given the geoethnic origins of its population and the manner in which it came into existence, Israel should have been classified as type four (a fragile democracy in a protracted conflict). But in four and a half decades of statehood it has earned the right to be identified as type two (a robust democracy in a protracted conflict). When it officially came into existence as an independent state it was clearly a democratic structure, whose institutions were duly endorsed by an electorate in which every citizen aged eighteen and above was free to exercise the right to vote. Its declaration of independence was an articulate statement of intent for a liberal democracy. Its institutions were functioning representative bodies in a parliamentary democracy of the pluralistic, Western European type. None of these features were in themselves novel or very ingenious, yet they added up to something surprising, if not indeed miraculous. For the vast majority of the electorate in this newborn republic had come to Palestine from nondemocratic societies in Eastern Europe and the Middle East, and there was virtually nothing in their backgrounds to inspire faith in their ability to act as free people in a modern democracy. Yet, their

Introduction

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origins notwithstanding, they did manage to launch a functioning and surprisingly mature democratic system. A closer look into the mechanics of Israeli politics during the four and a half decades that have passed since the establishment of the Jewish state reveals, however, that as democracies go—that is, if Israel is not compared to Syria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, or even Egypt, but to any member state of the European Community—the new republic was only relatively adequate. During its first decade and a half Israeli democracy was patently paternalistic, personalistic, bureaucratized, and top-heavy. There was a ruling party that many of its critics only half-jokingly described as Bolshevik. This ruling party, as well as its various weak rivals, were themselves controlled by central committees that pretty much elected themselves. The parties were not only predominant in the strictly political arena but also managed to retain an unusual degree of influence in the fields of education, labor, medicine, and welfare. In the ruling party, MAPAI, there was a lively and occasionally rancorous political process that was nonetheless dominated by a father figure, David Ben-Gurion, who— much like Konrad Adenauer in the Federal Republic of Germany at the same time—qualified for the dubious title of democratic dictator. He determined policy, decided on questions of peace and war, occasionally employed secret services for the purpose of spying on his political rivals, and tenaciously rejected all demands to lift the military government, which had been imposed on Israel's Arab minority from the first day of the state's independence. Ben-Gurion began to lose his grip toward the end of the 1950s. Although he retired altogether only in 1963, the system over which he ruled almost uninterruptedly for so many years was clearly in the throws of a transformation crisis throughout his last decade in politics. This took a variety of seemingly unrelated forms: a fierce and deeply divisive succession struggle in the ruling party; an earthquakelike eruption of a Sephardic protest movement reflecting a deep-seated sense of humiliation, deprivation, and frustration; a gradual emergence of a viable political alternative based on the unification of a variety of forces from the right of the political center, chief among these Begin's Herut party; the reemergence of forces on the left such as Ahdut Ha'avoda, which Ben-Gurion had been at pains to keep in the political wilderness ever since the 1948 War; the first signs of weakness in the previously unchallenged Histadrut trade union movement. All these different strands of political change took shape during the 1960s and impacted with full force on the Israeli political system in the course of the 1970s. By the early 1970s the Labor party—consisting of MAPAI as well as its two most important rivals left of center—RAFI and Ahdut Ha'avoda—was clearly on the defensive, whereas the Likud—a

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newly established political conglomerate comprising Herat, the Liberals, and some former left-of-center splinters—was going strong. The Sephardic half of Israeli society, previously mute and powerless on the political periphery, rapidly came into its own and pushed relentlessly ahead, joining hands with the traditional Right of both the nationalist and the bourgeois varieties. But whatfinallycaused the turnover (mahapach) in the elections of 1977 was a major rebellion in the ranks of the Ashkenazi middle class. Disgusted with Labor's domineering attitude, arrogance, maddening internecine squabbles, and general image of a spent force, a large section of otherwise typically Labor voters turned to DASH, a newly formed party promoting a modern, Western-type, liberal democracy. Ironically, however, all the votes that went to DASH were subtracted from Labor, rather than Likud, whereas DASH itself was willing to go along with Likud in the formation of an entirely new government in which Begin, the all-time outsider of Israeli politics, was the prime minister. The new government was hardly a determined agent of democratization and liberalization. Yet owing to its electoral interests and the process that had brought it to power, its advent did ultimately herald a new era in which Israel's young democracy at last came into its own. Party caucuses lost their freedom to determine party lists. Power was devolved to noisy party conventions in which thousands of participants represented local branches, local interests, and local loyalties. Public opinion polls began to play a major role in determining public attitudes. National broadcast media, especially television, as well as local networks and newspapers came to exert an enormous—and very unpredictable—influence. After three decades of gradual change, the Israeli polity as a whole—excluding perhaps the Arab and Jewish orthodox sectors—had at last become a modern, participatory democracy. None of this would be so striking had it not taken place against the background of a protracted conflict of unique intensity and intractability. When the 1948 War ended it was generally hoped in Israel that peace would follow. The war had begun with an enormous advantage for the Arabs but ended with a very decisive Israeli victory. It was therefore logical—or so it seemed to many Israelis—to expect the Arabs to learn the lesson. Israel had proved invincible, and now it was reaching out for peace. Its neighbors had better abandon their hope of destroying it and accept what the Israelis saw as a verdict of history, namely peace. Before long this premature optimism gave way to a grim sense of pessimism. Hosni Za'im, ruler of Syria in the spring of 1949, was deposed in a bloody coup as he was preparing to make peace with Israel. King Abdulla of Jordan met a similar fate two years later. King Farouq of Egypt did not lose his life but was forced out of his country by a military junta. Instability along Israel's borders increased, and Israel sought great-power

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help. Finding none, Israel took matters into its own hands with punitive reprisals against its neighbors. The conflict escalated to a new peak as Egypt and Syria turned to the Soviet Union for military and political assistance. Against this bleak background Israel chose to launch a preemptive strike against Egypt, winning a five-day war in 1956, and gaining thereby more than a decade during which border instability seemed to have been reduced to manageable proportions. That another war was inevitable was more or less taken for granted, but how and when it would happen was not clear, the general feeling being that it would not occur before the 1970s. Attention thus turned inward to development, immigrant absorption, standard-of-living improvements, and party politics. The Six Day War of 1967 shattered this sense of stability and heralded a new era of great emphasis on national security issues. As in 1948, the Israelis misread their neighbors' minds, and having won such a decisive victory expected peace negotiations to follow. What they got instead was the War of Attrition along the Suez Canal, the advent of low-intensity PLO operations along the borders with Jordan and Lebanon, the rise of international terrorism against Israeli and Jewish targets and, to cap it all, a strategic surprise and devastating war in October 1973. During the next eight years national security issues remained at the top of the agenda. The 1973 War was followed by a period of massive rearmament in anticipation of yet another war. But instead of materializing this worst-case scenario gave way to the dazzling spectacle of Sadat's peace initiative and visit to Jerusalem. During 1977-1979 all attention was focused on the peace negotiations, but when these were successfully concluded they led to new anxieties as a result of Sadat's assassination, Iraq's determined attempt to acquire a nuclear bomb, and above all the escalation along the border with Lebanon and the IDF invasion of that country. The overall impact of this quick succession of historic events on Israel's democracy and security was frightfully difficult to assess. On the one hand it was clear that Israel's position in the region and worldwide was continuously strengthening. Its military prowess was proved time and again and was clearly the main reason for Egypt's decision to seek peace, for Jordan's de facto peace with Israel and even for Syria's painstaking efforts to avoid any clash with the Jewish state. Yet, at the same time, the Arab-Israeli conflict was clearly not over. The Palestinians, at one end of the spectrum, would not resign themselves to Israel's rule in the territories, which had been occupied in 1967 and intensely settled under the Likud government ever since 1977. Hence in 1987 they rose up in the intifada, and have since maintained a high level of resistance activity, constantly reminding Israelis that the Arab threat to

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their well-being is not a mere figment of the imagination. At the other extreme of the spectrum of threats, Israelis anxiously faced Iraq's rise to the status of a mighty regional power, its drive to nuclear status, and its daredevil, ruthless willingness to use any amount of force to further the ends of its ruling regime. In January and February 1991 this new threat ceased to be merely theoretical when Iraq launched missile attacks against Israel's urban centers. The Iraqi threat revived in a new and rather ominous form the simple and straightforward fear of extinction that characterized mainstream Israeli views in the early years of statehood. But this deep-seated source of anxiety was not in itself sufficient to blunt the unease and embarrassment that had been generated by the encounter with the Palestinians in the occupied territories of Samaria, Judea, and Gaza. Indeed, while the age-old Arab threat represented by Iraq merely reinforced the conviction of right-wing Israelis that they should hold onto the territories, it was almost entirely decoupled from the Palestinian issue by Israelis of centrist and leftist leanings. For the latter, the main issue in the territories went beyond what would happen to the Palestinians and impinged primarily on the essence of Israel itself. A failure to solve the Palestinian issue would mean the continuation of the occupation, which would inescapably mean the erosion of the democratic character of the Jewish state. Thus, in retrospect, the opening up and consolidation of both the institutions and the traditions of Israeli democracy coincided with, and to an indeterminate degree was spurred on by, the transformation of the Arab-Israeli conflict. In the 1950s the nature of the conflict was easily defined, and Israel was ruled by a centralized elite, highhandedly imposing its own interpretation of what was afoot on a quiescent public. The 1967 War was the watershed beyond which an entirely new situation began to take shape. The 1973 War led to a massive protest movement that had no precedent in the annals of Zionism. The Lebanon War constituted a second round in the same process, except that for the first time political action took place before the guns fell silent. Then came the intifada, and with it still further intensification of the same bewildering confusion of democratic practices with national security affairs. The boundaries separating the two domains became increasingly blurred, and it was only due to the robustness that Israeli democracy had accumulated in the previous decades that the Jewish state succeeded in preserving its democratic character. This enormously complex history gave rise in the 1980s to what may well be a tidal wave of critical reappraisals of the Israeli experience. Previously, critical examinations were mainly confined to the extreme Left, or to apologists for the Arabs seeking to promote their cause in the war of words that has accompanied the Arab-Israeli conflict all along. But

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increasingly since the early 1980s agonizing reappraisals of Israel's record as a democracy have been offered by writers who can only be described as mainstream Israelis.1 The present volume clearly belongs in this emerging scholarly category. The opening article by the late Dan Horowitz offers a retrospect of the Israeli concept of national security. It explores: the underlying premises of the Israeli attitude to security; the nature of relations between foreign policy and national security; the disposition to risks for peace; the innate Israeli disposition toward the use of force; the key elements of Israeli strategy; the Israeli ethos of quality versus quantity and its impact on Israeli strategic calculations; the complexities of a nation in arms and how it effects strategic preferences; the essential elements of the economics of Israeli strategy; the technological dimension of Israeli strategy; the demographic and cultural dimensions of Israeli strategy; the historical and social origins of Israeli strategy; the logic of Israel's policy on the nuclear issue; the dialectical interrelation between strategic depth, preemptive strike, and the Israeli disposition regarding defensible borders; the logic of and experience with "red lines," casus belli, and "trip wires"; the trade-off between strategic depth, demilitarization, and stability; the origins and extent of the demise of national consensus on national security issues; the declining autonomy of military decisionmaking; the impact of the peace with Egypt on Israel's doctrine of national security; Israel's growing dependence on the United States and the impact of such dependence on Israeli national security theory and practice; and the fluctuating exchange rate between military investments and political returns. Horowitz's masterly tour d'horizon, which he sent to the editor of the present volume only a few days before his untimely death, is followed by Moshe Lissak's penetrating investigation of the interface between the social system and the national security system. Lissak begins with an attempt to define and delineate the scope of national security. He then proceeds to examine the relations between military and civilian components of national security: Why is it that so many nations do not have a fully articulated national security doctrine? Generally, what are the relations between security doctrines and civil-military relations? Does Israel have anything resembling a coherent and explicit national security doctrine? What are the fundamental premises of Israel's unannounced national security doctrine? What are the civilian components of this unannounced doctrine? Have there been any changes over time in the composition and scope of the civilian components of national security in Israel? What institutional linkages between the civilian and the military components of Israel's national security doctrine have been formed? From Lissak's overall assessment of the interaction of security and society in the Jewish state the discussion moves on to this editor's more

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specific evaluation of the interaction between the military and politics in the Jewish state. A professor of political science and vice president of the University of Haifa, this editor starts from the observation that civilmilitary relations in Israel are not nearly as much of a problem as they could have been, given the enormous size of the security establishment and the scope of Israel's national security effort. The main thrust of his article constitutes an attempt to arrive at a convincing explanation for this deviation from what may well be an international pattern. This exploration leads him along five distinct avenues of inquiry: (1) the nature of the external threat as it has been perceived by the Israeli political elite ever since the establishment of the state; (2) the degree to which Israel's national security depends on favorable world opinion—especially in the West; (3) the historical circumstances in which Israel's unique formula of civil-military relations took shape and were consolidated; (4) the civic and political cultural traits of Israeli society in general and its security establishment in particular; and (5) the constitutional and institutional factors in Israel's make-up that have enabled the Jewish state to escape the slide of so many young republics in the twentieth century, from democracy to authoritarianism. The next chapter, by Sammy Smooha, brings into play the oft-neglected aspect of Israel's Arab minority. Smooha, a professor of sociology at the University of Haifa, gives a brief conceptual overview of the general problem of ethnic pluralism and national security; the specific Israeli situation in this regard; Israel's attributes as an ethnic democracy; Jewish Israeli perceptions of the Arab minority's threat potential; the main elements of the security policy vis-à-vis the Arab minority; and the response of the Arabs themselves to official policy toward them; and he asks, What future trends appear to be emerging in these uneasy relations between Israel's Arab minority and the Jewish state? Starting off much like all other contributors to this volume from the observation that national security is the single most salient issue in Israel's public life, Asher Arian, a distinguished professor of political science at the Graduate School of the City University of New York, follows Smooha's chapter with an examination of public attitudes. Salience, he argues, is not the same as impact That there is an unusually high degree of awareness of national security issues does not in and of itself explain how these issues affect the course of Israeli politics, nor indeed how public opinion impinges on the direction of national security. He then proceeds to explore these issues, concentrating on four aspects of Israeli public opinion and national security: (1) the ability of public opinion to incorporate complex assessments of the security challenge with optimistic estimations of the state's ability to overcome these challenges; (2) the simultaneous championing of security matters and a democratic political system; (3) the trade-offs between democracy,

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security, and other competing values; and (4) the change in key attitudes over time. From the analysis of public attitudes the book proceeds to an attempt by Mordechai Kremnitzer to grapple with the fundamental issues of national security and the rule of law. Kremnitzer, dean of law at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, begins with a brief summary of two cases of scandalous conduct in the General Security Service (GSS)—the "Bus 300 A f f a i r " and the "Nafsu Affair"—taking issue with the conclusion of a judicial committee under Justice Landau, which held that under special circumstances security services should have limited discretion to apply "mild physical force." This argument develops in three parts. The first analyzes the broader significance of the Landau Commission's report. The second presents the general case for denying any discretion in such matters to any organs of national security under all circumstances, whereas the concluding section applies this exacting yardstick to Israel's specific circumstances. This powerful position offers a most suitable backdrop for Pnina Lahav's discussion of the press and national security. Lahav, a professor of law at Boston University, begins her discussion with the presentation of two contending images of press freedoms in the Jewish state. The first is positive, viewing Israel as a bastion of press freedom. The second is negative, portraying Israel as a most imperfect democracy. Which of the two, Lahav asks, is a closer approximation of reality, and why? She then moves to an interpretation of the official, predictably positive image and subsequently to its negative alter ego. Having offered a detailed and remarkably fair explanation of these two contending interpretations of press freedoms in Israel—and, by implication, of Israeli democracy itself—Lahav moves on to provide a critical examination of the role of the military censor. The most extreme case of military censorship in Israel relates, of course, to the nuclear program. It is thus perhaps a limiting case through which to judge Israel's success or failure in maintaining a full-blooded democratic system, despite its enormous national security problem. Nevertheless, in the final analysis it is not an issue that can be overlooked in a volume such as the present one. Avner Cohen offers such discussion in the last chapter of the book. Cohen, formerly of Tel Aviv University, is a researcher with the Defense and Arms Control Center of M I T . H e starts his discussion with an introduction that attempts to define the problem as an issue of what he calls "opacity," i.e., a posture of nondisclosure which, for reasons that cannot even be spelled out in public, ignores the fact that everyone, starting with the nation's adversaries, takes it for granted that a nuclear arsenal is an inseparable part of Israel's military capability. H e then moves to a historical overview of the Israeli case, adding greatly to

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the modest discussion of the same issue in D a n Horowitz's contribution. A n d h e concludes, quite fittingly, with a discussion of the degree t o which a strategy of opacity is compatible with democracy. B y following this path C o h e n adds an important dimension to this volume, while carrying the fundamental dilemma with which all other contributors wrestle to its most acute and intractable conclusion.

Notes 1. Cf. Amnon Rubinstein, From Herzel to Gush Emunirn and Back (Jerusalem: Schocken, 1980); Dina Goren, Secrecy, Security, and Freedom of the Press (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1976); Moshe Lissak, e d I s r a e l i Society and Its Defense Establishment (London: Frank Cass, 1984); Dan Horowitz and Moshe Lissak, "Democracy and National Security: A n Ongoing Confrontation," Yahadut Zemanenu, 4 (1988): 27-65; Idem, Troubles in Utopia: The Overburdened Polity of Israel (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1989); Itzhak Zamir, "Human Rights and National Security," Mishpatim 19 (1989): 17-39; Pnina Lahav, " A Barrel Without Hoops: The Impact of Counterterrorism on Israel's Legal Culture," Cardozo IMW Review, 10 (December 1988): 529-559; Moshe Negbi, Above the Law (Tel Aviv: Am Oved, 1980; Mordechai Kremnitzer, "General Security Services Pardon: A Test for the High Court of Justice," Tel Aviv University Law Review 12 (1987): 595-620; Ehud Sprinzak, Illegalism in Israeli Society (Tel Aviv: Sifriyat Poalim, 1986); Alan Dowty, "The Use of Emergency Powers in Israel," Middle East Review 21 (no. 1,1988): 34-46; Gad Barzilai, A Democracy in Wartime: Conflict and Consensus in Israel (Tel Aviv: Sifriyat Poalim, 1992); Menachem Hofnung, Israel—Security Needs vs. the Rule of Law (Nevo: Jerusalem, 1991).

The Israeli Concept of National Security Dan

Horowitz

Tenets All Israeli thinking on national security begins from the premise that Israel is engaged in a struggle for its very survival. This consensus encompasses divergent ideologies and politics and results from the fact that Israel is one of two sides in an active conflict2 on two levels: In the absence of peace with its Arab neighbors (that is, on the level of interstate relations), Israel faces the military challenge of surviving in hostile strategic surroundings; in the confrontation between Jewish and Palestinian nationalism over the fate of the territory stretching from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea (that is, on the national/ideological level), Israel seeks to broaden international recognition of its sovereignty. The mutuality of the military and political levels of the conflict is an appropriate starting point for examining what is constant and what is changing in the Israeli concept of security. The interdependence of the military and political facets of national security is recognized by nearly all Israelis, despite differences in the relative weight they assign to each of them. For example, in the Knesset the parliamentary committee dealing with national security is called the Committee on Foreign and Defense Policy. In other Western democratic countries these spheres are kept separate, both structurally and semantically; the fact that in Israel they are not is indicative of a popular acknowledgment of the interrelationship between foreign and defense policy. Within this interrelationship, however, diplomacy is viewed as subordinate to strategy rather than vice versa, or at least that is the view of the dominant school of thought.3 This is because the threat to Israel's survival is perceived as being both acute and imminent. The prioritization of national survival as the central aim of both military strategy and diplomacy is only natural, given the perception that Israel is in a perpetual state of "dormant war" even when no active hostilities exist. Yitzhak Rabin was the first to use the phrase "dormant war."4 But other expressions representing a similar orientation can be found in the 11

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speeches and writings of David Ben-Gurion, Yigal Allon, Moshe Dayan, and Shimon Peres, among others.5 Paradoxically, their approach was consistent with Arab legalistic positions that were, in turn, unacceptable to Israeli jurists: that the state of war between Israel and the Arab states is never suspended, even after an armistice or cease-fire agreements. This discrepancy between legal claims and operative presumptions is but one expression of the Realpolitik of the Arab-Israeli conflict, which is perceived by both sides as a "given. " For the decisionmakers, diplomacy, including its legal aspect, is a tool for the political management of a conflict, a management based on strategic considerations. Ben-Gurion articulated this view in 1955 when he described the institutional relationship between the Foreign and Defense ministries: "The Minister of Defense is authorized to make defense policy; the role of the Foreign Minister is to explain that policy."6 This orientation betrays a propensity to take risks: ensuring that military capabilities are adequate to the conflict is considered more important than actual attempts to resolve it.7 Confining the conflict's dimensions or reducing its intensity are "probable risks" in operative terms. Meanwhile, any threats to even marginal aspects of military security are perceived as "essential risks," acute threats to actual existence. This is the source of Israel's extreme caution vis-à-vis such initiatives as withdrawal from the Suez Canal in order to reopen it to navigation (in 1971) or on the "Jericho Plan," which followed in 1974. Even the political and military aftermath of the Yom Kippur War, including Sadat's peace initiative and the peace treaty with Egypt, only effected a partial revision of this orientation. Political considerations still could not be divorced from meeting security considerations: One of the legacies of the Yom Kippur War was increased Israeli dependence on the United States for both its military power and its international standing. Perceived as a given in the operational context, the conflict is considered in an ideological context to be imposed upon Israel. The national consensus feeds off the presumption that Israel is on the political and strategic defensive in any given operation, even when the army assumes that operation is offensive.8 This perception is attached to the asymmetry of the conflict: The Arabs can translate military and operative superiority into a strategic victory—they can resolve the conflict by annihilating Israel. Israel, on the other hand, cannot resolve the conflict militarily—as a result, it has no clearly defined war aims.9 In fact, the only basis of national consensus in Israel is that there is a need to cope with the threat to its existence, and that this can be done only by means of the country's own armed might.10 In war this aim was translated into the operational goal of destroying enemy forces in order to deny them an offensive capability.11 Israelis were far less unanimous

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about territorial aims. One popular view maintained that territory captured while staving off a threat to security was actually a retroactive realization of a "historic right" to Biblical Israel. Others saw the captured territory as a "bargaining chip." In any event, most Israeli policy before 1977 conceived of territory—excepting Jerusalem—as integral to answering threats against Israel's existence and improving its security situation, whether this was in terms of "security borders," "defensible borders," or as territory exchangeable for political and military agreements (all within the context of the Israeli principle of defensive self-reliance).12 Moreover, even among adherents of a "Greater Israel" who favor expansion of Israel's borders, many base their territorial claims on the essential security function of those territories captured in 1967 rather than on any historic rights to the land. Thus, we found ourselves learning that in the Israeli conception of security it was the defense of the country that determined Israeli war aims. Challenges to this orientation were voiced from time to time by sections of the security and political establishment, but they were rejected by the makers of defense policy, both throughout the era preceding Likud's ascension to power and during the period of the first Likud government, of which Ezer Weizman, Moshe Day an, and Yigal Yadin were all members. Only in 1982 were there indications that a different conception had emerged, envisioning the use of Israeli military force for more than deterring and meeting threats. This new concept of Israeli security rejected the "denial" approach to national security, an approach that implied controlled use of military power in the context of "defensive" political and strategic aims, applicable to both "low intensity warfare" and full-scale military confrontation. The existence of such terms as "low intensity warfare" or "dormant war" indicates the absence of a clear boundary between a state of war and one of peace. Conditions of neither war nor peace in the form of a "cease-fire," "armistice," or "separation of forces," periodically interrupted by full-scale military conflict, mold the Israeli conception of the role of violence in the international arena. In this context, the use of military force in periods when no full-scale hostilities are taking place or in the context of a limited war is integral to the Israeli concept of a controlled use of force in an ongoing conflict. The noncontinuous employment of military force at various degrees of intensity has enabled Israel to pursue a flexible strategy based on its military might, even when that might is not fully engaged. In conditions of "dormant war" Israel has considered itself free to execute preventive military measures designed to thwart the enemy's offensive capability, even if offensive intentions could not be proven. An outstanding example of Israel's need to approach this situation on a "worst-case" basis is its 1981 attack on Iraq's nuclear reactor.13 Rejection of the dichotomy between conditions of war and peace,

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together with a policy of controlled use of military force, are characteristic of the "strategic studies school" in international politics. The school of strategic studies that developed in the United States in the late 1950s and early 1960s assumed, as did Clausewitz, that "war is the continuation of diplomacy, but by other means." Clausewitz's emphasis on the political dimension of military action was here enhanced by a new vision of conflict management by the indirect use of military force. Limited war, on one hand, or the use of threats issuing from real or apparent military capabilities in the form of "deterrence" or "compellance," on the other hand, were viewed as two prongs of the controlled employment of force. This approach, based on a continual application of force at differing degrees of severity, led to the development of the concept of controlled escalation as a means of managing international conflicts. The Israeli version of these concepts was in use about a decade before the school of strategic studies took shape in the United States. It coalesced, through trial and error, as part of the search for an answer to the dilemma of being unable to effect either a diplomatic or a military resolution of a conflict. The emergence of this approach in Israel is noteworthy because it was out of a similar situation of assumed conflict with no possibility of victory for either side (due to mutually assured nuclear destruction) that the school of strategic studies developed in the United States. The strategic approach to international relations now became connected on both the level of "conflict orientation," which prioritizes national security needs, and on the level of controlled application by force to the conditions of an ongoing conflict, whose resolution by political or military means was considered unlikely but which still constituted a great threat. Thus there are striking similarities between strategic approaches that developed under completely different historical, geopolitical, and military/technological circumstances, whether in an ideological/political conflict between superpowers armed with nuclear weapons, or a regional political/territorial conflict between small nations, conventionally armed, who may or may not have potential nuclear capacity. The perception of the threat, which for years spurred coalescence of a broad national consensus in Israel on questions of security, did not stem only from a recognition of the seriousness of the Arab-Israeli conflict and the unlikelihood of its resolution; it was also influenced by the imbalance of forces between the two sides and by the disputed borders, which so acutely narrowed the Israeli margin of security. Thus Israel's security estimations reflect a strategic orientation whose starting point is the search for a solution to two fundamental problems: the problem of the balance of forces and the problem of strategic depth. This dual challenge, of both significant Arab advantage in resources, particularly in manpower, and borders difficult to defend because of their

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length and proximity to population centers, had no ready answer. Israeli military survival in such circumstances was enabled by creating a military force that efficiently exploited available resources and was guided by a military philosophy of bringing the war to the enemy's territory, a philosophy that was replaced after the Six Day War by the concept of the "defensible border." 14

"Quality Versus Quantity" The equation of "quality versus quantity" recurs continuously in Israeli perceptions of the problem of the balance of forces. A careful examination of the concept of "quality" in Israeli security thinking shows that it usually means using available resources more efficiently than the enemy. In a more direct operative fashion, "quality" in one context appears as "quantity" in another. Input considered qualitative becomes output measured quantitatively: a more developed society, having undergone a process of modernization, is able to put a higher percentage of its population under arms during times of war; its more developed service infrastructure makes it possible for the same number of aircraft to fly a greater number of sorties in a day; armies with greater mobility are able to concentrate their strength where the battle will be decided; more precisely aimed tanks achieve a greater percentage of hits from the same number of shots. The cumulative effect of these advantages is what is meant by "quality versus quantity" in Israeli security thinking.15 The factors contributing to "qualitative advantage" are varied: mobilization of manpower, mobilization of financial resources, levels of technology, professional training, organizational efficiency, and operative flexibility on the battlefield. The most outstanding example of an optimal exploitation of human resources in support of "the qualitative advantage" is the Israeli system of military reserves, which significantly reduces the implications of the population imbalance between Israel and the Arab countries. This system is enhanced by the superior mobilization capabilities of a small, developed society as opposed to large, less-developed ones. Israel's military preparedness rests on a "three-tiered structure: a professional army which serves as the command and professional backbone, a fully trained conscription army prepared for immediate action, and a reserve force available for deployment which also comprises the bulk of the armed forces in times of emergency." 16 The Israeli pattern of existence as a "nation in arms" or a "nation in uniform" is expressed by more than just this exploitation of its manpower potential for military purposes. The integration of quasimilitia elements (namely the reserves) in a modern and sophisticated military organization

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is another element of the Israeli military posture. The reserves comprise the majority of the armored and artillery corps; air force reservists fly the most sophisticated combat aircraft; reserve officers command divisions. To obtain maximum realization of this manpower mobilization potential, financial resources for equipping, arming, and maintaining the expanded army are also required. As a small country whose armed forces are on the order of a midsized world power, Israel's security demands in times of peace consume a larger percentage of the country's GNP than those of any other nation in the world. In the years following the 1973 War, Israel channeled more than a third of its GNP to defense. This level subsequently dropped to a little more than 25 percent. The most expensive component of Israeli military might is the air force, which keeps itself at the forefront of technological sophistication and purchases the most advanced combat aircraft available in order to maintain air superiority. An effective comparison of the extent of Israel's armament efforts can be made in the context of its armored divisions: if China were to maintain the same ratio of population size to armored corps as Israel, it would have about a million tanks. The most important element of Israeli qualitative superiority over the Arab states is Israel's technological edge. Air superiority is but one example of Israeli efforts to counter the quantitative imbalance of forces by means of technologically superior weapons.17 For instance, a missile boat more sophisticated than any found in Arab arsenals was developed for use by the Israeli navy. It was then armed with missiles designed specifically by Israel for that craft. On the ground, Israeli quantitative inferiority in artillery pieces had been especially pronounced in the late 1960s and early 1970s. In attempting to compensate for this situation, mobile artillery units were created, made possible by the procurement of mobile guns not then present in either the Egyptian or Syrian arsenals. Furthermore, the Israeli plan to acquire qualitative technological weapons superiority meant ceaseless efforts to improve existing systems and to adapt them to actual fighting conditions. Yet Israel did not fully exploit the technological possibilities for superiority. The limited resources of a "poor nation" prevented the Israeli army from being turned into the equivalent of a "capital-intensive" enterprise, which in military/technological terms means precise and efficient firepower. Economic realities, then, meant that technology could not be used to completely replace "quantity" with "quality." Nevertheless, Israeli superiority in integrating new technologies was seen as a security asset because professional training made possible the optimal use of those weapons. Air combat between Israelis and Arabs demonstrated, among other factors, the superior training of Israeli pilots, effected by a strict

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selection process and an especially high level of pilot training. The selectiveness in choosing personnel for elite units and a generally high level of professional training became the norm for all Israeli technical units. The armored brigades, for instance, emphasized improved tank marksmanship as a means for improving weapons efficiency. High levels of professional training for each combat soldier mean the optimal operation of weapons systems; for support troops this translates into the optimal servicing of those systems. In this regard, a developed, well-educated society has an advantage over less-developed, less-educated societies. For instance, in order to increase the comparative number of sorties flown by Israeli jets, the level of training of Israeli air force ground crews was pushed to the limit. The training of technical maintenance units in the armored divisions enabled damaged vehicles to be quickly reintroduced into battle. Organizational efficiency has a similarly positive influence on improving the input/output ratio, although this aspect of quality in the Israeli military has been emphasized less. The Israeli military ethos led to the concentration of higher-quality manpower in combat roles rather than in support positions, especially within the officer corps. Another ingredient of Israeli quality, and a crucial element in Israel's fighting ability, can be called operative flexibility in battle. This term is difficult to define without falling into ambiguities; it is even harder to express in quantitative terms. Operative flexibility in battle refers to those elements that influence the effective operations of forces on the battlefield. Such elusive characterizations as the "art of command" or "morale in the ranks" refer to some of these elements. Military doctrines reflected in combat principles and in systems of command, control, and communications are yet another kind of factor. While the balance of forces in personnel, equipment, and armaments is measurable, and while even apparently qualitative comparisons in the balance of forces—for instance, in weapons operations and training—can find quantitative expression in the precision and mobility of firepower, none of these factors can account for the reactions of the respective sides to changing conditions; and unpredictable flexibility in battle can be the decisive element for success in a military confrontation. The conditions of unpredictability in battle originating in the fact that the outcome of any given battle depends on the actions and reactions of both sides, including deliberate deception and disinformation, make operative flexibility the means of economizing on the use of manpower and equipment during combat. A flexible use of forces facilitates their economical use because it obviates the predeployment of troops for all possible battle scenarios. The most elusive factor determining flexibility of response in battle is

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the "art of command." This factor is usually dependent on clearly fortuitous elements, such as an educated guess as to the enemy's next move. A more easily defined, if not exactly measurable, influence on flexible and quick response under the unpredictable conditions of battle—sometimes referred to as the "fog of war"—is the quality of the command, control, and communications structure of the respective sides. Israeli superiority in this sphere is the product of a combination of social factors and military conceptions. The flexible response of command, control, and communications systems in the "fog of war" depends on the training, initiative, and devotion to duty of the personnel manning those systems. The need for a pool of adequately educated and motivated personnel favors a modern, unified society, and handicaps societies that are both less modern and less unified. The full exploitation of this advantage, which is born of social factors, depends on adopting military concepts and actions conducive to the flexible operation of command, control, and communications. Such military thinking encouraging initiative, resourcefulness, and even improvisation at all levels of command did not develop in Israel as a clearly conceived military doctrine. Like other aspects of building a military organization, the conceptual legitimacy of methods proven effective and suitable to Israeli military conflict was granted only after the fact. The roots of the Israeli military tradition can be found in the irregular, underground fighting force baptized by fire in the War of Independence and the reprisal policy of the 1950s, conflicts that were neither guerrilla actions nor full-scale war. The conditions in which these conflicts arose prevented creation of any organizational or conceptual infrastructure before the commencement of combat. This fact has continued to shape the operative methods of the command, control, and communications structure of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) even after it became a technologically advanced army equipped with the finest of modern armaments. The maxim stressed in the IDF is adherence to the objective (rather than to the plan). This guides all modes of command, control, and communications in the IDF.18 These operative methods addressed two central dilemmas: planning versus improvisation and control versus resourcefulness. The answer to the former was that "every plan is a basis for revision." Adherence to the objective supersedes adherence to a specific plan if it should go awry in the confusion of battle. The answer to the second dilemma was a decentralization of authority in order to allow the relatively lower ranks of command, those physically engaged in the fighting, to respond quickly to the changing configuration of the battlefield without having to request security authorization. This meant devotion to the mission even in the absence of direct orders, but it did not excuse the commander in the field

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from reporting to his superiors, who retained "optional control." A flexible system of command, control, and communications does not just economize on forces; it also tends to be less vulnerable than a more strictly structured system to the pressures of battle. It is not as susceptible to surprise and deception by the enemy, a distinct advantage in the "fog of war." A highly mobile, offensive strategy places great stress on the command, control, and communications systems of both sides, but is more debilitating for less flexible structures. This relative immunity from collapse in battle, while influencing the outcome of military confrontation, is difficult to measure when comparing the balance of forces. The starting point for Moshe Dayan's planning of the Sinai campaign of 1956 was a calculation of the chances for disintegration of the enemy's fighting structure. Dayan's colleagues in the IDF General Staff were vehemently critical of that approach. In the Six Day War, the collapse of the command, control, and communications structure of the Egyptian army contributed significantly to Israel's quick victory, but in the Yom Kippur War similar expectations of an Egyptian collapse in the face of the Israeli counterattack of October 8 did not prove realistic. Even after Israeli forces crossed the Suez Canal, the Egyptian structure did not, for the most part, break down. Thus the Israeli advantage, rooted in the different thresholds of disintegration of the respective Israeli and Arab military structures, has led to Israeli preference for a mobile and offensive war over a static and defensive one. This, however, is not sufficient to secure success, nor is it a reason to undertake high risks in war. The Israeli security conception of quality versus quantity usually refers to the balance of conventional forces. The development of an Israeli nuclear capability has been defined as an "option." Because it was not an element in the current balance of forces, but was intended as the linchpin of a future Israeli nuclear strategy if Israel found it impossible to maintain a balance of conventional forces, or if Arab nuclear capability became a reality, open advocacy of an Israeli nuclear strategy emerged only after the Yom Kippur War and was aimed at mitigating the economic burden of maintaining the balance of conventional forces. In spite of this advocacy, however, the school of conventional superiority continued to dominate Israeli security thinking, refusing to take into account the threat of a "bomb in the basement" in the course of operative military planning.19

Depth, Preemption, and Defensible Borders The Israeli search for an answer to the quantitative imbalance of forces with the Arabs has been guided by an instrumental military/security

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orientation. Moral principles, ideological polemic, and nonstrategic considerations have been deemed irrelevant to the problem, and thus extraordinary solutions, such as the reserves system and the mass allocation of resources to security needs, have become a part of the national consensus. This consensus on security matters, made possible by the autonomous status accorded to the "instrumental strategic considerations," was not indifferent to the risks associated with the absence of strategic depth. Although presentations of the problem, in both closed and public forums, often emphasized an instrumental strategic perspective, the public debate in Israel revolved around the relationship between strategic conceptions of territory and one's own views of Zionism, the "Land of Israel," and Jewish-Arab relations. This was true even of former soldiers. Thus, even if instrumental/strategic considerations were not a direct outgrowth of ideological considerations, a connection between the two clearly existed. The problem of strategic depth has two aspects: On one hand, it is a problem of the limited area available for the operative maneuverability of Israeli forces during war. This limitation is born of the proximity of Israel's vital centers to the pre-1967 borders and severely affects Israel's ability to initially withstand an enemy strike and only afterwards move onto a counterattack. Any tactical retreat is liable to develop into a strategic threat. On the other hand, the problem of strategic depth is related to the Israeli solution to the quantitative imbalance in forces. As such, the problem of space becomes a problem of time. Israeli preparedness for war depends on the military reserves, and the narrow pre-1967 borders meant that a surprise attack before the reserves could be mobilized would ensure an enemy victory. The popular cliché of Israel's "soft underbelly," the country's central region lying between the "Green Line" and the sea, had real meaning. The Israeli answer to this absence of strategic depth was formulated by Ben-Gurion, who in 1948 adopted the concept of "bringing the war to the enemy."20 The operative significance of this solution was assumption of an offensive posture in any military confrontation with the Arab states. Only one question remained: How would such an offensive strategy actually be carried out by an army consisting primarily of reserve units? The answer in the early 1950s was for the most part technical: intelligence warnings of enemy intentions, early mobilization, and absorption by regional defense units of an enemy first strike if forewarning of an attack was late in coming. Later, with the increased tendency to apply offensive strategy to the opening stages of war, these answers proved inadequate. Yigal Allon called this extension of the offensive posture to the actual outbreak of fighting a "preemptive strike." The IDF adopted the doctrine of preemptive strike in the mid-1950s, during Moshe Dayan's tenure as chief of staff, and it continued to guide Israeli military planners through

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the Six Day War.21 Theoretically the army filled its obligation to provide the political echelon with the option of absorbing an enemy first strike. But in actuality the army was optimally designed to wage a war initiated by Israel. The outstanding example of this fact was the air force's plan in the 1960s to destroy enemy planes on the ground by means of a surprise strike, instead of acquiring an advantage in the air by means of a superior ability to down enemy aircraft in combat.22 The difference in terms of risks and estimation of casualties in initiating a war rather than withstanding an enemy first strike and then launching a counteroffensive played a crucial role in the decision reached in 1967 following the period of crisis that preceded the June war. Once Egyptian forces massed among the Israel-Sinai border, the Israeli political leadership found itself under pressure from the military to preempt the situation: to initiate a war in order to deny the Egyptians a first strike.23 This is how the IDF's offensive strategy, its answer to the problem of strategic depth, acted as a constraint on the political discretion of civilian decisionmakers. It was made clear to the Eshkol government that the chances of a quick decision on the battlefield in a war with Egypt, one which could end with an acceptable level of losses, were much better if the I D F would be allowed to strike first and as soon as possible, before the Egyptians could be deployed in their new positions. The conclusions drawn from what unfolded during the crisis of May 1967 were to have a profound effect on Israeli defense thinking after the war: in many ways, the conception of defensible borders as an answer to the strategic-depth problem was the result of the traumatic waiting period preceding the Six Day War. That trauma revealed another Achilles heel in the security conception that prevailed from 1956 to 1967. After Israel became in essence a "status quo" nation, abandoning "peacetime military operations" (as Moshe Dayan called the policy of reprisals prior to the Sinai campaign),24 it chose a strategy of deterrence based on conventional force.25 The success of this strategy depended not only on actual Israeli might but on Arab foundations, and Israel was in need of an alternative in the event of its failure. Yitzhak Rabin articulated that alternative: "If deterrence fails, the IDF's ability to force a decision will be put to the test." 26 This formula sought to bridge the two elements of Israeli strategic thinking, but it did not resolve the operational need to define what would be a failure of deterrence. How could Israel discern when its deterrence had failed and the time had come for a preemptive strike? The notion of predetermined "trip wires" in the form of casus belli that could include an attack on key Israeli interests during peacetime provided a partial answer.27 A blockade of the Straits of Tiran was publicly known to be such a casus belli. Another declared casus belli, whose exact dimensions, how-

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ever, were left unspecified, was any deterioration of the status quo in Jordan. Other potential provocations, which were less explicitly defined, included a concentration of Egyptian forces along the border with Israel. This last casus belli was linked to the de facto status of the Sinai as a buffer zone between the main Israeli and Egyptian forces. That status was established in the wake of the Israeli-Egptian tensions in 1960, which instigated the Israeli "Operation Rotem": the Egyptians had responded to an Israeli reprisal raid on the Syrian border by moving substantial numbers of troops into the Sinai; Israel reacted with a partial mobilization. Tensions eased only after international mediation achieved an Egyptian withdrawal and Israeli demobilization.28 The understanding that made this type of solution possible was not anchored in any explicit declarations but in inferences, and it turned the Sinai into a kind of demilitarized zone where any concentration of Egyptian forces in the eastern half of the peninsula was sufficient provocation for Israeli mobilization and even war, if the situation was not reversed. There were other possible "trip wires" for war, if responses "short of war" were not effective in defusing them. These included denying Israel access to its water sources and the renewal of terrorist infiltration on any significant scale. These provocations supplied the link connecting qualified reliance on deterrence to a first strike, if deterrence failed and Israel was faced with a serious threat to its national security. These "trip wires"—both explicit and inferred ones—were more than just warning signals that deterrence was failing, however. Their very existence, growing out of the need to maintain a credible deterrence based on conventional military superiority, created an additional potential provocation for war.29 If Israel left a provocation unanswered, it would be not only a signal to Israelis, but an indication to the Arabs that Israel lacked either the desire or the ability to back up its deterrence.30 Therefore, even if a strike at a vital interest defined as a casus belli was not in itself sufficient cause for war, it was enough reason for a military response, if only to prevent additional strikes at other vital interests. The U.S. school of strategic studies terms this the "domino effect," resulting when the credibility of deterrence comes into question. Throughout May 1967 those vital Israeli interests that had been defined as casus belli were targeted, one after the other: the Egyptian army massed its forces in the eastern part of the Sinai, the Straits of Tiran were blockaded, and the status quo in Jordan was altered with the appointment of a joint Egyptian-Jordanian command and movement of Jordanian armor into the West Bank in violation of a U.S.-Jordanian understanding. Israel was confronted with the choice between having its strategic position challenged and initiating a war before a conducive international political climate could be created for such a step. This set of choices was what made

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the lessons of the prewar crisis so traumatic and strengthened the subsequent inclination to create a "capability of attack." The outcome of the Six Day War endowed Israel with "strategic depth" for the first time in its history.31 The cease-fire lines of 1967 were much farther from the country's vital centers than the 1949 armistice lines had been, and the occupation of the Sinai provided a warning buffer from attack originating from Egyptian airfields. These changes paved the way for modification of the Israeli conception of the preemptive strike, which, although still viewed as militarily desirable, was no longer essential. The cease-fire lines were thought to provide Israel with the capability of absorbing an attack before having to move onto the offensive. The lessons of May 1967, along with control over the territories supplying strategic depth, contributed to adoption of a new conception of the territorial element in the Israeli security system.32 At first this concept was termed "secure borders," later "defensible borders." Abba Eban defined its strategic significance: "borders which can be defended without a pre-emptive initiative."33 The concept of secure borders had clear advantages over the preemptive strike as an answer to the Israeli problem of strategic depth. It freed Israel from the politically difficult task of initiating war and risking consequent accusations of aggression; it paved the way to a deterrence strategy whose efficacy was not dependent on "trip wires"; it mitigated the Arab temptation to attack in the hope of achieving victory before Israel could fully mobilize its reserves. But just as the circumstances leading to the outbreak of the Six Day War exposed the limitations of the concepts of preemptive strike and casus belli, the circumstances leading to the outbreak of the Yom Kippur War revealed the drawbacks of the concept of defensible borders and absorption of an enemy first strike. The forward IDF positions facing the brunt of the Egyptian forces in October 1973 were too thin and distant to hold out until the arrival of the reserves. In addition, neither the obstacle of the Suez Canal nor the Israeli air force's superiority could hold the Bar-Lev line once the Egyptians, whose primary aim was to overthrow the political status quo, were prepared to make do with a limited military and territorial victory. The Egyptians could achieve such a limited goal by crossing the canal with infantry not necessarily where Israeli fortifications dominated the axes leading to the canal, and by not advancing beyond the range of their antiaircraft defenses positioned on the canal's western side. Thus the Egyptians were poised to meet the Israeli counterattack with a dense infantry deployment equipped with antitank weapons and protected by an antiaircraft missile umbrella. Their position, with the canal at their backs, also denied Israeli armor any maneuverability once the Israelis did succeed in piercing a hole in Egyptian positions.34

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Furthermore, political conditions and considerations of morale kept Israel from making operative use of its strategic depth by tactically retreating from the Bar-Lev line in the early stages of the war.35 On the Egyptian front the achievement of strategic depth meant Israel had forfeited the advantage of short supply lines. Thus strategic depth could not even be exploited because the IDF found it difficult to make the transition to counterattack after withstanding the first strike. And in the end, when the IDF succeeded in crossing the canal, theirs was a limited success, exacting a heavy price in casualties. In contrast, the slight extra depth Israel acquired on the Golan Heights after the Six Day War made it possible to stop the Syrian armor before it took control of the entire Golan during the Yom Kippur War. Without this depth, a Syrian first strike would have reached the Israeli civilian settlements in the Hula and Jordan valleys. The Yom Kippur War made it possible to take a more balanced look at the advantages and disadvantages of the concept of "defensible borders." The war's lessons showed that, along with its benefits, added strategic depth also brought a price. The belief that there was a single, unequivocal solution to the problem of strategic depth was disproved, and discussion about the territorial element of Israeli national security was consequently reopened. That discussion was a fertile one, both within the establishment and in the wider public, and it bred a range of alternatives, the most outstanding being the concept of demilitarized or partially demilitarized buffer zones.36 The military arrangements of the September 1975 (Sinsi II) Egyptian-Israeli separation-of-forces agreement was based on this concept, as was the peace treaty with Egypt four years later.37 The exchange of strategic depth behind Israeli lines for a demilitarized warning buffer in front of its lines made it possible for Israel to withdraw its forces from the Sinai without risking an effective Egyptian surprise land attack on vital centers within Israel. As always, Israeli deployment after the peace agreement also had advantages and disadvantages in relation to other solutions to the problem of strategic depth on the Egyptian border. The outstanding political advantage was a reduction of tensions in Israeli-Egyptian relations. Militarily, Israel gained from shortening its internal supply lines, thus easing the logistical strain and reducing the time required to transfer forces from one front to another. At the same time there were a number of disadvantages—new factors which had not been present on the Egyptian front before the Yom Kippur War: the need to readopt "trip wires" in light of the possibility that Egypt might violate the demilitarization conditions; reduction of the warning time of an air attack; and the loss of Israeli forward bases, such as at Sharm el Sheik, which had provided a capability for offensive operations. Consequently, the military arrangements of the peace with Egypt are a partial

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return on that front to the concepts that had guided Israeli security policy before 1967. However, unlike in that earlier time, now the triggering of any Israeli preemptive strike in response to a "tripped wire" could occur in the context of an explicit bilateral agreement, the violation of which would constitute an aggressive action. The concept of a demilitarized or partially demilitarized buffer zone as a substitute for strategic depth (as popularly understood) is only relevant to the conditions of the Egyptian front. Without additional arrangements, such a zone does not sufficiently answer Israel's military and territorial problems on the Syrian or Jordanian fronts.38 The Israeli occupation of the Golan Heights does not provide "strategic depth." Rather, it constitutes a forward position defending the settlements in the Hula and Jordan valleys, which are dominated from the Golan Heights. An Israeli withdrawal from the Golan Heights could deprive Israel of the territorial element necessary for an effective offensive response to limited Syrian actions, such as an artillery war of attrition or Syrian assistance to Palestinian terrorist infiltration. By such a withdrawal Israel would be denied important military advantages; however, it would not be exposed to a surprise attack that could threaten its existence. Thus any territorial arrangement including Israeli concessions on the Golan Heights will mean a risk in the narrow military-operative context, but not in the strategic context of a threat to Israel's survival.39 Since the signing of the peace treaty with Egypt, the public debates in Israel over strategic depth have focused on the front situated between the Jordan River and the Green Line delineating the 1949 boundary between Israel and Jordan. The West Bank, comprising Judaea and Samaria, extends along the "soft underbelly" of Israel, so termed for its proximity to the country's most vital strategic centers and because of the potential it provides for a successful Arab surprise attack before the IDF could fully mobilize. Thus a nearly general consensus formed early in Israel that the deployment of any enemy forces in Judaea and Samaria beyond those required for internal security would undermine Israel's ability to defend itself with its own forces. Both Jerusalem and Tel Aviv are within the artillery range of the Green Line, and all of Israel's airfields are within the range of surface-to-air missiles based within the armistice borders of 1949. Armor deployed in the West Bank would be minutes, not hours, away from the Mediterranean Sea; a radar outpost position on the slopes of the Judaean hills could deny Israel its deterrence capability;40 airfields in Judaea and Samaria with a capacity for handling jets or large cargo planes would significantly increase the risk of a surprise attack. Under such circumstances, even an Arab state with limited forces could threaten Israel's existence by moving those forces into Judaea and Samaria and coordinating a simultaneous attack on other fronts with other Arab states.

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Thus demilitarizing the West Bank of heavy arms or sophisticated weaponry was considered vital by those who held a moderate view on the question of strategic depth. Maximalists, on the other hand, argued that there is a need for Israel to retain military control over the whole of the West Bank. From a purely military/strategic perspective, the debate in Israel over the West Bank is an argument over whether continued direct military control of Judaea and Samaria is necessary or whether simply denying an enemy a significant military presence there will grant Israel sufficient security. Even the latter view, however, rejects a complete military withdrawal to the pre-1967 armistice borders, because the Israeli ability to guarantee demilitarization of the West Bank is predicated on Israeli control over the routes connecting the two banks of the Jordan. Otherwise, with the technological means available today, and assuming only the use of conventional forces, it would be impossible to maintain the minimal conditions necessary for Israeli self-defense. Therefore, the opposed schools of thought on security that have coalesced in Israel over recent years—the "mountain ridge" school and the "Jordan Valley" school—are both based on an assumption that Israel will not completely withdraw its forces from Judaea, Samaria, and the Gaza Strip. Alongside this military debate between the supporters of demilitarization through control of the arteries into the Jordan Valley (and the southern tip of the Gaza Strip) and the proponents of continued control over the whole of the territory conquered in 1967 (with an emphasis on Israeli military presence on the mountain ridge there), a political debate rages over whether Israel's security border is synonymous with its sovereign border. Each of the two territorial/military schools of thought contain two political views. One view rejects separating sovereignty from military control and aspires to annex the territories it considers strategically vital; the other view distinguishes between a political border—the boundaries of the State of Israel—and a security border—the boundary of Israeli military presence. These conceptual differences are the grounds of the debate over the benefits of civilian settlements in Judaea, Samaria, and the Gaza Strip, settlements that can be seen as establishing the de facto boundaries of a permanent Israeli presence in the territories. Differences over the issue of strategic depth evolved gradually after the Six Day War. They did not suddenly appear as a result of the war itself. Once the area of Israeli control extended beyond the minimum required for self-defense, military/instrumental considerations lost their autonomous status and became at least partially dependent on political and ideological factors. This dependence was made even more apparent after the Yom Kippur War, when the theoretical problem of territorial/military deployment within the framework of political arrangements became an

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actual issue. In such circumstances, the absence of domestic agreement over the territorial issue spread from the political and ideological sphere into the strategic/security sphere. The Demise of National Consensus The occupation of the West Bank during the Six Day War freed Israel from the greatest geographical threat to its national security. Consequently, consensus in the Israeli security community came to rest on the rejection of any political arrangement requiring a return to the unstable political and military status quo ante along Israel's eastern border. Thus most of the proponents of continued Israeli occupation of the territory do not support a complete military withdrawal from the entire territory, which had been under Jordanian control until 1967. Opinion in Israel is divided over the political and legal status and not just the dimensions of the area to be retained by Israel. However, most formulators of Israeli strategic thinking are convinced there is need for a limited long-term Israeli military presence in certain areas east of the 1949 armistice lines. In order to gloss over other differences, this partial consensus is often stated negatively: "There will be no return to the borders of June 4,1967."41 This view is based on the presumption that full withdrawal from the territory captured from Jordan in June 1967 is inconsistent with the principle of ensuring Israel's self-defense capability in all circumstances. The "negative" Israeli consensus vis-à-vis the West Bank is therefore a result of the belief that the demilitarization of the West Bank can only be guaranteed if Israel maintains a territorial base there, to be used by its military forces in the event of a violation of demilitarization.42 In terms of security needs unconnected to ideological, historical, or emotional attitudes about the Land of Israel, most policymakers agree that any arrangement for the West Bank and Gaza Strip must: (1) forbid the deployment of enemy armored forces, artillery, and, most of all, surface-to-air missiles, which could prevent planes from taking off from anywhere in Israel; and (2) allow the deployment of Israeli military forces so that they can block any enemy forces advancing from the east until Israel is able to mobilize its reserves and establish a line of defense to retain strategic control over the West Bank. In this context, it is important to note that the consensus among those with a high level of security and political consciousness vis-à-vis Israel's eastern border is based only on the need to prevent the West Bank from becoming the source of a military threat to the existence of Israel. This limited consensus is compatible with the presumption that Israel must be

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capable, under any condition, of defending itself with its own forces against any single Arab country or coalition of Arab countries. However, it does not address three fundamental issues: the size, location, and status of the territories required to ensure successful Israeli self-defense if attacked from the east. Nor does it suggest a rejection of a return of territories to a sovereign Palestinian entity. There is a maximalist territorial position that argues that Israel must retain full political and military control over the entire West Bank and Gaza Strip, whether by means of annexation or by granting autonomy "to the population" rather than "to the territory." According to the conception held by the Likud, Israeli military presence and Israeli settlement activity must both continue in the entire area under any circumstances.43 This is in opposition to the public position of the Israeli Labor party, which supports "territorial compromise": a repartition of the Land of Israel along borders defined as "defensible."44 Some of the advocates of this alternative are not altogether rejecting the option of separating the security issue from the source of sovereignty by allowing a limited Israeli military presence in defined areas beyond Israel's border. The very epitome of territorial compromise is the "Allon Plan," whose strategic aim is control over the eastern approaches to the West Bank, to be achieved through the annexation of the Jordan Valley, with the exception of a narrow corridor connecting the East Bank to the rear of the West Bank. The West Bank would be demilitarized and linked to Jordan as part of a Jordanian-Palestinian political entity, obviating demand for creation of a third state between Israel and Jordan.45 The political and strategic considerations of the Allon Plan's proponents, supporters of a "Jordanian option," do not necessarily prefer negotiations with Jordan instead of the PLO. The belief that existence of a "third state" would make demilitarization of the West Bank more difficult is derived from a strategic point of view that posits that demilitarizing a limited area of a larger political entity is more viable than demilitarizing an entire country. It is also claimed that separating the West Bank from Jordan would transform the Palestinians living on the East Bank into exiles, putting them into a position not unlike the Palestinian population in Lebanon, and would provoke irredentist tendencies among them. However, these considerations are political rather than military-operational. The territorial debate over the future of the West Bank in the framework of a political resolution of the Palestinian problem is connected to the strategic choice between a defensive orientation requiring capability to withstand unprovoked enemy attack and an offensive orientation requiring preparedness to carry out a preemptive strike. Paradoxically, as in the case of the Sinai, the political hawks who oppose territorial compromise tend to adopt a defensive military orientation that endorses

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absorption of an enemy strike, while the adherents of dovish political positions who accept a partition of the Land of Israel west of the Jordan River are willing to initiate military action if and when the demilitarization of the West Bank is violated.46 According to the politically hawkish-militarily defensive orientation, Israel's military deployment in the West Bank must be along the length of the mountain ridge dominating the land lying both west and east.47 The politically dovish orientation, which requires a willingness to take preventive military action under certain circumstances, argues that Israel must maintain a military presence in the narrow, sparsely populated corridor along the length of the Jordan River. Deployment there controls the main routes into the West Bank from the east. The Allon Plan would achieve that control by annexing the Jordan Valley and part of the eastern slopes of the mountains of Judaea and Samaria, except for a corridor near Jericho that will be in Arab hands.48 The Israeli domestic debate over settlement policy in the occupied territories reflects the differences between these two geopolitical strategies: the settlement efforts of the governments of Levi Eshkol, Golda Meir, and Yitzhak Rabin concentrated on the Jordan Valley; whereas the settlements initiated by the Begin government were spread over the entire West Bank.49 This difference led to disagreement over the military value of settlements in the Nablus area as manifested in the conflicting statements presented by then chief of staff, Major-General Rafael Eitan, and former chief of staff, Major-General (ret.) Chaim Bar-Lev, to the Supreme Court concerning the proposed Jewish settlement of Elon Moreh.50 Each of these geostrategic orientations toward the future of the West Bank contains two versions of the postagreement political status of the territories that will remain under Israeli control: one essentially "annexationist," the other based on a military presence without annexation. Autonomy as a permanent solution can be the basis for retaining control of the mountain ridge without annexing it; military deployment in the Jordan Valley in the framework of a partition of the western Land of Israel (that which lies west of the Jordan River) is possible by distinguishing between Israel's political and security boundaries. This distinction would enable the Israeli military to be present in the Jordan Valley without having to annex territory in terms of sovereignty, for however many years it will take for the sources of Israeli-Arab tensions to disappear.51 The disagreement over the minimal territorial conditions necessary for preserving Israeli defensive capabilities underscores the fact that a consensus no longer exists on security matters. The demise of this consensus began in the wake of the Six Day War and accelerated after the Yom Kippur War. The War of 1967 expanded the area under Israeli control beyond what had been considered the minimum necessary for a secure

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national existence. As a result, there was an opening for ideological and political considerations to insinuate themselves into Israeli security thinking, so that the defense establishment, including the high command of the IDF, could no longer maintain the autonomy traditionally accorded those in the field of professional security considerations. Recognition of the dependence of strategic decisions on politics and ideology undermined the autonomous standing of the defense establishment, which in the past had been able to formulate security doctrines and policies acceptable to holders of disparate and even opposing political views. The demise of the national consensus after the October 1973 War was catalyzed by the beginning of political negotiations and mediation designed to resolve, or at least ameliorate, the Arab-Israeli conflict. Kissinger's "shuttle diplomacy," the separation-of-forces agreements with Egypt and Syria, the 1975 interim agreement with Egypt, Sadat's visit to Jerusalem, the Camp David Accords, and the peace treaty with Egypt shifted the balance between strategic and political considerations in favor of the latter. These developments also legitimized public debate over national security issues, including such problems as the value of "strategic depth" versus security arrangements, or the preemptive strike versus the "capacity to withstand attack." The demise of the consensus on national security was also affected by Israeli domestic politics, as the 1977 elections brought the end of twentynine years of single-party hegemony. Labor party domination of the political arena until then had meant not only their dictating the composition of governing coalitions, but also their general influence on the political orientations of most of those parties aspiring to join those coalitions. The rule of Labor even left its mark on the world view of the Israeli establishment as a whole. The political, intellectual, and bureaucratic elite in Israel adopted the principal features of Labor's political culture: pragmatism, construction of consensus through compromise, and moderation in political/security questions. Thus the 1977 elections had a significance far beyond simply bringing a change of government.52 The political vision of Herut, the dominant faction in Likud, was the product of intellectual, fundamentalist, and jingoist traditions bearing no resemblance to the pragmatic ethos of the government coalition under the Labor alignment. This dichotomy estranged the new leadership from its political opposition, whose political approach also remained that of most of the public-sector bureaucracy and substantial parts of the economic, intellectual, cultural, technocratic, and even military elites. The chasm between the two large parties had a limited impact on the sphere of national security as long as pragmatic politicians with military backgrounds such as Ezer Weizman and Moshe Dayan controlled the machinery of security policy. Their resignations, brought

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on by their failure to adjust to Menachem Begin's political style, magnified the policy differences between government and opposition, and seemed to further dissolve the national consensus.53 The disagreements over security policy reflected both a change in security doctrine and a schism between two political cultures. These disagreements arose over the timing of the destruction of the Iraqi nuclear reactor, the downing of Syrian helicopters in Lebanon, and a war for the Galilee (called Operation Peace in the Galilee). There were four other strategic and political developments that would have further reduced the autonomy of military/security (vis-à-vis political) considerations, had the defense establishment itself not become more amenable to military initiatives: 1. The peace treaty with Egypt and negotiations on Palestinian autonomy 2. The increasing political, military, and economic dependence of Israel on the United States 3. The reduced political value of military success 4. The threat of nuclear weapons in the Middle East. Because the autonomy of military/security considerations had in the past facilitated formation of a national consensus on security, the changes that now served to obfuscate the boundary between political and security priorities made formulation of an agreed national security doctrine nearly impossible. The Peace with Egypt Signing a peace agreement with a central Arab state bordering Israel altered the balance between political and military considerations in Israeli national security doctrine. For some thirty years Egypt had been the most powerful military component of the anti-Israel coalition, the only Arab state to go to war against Israel five times—in 1948,1956,1957,1973, and the War of Attrition (1969-1970). The cessation of this state of war and the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries accorded Israel the status of a recognized player in Middle Eastern diplomacy for the first time in its history. Previously, Israel had been indirectly involved in interstate relations in the Middle East, including inter-Arab relations. But these contacts had either been direct but secret, such as the relations with Jordan and Morocco, or indirect and thus dependent on the mediation of countries from outside the region. The exceptions to this rule were Israel's relations with non-Arab countries, such as Iran and Turkey, which border the periphery of the

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Middle East. Peace with Egypt changed all this. It increased considerably the relative importance of diplomacy at the expense of the military factor in the Middle East. Although the Israeli definition of the components of national security did not change, the tendency to view military priorities as immanent to the situation was indeed weakened. For instance, the new diplomatic process did not affect the Israeli security axiom, that the country's very existence was at stake in the conflict and that no political arrangement could replace the necessity for Israeli self-sufficiency in its own defense. The peace treaty was first and foremost a product of the view that the peace agreement itself was born of Israel's military capability of defeating any Arab attempt to settle the conflict by force. This view finds expression in the general consensus in Israeli national security thinking whereby any Arab-Israeli peace will be armed peace, made possible by a military equilibrium that ensures Israeli ability to repulse on its own any Arab military initiative. From a military perspective the peace treaty with Egypt was thought to have significantly reduced the possibility that Israel would have to fight a war on two fronts simultaneously, at least in the initial stages of the Arab attack. Thus it put into question the continued relevance of certain basic assumptions of Israeli national security doctrine. The end of a state of war between Israel and one of its most powerful enemies meant that the relations between the two countries could no longer be described as "dormant war," with all its ramifications for the legitimate use of a preemptive military strike. With the probability of Egyptian participation in an Arab attack on Israel significantly reduced, Israel, while not completely discounting the possibility, could at least expect a delayed Egyptian reaction in the event of renewed hostilities.54 Optimism regarding Egypt's intentions to honor its new obligations might not be compatible with a worst-case scenario,55 but Israel nevertheless agreed to concede real military assets, such as the Sinai airfields and the port in Sharm el Sheik, in return for less tangible assets, such as a peace agreement and normalization of relations. The Growing Dependence on the United States The dramatic rise in the price of oil in the wake of the Yom Kippur War and the subsequent flow of petrodollars to the Arab states in the Gulf stimulated the Middle Eastern arms race, both in quality and quantity, and made it prohibitively expensive for Israel to participate in this race without considerable foreign aid. In the 1960s Israel had been able to sustain a faster military build-up than the Arab states could. This was largely due

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to its much higher GNP. The wars of 1967 and 1973, however, transformed that situation. In 1967 peripheral Arab states (those not bordering Israel) deepened their involvement in the conflict, and Arab strategic efforts as a whole were discernibly greater. The 1973 War and the ensuing energy crisis enabled the Arab states to vastly increase their investments in a military infrastructure without having to pay a significant economic price. Those economic obstacles that had earlier hindered Arab military expansion were now almost entirely absent, and in the years since the Yom Kippur War the rate of Arab military expansion has been free of budgetary constraints. Such expansion has been determined, instead, almost exclusively by political desire and organizational and technological capabilities in the development of efficient military power. The world's arms market was almost completely opened to the oil-producing countries and no effective political constraints have been placed on their participation in a conventional arms race. These developments meant Israel could not stay in the arms race without significantly increasing the level of resources it channeled to security needs and deepening its dependence on foreign aid. The defense budget now consumed a considerably larger percentage of national expenditure, and this in turn contributed to unprecedented inflation and a halt in economic growth. Israel's foreign debt also increased significantly. Domestic debate broke out over the scale of defense expenditures, with political implications for the peace process as well as military implications pertaining to the size of the IDF. This debate also included discussions of a nuclear option in Israel's future system of defense. Israeli dependence on the United States now increased in two ways: the United States became Israel's only source of modern sophisticated weaponry (even the Israeliproduced Kfir aircraft and Merkhava tank were driven by U.S.-built motors); and Israel's own resources were insufficient to purchase the weapons systems it needed. Israeli dependence on the United States in maintaining strategic parity with the Arab states provided the U.S. government an efficacious means for influencing Israeli policy in the conflict. The United States exploited this situation at lease twice. The first instance was the "réévaluation" of U.S. Middle East policy undertaken in 1975, during which the Ford administration forbade any new arms purchases. The embargo was rescinded in September 1975 when Israel signed the interim agreement with Egypt, an agreement not significantly different from the U.S. proposals of March 1975, whose rejection by Israel had precipitated the so-called réévaluation.56 The second instance of U.S. use of its leverage over Israeli policy occurred during the Reagan administration. In June 1981 the United States suspended shipments of F-16 warplanes to Israel in response to the

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Israeli destruction of Iraq's nuclear installation.57 This short-term suspension acquired political effect after Israel launched an air offensive against the PLO in Lebanon. Israeli bombing of Palestinian targets led the Reagan administration to extend the suspension, even though its repeal had been imminent once the United States secured Israeli agreement to restrict the use of U.S. weapons in the wake of the Iraqi action. This decision had its desired effect: Israel accepted a cease-fire mediated by the United States without having achieved its military aim against the PLO in Lebanon. The 1981 suspension, unlike the "réévaluation" of 1975, prohibited delivery of weapons that had already been sold to Israel, and was used to impose a cease-fire that lasted until the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon. The Israeli need to consider U.S. policy interests was not just born of military considerations, however. The dependence on U.S. arms was secondary to Israel's political and diplomatic dependence, which deepened as a result of Israel's international isolation. The reasons for Israel's increased isolation were varied: 1. The break of diplomatic relations with many Third World countries, particularly in Africa. 2. The disappearance of relatively friendly regimes such as the Pahlavis in Iran, which had been pillars of an Israeli "peripheral" strategy based on cooperation with the non-Arab neighbors of Arab countries. 3. The pro-Arab atmosphere in Europe resulting from Europe's increasing dependence on Arab oil, the search for Arab investments, and the importance of Arab markets, combined with an increased sympathy for the Palestinian cause. An additional political factor, not directly stemming from Israeli isolation but certainly contributing to the dependence on the United States, was the U.S. role as mediator between Israel and the Arab countries, including Egypt. Israel preferred U.S. mediation to that by any other country, in particular to any diplomatic initiatives which would involve the Soviet Union. It was understood that in return Israel would voluntarily restrict its own freedom of action. Ben-Gurion always insisted that Israel should never deny itself a reliable source of arms. He stressed the importance of avoiding any military initiatives on a large scale unless Israel could rely on a world power that would rearm the IDF. However, the first Israeli-initiated war under Ben-Gurion's leadership, the Sinai War of 1956, showed that while his conditions were indeed essential, they were not sufficient for attainment of Israeli war aims. U.S. pressure forced Israel to withdraw from the Sinai and the Gaza

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Strip in 1956, in spite of the steady supply of arms Israel was receiving from France. On the other hand, the decision to go to war in 1967 was based on the not entirely justified expectation that the United States would come to terms with the Israeli decision after the fact.58 Israeli dependence on the United States grew significantly between the Six Day War and the Yom Kippur War, principally as a result of Soviet intervention in the War of Attrition along the Suez Canal in 1970. Since then the makers of Israeli policy have tended to distinguish three levels of dependency on the United States: 1. Political dependence: U.S. ability, by use of its veto in the U.N. Security Council, to forestall any sanctions against Israel. 2. Military dependence: Purchase of arms from the only world power whose arsenal can match in terms of quality, dependability, and sophistication the Soviet arms that were available to the Arabs. 3. Economic dependence: U.S. financial aid enabling Israel to maintain its tremendous efforts in the security sphere without sacrificing either its standard of living or the economic growth essential for absorbing immigration. Prior to the 1973 War the United States granted greater autonomy to Israeli political and military decisions. There were several reasons for this: (1) The role of Israel in the September 1970 Jordanian-Syrian crisis enhanced its status as a dependable U.S. ally, whereas Syria and even Egypt (at least until July 1972) were still considered allies of the Soviet Union; (2) Israeli military superiority was thought to deny the Arabs a military option, thus continuation of the status quo was not perceived as a source of instability; (3) The Israeli demand of Arab recognition and direct negotiations as a condition for any Arab-Israeli arrangement was not explicitly rejected by either the Johnson or the Nixon administrations; (4) In conditions of full employment, a relatively rapid rate of economic growth, and a manageable defense budget, Israeli sensitivity to political pressure by means of economic aid was still minimal.59 The 1973 War, ensuing oil crisis, and resulting political, military, and economic developments increased the effectiveness of U.S. pressure on Israel as well as, albeit to a lesser extent, U.S. willingness to employ such pressure. The first indication of this new level of dependence was the Israeli request for an airlift before the end of the October fighting. Even though it afterwards became clear that Israel had held sufficient spare parts and ammunition stores, equipment losses did mean that sooner or later they would have to be replaced in order to counter the flow of Soviet arms to Egypt and Syria.60 Moreover, one of the lessons of this war was the difficulty in fighting a full-scale confrontation on two fronts without a

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significantly larger IDF. Israeli purchases of U.S. arms reached record levels in the years following the 1973 War. But Israel was also in need of qualitative improvement in the form of new weapons systems appropriate to the 1980s.61 The decision to modernize the IDF war machine was also a response to the increased petrodollar purchases of military hardware by Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Kuwait, and the Arab Emirates, some of which was put at the disposal of the "confrontation" states.62 As a result, after the October War of 1973, Israel required the good will of the United States in order to maintain an acceptable military parity with its neighbors. This increased the weight of political factors in the Israeli conception of national secunty. 63 The Diminishing Political Returns of Military Success The absence of strategic depth was not the only motive for the IDF's adoption of an offensive operative posture. That orientation was also a product of Israel's overall strategic doctrine, whose concept was defensive. An operative offensive was designed to end hostilities as quickly as possible, consistent with the strategic emphasis on defense. In other words, Israel's inability to defeat the enemy made it essential to achieve a clear limited victory on the battlefield so that the war would end with Israel's achievement of the limited aims of its overall preventive strategy. As such, Israeli doctrine stressed the importance of a swift, decisive, and indisputable resolution of battle. Ending a war without such clear operative results would constitute a strategic failure. This was the source of the Israeli determination "to bring the war onto the enemy's territory and to threaten his vital strategic targets as well as the actual physical integrity of his army, in order to force the enemy to end active hostilities.64 In 1956 and 1967 Israel's military operations fulfilled the requirements of this offensive orientation. Such success was not repeated in either the War of Attrition or the 1973 War. The latter two wars were initiated by the enemy and Israeli victory was neither swift nor unequivocal. Fighting was not waged in "enemy territory" in the operative sense (even though these were territories captured in 1967); vital strategic enemy targets were not seriously harmed; and the very survival of the opposing army was not threatened, as it had been in 1967. Consequently there was disagreement in Israel over whether the Arabs actually lost these wars or not. The ambiguous outcomes of the 1970 War of Attrition and the 1973 Yom Kippur War were Egyptian political triumphs, at least in part, because Egypt had waged limited wars designed to exploit the vulnerabilities of the Israeli strategic conception.65 Egyptian policymakers and

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military planners, and to a lesser degree their counterparts in Syria as well, were aware of Israel's difficulty in translating its offensive concept at the operative level into the defensive aims of its strategic doctrine, aims that were those of a "status quo country." The 1967 War had taught the Arabs that they faced an antithetical situation: their offensive strategic goal was to overturn the post-1948 status quo, meaning that their forces had to be prepared for operative defensive warfare. The Arab dilemma was thus an inversion of the Israeli problem: Armies with quantitative superiority but qualitative inferiority sought to combine an offensive strategy with defensive operative tactics in order to successfully face an army quantitatively inferior but qualitatively superior, which was acting to fulfill defensive strategic aims using offensive military tactics. The War of Attrition was the first Arab attempt to answer this dilemma. It was not, from their point of view, a successful one. The war's unvictorious conclusion was an Israeli strategic success: no significant alteration of the territorial status quo was effected and the change that did occur in the political status quo—Israeli acceptance of U.N. Resolution 242—was no real strategic achievement. Therefore, on the eve of the 1973 War, Egypt adopted a more complex stratagem of limited war, combining an offensive strategy with defensive tactics as a second stage following an initial strategic and tactical offensive. This allowed the Egyptians to exploit the advantages of surprise and Israel's need to mobilize reserves in order to attain full strength. Capturing territory at the outset of the fighting and then using highly concentrated firepower from defensive positions against Israeli counterattack made it possible for Egypt to achieve the clearly indecisive operative results of the battle it sought. Under these circumstances the absence of an unequivocal battlefield victory had a different significance than it had in the War of Attrition. Now, unless the Egyptians withdrew from the territory they had captured, the war's result could be considered an Arab strategic success. Israel had not been defeated militarily, but the status quo had been distinctly overturned. At the same time, a war of attrition remained an option in the north. The Syrians were aware of Israel's general quandary in the aftermath of the Yom Kippur War and hoped to exploit it to achieve some alteration, no matter how modest, of the status quo in the Golan Heights. From this perspective, the separation-of-forces agreement between Israel and Syria, signed in May 1974, is worthy of examination. More than the 1970 cease-fire along the Suez Canal, this agreement highlighted a dilemma that would haunt Israel in the future: how can a war of attrition be ended without Israel paying too high a price in casualties while successfully denying the enemy even a partial political success? Israel's territorial concessions on the Golan Heights (including the

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withdrawal from Kuneitra), which made a separation-of-forces agreement with Syria possible, cannot be attributed solely or even primarily to the Syrian War of Attrition. Nevertheless, because Syrian actions did influence Israeli willingness to grant them "spoils," the option of a renewed Syrian war of attrition is a potential threat for which Israel must plan. In order not to surrender to strategic extortion, allowing the enemy to achieve his political aims without achieving a victory in battle, any war of attrition must be escalated. There are two methods for effecting such escalation: (1) a "tactical" war of attrition can be turned into a "strategic" war of attrition by attacking the enemy's infrastructure from the air; or (2) a war of attrition can be made "mobile" by taking an offensive initiative and provoking the outbreak of full-scale war. Israel tested the first method during the War of Attrition along the Suez Canal in 1969-1970 when IAF deep-penetration bombing of Egypt provoked controlled Soviet intervention in the form of Soviet assistance to Egyptian air defenses. One cannot discount the possibility of this type of limited outside intervention in an Israeli/Syrian confrontation originating in a Syrian war of attrition and escalating into an Israeli attack on the Syrian strategic infrastructure. But in a war of attrition the efficacy of air attack, or air attack combined with commando raids behind enemy lines, is dependent on whether or not the enemy has a war-making infrastructure. This is not the case in Syria, whose industrial and logistical base is underdeveloped and whose military might rests on the resources of oil-producing countries and the technological capabilities of industrialized countries such as the former Soviet Union. This is why the Israeli strike against the Syrian rear during the Yom Kippur War had such little effect on Syria's ability to rebuild militarily after the cease-fire. In the absence of any real enemy strategic infrastructure, one cannot expect air attacks against military/logistical and civilian targets to force the enemy to accept a cease-fire, as long as that enemy has not yet achieved any political advantages. The experience of World War II and the Vietnam War proved that air offensives are inefficient means of one side imposing its will on the other. Thus the payoff from escalating a tactical war of attrition into a strategic war of attrition may be negative. In addition to losing planes and pilots, Israel can no longer disregard the possibility of an enemy attack against its own rear. The more developed a country, the more vulnerable it is to strikes at its logistical infrastructure. This relative vulnerability was not significant in past confrontations because the Israeli air force was successful in preventing penetration by enemy aircraft. The introduction of surface-to-surface missiles into the region removed this advantage. Syrian Scud missiles, or even Frog missiles fired from Lebanon, in spite of their lack of precision, can cause great damage to the dense concentration of infrastructure targets situated around Haifa Bay. The oil

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refineries, chemical industries, Haifa power station, Haifa airport, Israeli shipyards, the port of Kishon and, not far away, the port of Haifa itself, constitute an easy collection of targets. The possible results of a salvo of surface-to-surface missiles fired at those targets must be added to the equation of costs and benefits in a strategic war of attrition. The second option in the event of a war of attrition initiated by the enemy is the offensive use of ground forces to turn a static war of attrition into a mobile war. This option is compatible with Israel's offensive operative orientation, which assigns armor the "decisive operative and strategic function in ground battle." 66 However, most of Israel's ground forces, including its armor and artillery, consist of reserve units, making this type of escalation inviable without a large-scale mobilization of reserves. The impossibility of concealing such a mobilization means Israel is liable to find itself taking the offensive without the element of surprise. This will raise the cost in casualties and prolong the time necessary to achieve an operative decision in battle. Of course, the restrictions that mobilization places on the chances for surprise are not only germane to escalating a war of attrition: they are equally relevant to a preventive Israeli attack. In 1956 this problem was solved by making the place of attack the surprise: the mobilization of reserves was attributed to tensions on the Jordanian front, but the IDF actually attacked on the Egyptian front. In 1967 Egypt was surprised by the timing and method of the offensive—the initial air strike against Egyptian airfields. The surprise in timing was achieved by mobilizing the reserves in response to Egyptian troop concentrations and then turning the waiting period preceding the 1967 War into an opportunity for the Israelis to choose the date of attack. Similar conditions are apt to occur in a war of attrition, although the size of the force needed to fight a war of attrition does not resemble the requirements for carrying out a large-scale ground offensive. The parallels between the use of reserves in a preventive offensive and an offensive designed to escalate a war of attrition does not necessarily hold in other contexts. The initiation of a war and the escalation of a war of attrition have different aims. In the absence of any general strategic resolution of the whole conflict, Israel would be satisfied in a preventive war with a limited victory based on capturing territory, destroying enemy forces, or both. In the escalation of a war of attrition, or any other limited war initiated by the enemy, Israel aspires to compel the enemy to cease fighting before it can achieve any of its political goals; in this instance, capturing territory and destroying enemy forces are simply a means to that end. Thus, in a preventive, Israeli-initiated war, a cease-fire preceding any capture of territory or destruction of enemy forces signals a failure, as is not true when the aim is to force the enemy to cease hostile actions without

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achieving certain political ends. The difference, then, depends on the origin of the military initiative. This is a difference between a confrontation imposed upon Israel and one that Israel could have avoided or prevented. Suppressing enemy action by means of military escalation requires effecting an alteration in the enemy's cost-benefit analysis for waging a limited war. In other words, the escalation will accomplish its aims if it creates a situation in which the enemy decides the price of continuing the war is higher than that of ending it. On the other hand, in a preventive war initiated by Israel, a cease-fire will be determined by an Israeli analysis of the cost-benefit equation. Obviously the difference between these two determinants rests on the presumption that in this conflict there is no zero sum relation, in which one side always gains from the other's loss. A preventive war is undesirable from the Israeli perspective if it does not change the balance of forces in its favor. Thus the aim of destroying enemy forces, which means essentially destroying material, is pointless if the enemy can then use external resources to rebuild its forces faster than Israel, even if Israeli losses from the fighting were considerably less. By the same token it is pointless to capture territory in a preventive war unless it is assured beforehand that no international pressure to return to the political and territorial status quo ante will follow. In this context, it can be argued that the international constellation in the aftermath of the Yom Kippur War, the energy crisis, and Israel's economic and political condition significantly reduced the general value of an Israeli-initiated preventive war, because it was more difficult for Israel to recover its losses without increasing its dependence on the United States, a fact that was all the more true regarding the retention of captured territory. In contrast, Israel's enemies have greater access to the resources necessary for recovering their losses. Thus it had been said that the Arabs could afford another loss, but Israel would have difficulty withstanding another victory. This adage reflects the asymmetrical nature of the conflict: Israel's inability to achieve a strategic victory makes it difficult to translate any operative military success into a durable political asset. In effect, then, even without considering Israel's extreme sensitivity to casualties, it is possible to claim that for Israel, as a "status quo country," any war that can be avoided is a net savings. Signs of a transformation in Israel's concept of security first became apparent with the changes in the leadership of the security apparatus after Ariel Sharon's appointment as minister of defense. These changes acquired even greater significance in light of the government's ideology on the Palestinian question. They were given operational expression in the invasion of Lebanon. The revised concept of security that led to the Lebanon War no longer sought to prevent a threat to Israel's survival by

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means of defensive self-sufficiency, nor was it derived from Israel's conception of itself as a "status quo country." Rather, war was intended to be fought with the expressed purpose of achieving political aims unconnected to any concept of prevention. Thus the only war aim that had commanded popular national consensus—"preventing a threat to the country's existence by means of Israel's own might"—was undermined. The offensive strategic conception was an unqualified endorsement of Clausewitz's claim that "war is the continuation of diplomacy, but by other means." The strategic doctrine of employing force for the purpose of rearranging the political order in the Middle East was articulated by the three central Israeli figures in the War in Lebanon: Prime Minister Menachem Begin, Minister of Defense Ariel Sharon, and Chief of Staff Major-General Rafael Eitan. On several occasions the chief of staff stated that the IDF's strength was intended to be used. In other words, Israeli power would no longer be directed towards deterrence, as had been posited in the past. Ariel Sharon explained that Israel's war aims in Operation Peace for the Galilee were more than "basic" defensive/existential aims. He listed a number of "subsidiary objectives" that had been formulated well before the start of the fighting, rather than being retroactively applied to events once the war had been joined. Among these was the expulsion of the Syrians from Lebanon and creation of conditions for a new, pro-Israeli regime in Lebanon.67 Ariel Sharon's use of "subsidiary objectives" was a de facto and unprecedented departure from the national consensus on the question, "What prompts Israel to go to war?" In turn, Prime Minister Menachem Begin had tried to justify the War in Lebanon, arguing that Israel should go to war "not just when there is no choice." Here the dichotomy between "wars of no choice" and "wars of choice" surfaces. Begin argued that only wars begun by the enemy, such as the War of Independence or the Yom Kippur War, were "wars of no choice." All the rest, without distinguishing between preemptive strikes, preventive wars, or wars designed to alter the status quo, were "wars of choice." According to Begin, the Lebanon War was waged in order to avoid a costlier, more terrible war in the future. This is the antithesis of the previous conception of a war not fought as being a net savings.68 These new, expanded answers to the basic issues of "When should Israel go to war?" and "Over what should Israel go to war?" created deep rifts in the Israeli body politic, undermining the national consensus on matters of national security. Adoption of a broad offensive strategy is bound to entail two additional consequences: 1. Greater autonomy for the defense establishment in planning and using force during war, as well as in advance preparations, raising ques-

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tions about the effectiveness of civilian control over the security and military echelons. This is how, at strategic intersections, tactical problems develop in the field that then affect the strategic decisions of a political echelon left with no choice but to retroactively accept the consequences of these developments. These situations recurred continuously during the course of the Lebanon War: for instance, in the air force's bombing of Beirut on the eve of the terrorists' departure, or in the IDF's entrance into West Beirut.69 2. A change in the "exchange rate" between the anticipated profits of a military action and its cost. In the preventive concept, Israel initiated a war only in the face of a threat to its existence. This had been the grounds for estimating the risks of an operation as well as its implications for Israel's present and future ability to defend itself. Israel's offensive strategy not only weighs these risks against questions of survival, but against political benefits as well. Now a new price list for war can be drawn up: (1) cost in casualties—losses in lives; (2) economic cost; (3) political cost—the country's diplomatic standing; (4) cost in terms of national consensus and popular morale; and (5) overall cost—taking greater risks means a greater chance of failure. It is apparent that the broadening of operative aims that results from a replacement of an offensive for a defensive concept at the strategic level raises the cost of war. This is measured, for instance, in the number of casualties sustained by Israeli forces in the Lebanon War after crossing the forty-kilometer line—which delineated the preventive aim of removing the threat to Israel's northern settlements from strategic offensive aims. Losses were far greater after that line was crossed.70 The Lebanon War also represented a new perception of the ArabIsraeli conflict in general. This is largely a difference in emphasis between conceiving of the conflict as a national, ideological, and internecine one, or as a strategic, interstate one. From the War of Independence until the elections of 1977, Israeli governments had always emphasized the regional, interstate nature of the conflict, seeking at the same time to reduce its national/ideological, internecine component.71 This made it possible to distinguish between current security and fundamental security. By attributing most expressions of the internecine level to the sphere of day-to-day security, Israeli policymakers were able to raise the threshold for war to a level that ultimately reduced the chances of starting a war. This was the reason why military actions undertaken at the internecine level (usually against terrorist organizations) did not violate the general rule governing military operations for periods of "low intensity warfare."72 Even on the eve of the Sinai campaign, when there was some support for initiating a war in response to fedayeen terror, this was still only one

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of several causes for the war, nor was it necessarily the most important: the 1955 Czech-Egyptian arms transaction and the freedom of navigation provoked Israeli fears for survival on the interstate level of the conflict and thus played no less essential a role in provoking the subsequent fighting.73 Accordingly, transferring emphasis from the interstate to the internecine levels of the conflict mainly influences two spheres: 1. In the operative-military sphere it lowers the threshold at which Israel will go to war, thus increasing the chances of war breaking out over internecine tensions, such as in response to terrorist activity. 2. In the political/strategic sphere it emphasizes the political, internecine aspect of the conflict, thus reducing the chance for an interstate territorial compromise in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The change in the prevailing concept of security had operational ramifications that inverted the Israeli responses to the questions "Over what should Israel go to war?" and "When should Israel go to war?" If, as in the previous concept, Israel goes to war when threatened, or weak, and/or unsure of its ability to defeat the enemy in the future, it does not do so whenever its military capabilities are at maximum levels and the possibilities for exploiting strategic conditions optimal. Moreover, rather paradoxically, making peace with one or another Arab state does not reduce the chances for war, but actually increases them. By significantly reducing the danger of war on the Egyptian front, for instance, the treaty with Egypt allows Israel to concentrate greater force for initiating a war on other fronts. Differently stated, if the new concept is extended to its logical conclusion, the stronger the IDF, the more—not the less—chance there is that Israel will initiate a war. This last implication of the new approach has special significance in light of the Israeli need for U.S. military and economic assistance in maintaining a balance of forces in the Middle East. Given such an approach, Israel can no longer claim that its strength is a stabilizing factor in the Middle East. While its military might still acts as a deterrent, thus reducing the chances of an Arab-initiated war against Israel, as long as Israel adheres to a policy of "exploitation of opportunities," the possibility of an Israeli-initiated war is liable to be greater. This "exploitation of opportunities" dominated defense policy as long as Ariel Sharon served as minister of defense. With the appointment of Moshe Arens to that post, there were signs of a return to the traditional orientation whereby Israel only goes to war for preventive purposes: that is, only when war is essential for Israeli security. The return to the traditional approach became apparent with the formation of the National Unity government in 1984 and the appointment of Yitzhak Rabin as

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minister of defense. This change paved the way for an Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon, except for a narrow security zone along the Israeli northern border. It has also facilitated the renewal of the tacit understanding with Syria on Red Lines, delineating the thresholds of Israeli resistance to Syrian intervention. The Nuclear Issue One of the implicit assumptions of the Israeli national security doctrine all along has been that the efforts to develop a nuclear option be kept separate from nonnuclear military thinking. The dominant concept directed Israel to maintain a conventional military capability, independent of the status of its "nuclear option." This approach gives operative meaning to the statement "Israel will not be the first to introduce nuclear weapons into the Middle East."74 A "bomb in the basement" can only be considered an "option" so long as no one expects Israel to need it in a conventional war. In this context, the dual meaning of the concept "to introduce" is not just a deliberate effort to enjoy the advantages of a nuclear option (deterrence) without its disadvantages (the increased chance that other countries in the region will acquire nuclear weapons);75 it also reconciled two contradictory goals: delaying for as long as possible the overt nuclearization of the Arab-Israeli conflict while actually developing a nuclear capability, in anticipation that it is only a matter of time before the region becomes nuclearized. This formulation is attributed to Yigal Allon, who maintained that although Israel would not be the first, it must certainly not be the second. Logic consequently dictated developing the mostready-for-use option, possibly while keeping it "in the basement" in the sense of avoiding its use against the enemy devoid of nuclear capability.76 This Israeli position reduces the ambiguity regarding Israel's nuclear capabilities to a single question: What is the actual state of this capability? It also denies Israel the option of detectable nuclear tests, as well as the option of a public declaration of the existence of Israeli nuclear weapons in order to deter conventional conflict. Another possibility, but one incompatible with this conception, is the use of nuclear weapons in a preventive attack designed to delay the development of an Arab nuclear capability. In other words, by avoiding the "introduction" of nuclear weapons, Israel implicitly acknowledges a boundary between the current exclusive use of conventional armaments in Middle East regional conflicts, and a future nuclear age, which Israeli policy aims to postpone. In this regard Begin's government continued the policy of the Rabin government before it, viewing an Israeli nuclear capability as being di-

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rected first and foremost against the future deployment of nuclear weapons throughout the region. This policy provides for other uses of the nuclear option. It can be a weapon of last resort, as well as for an alternative strategy if the United States were to discontinue its support of Israel's ability to defend itself with conventional arms. As a last resort, a "bomb in the basement" obviates the possibility of Israel's destruction at the hands of the Arabs without the latter suffering a similar, and unacceptable, fate. It has been claimed that Sadat's decision to come to Jerusalem was partly due to his estimation that Israel had already acquired a nuclear option.77 As an alternative to the conventional balance of forces, having an effective nuclear capability minimizes the probability of an arms embargo: it is difficult to imagine any U.S. administration interested in pushing Israel into a position requiring it to rely on nuclear weapons for its defense. Several academics have challenged the "bomb in the basement" concept.78 Similar criticism has been hinted at by Israeli political figures, most notably Moshe Dayan. The critique of these nuclear hawks was directed at Israel's low profile over possible use of its independent nuclear capability. Instead, they advocate Israeli renunciation of its obligation not to introduce nuclear weapons into the region. The key arguments of the nuclear hawks, some of them political doves supporting a withdrawal from the occupied territories,79 can be summarized as follows: 1. Israel is already considered a nuclear power by Arab and Western countries, regardless of whether or not it adopts a declared nuclear strategy. 2. The proliferation of nuclear weapons in the Middle East is unavoidable, and their appearance in Arab arsenals is no longer dependent on Israeli policy. 3. A public declaration of Israel's nuclear option will reduce fears in Israel of a conventional attack, paving the way for a withdrawal from the occupied territories. 4. A security system based on a nuclear option will enable Israel to reduce the increasingly unbearable economic costs of maintaining its conventional forces. 5. A security system based on a nuclear capability will reduce Israel's dependence on the United States. The opposing view, that of the nuclear doves, is consistent with the Israeli defense establishment's strategic conception, whereby Israel will continue to fortify its defenses against conventional attack with equivalent conventional forces, and thus will not be the first to introduce nuclear weapons into the Middle East, even if there is an "effective nuclear capability."

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According to this view:80 1. The popular opinion that Israel has developed usable nuclear weapons does not make Israel a nuclear state (for better or for worse) because the international community still has no hard evidence that such a weapon exists in Israel (lacking, for instance, the evidence provided by a nuclear test). 2. Any decision to base Israel's defense on a nuclear option would make it easier for the Arabs to acquire nuclear weapons and more difficult for Israel to delay that eventuality by diplomatic means or by a preemptive military strike. In any event, Israel would be unable to justify such an action, either morally or politically. 3. Israeli acquisition of a nuclear option cannot actively replace a conventional defense because Israel must maintain an effective, nonescalatory response to limited conventional attack. The risks of using nuclear weapons suffice to deter Israel from resorting to them in the event of a war of attrition or any other "low-profile" confrontation initiated by the enemy. Accordingly, nuclear arms can complement a conventional arsenal, but cannot substitute for it. 4. As long as Israel must maintain parity of conventional forces, a nuclear capability cannot significantly ease either its economic burden or the burden of its political dependence on the United States. 5. The conditions of the Arab-Israeli conflict are not conducive to creating a stable system of mutual deterrence: the severity of the conflict and the near-total absence of direct contacts between the two sides prevent the creation of the channels of communication essential for averting possibly disastrous decisions. The number of states and sundry other independent actors in the conflict creates the danger of a catalytic war in which an unaligned third party attacks one of the two opposing sides, provoking a nuclear exchange between them. 6. The extra sense of security provided by a nuclear capability is equally liable to be used as justification to annex the territories as to compromise over them. 7. The rational behavior of certain parties to the conflict is not guaranteed in any given situation. The destruction of the Iraqi nuclear reactor in June 1981 revealed another aspect of the Israeli nuclear strategic dilemma: To what extent is Israel willing to employ its conventional might in thwarting Arab efforts to acquire a military nuclear option? Beyond the almost mutually dependent reactions of the many die-hard doves and hawks in Israel, this episode

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uncovered an inconsistency between nuclear hawks and nuclear doves and their respective stands over conventional strikes designed to prevent Arab acquisition of nuclear weapons. In a seeming paradox, systematic strategic thought should lead nuclear doves to take conventional military risks in order to slow the pace of the nuclear arms race in the Arab-Israeli conflict. Comparison of the positions of nuclear doves and nuclear hawks reveals that the latter tend to be more optimistic about the chances of achieving a stable regional system of mutual nuclear deterrence and more pessimistic about Israel's ability to prevent nuclear weapons from appearing in the Middle East. Furthermore, the employment of military force in order to delay nuclear proliferation in the region will make it more difficult for Israel to morally and politically justify a conception based primarily on nuclear power as a defense against conventional attack. Such a conception would require Israel to renounce its previous obligation not to be the first to introduce nuclear weapons. Such a change, whether by means of a nuclear test or a public announcement of an effective nuclear capability and the willingness to use it, is incompatible with political and military efforts to prevent the nuclearization of Arab states. A position that simultaneously posits Israel's right to defend itself against conventional attack with nuclear weapons, while using conventional forces to prevent Arab nuclearization, is so completely unacceptable from the international perspective that it is difficult to imagine any Israeli government publicly adopting such a policy. On the other hand, adopting a doctrine of nuclear defense against conventional attack requires a public declaration, at least when the doctrine's holder has reason to believe that such a public announcement will prevent attack. Likewise, no strategy could be worse for conventional action intended to deny a nuclear option to the enemy than to adopt a doctrine of nuclear defense against a conventional attack. In these circumstances, it is safe to assume that the Israeli effort to postpone Arab acquisition of nuclear arms will mean a rejection of those revisions of the Israeli doctrine demanded by the nuclear hawks. Proponents of a dovish nuclear position are likely to think conventional Israeli military action designed to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons is viable. In any event, the threat of nuclear proliferation in the Middle East is just one more factor contributing to the increasing reliance of security/military considerations on political ones. A doctrine of nuclear defense against conventional attack, like a preventive strike against Arab acquisition of a nuclear capability, raises problems for the international legitimacy of Israeli actions and the potential influence of those actions on the positions the world powers take regarding the nuclear armament of the Arab states. Even the possibility of a stable mutual nuclear deterrence, in the event that the Arabs attain a

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nuclear option despite Israel's efforts, depends on whether the two sides in the conflict develop political channels of communication between themselves, either directly or through a third party. These circumstances limit the time Israel has available to create the proper political conditions for either preventing the Arabs from attaining a nuclear capability or, at least, for creating a stable deterrence. The level of risk associated with nuclear proliferation in the Middle East requires a resolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict before the Arabs obtain their own nuclear capability. In any event, Israel's present advantage in this strategic equation does not necessarily mean that time is on its side. This fact has political ramifications: we need only note the increasing weight of political considerations in the Israeli concept of national security, particularly in regard to the dangers of nuclear weapons in the Middle East.

Notes 1. This article was completed a few weeks before the author's untimely death. Final preparation for publication was thus undertaken by the editor. 2. On Israeli concepts of national security, see Michael Handel, Israel's Political Military Doctrine, (Cambridge: Harvard University Center for International Affairs, 1973); Israel Tal, "Israel's Doctrine of National Security Background and Dynamics," The Jerusalem Quarterly (no. 4, Summer 1977): 44-57; Dan Horowitz, "The Israeli Concept of National Security and the Prospects of Peace in the Middle East," in Gabriel Sheffer, ed., Dynamics of a Conflict (New Jersey: Humanities Press, 1975), pp. 235-275; Aharon Yariv, "Strategic Depth," The Jerusalem Quarterly (no. 17, Fall 1980): 3-12; Avner Yaniv, Deterrence Without a Bomb: The Politics of Israeli Strategy (Lexington, Mass.: D.C. Heath and Co., 1987). 3. This idea was given its most extreme expression by David Ben-Gurion: "The minister of defense is authorized to determine security policy while the role of the minister of foreign affairs is to explain that policy," Moshe Sharret, personal diary (Tel Aviv: Ma'ariv, 1978), p. 1117. 4. This concept was coined by Yitzhak Rabin in his lecture at a memorial evening for Yitzhak Sadeh in Tel Aviv, September 21,1967. 5. See, for example, Moshe Dayan, "Military Activity During Peace Time," Ma'aracot (March 1959): 54-60. 6. See note 2 above. 7. "We will deny the Arabs any territorial successes, we will destroy their army as much as is possible, and will improve the cease-fire lines. By so doing we will prove to the Arabs for the second time that they are unable to achieve their aim through a military option." From Tal, "Israel's Doctrine": 53. 8. Horowitz, "The Israeli Concept," and Tal, "Israel's Doctrine." 9. See, for instance, the interview with Mordechai Tzipori in Ma'ariv, Feb. 25,1981; Mordechai Tzipori, Yediot Achronot, May 15,1981; and Yitzhak Rabin, Ha'aretz, Feb. 13,1981. 10. For a broader treatment of the centrality of national security in Israeli

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politics and society, and on the question of national consensus, see Yoram Peri, Between Battles and Ballots (Cambridge, Eng.: Cambridge University Press, 1983); Dan Horowitz, "The Israel Defense Forces: A Civilianized Military in a Partially Militarized Society," in Roman Kolkowitz and A. Korbonsky, eds., Soldiers, Peasants and Bureaucracy (London: Allen and Unwin, 1982). 11. See Brecher's comments on Golda Meir in Michael Brecher, The Foreign Policy System of Israel, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1972), pp. 306-311. 12. The term "secure borders" or "defensible borders" was first expressed several weeks after the end of the Six Day War by three ministers in the government: Yigal Allon, Moshe Carmel, and Moshe Dayan. See Ha'aretz, Sept. 5,1967. 13. Horowitz, "The Israeli Concept": 236. 14. David Ben-Gurion, As Israel Fought (Tel Aviv: MAPAI, 1952), p. 90. 15. On the question of quality versus quantity see Yigal Allon, A Curtain of Sand (Hakibbutz Hameuchad, 1959), pp. 31-34 and Chapter 2: "A Few Against Many." See also Edward Luttwak and Dan Horowitz, The Israeli Army (New York: Harper and Row, 1975), pp. 327-336. 16. On the structure of the army and the reserves in Israel, see Dan Horowitz and Baruch Kimmerling, "Some Social Implications of Military Service and the Reserves System in Israel," European Journal of Sociology 15 (1924): 262-276. 17. For instance, the combination of superior weapons, technology, and trained personnel was responsible for the destruction of Syrian missile batteries in the Lebanese Beka'a Valley during the Lebanon War, as was the use of the Merkhava tank and attack helicopters. 18. On the subject of control and communications, see Dan Horowitz, "The Control of Limited Military Operations: The Israeli Experience," in Yair Evron, ed., International Violence, Terrorism, Surprise and Control, (Jerusalem: The Leonard David Institute for International Relations, 1979). 19. On the nuclear issue see David Ben-Gurion, As Israel Fought, pp. 39-44. 20. Ibid.: p. 90. 21. Shimon Peres, The Next Phase (Tel Aviv: Am Hasefer, 1965), pp. 9-15. 22. See, for instance, Ezer Weizman, Lecha Shamayim, Lecha Aretz, (Tel Aviv: Maäriv, 1975), p. 257. 23. Ibid.: p. 264. 24. Dayan, "Military Activities During Peace Time." 25. Moshe Dayan, Avnei Derech, (Jerusalem: Edanim, 1976), pp. 391-486. See also Hanoch Bartov, Dado, 48Shanim v'od20 Yom Part 1 (Tel Aviv: Ma'ariv, 1978), pp. 121-148. 26. Yitzhak Rabin at the memorial service to Yitzhak Sadeh cited in note 3 above. 27. Yigal Allon, "Interim Summary Between Two Campaigns," Molad 5 (August 1972-December 1973); Peres, The Next Phase, pp. 502-507; Avner Yaniv, "Deterrence Without the Bomb: A Framework for Analysis of Israel's Strategy," State, Government, and International Relations, 24 (1985); Yaniv, "Deterrence Without the Bomb," passim; Micha Bar, Red Lines in Israel's Deterrence Strategy (Tel Aviv, Ma'arachot, 1990). 28. Weizman, Lecha Shamayim, p. 256. 29. This consideration played an important role in the assumptions of the General Staff on the eve of the Six Day War. See, for example, Matityahu Peled, Ma'ariv, (May 16,1969); also Horowitz, "The Israeli Concept": 11-12. 30. Egypt was also aware of the importance of an additional factor in the IDF's power of deterrence. This was expressed by Hasnin Haichal (then editor of Al

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Ahram): "Israel cannot remain apathetic about what has happened, this is not a question of Egyptian control of the Tiran, but of something greater. All of Israel's defense philosophy is on trial now Israel will be forced to take military action." Al Ahram (May 26,1967). See also Peled, Ma'ariv. 31. See also Aharon Yariv, "Strategic Depth," Jerusalem Quarterly (no. 17, Fall 1980): 3-12. 32. Avraham Diskin and Itzhak Galnoor, "Political Distances and Parlimentary Government: Debates Over the Peace Agreement with Egypt," State, Government, and International Relations (no. 18,1981): 5-26. 33. Yigal Allon, "Israel: The Case for Defensible Borders," Foreign Affairs 55 (no. 1, October 1976): 38-53,969. 34. Avrahm Adan, On Both Banks of the Suez, (Jerusalem: Edanim, 1979), Chapters 2 and 4. See also Bartov, Dado 2. 35. On the public debates on this topic see Ya'acov Hasdai, Truth in the Shadow of War, (Tel Aviv: Zmora, Bitan Modan, 1978); Hasdai, YediotAchronot (September 19,1980), and Dayan's reply, YediotAchronot (September 24,1980 and October 17, 1980); Shmuel Harlap, "Ends of War: October 1973," State, Government, and International Relations (no. 17, Spring 1981): 68-85. 36. See Yair Evron and Dan Horowitz, "The Future of the Israeli-Arab Conflict," The Jerusalem Group for National Planning (Jerusalem: Van Leer Institute. Leonard Davis Institute for International Relations, 1974-1975), no. 5. The study made by the Jerusalem Group was the first to propose the idea of demilitarized zones in the framework of future arrangements between Israel and the Arab states, as a substitute for deploying the Israeli army in the Sinai. The idea was later developed and adapted by strategic planners in the planning section of the IDF under the command of Avraham Tamir. See also M. Kerem, Criteria for the Evaluation of Security Borders (Tel Aviv University); Aharon Klieman, International Guarantees and Secure Borders (Tel Aviv University); Arieh Shelav, Security Arrangements in the Sinai Peninsula in the Framework of the Peace Arrangements with Egypt (Study by the Center for Strategic Studies, Tel Aviv University, no. 3, October 1978). 37. Yair Evron, "The Demilitarization of Sinai," Jerusalem Papers on Peace Problems (Jerusalem: The Leonard Davis Institute for International Relations, February, 1975), no. 5. 38. See Dayan's remark, Ma'ariv (May 30,1975); also Horowitz, "The Israeli Concept": 27-29. 39. See the decision of the Labor Party Convention (March 1981). 40. See David Ben-Gurion's announcement to the Knesset, Divrei Hakenesset (Oct. 15,1956 and Oct. 29,1956). See also Nadav Safran, From War to War: The Arab-Israeli Confrontation 1948-1967 (New York: Pegasus, 1969), pp. 232-233. 41. Dayan, Avnei Derekh, pp. 391-417. See also Bartov, Dado 1:126-130. 42. See the decisions of the Labor Party Convention, foreign affairs section (March 1981). See also Ezer Weizman, The Battle for Peace, (Jerusalem: Edanim, 1980), Chapter 19. 43. Allon, "Israel: The Case for Defensible Borders," and Aharon Yariv, "Strategic Depth." 44. See, for instance, Sharon's remarks on the importance of the West Bank for Israel's existence, Ma'ariv (May 19,1981). See the protocol from the seminar on "Secure Border." (Participants: Abba Eban, Moshe Arens, Yehuda Ben Meir, and Amnon Rubenstein, at the Center for Strategic Studies, Tel Aviv University.) 45. Allon, "The Case for Secure Boundaries."

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46. Those who support a Jordanian option claim Jordan would accept demands for a demilitarization of the West Bank, while a Palestinian state would reject such an idea because no state is willing to be left without an army. This is the basis for the assumption that demilitarization of a Palestinian state is simply not viable. 47. In this context, see the announcement of Major-General Raphael Eitan on Elon Moreh, Ha'aretz (Sept. 28,1979). See also Sharon's remarks in connection to Elon Moreh in Ha'aretz (July 3,1979): "This settlement was situated because of the needs of the IDF." 48. Moshe Dayan, Shall the Sword Devour Forever (Jerusalem: Edanim, 1981), pp. 19,26. See also Dayan, Avnei derekh, pp. 542-543; and Dayan, Yediot Achronot (Feb. 13,1981). 49. Yigal A lion, Focal Points (Tel Aviv: Hakibbutz Hameuchad, 1981), pp. 119-133. See also Yitzhak Rabin's article on the "Diplomatic Option" in Yediot Achronot {Feb. 13,1981). 50. See the remarks of Mattityahu Drubels on the role of Jewish settlements in the West Bank in reducing the threat of a surprise Arab attack on the eastern front, in Ha'aretz (July 29,1979). See also Labor's former Chief of Staff Chaim Bar-Lev's claim that "Elon Moreh, to the best of my professional and personal judgement, does not contribute to the security of Israel There is no significant security benefit from a civilian settlement situated at a distance which does not allow it to prevent enemy actions." Ha'aretz (June 21,1979). 51. See the campaign platform of Telem in 1981 and Dayan, Shall the Sword Devour Forever. 52. Dan Horowitz, "More Than a Change in Government," and Asher Arian, "The Passing of Dominance," Jerusalem Quarterly (no. 5 Fall 1977): 3-19 and 20-23. 53. In Dayan's announcement of his resignation he claimed that he was unable to accept Israel's position in the autonomy negotiations; he would not take part in the formulation of that policy. Ha'aretz (Oct. 22,1979). 54. See Begin's and Peres's remarks in the Knesset. Divrei HaKnesset (April 29,1981). See also the Knesset debate in Divrei HaKnesset (June 3,1981). 55. See in this regard Mordechai Gur's argument that "in the event of a confrontation on the eastern front Egypt could join the war ...," Ha'aretz (Mar. 18,1981). See also the interview with Major-General Raphael Eitan, Bamachane (Apr. 29,1981). 56. Yitzhak Rabin, A Service Book (Tel Aviv: Sifryat Ma'ariv, 1979), Part 2, pp. 465-472. 57. Yediot Achronot and Ma'ariv (July 21-23,1981). See also the speeches of Yuval Ne'eman and Amnon Rubenstein in the Knesset, Divrei Haknesset (July 28,1981). 58. Benjamin Geist, "The Six Day War: A Process of Foreign Policy Decision-making in Conditions of Crisis," State, Government, and International Relations (no. 8,1978). 59. Nadav Safran, "America's Israel Connection," Jerusalem Quarterly (no. 4, Summer 1977): 3-30; Amos Eran, "The Involvement of the United States in the Israeli-Arab Conflict," in Aluf Hareven and F. Feden, Between War and Arrangements (Tel Aviv: Zamora, Betan Modan, 1977), pp. 187-194. 60. Dayan, Avnei Derekh, pp. 538-543. 61. The following figures point to tremendous differences between the defense of Israel before and after the Yom Kippur War. Military expenditures were

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allocated 6.6 percent of the budget in 1954; in 1963 this figure was 10.8 percent; in 1972,19.4 percent; and in 1979 it was 25.5 percent. At the same time, this comprised 10 percent of the GNP between the years 1955 and 1963 and between the years 1964 and 1972 this was 8.5 percent; from 1973 it was 3.3 percent. 62. The defense expenditures of Israel were $1,207 million in 1972; after the war total defense expenditures increased to $2,316 million (1974). Iraq's defense expenditures were $865 million in 1972 and $1,601 million in 1974. Saudi Arabia spent $2,817 million in 1972 and $2,091 million in 1974. Syria spent $399 million in 1972 and $533 million in 1974. World Military Expenditure and Arms Transfer, 1968-1977, 47, 59, 63; Aharon Yariv, "The Balance of Military Power in the Israeli-Arab Conflict," in Hareven and Feden, pp. 139-150. 63. In 1972 Israel imported arms totaling $210 million. In 1973 that figure was $230 million, and in 1974 it was $1,975 million. U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, World Military Expenditure and Arms Transfers, 1968-1977, p. 133; David Kochav, "The Economics of Defense—Israel," in Louis Williams, ed., Military Aspects of the Israeli Arab Conflict (Tel Aviv: University Publishing Projects, 1975), pp. 178-187. 64. Tal, "Israel's Doctrine": 46. 65. Adan, On Both Banks, pp. 55-74; Tal, "Israel's Doctrine": 44-47; Dayan, Avnei Derekh, pp. 679-681. 66. Dayan, Avnei Derekh, p. 518. 67. Interview with Major-General Raphael Eitan (interviewer: Y. Erez), Ma'ariv (July 2,1982); Order of the Day of the General Staff (June 4,1982); Y. Erez, "Raful Shel Hachayalim," interview with Major-General Eitan, Ma'ariv (June 1982); Ze'ev Schiff, "The Goals of the War Changed," Ha'aretz (June 11, 1982). See the remarks of Arik Sharon for the Israeli television program "Moked" (June 16,1982); Yediot Achronot (June 17, 1982); interview in Ma'ariv, (interviewer: Dov Goldstein) (June 18,1982); Uzi Benziman, "The Legend of the Knife in the Back," Ha 'aretz (June 23,1982); Order of the Day of the Minister of Defense and the Chief of Staff (June 14, 1982); Sharon's remarks at the Israel Prize ceremonies, Ha'aretz (June 22,1982). 68. Begin's lecture before students at the National Security College "Milchama Bli Breira u'Milchama im Breira," Yediot Achronot (August 20,1982). In this context see the interview with the Commander of the Northern Region Amir Drori in Ma'ariv (July 30,1982). Among other things Drori said, "One of the accomplishments of the Lebanese War was that it postponed, and perhaps completely avoided, a future war with the Syrians that could have been even more terrible than the Yom Kippur War." 69. In an interview with Minister of Energy Yitzhak Berman on the e ve of his departure from the government, precipitated by the massacre in Beirut, he said, "Two of the four primary moves in the Lebanese War did not receive government authorization. But scores of military steps which required no authorization were brought before us for authorization." Also: "One of the main reasons that I put off resigning until now was my fear that the war would be extended north of Beirut and into eastern Lebanon. There seems to almost be an obligation to execute those moves. The minister of defense coined the slogan which has since been repeated many times over: 'The terrorists and the Syrians must be completely driven out of Lebanon.' Several days ago the minister of defense even confirmed for me that his slogan includes Tripoli and the Beka'a Valley." Yediot Achronot (Sept. 24, 1982). On the same subject see: Y. Erez, "The Minister Bypasses the Chief of Staff," Ma'ariv (Sept. 24,1982).

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70. For details see Avner Yaniv, Dilemmas of Security: Strategy, Politics and the Israeli Experience in Lebanon (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987). 71. In this context it is possible to understand the Labor governments' refusal to recognize a Palestinian entity. 72. See, for instance, Peres, "Bitachon Shotef u'vitachon Yesodi," The Next Phase, pp. 9-16. 73. See, for instance: Shimon Peres, David's Sling (Jerusalem: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1970), pp. 150,156-158; Moshe Dayan, Sinai Campaign Diary (Tel Aviv: Am Hasefer, 1965), pp. 14-17; and Ben-Gurion's letter to Dayan at the end of the latter's service as chief of staff in Dayan, Avnei Derekh, p. 375. 74. This formulation is Yigal Allon's, writing in the Jewish Observer and Middle East Review (Dec. 24,1965). See also the interview with Shimon Peres in Ma'ariv (Sept. 26,1980). 75. Yehezkel Dror, "Nuclear Policy of Small States," State, Government, and International Relations (no. 5, Spring 1974): 7-22; see also Peres, David's Sling, p. 90. 76. Avigdor Hazelkorn, "Israel: From an Option to a Bomb in the Basement," in R.M. Lawrence and J. Larus, eds., Nuclear Proliferation Phase 2 (Lawrence, Manhattan, and Wichita: University of Kansas, 1976), pp. 149-182. Shlomo Aronson arrived at a conclusion similar to Hazeldorn's, saying that between the years 1968 and 1970 Israel developed its nuclear option to a point where it could be considered to have been realized. See Shlomo Aronson, Conflict and Bargaining; also see Dayan's speech as it was reported in Ha'aretz (March 15,1976). 77. Shlomo Gazit, former head of Israeli military intelligence, in a lecture at Tel Aviv University, noted that one of Sadat's reasons for deciding to come to Jerusalem was his estimation of Israeli nuclear capabilities, Yediot Achronot (Nov. 2,1978). 78. Shai Feldman, "Peacemaking in the Middle East: The Next Step," Foreign Affairs (Spring 1981): 756-780; Shlomo Aronson, "Nuclearization of the Middle East," Jerusalem Quarterly (no. 2, Winter 1977): 27-44,201; also Shai Feldman, Israeli Nuclear Deterrence (New York: Columbia University Press, 1982). 79. See, for instance, Yoram Nimrod, Israel and the Nuclear Dilemma, (Oranim, Nov. 1978); and Yitzhak Rabin, "Israel's Security Problems in the Eighties," Ma'arachot (Oct. 1979): 270-271. 80. Interview with Sharon in Yediot Achronot (June 12,1981); and interview with Chief of Staff Rafael Eitan in Ma'ariv (June 11,1981).

Civilian Components in the National Security Doctrine Moshe Lissak

The Scope of National Security Doctrines The civilian components of military doctrines have been virtually ignored in the relevant professional literature. A decisive share of these studies have devoted nearly exclusive attention to overtly military-professional aspects, whereas civilian components, even in the best case, are generally treated offhandedly and nonsystematically. Actually, most studies are more concerned with military doctrines than with comprehensive security doctrines. To clarify this observation, we commence with several comments concerning terminology and definitions, although these do not constitute the primary concern of the present research. The wide variety of definitions in the literature is partly due to the differential disciplinary approaches of the respective writers, who refer to such concepts as "national security policy," "defense policy," "strategy," and "tactics."1 Other terms used include "total national strategy"—especially regarding South Africa2—as well as "total defense" and "total population defense," the former concerning Sweden and the latter in regard to Yugoslavia.3 These represent only a very small sample of the definitions appearing in the extensive strategic research literature. As this paper is concerned with the case of Israel, it recalls certain definitions used in Israeli studies of security doctrine. While this literature manifests no particularly unique qualities, it may nonetheless provide some reflection of the development of national security definitions in Israel. For example, Major-General (ret.) Israel Tal defines national security as "ensuring national survival and defending vital interests."4 A state's strength is a function of its "staying power," as contrasted with "strike power." The former concept expresses the total human and material resources of the nation, the size of its territory, its geopolitical situation, its spiritual, technological, and political values and assets, and, above all, the degree of motivation—the consequence of a feeling of unity, purpose, and consensus concerning national aspirations. "Strike power," in turn, means "national military strength."5 55

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Another former Israeli military person, Brigadier-General Avraham Ayalon, defined national security as "the sum total of the reciprocal ties between the means at the state's disposal—and its readiness to employ them—and its immediate and distant environment. These reflect the state's ability to guarantee its preferred interests and promote its national objectives under varying conditions of uncertainty." Ayalon sums up his definition by determining that one may speak of a national security equation based on both "capability factors" and "intent factors."6 A third prominent contributor to this debate was Major-General (ret.) Yehoshafat Harkabi,7 who combined a long-term military career with outstanding academic scholarship. Although Harkabi avoided formal definition, he treated the horizons and parameters of security policy extensively, according particular attention to the difficulties facing national leaders in attempting to realize security doctrines in practice. He determines that "strategic thought and strategic planning must be multidimensional. They should not be limited to considering war as a military event alone, but rather address preparations for war from the political, military, technological, economic and sociological points of view alike."8 As this assortment of views demonstrates, to be useful, any definition of the domain of national security must be broad, multidimensional, and comprising both military and civilian components. Bearing this in mind, the present discussion adopts Stephanie G. Neuman's definition, stipulating that "national security policy articulates both the general national interests and objectives of the state and the means (military, economic, social and political) it [the state] will use to further and protect them."9 For Neuman, "civilian" aspects include policies on immigration, agriculture, international trade, taxation, and education, insofar as means and resources are concerned. Neuman also stresses the importance of sociopolitical attributes, such as type of regime, as well as sociopsychological ones, including the dominant religion.10 Explicit and Implicit Security Doctrines There is little disagreement concerning the importance—and at times even vital significance—of a national security doctrine for any country dedicating resources to the cultivation of a military instrument. Nevertheless, during the last quarter of the twentieth century comprehensive security doctrines have constituted only a negligible minority. To be sure, there have been quite a few partial national security doctrines with a defined, well-formulated military component, even if stated in very general terms, whereas the civilian components are generally stated only vaguely, if at all.

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What are the causes behind this phenomenon? And what conditions encourage or hinder the formulation of a systematic doctrine? Apparently several disruptive elements are involved, starting from a cluster of factors considered inherent to strategic analysis—namely the large measure of uncertainty in the data assessed by all military and political elites in formulating national security doctrine, as manifested primarily in two domains:11 (1) The authors of national security doctrine operate within intensely conflictive systems. They are in constant competition in assessing the enemy's intentions (real or imagined). It is a system of mutual frustration, entailing a constant search for responses to the enemy's strategic challenges. The thought process involved must be based on the assumption that there is essentially no strategy for which there is no response. (2) The prevailing uncertainty significantly lowers the exchange rate between investments and results, even if the translation of a doctrine into tactics is assumed correct and valid. Another type of factor is connected with the nature of the regime or political culture, the extent of the perceived threat to the society and state, and the level of security achievable under existing historical conditions. Insofar as political culture is concerned, democratic-liberal regimes are less prone than totalitarian ones—except during wartime—to formulate a comprehensive national security doctrine with any significant regulation and control of the economy and manpower mobilization. This is especially true regarding democratic societies that are deeply divided regarding foreign affairs and security.12 This situation demands a delicate balance among political rivals, both within and outside the coalition framework. Totalitarian regimes are less deterred by clearly formulated, comprehensive national security doctrines, with all their attendant military and civilian components. Even democratic regimes ruled by a dominant party will tend to formulate such doctrines only if they perceive a serious threat and are compelled to raise the level of national security. It thus emerges that a state's security situation or degree of confidence is a significant factor for the formulation of a national security doctrine. States fearing for their physical survival and striving for superiority over potential enemies—or at least for deterrence and a balance of power—are worlds apart from those facing no tangible threat and lacking potential enemies. According to Major-General Tal, the former forgo "their freedom in foreign relations and sometimes also in internal affairs, as well as part of their national aspirations and objectives, accepting the dictates of others to preserve their national survival."13 The threat to a state, as perceived by its population, is therefore of considerable significance in the development of conditions encouraging formulation of a national security doctrine. We may also distinguish between the threat perceived by the political and military elites and by the

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Table 3.1 National Security Typology Political Nondemocratic

Culture Democratic

Tends to formulate a national security doctrine emphasizing civilian components.

Tends to formulate a national security doctrine emphasizing military components.

Little initiative to formulate a security doctrine. Strong emphasis on civilian components.

Little initiative to formulate a security doctrine. Possibility of military doctrine.

Major Perceived

Threat

Minor

general population. The latter is of far greater importance in democratic societies, wherein public opinion may be channeled towards political and administrative systems and thus exert some influence on the decisionmaking process. The level of national security sought under given historical conditions may thus be discerned only by examining the relations between political culture and social stucture and the threat perceived by both elite and nonelite groups. Moreover, the uncertainties inherent in formulation of a national security doctrine explains why such doctrines may be relatively clearly defined in one society, vague in another, and only ephemeral in a third. The mutual relations obtaining among the vast number of components constitute an interesting typological challenge. The present chapter, however, offers no more than a preliminary description of a proposed typology (see Table 3.1). Security Doctrines and Military-Society Relations All security doctrines—especially comprehensive ones—have implications regarding military relations in general and relations between the military and political elites in particular, especially when the military leadership itself is primarily responsible for initiation and formulation of the security doctrine. Military-society and -state relations have been theorized and conceptualized extensively, although generally not in the context of national security doctrine. Obviously such theorization does not address the civilian components of the security doctrine and their implications for military relations with the state and with society. The concepts and thoughts elucidated below will help clarify this issue.

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The main—if not exclusive—objective of a national security doctrine is to ensure optimal mobilization of human and material resources in case of a potential threat to national security, and a fortiori in any warlike situation (terror, attrition, frontal attack, and so forth). The security doctrine must be based on certain assumptions, most significantly a determination of the source of supreme authority for national security affairs— the factor responsible for determining national priorities and attendant guidelines for the division of security resources (manpower, budgets, functions, and authority) between the military and civilian sectors. Many societies have encountered political, normative, ideological, and constitutional-legal problems in their attempt to provide precise and clear responses to these issues, both individually and as a whole. These problematics will be demonstrated in discussing the issue of dividing authority and spheres of activity among the military and other sectors. This example has been selected because it has apparently received less systematic attention than other issues, for example, constitutional questions, such as the source of supreme authority, or economic and administrative aspects of resource distribution. The division of functions and activities between the two sectors is a simple matter prima facie. The classic constitutional model, at least in democratic societies, calls for an unambiguous, rigid division of labor. The military and other security agencies are responsible for security affairs in a narrow and specific context, namely training and equipping troops, weapons procurement, and development and formulation of a military doctrine suiting the conditions and circumstances under which the armed forces are likely to operate. In contrast, civilian systems are responsible for everything else, ranging from social welfare, education, environmental quality, and preparing an economic infrastructure for determining foreign policy. In reality, of course, the picture is far more complex. First, conditions are utterly different in military-governed estates. Furthermore, the classic model does not exist, or has not until recently, in former Soviet-bloc countries. However, even in outstandingly democratic societies, rigid division of functions is not fully enforced. As indicated below, this is especially true in Israel. Schematically the phenomenon currently characterizing many armies, even in democratic societies, may be defined as "role expansion." This refers to military spillover or penetration of domains diverging from the historic functions of the professional cadre of officers, namely studying the art of war and implementing it on the strategic and tactical planes. This role expansion has many variations, and includes such diverse activities as education, civilian vocational training, organizing national ceremonies, managing industrial plants, accepting responsibility for planning of national security, and the like.14 One result of this phenomenon is a process

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that may be called convergence between the military and civilian sectors. In other words, the two sectors, which until recently differed from one another in their structural-organizational aspects, operational modes, and social norms, are now approaching one another by adopting similar or even identical attributes.15 The convergence process can take place simultaneously, but at different rates in the two systems. Alternatively it may constitute more of a one-way process. Eventually it engenders a marked similarity and even partial or near-total overlap between the two systems. This phenomenon raises several major questions, such as those that seek to identify the conditions under which convergence or divergence may develop, or to determine whether the respective processes affect all attributes of the two social systems and their component subsystems simultaneously and with equal intensity. While this will not be discussed here,16 it should be recalled nonetheless that these processes have already induced certain changes in the nature of the military profession and have even raised doubts about its internal unity. Some scholars challenge the very definition of the military profession as a profession per se.17 This change in professional identity is not a marginal issue, as it is closely linked with novel notions of national security, especially the attempt to include civilian components therein, both integrally and operationally.18 The phenomena of role expansion, convergence, and changes in professional identity are directly linked with two key issues that essentially constitute two sides of the same coin, namely the boundaries and the various levels of linkages between the two systems. The issue of boundaries between the military and civilian sectors has been treated in various ways and from differential points of view in nearly all studies concerning military-civilian relations, especially since the 1950s. However, most such studies were primarily of a historical-descriptive nature, with little attention to analyticity or application of typologies. A. R. Luckham was among the first researchers to propose a typology that directly addresses the boundaries between the military and civilian sectors. Luckham distinguishes between integral, permeable, and fragmental boundaries,19 suggesting two indices to discriminate among the different boundary types:20 (1) the extent to which the military establishment exercises control over interaction of its personnel at various levels with its non-military environment; (2) the extent of fusion of the goals and organizations of the military and civilian sectors. It follows that a military establishment with integral boundaries is one in which "the extent to which the interchange between persons holding roles at various levels of the military hierarchy and the environment are under the control of those with responsibility for setting the operational goals of the armed forces, that is, the higher command, is optimal." A permeable boundary, in contrast, reflects "complete fusion both in respect

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of goals and of organization between the possessors of the means of violence and other social groups." A fragmentai boundary is one in which the military establishment—notwithstanding its distinct goal and organization—does not effectively control the interaction of its personnel with holders of civilian roles, thus impairing "the capacity of the holders of military roles to interact with the political and social environment as a single entity in a consistent manner." However clear it may appear, this typology, like so many others, raises questions requiring further clarification. As systematic treatment of the subject is beyond the scope of this chapter, the remarks here will be confined to one major critical comment: The key weakness of this typology is its failure to consider the existence of institutional, normative, cultural, and information-related linkages. At this stage normative and cultural linkages may be conveniently ignored and attention should concentrate on institutional linkages, which entail traffic across the boundaries. Except for esoteric contacts, traffic across institutional boundaries inevitably implies contacts between people from both sides of the boundary. Most such contacts, especially those involving army personnel subordinate to military authority and control, take place under some type of institutionalized circumstances. The control discussed by Luckham is essential not only to the boundaries themselves but also, perhaps even more so, to the linkages established. Considering the importance ascribed to institutional, cultural, and other linkages in discussing the boundaries between the military establishment and the civilian sector, the discussion may proceed to elucidate the most expedient treatment of this issue. Several questions arise in attempting to clarify the institutional linkages discussed herein: 1. The first question concerns the composition of the parties to the linkage, especially the personal—and, even more significantly, the functional-institutional—identity of the civilians. The military often has a variety of civilian partners in institutional linkages, such as elected politicians, officials of national and local executive authorities (Ministries of Education, Labor, Finance, Transport, and so forth), representatives of public institutions other than the state administration (academies, research organizations, professional associations, economic organizations), and so forth. 2. The second question refers to the degree of institutionalization of these linkages. One should distinguish between various types of linkages, such as permanent and primarily task-oriented frameworks, some of which are statutory or decree-based, as well as temporary ones, such as incumbence of political or diplomatic posts by military personnel, director-generals' committees for specific projects, adoption of army units by civilian groups

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and vice versa, and so forth, and various ad hoc inquiry committees comprising both military personnel and civilians. 3. One should inquire about the respective status of the parties to the linkages. In this context, it is important to ascertain whether it is the military or the civilian party that has formal or informal veto rights and the decisive vote. This is especially relevant to state frameworks, such as ministerial or parliamentary committees. Although decisionmaking authority is often statutory and unambiguous, there are many cases in which formal authority does not match the power held de facto. Moreover, it is plausible to assume the existence of institutional linkages entailing no a priori definition of authority relations between partners. 4. The fourth question, derived from the previous one, addresses the differential rules of the game that apply to the various institutional linkages. Depending on circumstances, these rules may be competitive or conflictive. An alternative possibility is that the rules of the game are by definition conducive to consensus and cooperation. Various ad hoc committees set up to solve specific acute problems, for example, those concerning the welfare of soldiers and paramilitary organizations, are also characteristic of this type of linkage. 5. We' should examine the control exercised by each sector over its representatives. There is considerable variation here as well, especially if degrees of control are distinguished and ranked. In general terms, it may be assumed that in some linkages, both sides tend toward strict supervision of their representatives, as illustrated by contacts in the political sphere. A different situation arises only when one of the parties is interested in strict control over the interaction. This occurs, for example, in linkages between representatives of the military and those of the mass media, or between the military and trade unions. 6. The sixth question considers the domain or territory to which a given institutional linkage belongs. Because of the frequent ambiguities in the division of labor between the defense and civilian establishments, the scope of authority and reponsibility of each may vary at different times and in different societies. For example, issues concerning manpower mobilization, arms procurement, and military jurisdiction are usually the domain of the defense ministry. However, there are some civilian domains par excellence, such as production for the civilian market. Apart from these two possibilities, there may be other areas of activity not clearly identified with either party, as well as those that both parties aspire to adopt as their own. In such cases, the rules of the game will tend to be competitive or conflictive. In applying this typology, one must not assume that the institutional linkages are stable over time. These linkages tend to assume different

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characters and evolve in different locations in each of the above dimensions. Among the many possible reasons for such variation, the changes in the various elites' conceptions of the desirable boundaries between the two sectors should be noted. The efficacy of these variables may be assessed in several domains: politics—on the limited cabinet level and broad party level alike; economics—especially regarding aspects of the military-industrial complex; education and culture—especially the military-educational complex, in which the army may function either with or without the cooperation of civilian educational systems;professional activity—i.e., the extent of the defense establishment's cooperation with civilian experts in the sphere of national security or military technology and weapons development; communications and information—especially cooperation between army communications and indoctrination systems and various civilian sectors; national culture and the development of national symbols—especially the armed forces' involvement in reinforcing, nurturing, and even interpreting the national symbols, ethos, and myths, whether in cooperation with the civilian culture elites or otherwise. The linkages between military personnel and civilians in each of these domains are generally institutionalized to some extent and therefore manifest a formal or bureaucratic character. However, these linkages are often accompanied by informal meetings, such as social networks comprising military personnel and civilians. Social networks constitute a separate issue, considered here, although they are linked, at least indirectly, with the formulation of a national security doctrine. The discussion so far leads to a number of hypotheses testable in the Israeli context: 1. The effective realization of a comprehensive security doctrine demands the development and institutionalization of multidomain linkages between the military system and the relevant civilian sectors, aspiring toward fundamental coordination between them. 2. The content and relative weight of the civilian components of the security doctrine affect the significance of linkages. Thus, for example, the importance of linkages in civilian education will increase if the security doctrine calls for uniform and concentrated indoctrination of values and norms. 3. Military-professional components have a greater effect on the significance and nature of linkages in societies in which the military organization is three-dimensional—compulsory service, a standing army, and a large and active reserve force—than in societies based on a volunteer army alone. More specific issues, such as retirement policy for senior officers, also influence the social networks of officers and civilians. 4. The extent of synchronization between the civilian and military

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components affects the nature of the boundaries between the two sectors and the relative importance of linkages. The greater the synchronization, the more permeable the boundaries. 5. The extent of synchronization—via linkages—is likely to affect the possible scope of manpower and resource mobilization. These hypotheses may imply a one-way connection between national security doctrine and the nature of the boundaries between the civil and military domains. However, the present discussion rejects this possibility and assumes that mutual feedback prevails. Is There a Comprehensive Israeli Doctrine? As stated by Dan Horowitz in the previous chapter, there has never been an official Israeli security doctrine, at least not a published one. At certain times, key personalities in Israeli politics (such as Ben-Gurion, Allon, Dayan, Sharon, Rabin, and Arens) formulated security doctrines. However, despite their unique influence on military thinking, these doctrines were never officially published in full. Nevertheless, by combining various sources, at least a partial mosaic of the Israeli security doctrine can be constructed. A related question, which asks why no total or comprehensive strategy was ever formulated in Israel, has several complementary answers. As Horowitz has argued above, the demise of national consensus in Israel after the 1967 War undermined the autonomy of strategic decisionmaking. Expanded to a broader principle, this implies that Israel has found it impossible to formulate a national security doctrine because its society cannot attain consensus about its basic objectives, especially regarding the boundaries.21 Many questions concerning security doctrine evoke fundamental—and thus exceedingly divisive—ideological issues. The absence of a national consensus on these issues therefore precludes the development of a comprehensive security doctrine acceptable to the majority. Moreover, by refraining from formulating an explicit doctrine, the authorities have been able to circumvent severe ideological disputes and to regulate, mitigate, and control Israel's internal conflict. If correct, this hypothesis is clearly linked to a basic characteristic of Israeli political culture, namely the tendency toward conflict regulation and solution through evasive and profoundly ambiguous decisionmaking. The lack of a comprehensive national security doctrine is also responsible for the IDF's long-term preponderance—also noted by Horowitz above—in determining military aspects of the security doctine, that is, military doc-

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trine.22 At the same time, its civilian partner—the political elite—has often failed to contribute its share in defining the civilian components and ensuring synchronization between the two spheres. Other consequences of this nonsynchronous context are the extensive secrecy ostensibly entailed by security matters, at least in Israel; severe disruption of decisionmaking processes; and the political and military elites' confidence in their own improvisational abilities, a feature that has virtually become a national characteristic.23 The lack of an official comprehensive security doctrine does not imply that the issue was ignored by national leaders, senior officers, military analysts, or academic researchers. A review of their published remarks points out the principal military parameters involved, and—to a much lesser extent—the civilian parameters as well, including the changes they have undergone over the years. The civilian components of this unwritten doctrine have been addressed not only by politicians and journalists, but also by several senior military officers, although the majority still avoid considering this issue. Academic researchers have barely covered the topic, although they do not deny its significance in principle. The common denominator among all concerned is an awareness that national security must provide a solution, if only a partial one, to the basic strategic threat faced by Israeli society. The strategic threat to Israel is discussed in some detail in the contributions to this volume by both Yaniv and Horowitz. Accordingly, only those dimensions of the strategic threat that relate directly to the issue of civil-military boundaries require discussion in the present chapter. Broadly speaking, Israel's unstated security doctrine addresses three dimensions of fundamental vulnerability: (1) a dramatic demographic asymmetry in favor of the Arabs; (2) long, vulnerable borders combined with a lack of strategic depth; (3) the need to survive under a protracted, violent conflict demanding extensive allocation of resources to national security. Israel's response to the challenge of asymmetry has been the adoption of the sociopolitical doctrine of a "nation in arms." In addition to the total mobilization of resources, this Israeli response to the challenge has been manifested by an unparalleled use of available manpower during wartime and military emergencies. The armed forces comprise a three-tiered structure: a professional cadre of career army personnel, a conscript force serving for three years, and a reserve force available for immediate call-up, composed of men serving until age fifty-five. The distinctive nature of the IDF and its mobilization system lies in this last element, which differs from the reserves of most other countries in scope, state of readiness, and extent of involvement in the overall military structure. The proportion of career personnel, conscripts, and reserves varies from unit to unit. However, in contrast to most other armies, the IDF employs reservists in a wide range of military functions and at almost all levels of command.

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As noted by Horowitz, this system of mobilization has far-reaching strategic implications: Israel cannot launch a major war without first calling up the reserves, thus depriving it of the option of strategic surprise. A war of attrition or any form of prolonged warfare is difficult for Israel to handle; hence conflicts may be escalated intentionally to force a conclusion, making release of reservists possible. Similarly, Israel cannot afford to call upMhe reserves for an extended period of time without actually declaring war. Extensive reliance on reserves also makes it difficult to hold a large, densely populated captured area, as in Lebanon, for example. Finally, the key role played by reserve units and reserve commanders also makes it socially problematic for Israel to wage war without the backing of a national consensus. The second source of strategic weakness—lack of strategic depth—so admirably discussed by Horowitz above—also has its corollary in the sphere of civil-military relations. Specifically, the controversy since 1967 over the issue of "defensible borders" has led to a massive incursion of political and ideological considerations into the sphere of national security. Whereas up until 1967 expert military opinion alone determined the merits and demerits of military and strategic decisions, since 1967 it has become well-nigh impossible to isolate military and strategic issues from the melee of domestic politics. The third national security challenge faced by Israel has been the adaptation of its civil-military relations to the conditions of protracted conflict. There are two facets to this challenge: ensuring the optimal use of manpower and other resources for national security while maintaining a democratic regime, and creating a system of control for the military appropriate to a prolonged state of emergency marked by both occasional limited clashes in periods of relative dormancy and periodic eruption of full-scale war waged under international political constraints. These two aspects are closely intertwined. Israel's unique patterns of civil-military relations have largely determined both the extent of national consensus on the allocation of resources for security needs and the types of civilian control of the defense establishment. These characteristics—broad civilian participation in national security missions, vague boundaries between military and political institutions, and social networks including members of both military and civilian elites—have encouraged intensive interaction between the military and civilian sectors. Civilian Components of Israel's Doctrine The most outstanding and significant among the formulators of Israel's national security doctrine and its attendant military and civilian compo-

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nents is David Ben-Gurion, Israel's first prime minister and minister of defense. Ben-Gurion was most outspoken on these issues and worked relentlessly to apply his concepts. Towards the end of the War of Independence, he declared that Israel must "eliminate the common but pernicious misconception that the army alone can guarantee state security."24 According to Ben-Gurion, the army "does not fulfill all security needs; the security problem is more comprehensive and intensive than the military problem."25 Presenting the Security Service Law-1949 to the Knesset, Ben-Gurion enumerated the principal security factors: 1. Immigration and absorption—"Extensive and rapid mass immigration is a primary element of our security, unequalled by war and security efforts."26 2. Settlement and balanced population dispersal throughout the country—Ben-Gurion called for "full assistance to settlement through legislation, financial means and planning."27 3. Maximum independence in basic food production, arms manufacture, and overseas air and sea transportation. 4. A peace-oriented foreign policy. 5. Transforming the army into a "workshop for pioneering, fighting youth, healthy in body and spirit, enterprising, brave and capable, fleet-footed and diligent, undeterred by hardship and danger." Moreover, the army "can and must serve as a consolidating factor in forming the new image of the 'national' and ingraining it in the new culture and society now developing in the State of Israel."28 To develop these characteristics in soldiers, Ben-Gurion asked the Knesset to adopt a law decreeing that after completing several weeks of basic military training, soldiers would undergo "agricultural training, accompanied by concentrated social activity, to teach the Hebrew language to youth who never attended school, or left it because of poverty and distress, and to nurture among the younger generation a sense of service, common efforts, mutual assistance, responsibility for order and discipline, knowledge of the country, love of nature, a fighting spirit and creative military service."29 Another senior political figure concerned with national security—and especially its civilian components—was Yigal Allon.30 To the civilian components of which Ben-Gurion spoke so often (for example, immigration, absorption, settlement, and the like), Allon added the following: 1. Higher birth rates, including provision of social services to "every family in Israel to bring children into the world and raise them under civilized conditions insofar as housing, nutrition, clothing and physical and

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spiritual hygiene are concerned."31 2. Social arrangements that will engender a substantial narrowing of the social gaps between immigrants and veteran residents and between Ashkenazic and Sephardic Jews. Allon, representing the Workers' Party (MAPAM), stressed the connection between the state's political and social regime and its security. For example, he claims that "tearing down cultural barriers entails urgent practical activity. Otherwise, we may expect the intensification of ethnic antagonism and expansion of the nation's already severe psychological rift, which may also be reflected in the IDF, which is nothing more than mirror of the nation and its conceptions."32 Despite the importance which Allon ascribed to social issues, he called for moderation in activity concerning social tensions. In one instance, Allon declared that interclass tensions are a weakening factor, indicating that "the frequency of internal conflicts, at least those which concern state security, can only be reduced by intensifying recognition of the common national destiny."33 3. Voluntarism. Allon perceived considerable significance in voluntary fulfillment of collective missions. He was far less prone than BenGurion to rely on state-centric frameworks, believing that "in the future, no less than in the past, we should not rely on legislation and state initiative alone as the major means of motivating the individual and the public in Israel to fulfill national obligations."34 Several retired senior IDF officers have added their own views to the basic concepts of these two political figures regarding the importance of civilian components in the national security doctrine. Outstanding among these are Major-General (ret.) Israel Tal,35 as well as Brigadier (ret.) Avraham Ayalon, the author of numerous articles on the "national security equation." Ayalon believes that security factors constitute a parallelogram of forces comprising four subsystems: regime, economy, society, and army.36 Another senior military official concerned with civilian components, if only nonsystematically, is Major-General (ret.) Avraham Tamir.37 All military personalities include such concepts as social and economic quality among security components. Some add or emphasize the ideological dimension as a significant and autonomous element of national strength. In this context, they refer to the Zionist idea, which they consider capable of providing appropriate practical responses to Israel's strategic and survival problems.38 The issue of civilian components in national security doctrines has also been raised at times by scholars, although most of the latter tended to consider security doctrine from a strategic-political, economic, or international relations-oriented point of view.39 This approach too, yields several significant insights. For example, Yehezkel Dror indicated that in

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planning national security doctrine, one must also consider internal objectives, including those of the entire Jewish people: intensifying national solidarity, broadening the national consensus regarding options for settling the Israeli-Arab conflict, increasing immigration to Israel, and consolidating the Jewish people.40 Another observer, Alouf Hareven, speaks of internal power as a component of national power, referring to the democratic regime, the supremacy of law and civil equality, and sound relations between Jews and Arabs and between secular and religious Jews.41 Moreover, Hareven advocates a change, if only partially, in the ratio of defense spending to investment in education. In other words, he recommends limiting the margins of security, which at the time of his writing he believed were rather broad, in exchange for investment in the educational system at all levels, especially higher education. Hareven also claims that Israeli governments have never assessed the risks of the defense-versus-education equation.42 Hareven argues that the problem of the Arab minority—discussed at length elsewhere in this volume—should be regarded as a strategic issue. Policies concerning the Arab minority, he claims, have two types of political/strategic implications, one "concerning all aspects of Israel's identity as a democratic and Jewish state and the internal relations therein" and the other "concerning Israel's relations with the Arab states, especially with the Palestinians."43 Insofar as world Jewry is concerned, the nature of mutual relations will determine the extent to which the Diaspora serves as strategic depth for Israel. Hareven indicates that mutual relations between Israel and the Diaspora should not be based on money, nor even on immigration, "but rather on readiness to participate in the solution of Israel's problems, thereby alleviating its burden."44 The ideas of the statesmen, generals, and scholars discussed in this section clearly reflect deep awareness of this issue, yet no official doctrine was ever formulated. However, this does not imply the absence of institutionalized behavioral norms—as well as regulations and legislation—governing both routine and emergency conditions. Such institutionalization indeed took place, although it entailed many contradictions and paradoxes. These norms obviously affected the relations between the defense system and its components and the various civilian sectors, as examined below. To simplify discussion, the civilian components of the national security doctrine will be classified into several key categories, which differ from one another yet are not mutually exclusive regarding their respective underlying normative-ideological principles: 1. Zionist Ideology: Immigration and absorption; increasing the birth rate; settlement and population dispersal; independence in basic produc-

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tion and mutual relations and support between Israel and the Diaspora. 2. Political Culture: A democratic regime, clearly mandating the army's accountability to the civilian political leadership; a tendency toward regulation of internal conflicts, subduing and moderating them through compromise, rather than solution by unilateral enforcement of an unambiguous political or ideological formula. This category also includes emphasis on education towards patriotism, voluntarism, and commitment to the collectivity and anticipates broad consensus regarding fundamental issues. 3. Universal Civic Principles: Egalitarianism and social justice, including tolerance and equality for ethnonational minorities. The principles underlying these civilian components were formulated either before or immediately after the establishment of the State of Israel.45 The civilian components aimed at reinforcing the military ones, improving Israel's ability to cope with its strategic vulnerabilities, i.e., the demographic asymmetry, lack of strategic depth, and maintenance of a high level of mobilization of manpower and financial resources. For example, such principles as immigration absorption, increasing the birth rate, and the like, address the demographic asymmetry; settlement and close, warm relations with the Diaspora primarily address the lack of strategic depth, as well as the democratic regime and culture; while universal principles of justice and equality are connected with preservation of high-level mobilization of quality manpower and financial resources.

Changes in the Concept of Civilian Components These examples of the connection between strategic vulnerabilities and civilian components of the security doctrine do not underscore any obligatory synchronization between the military and civilian components in general, or within any given category. Moreover, the precise nature of the trade-off between them is not always clear. These are issues still demanding serious, comprehensive research. Nevertheless, there are some indications that changes taking place over the years, not only regarding civilian components of the security doctrine but also military ones, have been subjected to especially severe criticism since the Yom Kippur War. 46 The changes in civilian components relate to each of the three key categories. Consensus has eroded and deep rifts have emerged. For example, the basic principle of classic Zionism—settlement throughout the Land of Israel, that is, transformation of settlement presence into an overt

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means of increasing political sovereignty—is the subject of intensive debate. Furthermore, the relations between Israel and the Diaspora have been changing too. The unmitigated Diaspora support of Israel's foreign and defense policies has given way to questioning by world Jewry. Even in Israel, one hears fewer objections to Diaspora involvement in Israel's internal ideological and political struggles.47 Significant changes in the principles that characterized Israeli political culture and determined the nature of the security doctrine's civilian components are also discernible. Ehud Sprinzak described these changes as the intensification of illegalism—in practice and ideology—in Israeli society,48 as reflected, for example, in the spread of ideological crime. Such instances are primarily characteristic of the radical right (such as the Kach movement) and the nationalist-religious wing (certain circles in Gush Emunim), although even their opponents frequently manifest refusal to accept authority, particularly regarding the extraordinarily sensitive issue of military service. (Such refusal is indeed highly selective and conditional, focusing on the 1982 invasion of Lebanon into the occupied territories.) Relations between the defense system and certain sectors of Israeli society (settlers in the occupied territories) have also been adversely affected since the outbreak of the intifada. The various versions of Israel's undeclared national security doctrine do not respond unambiguously to the challenges now faced by the IDF in the West Bank and Gaza. Today, more than ever before, the various solutions proposed for suppressing the intifada cannot be separated from political and ideological considerations. Moreover, this very assumption and its public adoption by senior officers arouses suspicion and fear in various sectors of the Israeli public. This has already led to several unprecedented confrontations between key political personalities—including cabinet ministers and the prime minister—and senior military commanders,49 as well as even more severe conflicts between settlers and army officers.50 As noted by the late Dan Horowitz in his contribution to this volume, one result of this process has been the tangible threat of serious politicization of the military system. Even in the past, the IDF decisionmaking process was never completely free of political considerations51 and conflicts between chiefs of staff, defense ministers, and prime ministers were commonplace.52 This case, however, apparently involves another type of politicization, namely popular ascription of senior officers to inimical and hostile political camps. The intifada may thus intensify erosion in public support of the IDF high command among various political circles, right- and left-wing alike. The most significant erosion in concept of the social order—once believed to support and enhance national security—concerns the principles of civil equality on which the State of Israel was founded, prohibiting

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discrimination based on race or ethnonational origin. The changes involved primarily concern conceptions by various sectors of the public, rather than implementation or practical application. Indeed, a considerable percentage of the country's elites, especially within the judicial system, has been struggling successfully for preservation of the original patterns.53 The level of validity of both civilian and military components in public opinion does not and cannot remain static. However, during the period between the formation of Israel's unwritten security doctrine by its founders and the emergence of signs of partial or full rejection—at least of the civilian components—both the military and the civilian elites strove for operationalization and application of at least part of the civilian components of the national security doctrine. As this issue is too extensive and varied to be covered Within the framework of this chapter, the present discussion confines itself to several examples and general conclusions. Institutional Linkages and National Security The rationale of the selection of the following examples is stated in the opening remarks, which stressed that the primary objective of a national security doctrine is to ensure optimal mobilization of human and material resources. Such mobilization entails the definition and division of authority and spheres of activity between the two sectors. As indicated in the introduction, such division is not of a dichotomous nature, as modern societies allow for considerable role expansion by military and civilian sectors alike, with reciprocal penetration of the respective spheres. Furthermore, processes of convergence or divergence may take place as well. Linkages between the two sectors provide the coordination required to prevent unnecessary tensions and fierce struggles over the boundaries between the two systems. Such coordination entails: 1. Synchronization between military and civilian components 2. Setting priorities or trade-off rules for the two types of components 3. Ensuring practical application of designated high-priority civilian components Israeli society manifests many linkages that fulfill such functions, of which the most significant are the following: 1. Top military echelons and the political leadership, together constituting the political-military

complex54

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2. Military-defense top echelons, industrialists, and financial entrepreneurs, constituting the leadership of a military-industrial complex55 3. Military and civilian educational systems56 4. Civilian and military communication systems57 Such linkages as these are essentially of the formal and institutionalized type, and are accompanied by numerous informal linkages through social networks comprising civilians and officers who encounter one another during compulsory army service or reserve duty, which fulfills a most important function by bridging the gap between army personnel and civilians. This system determines the nature of the boundaries between the two sectors at the individual level.58 The subject of informal linkages is beyond the scope of this chapter. Most formal linkages also involve the civilian components of the national security doctrine, specializing in one or two of them (such as economics, settlement, education, mass communications, and so forth). Two such linkages—education and communications—ostensibly involving a variety of civilian components derived from Zionist ideology, the political culture, and the conception of a suitable social order, are described below. Education and Culture The educational-cultural activities of the defense establishment in general and the IDF in particular can be classified into two distinct major groups.59 The first type includes routine and special educational programs. For example, civic education, general education, vocational training, and recreational services are provided, either for all soldiers in the conscript and standing forces or for particular groups within these categories—the objective being to raise educational and cultural standards and develop the vocational skills of the service personnel and officers on active duty or in the reserves. For this purpose the military uses a staff of commissioned and noncommissioned officers, as well as civilian professionals. Civic education includes a general education program administered at specially designed schools. The curriculum covers Jewish and Israeli history, the Arab-Israeli conflict, current political problems, and Israeli social problems. General studies are devoted primarily to completion of primary education and Hebrew for new immigrants. Special efforts have been made to meet the needs of a specific population of inductees, namely disadvantaged youth. Paradoxically, the IDF's self-reliance and expertise in educating deprived youth can be contrasted with a much heavier

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reliance on civilian experts in the civic education offered to regular conscripts. The second type of activity includes a system of preinduction educational, recreational, and vocational training services for special groups. Typical examples are GADNA (paramilitary youth battalions) and military-technical workshops for youth aged sixteen to eighteen. Both types of activities call for a high degree of institutionalization of linkages between the IDF educational command and its civilian counterparts. Representative examples of these linkages are the joint committees comprising officials from the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Labor and Social Welfare, and IDF education officers. The partners to linkages in this sphere are supposed to be engaged primarily in the advancement and development of civilian components nourished by Zionist ideology. Nevertheless, a content analysis clearly reveals that the issues involved also relate to political culture and perception of social order, depending on circumstances and agenda. Linkages between military and civilian partners are indeed concerned with problems of coordination, particularly regarding pre-army education. However, they are not free of tensions: Although the field of education is fundamentally civilian, the military partner often enjoys a formal status superior to that of the civilian partner. This is true for all matters concerning IDF educational and cultural activities for special populations, such as culturally deprived youth. It is also valid regarding the status of the IDF representatives in charge of the Military Broadcasting Service (Galei Zahal), as well as IDF and Defense Ministry publications distributed among the civilian public.60 The civilian partner maintains seniority in networks in which services such as vocational training are provided entirely by civilian schools. Such services, although operated in coordination with the IDF, are not intended to serve the Israeli armed forces exclusively. The military partner's seniority in a considerable share of these networks accounts for IDF control of the contents of interaction. The only major exception involves programs providing general education for soldiers, such as preparatory courses for matriculation. Even in such cases, however, candidates are selected by the IDF, which can thus control the volume and quality of the target population. Communication The networks in this domain bring together representatives of the IDF and public opinion-makers from the media. The civilian partners in these linkages consist of military correspondents of the press, radio, and TV, as well as journalists specializing in foreign affairs and security. Editorial

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boards of daily newspapers are of particular importance in this context. These boards meet periodically with senior representatives of the defense establishment (usually the chief of staff or the defense minister) to discuss various issues, with the explicit purpose of conveying the defense establishment's message to the general public.61 This domain constitutes a central communications channel, which carries the professional military information released by the censor, as well as information concerning public activity such as education, culture, settlement, the civilian administration in the territories, the legal system, etc. Information flows in both directions as the press and the electronic media have recently become a central platform for reviews, sometimes highly critical, of the defense system's operational-military and "civilian" activities alike. The two-way nature of these linkages is reflected in the identity of the partners involved. The military partners comprise personnel of the IDF Speaker's Unit, the Department of Public Relations of the Defense Ministry, intelligence officers, and so forth, whose clients are civilians—as consumers of communications in general—and the defense establishment. The domain is thus common to both sides. Insofar as participant status is concerned, the defense establishment has had an unquestionable advantage because of its power to control the channel and the contents of communications. However, this power is not converted a priori into formal institutional terms to define the hierarchy among the parties. In every democratic society, the press perceives its legitimate mission not only as transmitting information but also revealing shortcomings and failures. Accordingly, Israeli journalists have been increasingly disinclined to accept an a priori definition of any inferior status in this interaction, rendering control of these networks increasingly bilateral and symmetrical. The character of this control is especially evident in institutionalized communications networks, such as editorial boards or meetings between army personnel and military correspondents. It follows that the rules of the game include competitive and conflictive components, as well as elements of solidarity. This pattern has remained particularly strong in Israel.62 To complete the picture of educational and cultural linkages, a brief reference to the symbolic domain is in order. Many linkages, especially in the educational-cultural domain, as well as the political one, relate both directly and indirectly to Jewish and Israeli national symbols. For example, considerable attention is paid to such issues as national rebirth, national identity, Israeli patriotism, and other conceptions drawn from the Zionist treasury. In other words, some linkages between the defense establishment and civilians have clear and manifest symbolic significance as reinforcers of identification with the fundamental norms of the society, and objective, which is the precise and explicit purpose of the linkage.

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Such linkages include state celebrations of independence days, national memorial days, state funerals, and the like. On a more modest level, this purpose is also served by ceremonies marking an army unit's "adoption," or even by inviting parents to military camps on such occasions as completion of training courses, officers' candidate schools, and so forth. Emphasis on the common heritage considerably blunts the edge of control over relations in these linkages, at least as far as the military is concerned. At the same time, the representatives of the civilian sector possess overtly senior status—as they do in political networks—especially in national ceremonies, wherein the active role of the military is limited to contribution of their visual content (such as in parades).

Conclusions This chapter has set out to perform a dual task: Propose a conceptual framework for discussion of the civilian components of the Israeli security doctrine and their implications for army-society relations, and examine this framework in the Israeli case. The discussion opened with an analysis of the concept of "security doctrine," with particular attention to the military and civilian components of the comprehensive security doctrine. In this context, both written and unwritten security doctrines were considered as well as the political and social conditions that encourage or discourage their formulation. In addition, this part of the discussion proposed schematic analysis of the correlation between political culture (democratic and nondemocratic) and the threat (major or minor) perceived by both national leaders and the general public. Very few observers have questioned the effects of security doctrines on military-society-state relations. The present discussion noted, however, that such effects do have many variations and proposed assessing the extent of the army's role expansion and the divergence and convergence between the two systems. It also sought to evaluate the boundaries and linkages between the defense system and civilian systems. The next part of the discussion constituted an attempt to demonstrate the applicability of the proposed conceptual framework to the case of Israel. Although Israeli leaders have never enunciated an official national security doctrine, one may discern both military and civilian components in Israel's undeclared doctrine. Subsequently, the discussion investigated several of the changes in basic assumptions, or, rather, the extent of erosion in various domains that nurtured and molded the civilian components: Zionist ideology, democratic political culture, and the affinity for universal civilian values. This was followed in the concluding section by a brief examination of several institutional linkages in the domains of education, culture, and

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communications, ostensibly reflecting practical application of the civilian dimension of the Israeli security doctrine.

Notes 1. Stephanie G. Neuman, "Defense Planning in Less Industrialized States: An Organizing Framework," in S.G. Neuman, ed., Planning in Less Industrialized States (Lexington, Mass.: Lexington Books, 1984), pp. 7-9. 2. Kenneth W. Grundy, The Militarization of South African Politics (London: I. B. Tauris and Co., Ltd., Publishers, 1986), pp. 5-18,104; Mark Mitchell and Dave Russel, "Militarization and the South African State," in Colin Creighton and Martin Shaw, eds., The Sociology of War and Peace (London: Macmillan, 1987), p. 101. 3. Adam Roberts, Nations in Arms: The Theory and Practice of Territorial Defence (London: Macmillan Press and International Institute for Strategic Studies, 1986), Chapter 6. 4. Israel Tal, "National Security and Collective Security," Ma'arachot (no. 314, Jan. 1984): 2 (Hebrew). 5. Ibid., 3. 6. Avraham Ayalon, "National Security," Skira Hodshit (Monthly Survey), (Mar.-Apr. 1980): 7 (Hebrew). See also Ayalon, Skira Hodshit (nos. 2-3, Feb.Mar. 1983): 18-22 (Hebrew); Ayalon, "The Quality and Quantity Package," in Zvi Offer and Avi Kober, eds., Quality and Quantity in Military Buildup (Tel Aviv: Ma'arachot, 1985): 242-245 (Hebrew); Ayalon, "National Power and Military Power," Ma'arachot (nos. 311-312, September-October 1988): 2-5 (Hebrew). For more definition see Avi Kober, "Theory, Doctrines änd Planning of Military Force," in Offer and Kober, Quality and Quantity: 85-95 (Hebrew). 7. Major-General (ret.), Head of Military Intelligence (1955-1959), and Professor Emeritus of International Relations at the Hebrew University. 8. Yehoshafat Harkabi, "The Horizons of Defense Policy," in Studies of Yesterday and Tomorrow (Tel Aviv: The Museum of the IDF and Ma'arachot, 1967): 13 (Hebrew). See also Harkabi, "Thoughts About the National Security Doctrine," Ma'arachot (nos. 270-277, October 1979): 42 (Hebrew). For more definitions of national security and related concepts of Israeli experts, see Benyamin Amidor, "The Governmental System of National Security," Ma'arachot (no. 275,1980): 14-22 (Hebrew); Emanuel Wald, The Curse of the Broken Tools (Jerusalem and Tel Aviv: Schocken, 1987): 211-215 (Hebrew); Ariel Levite, Offense and Defense in Israeli Military Doctrine (Tel Aviv: Hakibbutz Hameuchad and Center for Strategic Studies, Tel Aviv University): 9-10 (Hebrew). 9. Neuman, A Survey, pp. 7-8. 10. Ibid., p. 15. 11. Harkabi, "The Horizons of Defense Policy": 1-4. 12. On deeply divided societies, see Dan Horowitz, "Diasporas and Communal Conflicts in Divided Societies: The Case of Palestine Under the British Mandate," in G. Sheffer, ed., Modern Diasporas in International Politics (London: Croom Helm, 1985), pp. 294-314. 13. Tal, "National Security and Collective Security": 3. 14. For a discussion about role expansion, see, for example, M. Lissak,

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Military Roles in Modernization: Civil Military Relations in Thailand and Burma (Beverly Hills and London: Sage Publications, 1976), Chapter 1. 15. For the concept of convergence, see, for example, C. C. Moskos, Jr., "Armed Forces and American Society: Convergence or Divergence?" in C. C. Moskos, ed., Public Opinion and Military Establishment (Beverly Hills: Sage Publications, 1971), pp. 271-272; David R. Segal et al., "Convergence, Isomorphism and Interdependence at the Civil Military Interface," Journal of Political and Military Sociology 2 (no. 2, Fall 1974): 159. 16. See a more detailed analysis in M. Lissak, "Convergence and Structural Linkages: The All-Volunteer and Conscription Armies," in State, Government and International Relations (no. 12, Summer 1972): 27-45 (Hebrew). 17. For the numerous discussions on this subject see, for example, C. C. Moskos, "From Institution to Occupation: Trends in Military Organization," Armed Forces and Society 4 (no. 1, Fall 1977): 41—50; Cathy Downes, "To Be or Not To Be a Profession: The Military Case," Defense Analysis (no. 3, 1985): 147-171; Guiseppe Caforio, "The Military Profession: Theories of Change," Armed Forces and Society 15 (no. 1, Fall 1982): 55-70. 18. Sam C. Sarkesian, "Military Professionalism and Civil-Military Relations in the West," International Political Science Review 2 (no. 3,1981): 283-298. 19. A. R. Luckham, "A Comprehensive Typology of Civil-Military Relations," Government and Opposition (no. 6, Winter 1977): 5-35. 20. Ibid. 21. Yehuda Ben-Meir, National Security Decision-Making: The Israeli Case (Tel Aviv: Hakibbutz Hameuchad, 1987), pp. 115-119; see also A. Kober, "Theory, Doctrines and Planning of Military Force," notes 6 and 7. 22. Tal, "National Security and Collective Security." 23. Ben-Meir, Decision-Making, pp. 12,85-90. 24. David Ben-Gurion, Military and Defence (Tel Aviv: Ma'arachot, 1957), p. 102. See also p. 257 (Hebrew). 25. Ibid., p. 102. 26. Ibid., p. 122. 27. Ibid., pp. 103,258. 28. Ibid., pp. 105,140. 29. Ibid., p. 107. 30. For Allon's concept of the military components, see Amir Bar-Or, "Preemptive Counterattack and Its Development in Yigal Allon's Thinking," State, Government and International Relations (no. 30, Winter 1989): 61-80 (Hebrew). 31. Allon, A Curtain of Sand, p. 44. 32. Ibid., p. 225. 33. Ibid., p. 229. 34. Ibid., p. 232. 35. Israel Tal, "The Security Doctrine: Background and Dynamics," Ma'arachot (no. 253, December 1976): (Hebrew). 36. A. Ayalon, "National Security," (1980): 3; Ayalon, "The National Security in Israel," (1983): 18-22. 37. Abraham Tamir, "Important Considerations in the Planning of the Needs of National Security," in Zvi Offer and Avi Kober, eds., Quality and Quantity in Military Buildup (Tel Aviv: Ma'arachot, 1985), p. 342 (Hebrew). 38. Aaron Lavran, "The Zionist Idea as an Ideological Component in the National Power," Ma'arachot (no. 285, December 1982): 7-S (Hebrew). Officers who deal with Israeli national security generally neglect the issue of the "civilian

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components." See, for example, Yuval Neeman, "Planning a National Security System of a Nation in Becoming," in Zvi Lanir, ed., Israeli Security Planning in the 1980s (Ministry of Defense Publication House), pp. 153-161 (Hebrew); Moshe Barcochvah, "Changes and Trends in the Structure of the IDF," Skira Hodshit (Monthly Survey), (nos. 3-4,1988): 12-32 (Hebrew). 39. See for example, Dan Horowitz, "Strategic Limitations of a 'Nation in Arms'," Armed Forces and Society 13 (no. 2, Winter 1987): 277-294; Avner Yaniv, Deterrence Without the Bomb: The Politics of Israeli Strategy (Lexington, Mass.: D.C. Heath and Co., 1987), passim; Michael Handel, Israeli's Political-Military Doctrine (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Center for International Affairs, Occasional Papers, 1973); and Ariel Levite, Offense and Defense in Israeli Military Doctrine, passim. 40. Yehezkel Dror, A Grand Strategy for Israel (Jerusalem: Academon Press, 1989), Chapter 5 (Hebrew). 41. Alouf Hareven, "Priorities of Power in Israel," in Zvi Offer and Avi Kober, eds., The Price of Power, p. 151. 42. Ibid., p. 151. 43. Ibid., p. 89. 44. Ibid., p. 107. See also Levite, Offense and Defense, pp. 54-63. 45. Allon,A Curtain of Sand; Israel Galili, "The Struggle and Its Significance," in Army on the Way to a State (The Ministry of Defense, The Publication House, 1988), pp. 10-20 (Hebrew). 46. See, for example, Wald, The Curse of the Broken Tools, Chapter 3. 47. Baruch Kimmerling, "A Paradigm for Analysis of the Relationship Between the State of Israel and American Jewry," Contemporary Jewry: A Research Annual 4 (1987): 3-6. 48. Ehud Sprinzak, Every Man Whatsoever Is Right in His Own Eyes—Illegalism in Israeli Society (Tel Aviv: Sifriyat Hapoalim, 1986), (Hebrew). 49. Zeev Schiff, "The Right Against the IDF," Ha'aretz (Mar. 4, 1988) (Hebrew); "The Likud Against the IDF," lead article in Davor (June 28,1988), (Hebrew); "Likud Ministers Accuse the IDF," lead article in Ha'aretz (June 28, 1988), (Hebrew). 50. See, for example, reports on clashes between settlers and security forces: Zeev Schiff, "Settlers Against the IDF," Ha'aretz (June 17,1987), (Hebrew); Z. Schiff "Independent Militia," Ha'aretz (June 18,1987) (Hebrew). 51. Yoram Peri, Between Battles and Ballots: Israeli Military in Politics (Cambridge, Eng.: Cambridge University Press, 1983), Chapters 3-4. 52.Ibid. 53. For elaboration on this issue, see Dan Horowitz and Moshe Lissak, Trouble in Utopia: The Overburdened Polity of Israel (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1989), pp. 161-169. 54. Peri, Between Battles and Ballots, Chapters 4-7. 55. Cf. Alex Mintz, "The Military-Industrial Complex," in Lissak, ed., Israeli Society and Its Defense Establishment (London: Frank Cass, 1984), pp. 103-127. 56. Moshe Lissak, "The Israeli Defense Forces as an Agent of Socialization and Education in a Democratic Society: A Research in Role Expansion," in M. R. Van Giles, ed., The Perceived Role of the Military (Rotterdam: Rotterdam University Press, 1972), pp. 325-340; Victor Azarya,"Israeli Armed Forces," in Morris Janowitz and S. D. Wesbrook, eds., Civic Education in the Military (Beverly Hills and London: Sage Publications, 1983), pp. 99-128. 57. M. Lissak, "The Israeli Defense Forces and the Mass Media: Structural

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Linkages and Conflicts", in Ralf Zoll, ed., Public Opinion on Security Policy and Armed Forces, Forum International (no. 1,1982). 58. Horowitz and Lissak, Trouble in Utopia, Chapter 5. 59. One should mention two additional types: combat training for soldiers on active and reserve service; and, for youngsters, prerecruitment paramilitary training combined with educational activities. 60. Lissak, "The Israeli Defense Forces and the Mass Media." 61. Ibid., p. 25. 59. Ibid., pp. 81-108.

A Question of Survival: The Military and Politics Under Siege Avner Yaniv

The May 1989 issue of Politika, a Hebrew language monthly of some consequence, bore the title "Le-an Holech Hatsava?" ("Whither the Army?"), with articles by thirteen leading scholars, officers, and analysts whose common denominator was a concerned and often critical reappraisal of Israel's national security. Most of the contributions dealt in one way or another with IDF doctrine, critical changes in the emerging battlefield, the (since 1973) painful question of national intelligence estimates, and the impact of the Palestinian uprising on the IDF, national morale, and Israel's ability to deter an all-out Arab attack. Only one article was concerned with civil-military relations. Titled "Who Will Remove the Occupied Territories from the IDF?" the piece offered a gloomy and pained evaluation of the impact of the confrontation with civilians in the occupied territories on the morale and self-image of the IDF. So far, the author argued, the traditional harmony between the minister of defense on the one hand and the chief of staff and the general staff on the other hand has survived intact, but with the intensification of the political debate over the future of the occupied territories the IDF is increasingly pushed by reckless politicians into a defensive mind set. Accused of political partiality by the extreme right (because of its persistent opinion that the uprising cannot be quelled by military means and requires a political settlement based on some redress to the grievances of the Palestinians) the IDF command is increasingly entangled in a public debate. This, according to Yoram Peri, the author of the article, threatens to undermine the IDF's long-established instrumental role, turn it into an active actor in a most divisive political dispute, and thus ruin its thoroughly apolitical character.1 The fact that only one article out of thirteen addressed the issue of civil-military relations, not to speak of the diffuse and very qualified tenor of the admonition, in itself constitutes an articulate statement on the limited extent of the problem. Such concerns have been voiced perennially but have been time and again proven exaggerated.2 Indeed, while worries such as these should not be dismissed as totally irrelevant, the fact remains 81

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that in Israel civil-military relations constitute an impressive success story. Despite the unusual degree of mobilization and militarization, despite the fact that the per capita weight of the Israeli national effort in the sphere of security is the heaviest in the world, that as much as 12 percent of the GNP (and at times even as much as 32 percent!) has been spent on defense, that every male citizen serves three years as a conscript and one month every year till the age of fifty-five as a reservist, despite the casualties and psychological overload, Israel has not succumbed to the lures of a less democratic (and thus presumably more "efficient") government, maintaining a vibrant, occasionally almost chaotic, democratic process. Nor has the Jewish state fallen into the opposite trap, namely a spillover of party politics and societal divisions into the domain of national security. There have been moments when Israel was on the brink of this precipice but found the way to avert a disaster. The upper echelons of the security establishment, the general staff of the IDF, the executive management of the Ministry of Defense, and the heads of the various branches of the security services (Mossad for overseas operations and GSS for domestic security), are active partners in the formulation of policy and fight vigorously for their views. As noted elsewhere in this volume,3 the ripples of these confrontations sometimes suggest a disquieting violation of the sacred boundaries that should separate the civilian domain from its military subordinate. But in all but a handful of cases, once the duly elected politicians have made a decision—quite frequently including the most annoying type of decision from a military standpoint, namely a decision not to decide—their subordinates throughout the security establishment accept the verdict and proceed to search for the most effective method of implementation. What accounts for this success is a combination of five factors. First and most important is clearly the pervasive conviction—spelled out and explained in detail in a somewhat different way elsewhere in this volume4—that Israel faces such an immense external threat that it cannot afford to tamper with the existing internal order. A second, related factor of lesser importance is the deep Israeli sensitivity to world opinion in general and Jewish Diaspora opinion in particular. A third factor accounting for Israel's success in maintaining a democratic mode of civil-military relations is the consequence of a historical accident: during the most crucial phase in the formative period of the state, the ruling political elite was prudent and determined enough to emasculate all the opponents of a separation between the political and military domains. A fourth factor is cultural and social: the IDF evolved from thoroughly civilian self-defense organizations and has succeeded in retaining all the essential attributes of this ethos. Finally, although the institutional and constitutional mechanisms of civilian control over the military leave much to be desired, in

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reality the national security system in Israel operates in a political environment that makes it well-nigh impossible for the security establishment to take unauthorized action.

Origins of a Formula Israel did not come into existence with its current formula of civil-military relations already in place. During its transition from British rule to independence (1946-1948) the fledgling polity experienced vicious confrontations among various factions that had enjoyed autonomy as voluntary underground organizations prior to independence and jockeyed for power within the framework of independent statehood. It took a near civil war for unchallenged central authority to establish itself, and it may well be that if not for the grave international situation of the new state at the time—fighting for its life against a coalition of all its neighbors—an actual civil war would have taken place following the pattern that had manifested itself in other newly established states in Asia. Conversely, once a civil war was averted and a firm and fully legitimate authority established, the Jewish state had a respite in which to heal the fratricidal wounds and consolidate most of the dimensions of its current formula of civil-military relations. This, however, also entailed a certain degree of politicization (at least in the first decade of independence) that manifested itself in an exclusionary policy vis-à-vis individuals held suspect of lingering affiliation with the long-disbanded dissident organizations.5 The origins of the problem can be traced back to the interwar period when the essential elements of a would-be Jewish polity rapidly emerged in Palestine under a British mandate government.6 The British authorities perceived their governmental role in minimalistic terms, leaving a huge area for autonomous action by both the Jewish and the Arab communities of Palestine. For the Jewish community of Palestine this British policy created an opportunity for a dynamic effort of nation- and institutionbuilding. However, the key agents of these efforts within the Jewish community were not the central institutions but voluntary associations organized as political parties. These bodies were distinguished from one another by clear ideological orientations on all issues: national goals, socioeconomic goals, and religious/secular preferences. Moreover, in the absence of an interventionist government these political parties expanded their role to an uncommon degree, ultimately offering their membership almost all the services that should have been provided by the government. Political parties raised taxes, ran schools, offered health care services, had economic enterprises, fought for jobs for their members, controlled im-

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migration certificates for incoming new immigrants, and—as the ultimate military confrontation between Jews and Arabs over the future of Palestine was approaching—eventually evolved their own military organizations as well. On the eve of the British departure from Palestine and the establishment of Israel as an independent state, there were four autonomous political-military organizations with clear-cut partisan identities. The Hagana (Defense) mainstream and largest organization was under the official military arm of the Jewish Agency for Palestine, an extension of the World Zionist Organization, which served as the elected and legitimate governing organization of the Zionist segment of the Jewish community of Palestine. (Only a small number of extremely Orthodox Jews in Palestine were not affiliated with the Zionist movement.) The Palmach (acronym for "strike companies") was an elite commando-guerrilla organization, ostensibly a subdivision of the Hagana but in reality having its own distinct political-ideological flavor. The/ZL (pronounced "etzel," an acronym for "National Military Organization" but known outside Israel as Irgun) was a dissident ultranationalist military-terrorist underground that had split from the World Zionist Organization because it refused to accept the principle that ultimately Palestine should be partitioned between Arabs and Jews. But as is often the case, the IZL spawned its own dissident faction, which under the acronym LEHI (standing for "Lohamei Herut Israel"—Fighters for the Liberation of Israel, but better known as the Stern Gang) engaged in even more extreme forms of terrorist action against the British, the Arabs, and subsequently the U.N. mediation effort in Palestine. On Friday, May 14, 1948 Israel proclaimed its independence. A provisional government and constituent assembly came into existence, and in addition to having to deal with an invasion of the country on the following day by the armies of Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Iraq, and Lebanon, it also had to mold all these political militias into one integrated and apolitical army. The legal tool for this purpose was Order No. 4 of May 26,1948, whose instructions were immediately followed by the Hagana (led by the authors of Order No. 4) and by the Palmach, but resisted by the dissident organizations. IZL—then led by Menachem Begin, who would be the Israeli prime minister during 1977-1983—agreed to dissolve its military wing and turn into a political party. Yet although IZL combatants were integrated as subunits (squads, platoons, or companies) into formations of the newly established ZHL (pronounced "Tzahal," Hebrew acronym for "Tzva Hagana Lelsrael"—Israel Defense Forces, or IDF) it simultaneously also engaged in an attempt to smuggle a shipload of arms into the country. LEHI, then under the leadership of Yitzhak Shamir, prime minister at the time of writing,

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defied Order No. 4 altogether. On June 11, 1948, a U.N. truce between Israel and the Arabs went into effect. Israel gained an invaluable respite in its war with its neighbors, as well as a breathing space in which the provisional government under David Ben-Gurion as prime minister and minister of defense could focus on the issue of the dissenting militias. The first to be dealt with was the IZL, whose ship of arms, the Altalena, was bombarded and sunk on June 21 by IDF artillery on the beach of Tel Aviv, where the entire incident was watched by scores of thousands of bewildered citizens. Prior to the use of force there were some vicarious negotiations between Ben-Gurion and Begin, but the former, fearing any compromise would lead to politicization of the IDF, demanded Begin's unconditional surrender. When Begin procrastinated, Ben-Gurion ordered Moshe Dayan's commando battalion and some artillery units to chase the beleaguered IZL rebels and destroy them as an organization there and then. On June 29, after the dismantling of the roughly brigade-size IZL militia, the IDF took its oath of allegiance. Meanwhile the much smaller LEHI continued as an armed underground within the Jewish state. BenGurion was fully aware of this but stalled and waited for an opportunity to liquidate LEHI as well. On September 17, LEHI assassinated U.N. mediator Count Volke Bernadotte. This outrageous defiance of world opinion and the United Nations gave the provisional government, not necessarily sorry to see the elimination of the mediator, a pretext for a relentless clampdown on LEHI. A massive manhunt was launched, hundreds of LEHI supporters were rounded up, and within a few days this dissident organization too was disarmed and disbanded. 7 The IDF had meanwhile grown in size from roughly 30,000 in December 1947 to nearly 90,000 increasingly battle-seasoned soldiers who, most importantly, were close to a decisive victory over the Arab armies which had invaded on May IS. Against this background of consolidation of authority at home and a successful management of the war effort, the hitherto suppressed friction between the provisional government and the thoroughly political Palmach was fast approaching as well. The Palmach had grown by then to a force of three brigades (out of a total of about 11 brigades in the IDF) which had fought successfully in the most important battles of the war. It was a prestigious elite corps whose affiliation was—unlike that of the IZL and LEHI—with the Labor Zionist camp from which Ben-Gurion himself had also come. The trouble with the Palmach, however, was that the upper echelons of its officer corps consisted primarily of adherents of one party, MAPAM (acronym for Mifleget HaPoalim HaMeuchedet, United Workers Party), a cryptoMarxist, pro-Soviet, kibbutz-based political movement headed by Yitzhak Tabenkin, Ben-Gurion's long-standing rival in the Labor Zionist move-

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ment. It was thus essential to decapitate Palmach politically and integrate its units fully into the IDF, but if a civil war was to be avoided it had to be carried out with far more finesse than had been in evidence in the dissolution of the minority dissident organizations IZL and LEHI. This was fully recognized and shrewdly acted upon. In the first place it was no accident that the dissolution of the Palmach was left to the end of the war when the relative importance of this unit had greatly declined as a result of the emergence of a large, structured, and experienced army. Second, the army's structure gradually rendered the Palmach's separate command superfluous. By October 1948 the IDF's essential structure had already come into existence. Territorially it entailed a division of labor between three regional commands, whereas functionally there was a division of labor among four classical general staff structures (operations, manpower, ordnance, planning, and training) and two separate structures for the air force and navy. Within this scheme of things there was no room for a separate command such as Palmach, which functionally was merely an infantry force. Having thus assiduously emptied the Palmach's separate command of all content, Minister of Defense Ben-Gurion proceeded on October 7,1948 to issue an order that dissolved this last remaining political unit. This caused an uproar and an emergency meeting of all Palmach officers. The minister of defense countered that any officer who would dare participate in this political rally would be instantly and severely punished. Many officers obeyed the order, but the meeting nevertheless took place, resulting in mass resignations of protesting Palmach officers. A mutiny did not occur but the government was provided with a list of officers who would be barred from any promotion in the IDF for the next decade. Yigal Allon, venerable commander of Palmach and by all accounts the most impressive military commander in the 1948 War, was denied the position of chief of staff. His deputy Yitzhak Rabin was severely and personally reprimanded by Ben-Gurion, and for years thereafter felt that his career had been slowed down. Indeed, the upper echelons of the IDF in the coming years, in particular chiefs of staff Dori (1948-1950), Yadin (1950-1952), Maklef (1952-1953), Dayan (1953-1957), Laskov (1957-1960), and Tzur (1961-1964), were distinctly remote from the Palmach crowd, and the first chief of staff with a prominent Palmach background was Yitzhak Rabin, who took office in 1964 after Ben-Gurion's retirement.8 This systematic exclusion of Palmach, not to mention IZL and LEHI, personnel from any position of influence in Israel's security machinery was clearly an act of politicization. But in the long run the brutal and singleminded insulation of the security establishment from politics during Israel's first fifteen years of independent statehood did help enormously

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in the fostering of a tradition of pure, apolitical professionalism.9 The most impressive proof substantiating this assertion is the smooth transition of the IDF and the rest of the security establishment from government to government irrespective of their political and ideological inclinations. Levi Eshkol took over from David Ben-Gurion as prime minister and minister of defense in 1963. Owing to a political struggle that cannot be described in this brief analysis, he soon found himself openly opposing Ben-Gurion, which led to a split in MAPAI, of which both men had been founders. But this struggle was not accompanied by any visible signs of strain in the IDF. The next major transition occurred in 1977, when Menachem Begin, the defiant leader of IZL prior to independence who since the 1940s had been in opposition, formed his first Likud-led government. The chief of staff at the time was Lieutenant-General Mordechai Gur, appointed by Labor leaders Rabin and Peres, who, after his retirement from the army would become a leading Labor politician himself. Yet Begin, sensitive enough to the possible implications of a reshuffle in the IDF shortly after his entry into power, kept Lieutenant-General Gur and his entire staff in their positions for two more years. Gur's successor, Lieutenant-General Raphael Eitan, shared Begin's own political platform—as became apparent after his retirement, when he established his own political party. But there is little doubt that his political preferences had no role to play in his appointment. Indeed, Eitan's deputy and ultimately his successor, Lieutenant-General Moshe Levi, was a member of a left-wing kibbutz community. Thus, when Yitzhak Shamir, the onetime fugitive dissident leader of LEHI, had to select Levi's successor in 1988, a long and clearly viable nonpolitical tradition in the appointment of key positions in the IDF (as well as in the Mossad and GSS) had already been firmly consolidated. Shamir respected this tradition, and his own appointee, LieutenantGeneral Dan Shomron, who by origin and background was closer to Labor than to Likud, has thus been also a professional, instrumental, nonpolitical choice; as was his successor, Lieutenant-General Ehud Barak, widely regarded a future Labor leader but nevertheless appointed by a Likud government.

Israel's Threat Perception One of the most important factors enabling the growth of this formula of civil-military relations was an almost unchallenged perception of a ubiquitous threat against the survival of the State of Israel. Indeed, Israel's national security policy begins from the assumption that the Arab-Israeli conflict is inherently and unalterably asymmetrical and that the Jewish

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state is and will always remain the weaker party. The state's founder and first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, articulated the essence of this permanent Israeli theme shortly after the establishment of the state. Addressing the Knesset—Israel's unicameral legislature—he reminded the 120 members that the Jewish state is "a small island surrounded by a great Arab ocean extending over two continents—in Asia and in North Africa, from the Taurus Mountains in south Turkey to the Atlas Mountains on the Atlantic coast. This ocean is spread over a contiguous area of four million square miles, an area larger than that of the United States in which seventy million people . . . most of them Arab-speaking Moslems, live. Only four of these countries have a common border with Israel— Egypt, Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon. These cover an area of460,000 square miles and have a population of 29 million people, approximately 58 times the size of Israel." Hence, he said on another occasion, "Israel has to observe with cruel clarity the fatal difference" between itself and its adversaries. The latter "think that they are capable of solving the problem of Israel once and for all by total destruction [Israel, for its part] cannot and does not wish to achieve security through a military victory [Israel] is incapable of eliminating millions of Arabs in the Middle East."10 The same fundamental assumption has also been just as much of a centerpiece in the thinking of Ben-Gurion's successors and disciples. Note, for instance, the following passage from Yigal Allon's 1970 study of Israel's strategic thinking: From a demographic point of view, Israel's two and a half million Jews [in the 1950s] had to contend with more than a hundred million Arabs from the Atlantic to the Persian Gulf. Geostrategically speaking, Israel was a narrow strip of land, had its back to the sea, and was surrounded; the lands of the enemy, by contrast, formed a subcontinent. Israel was a country desperately poor in natural resources pitting itself against countries possessing almost inexhaustible natural wealth: oil, big rivers, vast areas of arable land, about half of the world's hydrocarbon reserves. Both in its own region and in the larger world Israel was uniquely isolated. Apart from its bonds with world Jewry, it had no ethnic or religious links with any other nation.11

Such statements were made during the 1950s, Israel's first decade of statehood, when the perception of isolation and vulnerability was most acute. In the heady atmosphere of excessive self-confidence that prevailed in the Jewish state in the wake of the 1967 victory over the armies of Egypt, Jordan, and Syria, this theme of insurmountable inferiority lost much of its salience. The 1973 Yom Kippur War, however, revived the somber mood of the first decade. Even Major-General (ret.) Moshe Dayan, hero of the 1956 Sinai campaign and the 1967 Six Day War, who previously had

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tended to underemphasize Israel's weakness, hastened in the course of the 1973 Yom Kippur War to stress Israel's intrinsic inability to sustain the rigors of a protracted war. If Israel did not achieve a decision in the battlefields of Sinai and the Golan, he told his cabinet colleagues as well as the IDF General Staff, Our strength will be whittled away and we shall be left without sufficient military force in the middle of the campaign. The Arabs possess great staying power. There are 70-80 million Arabs and we are fewer than three million. In their armies there are about one million soldiers, the USSR supplies them with all the arms they need. They dispose of vast financial resources. Aside from the Arab states currently fighting, the others, too—Iraq, Saudi Arabia, etc.—are ready to join. We have turned to the United States and urgently requested additional arms. But, in any case, no one will fight for us.12 The first Likud government (1977-1981) seems to have also acted on the assumption of an innate inferiority. The Arabs, speculated Major-General (ret.) Ezer Weizman, commanding officer of the Israeli Air Force untii shortly before the 1967 War and minister of defense in Menachem Begin's first cabinet, view Israel's victories "as a passing episode, a temporary imperative of history We, the Israelis," Weizman continued, embraced the notion that the Arabs are mystics and that our power stems from our rationality. But an objective examination of the circumstances and of the numerical aspects turns us into mystics and the Arabs into realists and rationalists. We argue that three million Jews can hold their own against one hundred million Arabs. They argue that in the long run their overwhelming quantity and fantastic wealth will give them an edge. In order to win, say the Arabs, they don't have to be as efficient on the battlefields as we are. It is enough for them to be far less efficient [since] quantity will ultimately turn into quality. The Jews have already flexed their muscles to the limit Soviet weapons, European and some U.S. support have built Arab power; frequent wars and an Arab belief that ultimately the wheel of fortune will turn in their favor, even if they have to go through a fourth, fifth, sixth, or endless new wars, constitute a powerful motivation.13 During Menachem Begin's second Likud administration (1981-1984), Israel's national security policy under the influence of Major-General (ret.) Ariel (" Arik") Sharon initially reverted to something resembling the confidence and assumption of regional preponderance of the immediate aftermath of the Six Day War. Sharon's successors, however, returned to the old state of mind, assuming as a matter of course that Israel is inherently the weaker party in the Arab-Israeli conflict. "In the 1967 Six Day War," said Moshe Arens, a leading hawk who succeeded Sharon as

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minister of defense in February 1983 and is at the time of writing Israel's minister for foreign affairs, We thought that we obtained peace, or at least that we created the basis for peace. Despite our tremendous desire to concentrate all our efforts, to make a superordinate endeavor, come what may, and terminate the problem once and for all, make peace, disarm, reduce the defense budget, we do not have the ability to do so. The objective situation is such that it is not in our capacity to achieve what the Allies achieved in the Second World War: subdue the Germans.... The balance of forces in the area is different. We can defend ourselves. We can cause the Arabs pain. We can destroy their armies for a while. But solving the problem once and for all is beyond our capacity.14

This deep-seated conviction that Israel is by far the weaker party in the conflict led to the key elements of Israeli strategy and a very pronounced emphasis on the need to keep civil-military relations out of politics. The strategic doctrine that evolved from the assumption of an inherent inability to win a decisive strategic battle and impose peace sees the Arab-Israeli conflict as a boxing match between a heavyweight contender (the Arabs) and a lightweight contender (Israel), in which the former can win by a knockout but the latter can only hope to win by points. Assuming this, Israeli doctrine has all along emphasized active conventional deterrence, including punitive and demonstrative use of force rather than defense, and sought to accumulate dissuasive power not through one military victory but through a succession of quick decisive blows to Arab military power. The concern to avoid politicization of civil-military relations was once again articulated most powerfully by Israel's founder, David Ben-Gurion. On June 23,1948, a day after having ordered IDF units to open fire on a vessel carrying weapons to a dissident militia for their refusal to disarm and merge with the new state's armed forces, Ben-Gurion warned the Knesset that armed revolt in Israel spells ruin of the . . . [state's] strength to defend itself and its future. If that fails the State is lost, and failure looms so long as there remains... a single Jew who cannot see that the existence of rebel gangs in Israel, that to give . . . [the dissidents] moral or material comfort, prolongs the awful risk and invites disaster. [Quelling such dissident tendencies] is not just a job for the army: the whole nation has a duty to perform.15

This dramatic fear, of a politicization of the military that would not only undermine democracy but perhaps deal a blow to Israel's ability to stand up to its adversaries, has served as a basis for what might be called a civil-military relations doctrine. Though not as clearly spelled out and

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elaborated as the strategic doctrine, in Israeli thinking it is of equal importance, not just in moral terms, but above all in power-political terms. The Impact of World Opinion The corollary to a pervasive sense of vulnerability in an uneven contest was an incessant Israeli preoccupation with the status and position of the state among the nations. Ben-Gurion once stated in a defiant public speech that it did not "matter what the gentiles said, only what the Jews did." The purpose of this battle cry to an audience of fifty thousand people was to emphasize that Israel should not be unduly concerned about U.N. resolutions condemning her for various reasons, since in the final analysis deeds ("what the Jews do") count much more than words ("what the non-Jews say at the United Nations"). But his prodigal writings suggest he did not really mean world opinion was of no consequence. In the first place, both Ben-Gurion and most of his colleagues of the founding generation of the state were very preoccupied with Israel's moral standing, repeatedly stating their solemn intention to turn the Jewish state into "a light unto the nations" and struggling desperately to expand the number of states with which the government of Israel had full diplomatic relations and the international organizations and conferences to which it was invited.16 Beyond these general concerns of morality and status, however, Israeli leaders have been very anxious to obtain the support of at least one great power and foster the closest possible relations with Jewish communities the world over, above all those in the United States. This was motivated no less by considerations of moral standing and international status than by raison d'état in its purest, power-oriented form. Precisely because Israel has been perceived by its own leaders as a weaker party in an uneven contest and viewed its problem in stark, survival terms, they very strongly felt a need for the patronage and support of a world power. Though seldom articulating this in explicit terms, what they sought all along was a kind of extended deterrence, namely alignment with a great power (preferably the United States, but at times they considered the Soviet Union, Great Britain, or France as an adequate second best), which would so alter the balance of forces in the Arab-Israeli conflict that the Arabs would lose confidence in their ability to vanquish Israel in a military confrontation. If and when such a great-power guarantee was obtained, argued a succession of Israeli governments, the Arabs would have to come to terms, albeit grudgingly, with the existence of the Jewish state. Such an attitude of resignation would lead to recognition of the fact of Israel's permanent existence and such recognition would lead to peace.17

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In seeking to obtain a U.S. security umbrella that would constitute such an extended deterrence, Israeli leaders assumed as a matter of course that the most important source of support at their disposal was the articulate and well-organized U.S. Jewish community. What followed from such an appreciation of Israel's position was a fundamental conviction, always shared by all except those at the extreme margins of the spectrum of opinion in Israel, that Jerusalem cannot afford to conduct itself either domestically or internationally in a manner that could arouse moral indignation in the United States. To be sure, Western values of pluralism, the rule of law, human dignity, free speech, freedom of association, and, of course, subordination of a nonpolitical military to a civilian authority have been upheld in Israel for their own sake.18 But this moral stand has been significantly enhanced by a certain nervous anxiety lest failure to meet minimal Western, especially U.S., standards in all these matters could cost Israel dearly in terms of the support of its most important shield other than the military prowess of its own armed forces. A democratic pattern of civil-military relations is thus viewed in Israel not merely as a moral desideratum but, in a sense, as a strategic imperative.

The Citizens' Army As has already been explained, the IDF was established by civilians, has remained largely dependent on the civilian sector, and—without in the least compromising the highest standards of professionalism—has never lost the pervasively civilian ethos it was imbued with from the start.19 The roots of this ethos go deeper than the Jewish experience of statehood in the modern age. Two thousand years of exile and dispersion created a deep-seated suspicion toward authority in general. The Jews were always a minority in foreign lands and thus had little or no emotional attachment to the governments of the countries that hosted them. Over the centuries this had become a common Jewish trait, and apparently the Jewish government of the first Jewish state in two millennia has not been spared this attitude either.20 What further strengthens such a disposition toward authority is an unruly, argumentative, competitive, exceedingly wordy, and deeply irreverent political culture. Israeli politics is rife with what one political scientist described as blatant illegalism.21 Citizens—and that includes lawmakers and elected officials—have a very minimalistic and instrumental attitude toward the law. The law of the land is to many not a positive and sacred contribution to order and justice, but an obstacle to be ignored, circumvented, compromised, or at least "interpreted" according to the

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individual's ad hoc preferences, unless, of course, the punishment for breaking the law is seen as unacceptable. Law enforcement in Israel is thus more often a dialogue or dispute between law officers and the citizen than an orderly process of implementation of existing rules. The same atmosphere also prevails inside the armed forces, where orders are seldom followed without questioning. Since the planning process is two-way, with the implementing echelon actively participating in planning its own assignment, all orders—including wartime operational orders—may be and often are debated at great length, with little regard to rank within and between units.22 Discipline in regard to equipment maintenance is enforced mercilessly, but uniforms are worn casually and parades are always so casual and lacking in glamor that they really look more like rehearsals than like the final march itself. Discipline is at its strictest during the basic training of a new conscript, the purpose being to break down the arrogant individualism of these eighteen-year-olds and reshape their psyches so as to maximize their obedience to orders. But even during this short period of several months, discipline tends to relax rather rapidly. The IDF has an ombudsman with the title Netziv Kvilot HaChayalim (Commissioner for Soldiers' Complaints)—generally a retired senior officer to whom soldiers can turn with complaints against their superior in any instance in which rank has apparently been misused. One of the topics with which the ombudsman has to deal very frequently relates to "Tirturim," that is, allegedly sadistic punishment of soldiers by their superiors. If such a complaint is upheld, the superior in question may be severely punished. Any recalcitrance in following the findings of the ombudsman would almost certainly lead to press reports and instantly to Knesset questioning of the minister of defense. This acts as a deterrent against excesses in disciplinary measures and as such has strongly reinforced a built-in preference for a collegial and informal relationship between officers and NCOs, and between the latter and their men. These laid-back, nondisciplinarian, and often semichaotic traits of the IDF are reinforced by five additional dimensions of the Israeli civil-military situation. Israeli society is comparatively egalitarian to begin with. For many decades the official ideology of the ruling parties was explicitly egalitarian. This ideology has given way to a more bourgeois-technocraticwelfare state emphasis, but social stratification is still comparatively minimal and class distinctions tenuous and transient, whereas upward mobility is easy, primarily based on meritocratic and more generally achievement-oriented yardsticks. From the start, the IDF was called upon to expand its role beyond military duties and evolve as the most egalitarian avant-garde of society, the main vehicle of ethnic and social integration. In this mission the IDF has scored an impressive success—as is widely

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acknowledged across the whole spectrum of opinion in Israel. The I D F has not only become the most important means for upward mobility of new immigrants and less-privileged socioeconomic strata, but, above all, has evolved a distinctly egalitarian ethos. First and foremost, rank in the IDF implies responsibility rather than privilege. Officers work harder than their subordinates and are expected to lead in battle; command from the rear is not merely frowned upon but literally forbidden. The essence of command in war is the battle cry "Acharai" (Hebrew for "follow me"). An officer who fails to comply with such strict canons of conduct may be relieved of his command in the field in the middle of a battle without much ado. An officer who has failed this test has no future in the IDF and will most likely carry his stigma with him into civilian life. The incentives for officers to play by these demanding rules are thus maximal, and just as failure can undermine their entire life, so can a reputation for success or even just plain competence carry an officer a long way both within and outside of the force. 23 A successful military track record cannot, however, be converted into personal loyalty of political consequence. Officers with reputations for courage and strategic imagination command respect, awe, and loyalty of their men within a military context where such attributes are relevant, but this has nothing to do with personal loyalty in other contexts. The civilian ethos of the IDF is pervasively suspicious of idols and even the slightest sign of an attempt by an officer of high repute to break the rules and employ troops to advance a political platform will dissolve the special standing of such an officer into thin air. So far there has been only one example of something approaching such an attempt, namely, Major-General Ariel Sharon's quasipolitical critique of his superiors in the course of the 1973 War. "Arik King of Israel" was the battle cry of his supporters during those hectic weeks of October 1973. But when it came to an electoral test Sharon failed abysmally, barely managing to win two Knesset seats, which suggests that while respecting his command talents, his soldiers for the most part were not enamored of his politics. Sharon himself apparently did not fully understand this and had to go through the harrowing experience of the Lebanon War to realize that for all his reputation as a charismatic military leader, he by no means had the IDF "in his pocket." As related below, soldiers initiated the criticism that ultimately led to a huge public outcry against the war and to Sharon's removal from the Ministry of Defense. These ramifications of the egalitarian ethos are accentuated by another trait of Israeli society, namely its smallness. With a Jewish population of less than four million citizens, Israel is the very epitome of a community-based nation, a veritable Gemeinschaft, a modern-age tribe. This kind of familialism enhances political participation and reduces

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alienation—as the constantly very high rate of voting in general elections clearly demonstrates. There is a strong sense of shared responsibility, and news travels very fast, not only within the political center but also to the society's extreme periphery. No success remains secret for very long, nor is it really possible to keep failures from the public eye. Individual officers' conduct is scrutinized so closely that substantial corruption or other forms of abuse are technically impossible. A common joke attributes the fast spread of news to the conspiratorial work of a certain "Major Rumor," and indeed when an emergency situation develops many people find out about it even before it is officially acknowledged. That immediately leads to an unofficial process of information-sharing and an inordinate degree of anticipatory preparations. To put it bluntly, people do not wait to be called upon officially, but begin to take steps on their own initiative, assuming that official orders will follow. The pervasively civilian ethos of the IDF is enhanced immeasurably by the fact that throughout Israel's four and a half decades of independence, with the exception of 1948 and several months in 1973, two-thirds of the total available force has been based on reserve units, not regarded as a second-rate auxiliary militia but as an integral part of the main force. There are reserve brigades of paratroopers, and the overwhelming majority of the IDF's armor, artillery, engineers, communications, and medical corps are not regulars or conscripts but reservists. The task of the regular force in the event of an attack on Israel is to hold the lines for the first seventy-two hours and thus gain the time in which to call up the reserves and launch counterattacks. What all this implies is that the reserve units are not part of separate commands but an inseparable part of the regular command. Civilians in uniforms for a brief period of time are still civilians in their most salient behavioral traits, and thus, instead of militarization of civilians by the military, what really happens in Israel is the reverse: the civilians qua reservists tend to civilianize the conduct of the military regulars. Finally, the militarization of the military in Israel is also curtailed by the career pattern of officers. According to an order dating back to 1956, officers are expected to serve until roughly age forty, then retire and search for a second career. This was inspired by an inordinate confidence in the intrinsic superiority of younger officers over older ones. The main intention of this regulation was to prevent stagnation and the accumulation of a clique of ever-aging generals at the upper echelons of the security establishment. But while definitely achieving much of the intended result, the "two career" pattern is also widely regarded as a boon to Israeli democracy. Given the inordinate military effort in Israel, it was widely feared that an opportunity for high-ranking officers to stay in uniform for their entire life could lead to the creation of a separate military class with

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its own inbred subculture, ultimately holding a scornful, condescending, even abusive attitude toward the institutions of Israeli democracy. The fact that officers have to plan their lives so that ultimately their entire middle age is spent in the pursuit of a civilian career is thus viewed as an important contribution to the strengthening of Israeli democracy.24

Who Decides What, When and How? Israel's constitutional and institutional setup is singularly inadequate for a country with such an enormous national security problem, which stems from the lack of a full-fledged written constitution. When Israel came into existence the prestatehood People's Council of thirty-seven members declared itself a constituent assembly. Its task was to hammer out a constitution to cover all spheres of political life and establish rules for general elections. Having failed to agree with an adequate majority on the essential elements of a constitution, the Temporary People's Council set the stage for general elections to a 120-member unicameral legislature, which subsequently turned itself from a constituent body into an ordinary parliament. This went along with a commitment to work out a constitution piecemeal, chapter by chapter, with each chapter defined as a "Basic Law." This work has been very slow and in more than forty years of independence only ten out of the expected twelve Basic Laws have been enacted. One of these ten laws is the 1976 "Basic Law: The IDF." Until then there had not been a clear constitutional definition of key questions, such as: Who is the commander in chief? What is the relationship between the cabinet and the minister of defense? What is the relationship between the latter and the chief of staff? and, What powers does the Knesset have over the security establishment? Indeed, owing to the fact that even in 1976 a full-fledged constitutional framework had not yet been legislated, the "Basic Law: The IDF" still does not resolve all problems. In the final analysis, the concept that the military is subordinate to political-civilian control has been firmly established. But the key question of who decides what, when, and how remains in abeyance and can still only be resolved on the basis of chance, custom, historical precedent, and, above all, an intricate configuration of personal relations.25 During the Ben-Gurion era (1948-1953; 1955-1963), the personality and unique status of this one man made up for the weaknesses of the system. His authority was seldom in doubt; his detailed familiarity with the minutiae of the day-to-day effort in every sphere of national security was awe-inspiring; and he had an unmatched ability to place decisions about tactical or organizational issues within a broader context of long-

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term national objectives. He alone determined the order of priorities in the 1948 War, the structure and organization of the IDF ever since, the method and extent of force employment during the turbulence of the early 1950s, the objectives and timing of the 1956 War, the main direction of IDF force structure following this war, and the principal guidelines of Israel's nuclear policy. How critical was the weight of Ben-Gurion's personality? This only became entirely clear when the same system that had operated so effectively under his control had to function under other leaders. Moshe Sharett, prime minister and minister of foreign affairs from December 1953 to October 1955, admitted that he had failed to impose his authority over Defense Minister Pinhas Lavon and Chief of Staff Moshe Dayan. As a result, decisions about reprisal raids across the border, a huge arms deal with France, and the activation of a spy net in Egypt were made without proper deliberation in the cabinet.26 Ben-Gurion's second successor, Levi Eshkol, who was prime minister and minister of defense during 1963-1969, gained a far better grip over the national security system than had his predecessor, the melancholic and hapless Sharett. In retrospect, however, it appears that he abdicated to the military important elements of the necessary civilian control. For many years Israel's economic czar, Eshkol was particularly adept at managing the finances of the Ministry of Defense. But his understanding of the strategic complexities of Israel's position left much to be desired. Instinctively aware of this, he tended to rely very heavily on military advice and thus, without fully realizing it, in fact reduced his own role as prime minister and minister of defense and expanded the role of Chief of Staff, Lieutenant-General Yitzhak Rabin, to something like a combination of a minister of defense and a chief of staff. The result in terms of civil-military relations was on balance negative, not because of any damage to Israeli democracy but owing to Eshkol's persistent failure to act as a political devil's advocate to the military advice of Rabin and the general staff.27 Under Prime Minister Golda Meir the pattern was significantly altered. Meir was a dominant and domineering figure and had on her side none other than the mercurial and formidable Moshe Dayan as a civilian defense minister. The chiefs of staff under this regime were Rabin, BarLev, and Elazar, and all three accepted the authority of their civilian masters without question, even though they were not at all docile. Dayan had performed very well as chief of staff under then Minister of Defense Ben-Gurion, and had not hesitated to cross the line between civil and military domains when, as minister of defense in the 1967 War, he failed to consult the prime minister and by-passed the chief of staff, ordering the commanding officer of the Northern Command to attack the Syrian forces of the Golan. However, Dayan appears to have lost his zest with the

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passage of time. As minister of defense under Meir he gradually, almost imperceptibly, reduced his responsibility, allowing the chief of staff to expand his relative importance in the decision process. This tendency to withdraw was strongest during Dayan's most trying hour, the 1973 War, in which he often acted more like referee than player, until the chief of staff finally began to approach the prime minister directly out of sheer exasperation with his own direct superior.28 Under Yitzhak Rabin as prime minister and Shimon Peres as minister of defense, the balance between the two domains was restored. Rabin was a formidable authority in national security affairs and Chief of Staff Mordechai Gur had an equally experienced master in Shimon Peres, who had been both director general and deputy minister of defense under David Ben-Gurion. Nevertheless, the habit of bringing the chief of staff into cabinet discussions as if he were not a subordinate but a member of this body (in all but voting rights) persisted even under the Rabin-Peres administration.29 The advent of Menachem Begin to the prime ministership heralded major upheavals in this fragile system. At first Begin kept everything as he had inherited it from his predecessors. As prime minister, and working through the cabinet and minister of defense, Major-General (ret.) Ezer Weizman, Begin kept a firm civilian control over the military. The chief of staff was still invited to cabinet meetings, as was the chief of military intelligence whenever national intelligence estimates were needed, but they were invited more in an advisory capacity than as equals, a fact that was underscored by the presence in the same cabinet (as civilian ministers) of two more former chiefs of staff (Yadin and Dayan) and two more retired generals (Sharon and Amit). By late 1979 this balance began to crumble. Weizman, Amit, and Dayan resigned. Yadin stayed on, but his influence over Begin's decisions was minimal. Sharon's influence grew appreciably even though as minister of agriculture he had little direct business relating to national security affairs. Begin assumed the role of defense minister in addition to his responsibilities as prime minister. But he was inexperienced and lacked the kind of detailed knowledge that had been so typical of Ben-Gurion— to whom Begin's supporters eagerly compared him. The upshot was that the then chief of staff, Lieutenant-General Eitan, became in effect an acting defense minister in much the same way that Rabin had played that role under Eshkol. Clearly the lines separating the civil and military domains were again blurring dangerously. But the crunch came only after the 1981 elections, when Begin, who had determined to go to war in Lebanon, formed a virtual war cabinet. Sharon, denied the position of chief of staff because of what many saw as undemocratic tendencies, became minister of defense with Eitan (who

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had been a company commander in Sharon's 890 paratroopers' battalion back in the 1950s) as chief of staff. Sharon and Eitan shared Begin's conviction that Israel should launch a war against the PLO and Syria in Lebanon. But when the majority of their colleagues in the cabinet refused to agree to anything but a limited operation, Sharon apparently determined to extract permission from the cabinet for a more extensive war. The cabinet ultimately authorized an incursion of about forty kilometers into Lebanon. But Sharon ordered the IDF to proceed within the framework of a far more ambitious plan.30 Formally speaking, Sharon enacted civil-military relations as they should have been all along: the chief of staffs prominence in cabinet deliberations was reduced and the minister of defense assumed a far more active posture in these meetings. But in effect Sharon used this scheme of things in order to keep the cabinet and the general staff at a distance so that the IDF would not be fully aware of cabinet opposition to the game plan on which the troops were operating. Thus, beyond the façade of propriety Sharon engineered what some observers saw as a virtual "coup." 31 But what Sharon had not realized was that misleading the cabinet and the general staff was one thing, but misleading the soldiers who had to carry out the plan and pay for it with their blood was quite another matter, and in retrospect there is little doubt that public opposition to the war and its reflection within the ranks of the IDF determined this war's convoluted course and thus its outcome. Indeed, the Lebanon War illuminated in a most dramatic fashion both the weaknesses and the strengths of Israel's formula of civil-military relations. The main weakness was in the lamentable absence of adequate checks and balances within the nexus of decisionmaking where an uncharted "gray area" has existed all along and will continue to exist so long as a constitution does not lay down clear and present rules. The main strengths lie clearly in the thoroughly civilian ethos of the IDF and the strength of democratic ideals in Israeli society. To be sure, not every Israeli is adequately imbued with all the values of democracy. The majority are probably not as well versed with these values as democratic theory assumes they can be. There are, indeed, vast concentrations of conservatism, parochialism, and a lack of democratic consciousness. But there are also substantial pockets of a high democratic consciousness, a high level of articulation, and a dynamic and vigorous commitment to participatory democracy. These "pockets" may be large enough to ensure that no major violation of the democratic rules can pass unnoticed. Someone would notice it immediately, investigate it, and, above all, would sound the alarm. Then the media would play its role as in the most advanced democracies, and in no time the matter would make its way into the heart of the political process. In the absence of cabinet approval for the more far-reaching objec-

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tives of the Lebanon War, Sharon could not order the IDF (as it had been ordered in 1956 and in 1967) to maximize its comparative advantage and make a daring dash for the most far-reaching objectives of the war. Such a strategy would be based on concentration of force, sustained and relentless pressure on the adversary, deception, tactical surprise, and on a combination of fire and movement. But since Sharon was checked by the cabinet he had no choice but to order the IDF to stall and wait at every step after the first forty kilometers for cabinet authorization. This slow-rolling strategy played into the hands of the PLO and the Syrians in three critical respects: (1) world opinion was made aware of the horrors of the war; (2) PLO and Syrian forces had more time to regroup and fight in rear-guard actions; and (3) the IDF had more casualties. This caused a credibility gap in the ranks of the IDF and led to private reporting by soldiers to their families and friends, including journalists and politicians, as to what was taking place in the battlefield. In turn, pressure against the war was building up inside the parliamentary opposition and making its way from there into the coalition benches. The culmination of all this was with the Sabra and Shatilla massacre of Palestinian refugees by Lebanese Forces militiamen in mid-September 1982. The Israeli press corps were the first observers to realize that Israeli units could conceivably stop the killing but did not do so, and as soon as word got out to the public it led to the largest demonstration in the Jewish state's history: 400,000 Israelis or 10 percent of the Jewish population (including many service personnel on leave) demanded a commission of inquiry, and dismissal of the minister of defense. Prime Minister Begin at first objected, but when one of the coalition partners, the National Religious party, threatened to leave his cabinet and thus bring it down he gave way. A judicial commission of inquiry under a Supreme Court judge was appointed and ultimately recommended dismissal of the minister of defense and reprimands to several officers. This was not a happy day for the Israelis, but it represented the triumph of a pervasively civilian culture over a structural weakness in the decisionmaking process. It demonstrated very clearly that without a national consensus Israel cannot win on the battlefield, and that as weak as the institutional and constitutional structures may be, what ultimately determines the limits to military misdeeds is the commitment of an important segment of the public to the ground rules of democracy.32 By June 1985 the IDF was out of Lebanon. The withdrawal process was not simple, and in effect put civil-military relations to another severe test. The IDF was ready to withdraw by late 1983. For political reasons the cabinet decided not to follow this advice for another year, in the course of which there were some two hundred additional Israeli casualties and at least another billion dollars wasted. But the general staff obeyed orders

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without question, as it did when faced by the Palestinian uprising that has been in effect since December 1987. Despite the fact that the majority in the general staff are apparently not sympathetic to the political and ideological positions of Shamir and the Likud; indeed, despite the fact that Chief of Staff Lieutenant-General Dan Shomron, Deputy Chief of Staff Major-General Ehud Barak, Head of Military Intelligence Major-General Amnon Shahak, and OC Central Command (in charge of the West Bank among other things) Major-General Amram Mitzna all intimated in a variety of ways that they did not feel that the intifada had an acceptable military solution; and despite the cost of about $300 million annually at a time of severe budgetary squeeze, the IDF was at pains to play it by the rules. Senior officers fought for their views and occasionally would even use leaks to the media as levers for building pressure on their political superiors. But once a decision was made, the IDF would proceed to implement it without complaints, in recognition of what has become a clear and undisputed reality: in Israel the supremacy of civilian authority over the military is not just a moral duty but literally a question of survival. Notes 1. Yoram Peri, "Who Will Remove the Occupied Territories From the IDF?" Politika (May 1989): 25-27. 2. The first sound of the alarm on record is by the eminent Hebrew University sociologist Shmuel N. Eisenstadt, in Beit Hillel, The Status of the Army in the State of Israel and in Israeli Society (Tel Aviv, 1954), p. 5. A second note of concern was by J. C. Hurewitz in Middle East Politics: The Military Dimension (New York: Praeger, 1969), Chapter 20, "Garrison Democracy: Israel." Yoram Peri took up the same attitude in Between Battles and Ballots: Israeli Military in Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), and subsequently restated the same concern in the Politika article cited here. 3. See Moshe Lissak's article above. 4. See the chapter by the late Dan Horowitz. 5. This is (correctly) one of the most important theses of Yoram Peri in Between Battles and Ballots: Israeli Military in Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983). 6. For a detailed and most perceptive analysis of the growth of Israeli self-governing institutions prior to independence, see Dan Horowitz and Moshe Lissak, The Origins of the Israeli Polity (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1978). 7. On IZL and LEHI see J. Bowyer Bell, Terror Out of Zion: Irgun Zvai Leumi, LEHI and the Palestine Underground, 1929-1949 (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1977), esp. pp. 315-354. 8. For details see Edward Luttwak and Dan Horowitz, The Israeli Army (London: Allen Lane, 1975), Chapter 1; and Zeev Schiff, A History of the Israeli Army (New York: Macmillan, 1985), pp. 46-57. 9. In this sense Yoram Peri's main thesis in Between Battles and Ballots is

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plausible. But Peri's argument is less convincing if one takes a broader view whereas such a perspective appears to reaffirm Perlmutter's thesis in The Military and Politics in Israel, a volume that Peri challenges. In the final analysis, then, the historical truth appears to be a synthesis between Perlmutter's insufficiently critical argument and Peri's excessively determined critique. For a similar view see Daniel Shimshoni, Israeli Democracy: The Middle of the Journey (New York: The Free Press, 1982), pp. 186-187. 10. David Ben-Gurion, The Restored State of Israel 1 (Tel Aviv: Am Oved, 1975), pp. 469,509. 11. Yigal Allon, The Making of Israel's Army (London: Valentine and Mitchell, 1970), p. 72. 12. Moshe Dayan, Story of My Life (Tel Aviv: Idanim, 1976), p. 601. 13. Ezer Weizman, Lecha Shamayim Lecha Aretz (Tel Aviv: Ma'ariv, 1975), p. 172. 14. Interview with Ha'aretz (June 5,1984). 15. "The Altalena," a speech by David Ben-Gurion in the Knesset as cited in Ibid., Rebirth and Destiny of Israel (New York: Philosophical Library, 1954), p. 254. 16. See, for example, David Ben-Gurion, "The Spirit of the New Israel," in Moshe Davis, ed., Israel: Its Role in Civilization (New York: Harper Brothers, 1955), pp. 18-30. The importance of these issues in Israeli foreign and domestic policies is a central theme in Michael Brecher, The Foreign Policy System of Israel (New York: Oxford University Press, 1972). 17. This argument is developed in detail and documented historically in Avner Yaniv, Deterrence Without the Bomb: The Politics of Israeli Strategy (Lexington, Mass.: D.C. Heath and Co., 1987). 18. See the chapters by Kremnitzer and Lahav. 19. See Ozer E. Schild, "On the Meaning of Military Service in Israel," in Michael Curtis and Mordecai Chertoff, eds., Israel: Social Structure and Change (New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Books, 1973), pp. 419-432. For a popular, journalistic statement of the same theme see Ruth Bondy, The Israelis (New York: Funk & Wagnalls, 1969), pp. 114-120 ("To Zahal, With Civilian Love"). 20. See Amos Eilon, The Israelis: Fathers and Sons (New York: Holt, Reinhart and Winston, 1971), p. 298. 21. Ehud Sprinzak, Illegalism in Israeli Society (Tel Aviv: Sifriyat Poalim, 1986), (Hebrew). 22. For a unique glimpse into this process see a firsthand account by a tank battalion commander who participated in the Lebanon War of 1982 and quit his post in protest against the orders of his superiors. Gershon HaCohen, "The Officer's Right to Dissent: A Military Perspective," Jerusalem Quarterly 43 (Summer 1987): 122-134. 23. For an impressionistic portrait of Israeli generals in the early 1970s see Yuval Elizur and Eliahu Salpeter, Who Rules Israel (New York: Harper and Row, 1973) esp. Chapter 12, "The Generals." For an analysis of Israeli soldiers by a former chief of psychological services at the IDF, see Reuven, A Portrait of the Israeli Soldier (Hartford, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1986). 24. Schild, p. 422. 25. See Peri, Chapters 6-9; Shimshoni, pp. 209-215; Shimon Shetreet, "The Grey Area of War Powers: The Case of Israel," The Jerusalem Quarterly 45 (Winter 1988): 27-48. 26. This sad period is documented with amazing detail in Sharett's own

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diaries, posthumously by his son. See Moshe Sharett. Personal Diary (Tel Aviv: Ma'ariv, 1978). Dayan's account of the same period somewhat cryptically confirms the same argument. See Moshe Dayan, Story of My Life (New York: William Morrow, 1976), Part 3. 27. See my own study, Deterrence Without the Bomb, esp. pp. 109-115; as well as Peri, Between Battles and Ballots, pp. 161-162. 28. For details see Hanoch Bartov, Dado: 48 Years and 20 More Days Vol. 2 (Tel Aviv: Ma'ariv, 1978). 29. See Peri, pp. 168-172. 30. For a detailed study of Begin's war cabinet, see Avner Yaniv, Dilemmas of Security: Strategy, Politics and the Israeli Experience in Lebanon (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987), pp. 92-100. 31. See Zeev Schiff and Ehud Ya'ari, Israel's Lebanon War (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1984), pp. 301-308. 32. See my own Dilemmas of Security, Chapter 3, pp. 117-136, as well as Shai Feldman and Hedda Rechnitz-Kijner, Deception, Consensus and War: Israel in Lebanon (Tel Aviv: Jaffe Center for Strategic Studies, October 1984).

Part of the Problem or Part of the Solution: National Security and the Arab Minority Sammy Smooha By mid-1992 about 750,000 (or 15 percent) of the five million citizens of Israel in its pre-1967 borders were Palestinian Arabs. They constitute about one-third of all Palestinians under Israel's control (1.8 million Palestinians live in East Jerusalem, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip) and about one-seventh of all Palestinians in the world (estimated at 5 million). The Israeli government and most of the political establishment regard all these segments of the Palestinian people as a menace, but each of these three communities presents a different danger, from Israel's viewpoint. Diaspora Palestinians have traditionally taken the lead in the struggle against Israel, but since the outbreak of the intifada on December 9,1987, the Palestinians under occupation have assumed an active role in resisting Jewish rule. Since then there have been anxieties among Israeli Jews lest the Palestinian community in Israel join the intifada or initiate a resistance movement of their own. National security has external and internal facets. Externally, national security policy means all the state's efforts to preserve political and territorial integrity. Normally the external threat constitutes the sole focus of a national security policy. But not infrequently national security endeavors also spawn an internal dimension: the need to contain a perceived enemy within. For Israel's Arab citizens, however, these propositions have a sinister and totally objectionable tinge. For them external security means Israel's efforts to build a military capability sufficient to vanquish their own kith and kin, whereas internal security implies that they are held suspect of constituting a potential fifth column, actively supporting the hostile Arab states and the Palestinian resistance movement. Whether or not these anxieties of Israel's Jewish population are well founded is not easy to establish. Indeed, the historical record of Arab-Jewish relations inside Israel suggests that a vicious cycle is at play: the authorities have treated their Palestinian citizens as a potential fifth column, and there were elements in the attitude and behavior of the Arabs themselves toward the Jewish state that have seemingly confirmed the suspicion. The key question, then, is which is the chicken and which is the egg? Have the 105

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Arab minority of Israel potentially been a fifth column—as most Jews implicitly assume—or have they been the innocent victims of a hypersensitive, perhaps paranoid and xenophobic Jewish attitude? The following discussion addresses this vexing issue in six parts: (1) general considerations relating to majority-minority relations and to the approach adopted in the Israeli case; (2) factors affecting the attachment of the Arabs to the state and thus either reducing or stimulating the threat they pose to Israeli national security; (3) state security policy formulated in response to this perceived threat; (4) the Israeli Arabs' actual record on national security; (5) how the threat posed by Israeli Arabs to Israeli national security could be influenced by several possible developments; and (6) the expected change of security policy toward Israeli Arabs in the event of peace. Security and Ethnicity There are two general approaches to national security and ethnicity. The traditional approach, associated with Janowitz, Shils, and Pye,1 puts the emphasis on the integrative functions of the security forces—the military, police, national guard, and secret services. It maintains that these agencies are the most modern institutions in the society and their spirit of modernism and ethos of professionalism, achievement, and universalism provide nondominant ethnic groups with opportunities for modernization, social mobility, and integration into the mainstream. These benefits of political development and national integration are presumably evident in both developing and industrial societies. Enloe2 and Young,3 among others, offer an alternative, more differentiating, dynamic, and conflictual perspective. Enloe argues that there is no necessary relationship between ethnicity and modernization, and that state security policies not only reflect but also shape ethnic relations. In molding the military in ethnically divided societies, the heads of the state and military cannot ignore the ethnic division. They have to decide who should be considered loyal or able to contribute to the state, as compared to who is hostile or backward, and accordingly whom to enlist or exclude, whom to promote, and whom to assign to combat and other vital duties. These decisions require policy formulation grounded on "an ethnic state security map." Since ethnic groups differ in their political reliability and effect for national security, "it is important to state elites that they should create and maintain a pattern of ethnic relations and state-ethnic relations that will maximize state security."4 Ethnic groups are classified in the security maps according to the degree and nature of their possible contribution to national security. Sharp distinctions are made between the dominant group, identified with and predisposed to do its utmost for the

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state; a minority, feared to be organizing to undermine the political order; a group with ties to a hostile foreign state; a suspected population which happens to live in strategic regions; and the like. There is no conclusive evidence to the claim that modern militaries are devoid of ethnic considerations and that they blur ethnic differences. Enloe indicates various reasons why, in designing national security, ethnicity is employed as a criterion for estimating the degree of loyalty and level of ability of population groups: (1) It is easier and simpler to base security policy on collectivities, such as ethnic groups, than to ground it on individuals. (2) Ethnic groups have stable and distinct value orientations that can be used as a solid base for assessing loyalty and capability. (3) Attitudes toward the state can also be inferred from ethnic identity and emotional ties. (4) In most cases ethnicity has an international dimension: when ethnic bonds extend across artificial state borders they can affect the minority's behavior toward a foreign nation or state. (5) Ethnic groups tend to have a territorial base or concentration that carries direct ramifications for security. Young cites various critics of the approach that the military usually contributes to national integration and amalgamation of minorities. He instead poses the thesis that "the existence of highly pluralistic societies in some developed countries attests to the fact that in these cases the military was either (a) not called upon, refused, or failed to fulfill a national-integration function; or (b) some groups toward whom such an effort was directed saw in military service a means of asserting their pluralistic tendencies and thus resisted these efforts accordingly."5 This thesis is confirmed in Young's comparative study of the military and ethnicity in Belgium, Canada, Great Britain, and the United States. Young's view holds true for the State of Israel, a typical case in which national security in general and the military in particular preserve and reinforce the deep division between the minority and majority. That this is the case is evident in Israel's ethnic security map, which dominates the thinking of the heads of the state and security forces. According to this unofficial map, the population in Greater Israel is divided into five ethnic groups: 1. The Ashkenazi (European Jewish) group, seen as the center of society, the most loyal to the state, and the ablest, is supposed to be the core of the military and the entire security system. 2. The non-Ashkenazi (non-European Jewish) group, located in the semiperiphery and regarded as very loyal to the state but possessing different levels of ability, is supposed to supply massive and vital manpower to state security. 3. The Druzes, Circassians, and some of the Bedouin, who take their

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place in the periphery but seem passingly loyal and talented, are supposed to provide a small auxiliary manpower. 4. Most Bedouin and all the Christians and non-Bedouin Moslems, outside the "safe zone" and of questionable loyalty, are supposed to be excluded from the security services and placed under close surveillance in order to contain them as a security threat. 5. Palestinian Arabs in the West Bank and Gaza Strip (including the Arabs in East Jerusalem) are placed under military occupation and defined as an active subversive group whose resistance must be put down by all means, including force. The treatment of Israeli Arabs (the fourth category) as a security threat, their nonparticipation in the security system and their placement under control can be explained by two fundamental factors: (a) the Israeli-Arab conflict and (b) the Jewish state as an ethnic democracy. Both bones of contention make the Jews distrustful of the Arabs and make the Arabs unwilling to actively support the state from which they dissent. The significance of the Israeli-Arab conflict is rather obvious. The conflict is desperate and prolonged, and has already incurred enormous life and property losses on both sides. More importantly, the conflict itself is the most divisive issue between Arabs and Jews, since each side blames the other for its origins and persistence. From an Arab perspective, Palestinian resistance is a national liberation movement exercising its inalienable right to armed struggle, whereas to the Jews it appears as a malicious, rejectionist, and terrorist movement. Zionism is rejected by the Arabs as an exclusionary, racist, and expansionist movement, whereas for most Jews it is a national liberation movement. The Palestinians advocate a solution that is totally unacceptable to the Jews. Israeli Arabs favor and Israeli Jews for the most part reject the recognition of the right of the Palestinians to self-determination, Israel's withdrawal to the pre-1967 borders, the redivision of Jerusalem, the acceptance of the PLO as the sole and legitimate representative of the Palestinians, the formation of an independent Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and the acknowledgment of the right of the Palestinian refugees to repatriation to Israel. This intense political dissent on the part of Israeli Arabs underlies the Jewish view of the Arabs as a threat to national security and the Arab reluctance to share in the defense of the country. The fact that Israel is an ethnic democracy consolidates the security threat posed by the Arab minority. Israel is a democratic state in which the Jewish majority has established institutionalized dominance.6 This dual character of the state is a compromise between Zionism and

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democracy to which the Jews are committed. In contrast with most other Western democracies where citizenship is coterminous with nationality, but to a certain extent as in some of the new republics which have reemerged from the ruins of the Soviet Union, there is no overarching Israeli national identity applying to all Israeli citizens, both Jews and Arabs. Israel is rather "the state of the Jewish people" in which Jewish majority, institutions, and superior status are structured. Israeli Arabs in the democratic-Jewish state enjoy civil rights, but it may be impossible for them to be fully equal with Jews and, from their perspective, they cannot identify completely with the state. Discriminatory policies, widespread Jewish ethnocentrism, persistent Arab-Jewish socioeconomic inequalities, a virtual exclusion of Arabs from the national power structure, and systematic denial of Arab institutional autonomy all act to discourage Arab loyalty. These phenomena are no doubt reinforced by genuine security concerns. But the pronounced ethnic nature of Israeli democracy is a prime source of alienation from the state for the Arabs, making them less willing to serve it actively. As long as the Arab-Israeli conflict remains salient and unsettled it figures more prominently than ethnicity in the exclusion of the Arabs from the security forces. This is despite the fact that both Arabs and Jews pay a heavy price for its maintenance. The security system of the Jewish state, which in many critical moments has suffered from a shortage of manpower, could have greatly benefited from the large reservoir of Arabic-speakers, whose incorporation could have also advanced the official goal of making them more loyal to the state, more equal to the Jews, and more integrated into the society. Conversely, although nonparticipation in security matters has its benefits from the Arab point of view, it is a clear handicap in their struggle for full equality and integration into Israeli society. In the final analysis, however, Arab nonparticipation is the lesser evil for both sides. The state is unwilling to take any security risk and further alienate its Arab citizens by putting them to the hard loyalty test of enlistment. While Israeli Arabs accept Israel and their minority status in it, at the same time they reject its Jewish-Zionist character and strongly support Palestinian nationalism. They feel unable to alter Israel's belligerency toward their own people and its discriminatory Zionism, and as long as the Jewish state remains this way it is expedient for them to acquiesce with their inferior position in Israel's ethnic security map and resign themselves to their exclusion from the armed forces. Rather than challenging their fateful nonparticipation, they see it as serving their short-term interests, an embodiment of their separate identity and existence, a clear statement of their lack of identification with the Jewish state, and a sensitive area through which they assert their firm attachment to Palestinian nationalism.

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The Threat Potential of the Arab Minority Observers of Jewish-Arab relations within Israel are sharply divided on the degree to which the Arab minority in the Jewish state constitutes a threat. Arab scholars such as Rouhana cite security concerns as one of three factors shaping policies toward Israeli Palestinians (the other two being the Jewish nature of the state and Western democracy), but imply that security counts much less than the other two factors.7 By contrast, many (though by no means all) Jewish participants in this continuous debate tend to stress the role of the Palestinians in Israel as a potentially grave threat to national security. Thus, Hebrew University political scientist Yehezkel Dror, in an ambitious book proposing a master plan for an Israeli national renaissance, devotes a whole chapter to what he views as the destabilizing potential of the Palestinian minority in Israel,8 whereas Labor Member of Knesset Ra'anan Cohen chooses Complexity of Loyalties as the telling title for his study of the same issue.9 The proponents of such views base their position on their interpretation of the record of Arab loyalty to the state. Observing a relative quiescence of the Palestinian minority during and between major crises and wars, some students of the problem draw the conclusion that Israeli Arabs do not pose a security risk. But whereas these experts attribute Arab compliance to a keen sense of realism and pragmatism, other observers relate it to the effective controls imposed on the Israeli Palestinians and point to unrelenting though minor Palestinian involvement as proof of what might have happened if these restrictions had been lifted. Since both contending stands appear almost equally plausible, one way to determine which is more valid is to take another look at the complicated situation. Broadly speaking, nine factors and processes tend to alienate and dissociate the Palestinian citizens from the Jewish state:10 1. The Israeli Arabs' critical mass (numerical strength, network of separate community institutions, representative political organizations, and independent national leadership) instills in them a sense of power. 2. Together with the critical mass, their concentration in three geopolitical regions (the Galilee, Triangle, and Northern Negev), earmarked to Palestine in the 1947 U.N. partition resolution, may tempt Israeli Arabs to harbor demands for autonomy and even secession. 3. The fundamental and multiple dissent of Israeli Arabsfromthe Jewish consensus (that is, their rejection of the Jewish position on the ArabIsraeli conflict, equating Zionism with racism, and objection to Israel's Western orientation) weakens their support for Israel.

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4. The Israeli Arabs constitute an enemy-affiliated minority, being part of the Arab world and of the Palestinian people who are at war with Israel. 5. Arab disaffection with Israel is exacerbated by structured deprivation (working-class status in a middle-class society, a cultural and lingual minority, discriminatory government policies, and fierce Jewish ethnocentrism). 6. Modernization increases Arabs' relative deprivation (the gap between individual and community needs and aspirations on the one hand, and actual achievements on the other). 7. The rise of Islamic fundamentalism widens the gap between Arabs on the one hand and the Jews and their state on the other, and intensifies the Arabs' desires for autonomy. 8. The post-1967 Palestinization of the Israeli-Arab conflict, intensified contacts with the Palestinians in the occupied territories, and the intifada all stimulate the Israeli Arabs' involvement in the conflict. 9. The Jews' post-1967 shift toward the right, integral nationalism, religion, and the idea of Greater Israel all have made them increasingly intolerant of Israeli Arabs, and unresponsive to dire Arab needs and militant struggle for peace and equality. Taken together, these factors militate against the healing of the chasm between Jew and Arab in Israel, thus indirectly nurturing a widespread perception of the Israeli Palestinian minority as a potential threat to Israeli security. At the same time, however, it is important to underscore a number of other factors, which work in the opposite direction: rather than distancing the Arab minority from the Jewish majority, they encourage resignation to the existing order, cooperation with Jews, and, in the final analysis, also loyalty of the Palestinian citizens to a state which, initially, they had a great difficulty calling their own. 1. The Arab population of the Jewish state constitutes an integral part of a democracy which, in spite of its being an instrument of Jewish dominance, is viable and vigorous, and as such allows them to conduct a militant but lawful struggle to advance their cause. 2. They realize that ultimately the Jews control the society, state, and Israeli Arab fortunes, and that they (the Israeli Arabs) stand to lose considerably by breaking the rules of the democratic game. 3. The consistent policy of all Israeli governments—to distinguish and dissociate Israeli Arabs from other Palestinians—has contributed substantially to the Israelization of the Arab citizens on the one hand, and on the other hand to the fashioning of a separate destiny

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for them, distinct from that of other Palestinians. When all these conflicting factors are weighed together, it would be fair to conclude that the Arabs do present a latent threat to Israeli security. But as long as Israel remains militarily strong, reasonably democratic in its internal politics, and geographically confined to the 1967 boundaries (the so-called Green Line), this threat will remain relatively minor and probably quite manageable. National Security and the Arab Minority When the 1948 War ended, 160,000 Palestinians stayed on and 750,000 left the area that was to become the State of Israel. This new minority of 160,000 was demoralized, disoriented, bereft of leadership, predominantly rural and illiterate, without community institutions, and cut off from the Arab world. Since in Jewish eyes these Arab citizens of the new State of Israel constituted an integral part of the belligerent Arab environment, their hostility and disloyalty were presumed. Thus it appeared quite appropriate, indeed a matter of elementary prudence, to place them under military administration, whose explicit task was to subdue them and prevent their turning into an active fifth column. The military government laid the foundations for a machinery of control over the Arabs. The authorities created new Arab institutions which were accountable to them from the outset. The backward Arab agriculture collapsed and former Arab peasants were impelled to seek employment as laborers in the Jewish economy. A close surveillance was imposed through a network of paid informants and collaborators. Dissidents were harassed and punished, but compliance was encouraged through a calculated mix of restrictions and benefits. It is often argued that these and other measures were designed not only to prevent Arab unrest but also to make it possible to carry out large-scale land expropriations, to ensure the steady flow of cheap Arab labor to Jewish employers, and to have most Arabs vote for Jewish political parties.11 Official policy was predicated on the assumption that the Arabs as a whole were potentially disloyal, and should therefore be placed under a permanent control apparatus. The Arabs were suspected of espionage, sabotage, guerrilla warfare, terror against collaborators, and a political struggle both internally and internationally that might internationalize their problem and damage Israel's standing in the world.12 To forestall these dangers, control for the first eighteen years (until 1966) took the form of a military government and subsequently covert surveillance through the GSS (General Security Service—SHABAK) as well as

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through a whole gamut of other government agencies. The police force has several units giving special attention to Arab citizens, including MALAV (Department for Intelligence and Detection), which assists the SHABAK with interrogations and arrests; and YASAM (Unit for Regional Order), founded in 1988 to control disturbances and riots. The Ministry of Agriculture maintains a parapolice guard known as Hasayeret Hayeruka (the Green Patrol) to stop Arab (mainly Bedouin) squatters on Jewish or state fields. The office of the prime minister's advisor on Arab affairs is charged with monitoring and evaluating trends in Israeli Arab moods, attitudes, and activities. As an integral part of its threat-assessment responsibilities, the intelligence community issues periodic appraisals, forecasts, and warnings on the Arab minority's security threat. An equally crucial element in the way the state is organized against what it considers the internal Arab menace is the differential application of the universal military service law. Only the Druzes (9 percent of all Arabs)—formally designated non-Arabs, devoid of Palestinian nationalism, and loyal to the state—are subject to the draft. They serve in both separate and integrated units and after their discharge from the army as many as one-third of them work as professional soldiers, police officers (usually in the Border Police), and prison guards. They use the draft and employment in the security services to demonstrate their allegiance to the state, form "blood bonds" with Jews, differentiate themselves from the greater Arab community, qualify for various benefits as army veterans, and validate their claims for full equality with the Jews. The Druze enlistment is also beneficial for the state inasmuch as it provides it with some additional security manpower and with a showcase to demonstrate that anybody who dutifully renders army service is not denied any right and opportunity. Hence both sides are largely content with this arrangement.13 Christian and Moslem Arabs, constituting 91 percent of all Arabs, are exempted from military service.14 Arab exemption is officially explained on the humanitarian grounds that the state does not want to place Arabs in a moral dilemma of having to fight other Arabs. But the primary rationale is deep-seated Jewish mistrust of the Arabs and the fear that the training and arming of the Arab masses could in time redound against the state itself. The state, having to pass over an appreciable Arab labor force badly needed for relieving the enormous per capita security burden, publicly expresses its distrust of Israeli Arabs by excluding them from the military. Although many Israeli Arabs reject the suspicion of potential disloyalty and endure a stigma and economic loss for not serving in Israel Defense Forces (IDF), they willingly accept their exclusion, insist on refusing to serve in the army as long as the Israeli-Arab dispute persists, and seize upon their nonparticipation to convey their pan-Arab affinity

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and Palestinian nationalism, their nonidentification with the Jewish state, and their protest against discrimination and against Israel's maltreatment of the Palestinians both within the territories and in exile.15 Israel's distrust of its Arab minority is further manifested in other security-related exclusions. The authorities usually refuse to grant Arabs licenses to buy and carry guns for personal safety, or to extend the Mishmar Ezrahi (the Civil Guard, composed of armed civilians patrolling their own communities in order to reduce crime and terror) to Arab localities. The stated reason for this is that Arab localities are not faced by any substantial threat from their kith and kin, whose aim is to terrorize Jewish neighborhoods. But the unstated true reason appears to be suspicion that Israeli Arabs, if trained and equipped by the Civil Guard, could not be fully trusted. The 1951 Civil Defense Law and related regulations are usually not applied to the Arab population. They require that every home and public facility should be furnished with a shelter, schoolchildren must be trained to use shelters in emergencies, and every local authority is obliged to have special arrangements and facilities for proper functioning during wartime. The IDF, through its recently formed Pikkud Ha'oref (Rear Command), has the authority to maintain an apparatus for sirens, putting out fires, rescuing people from devastated areas, patrolling neighborhoods, imposing curfews and blackouts, and adopting all other measures necessary for defending civilians. The Rear Command and the local authority are also supposed to cooperate in founding a body called PESACH (Evacuation, Support, Casualties) charged with handling severe property damages and human injuries in time of war. This complex machinery of civil defense, universal in Jewish and mixed localities, is virtually nonexistent in the Arab population. Despite this gross neglect, the Arabs in Israel are for the most part less exposed to the dangers of war than the Jews are, because they do not serve in the army and tend to live in rural communities and low-density buildings.16 Preventive measures also include the barring of Arab citizens from security-related positions in public service. Their access to confidential information is limited or denied completely. They have to obtain security clearances in certain positions, most notably in the civil service and Arab schools. They are denied jobs in Israel's enormous military industries and in sectors that have contracts with the armed forces, and barred (by custom but not by law) from certain top posts of trust, including all cabinet ministries and the three most sensitive Knesset committees—Security and Foreign Affairs, Finance, and State Comptrollership.17 National security is also the basis for restrictions on ties with the hostile Arab world and the occupied territories. Like all other Israeli

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citizens, Israeli Arabs are not allowed to travel to Arab countries which are at war with Israel, nor to seek funds or employment there. While this presents no problem for Jews, it is a source of resentment on the part of Israeli Arabs because it makes it difficult or illegal for them to maintain contacts with their close relatives and to have access to vital resources.18 (The exceptions to this restriction are tourism to Egypt and pilgrimage to Mecca, both authorized by the government.) Moreover, Arabs leaving and entering the country are subject to lengthy and humiliating searches and interrogations in all ports of departure and entry. Arabs are not permitted to join Palestinian associations on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, such as the Writers' Union, because such organizations are regarded by the authorities as would-be or even actual instruments of Palestinian insurrection. Some Arab leaders and political activists are administratively barred from entering these areas. The distribution of Al-Ittihad, the official newspaper of the Israeli Communist party and the only Arabic daily published in Israel, is forbidden there. The pervasive distrust toward the Arab minority is the main reason for the retention of the 1945 Defense (Emergency) Regulations. Enacted by the British Mandate in order to put down Jewish resistance and opposed as repressive at the time by the Jews, they were upheld by the Israeli government and modified slightly over the years.19 The 1945 Emergency Regulations provided the legal basis for the military rule over the Arab areas and constitute a ready-made tool for its partial or full reinstatement. They enable the authorities to issue military injunctions on a regular basis, and not necessarily during the conduct of a war, to detain or restrict the movement of activists, to outlaw a publication or organization, or to declare areas as closed and lands as confiscated. These excessive powers are kept for making it easier to deter, police, and punish those among the Arab citizens of the state contemplating hostile acts. It is plausible to assume that these Draconian emergency regulations would have been repealed had the Arab minority not been perceived as a liability to national security, even with Israel remaining in a state of war with Arab states. The Arab Minority and National Security What is the Arab historical record regarding violations of national security? While the Arab minority as a whole has remained loyal to the state, infringements of public order were perpetrated on a level high enough to sustain Jewish suspicions and generate support for steps to curb the Arabs. During the 1950s some Arabs were involved in sheltering Palestinian infiltrators, mostly refugees who penetrated back to Israel to visit their relatives and to look after their deserted fields and other property. Be-

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tween 1967-1970 about four hundred Arabs were convicted for national security violations, including membership in terrorist organizations and collaboration with Palestinians from the territories and abroad in perpetrating terrorist actions against Jewish civilians. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s Arab involvement was small but certain incidents made it quite visible. During the first years of the intifada, the frequency and scale of security violations by Israeli Arabs increased dramatically. Acts of sabotage increased from 69 in 1987 to 238 in 1988, but dropped to 211 in 1989. The 187 severe acts, carried out from January 1 through November 15, 1989, consisted of incidents involving 91 arsons, 28 petrol bombs, 26 assaults against property, 17 uses of explosives, 8 stabbings, 8 violent assaults, 6 shootings, and 3 hand grenade attacks.20 More frequent but less grave were nationalist subversive acts, which rose from 101 in 1987 to 507 in 1988, but declined to 353 in 1989. In 1989 they included 119 stone-throwing attacks, 104 incidents of anti-Israeli or pro-PLO slogans being shouted or written, 92 cases of hoisting the Palestine flag, 15 roadblocks, 14 desecrations of state emblems, 4 cases of bringing false charges, and 5 unclassified incidents. In addition, the number of subversive or terrorist cells detected by the GSS rose from 2 in 1987 to 15 in 1988, and to 20 in 1989. These cells were composed of scores of youth who used or planned to use terrorism. This significant rise in security-related offenses must be understood against the background of the complete solidarity of Israeli Arabs with the intifada and their acute frustration with its repression by Israel. Yet they did not join the intifada, and the security infractions remained marginal to their daily life. In fact they were unequivocally censured by the community's leadership. They were frequent and serious enough, however, to feed on Jewish apprehensions and mistrusts, sustaining in the Jewish mind the menacing image of Israeli Palestinians as tacit allies of Israel's foes. The Gulf crisis of 1990 reinforced Jewish mistrust of Israeli Arabs. In contrast to their unanimous support for the intifada, Israeli Arabs had mixed feelings about Iraq's conquest of Kuwait and its explicit threats to attack Israel, although they endorsed the ousting of Kuwait's royal elite and opposed the U.S. intervention. The official backing of Iraq by the PLO had complicated the matter further for Israeli Arabs. Confused and ambivalent, they chose to remain silent. The authorities and the Jewish public took the general silence and occasional show of solidarity with Iraq as a sign of disloyalty. The police contingency plan for a war in the Gulf involving Israel explicitly includes countermeasures against possible hostile activities by Israel's own Palestinian minority.21 Concerned for their personal safety and wearing gas masks in sealed

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rooms, like their Jewish counterparts, many Israeli Arabs continued to back Iraq during the Gulf War, opposed the coalition war effort to do away with Iraq's war-fighting capability, and favored Saddam's challenge against the West. The mainstream representative bodies of the Arab minority failed to issue a clear, consistent, and unequivocal public condemnation of the substantial damage caused to the urban centers of Tel Aviv and Haifa by conventional missile attacks and of the threat to launch missiles with chemical warheads against the Jewish civilian population.22 It is true that the ambiguity and restraint of Israeli Arabs stood in sharp contrast to the open endorsement of these malicious steps and rejoicing at the Jews' calamity by Palestinians in the territories and abroad. They also remained compliant and offered humanitarian assistance to the Jews in the affected areas. However, from the common Jewish perspective of suspicion of Arab people, Israeli Arabs showed deep pan-Arabist and Palestinian sentiment during the Gulf War, considerable detachment from the state and from the Jews, and lent further credence to the widespread fears with regard to the danger the Arab citizens pose to Israel.23 Future Prospects It is possible to shed further light on the potential and actual threat the Arab minority poses to Israel's national security by speculating on the implications of certain developments in Israel and the region as a whole. One possibility is the massive spread of Islamic fundamentalism among the majority of Palestinians in Israel. Such development cannot be discounted because the Israeli Arabs' return to fundamental Islam is part of a regional and even global movement. It cannot be curbed by reinstating controls over them, and it seems unlikely that Israel will switch to a nondiscriminatory or even affirmative policy that can stifle the growth of Islamic fundamentalism among the Arab minority. Should the Islamic movement reach dominance among Israel's Palestinian Arabs, several ramifications are to be expected. The pool of Arabs motivated by extremist ideology and. prepared to pay a high personal sacrifice in pursuit of their convictions will be enlarged appreciably. The idea of securing community control and self-rule for the Arab minority will also be boosted greatly by the movement, whose main objective is to revolutionize individual and community life. The struggle for greater autonomy will escalate the dispute between the Arabs and the authorities who regard autonomy as a step toward secession. Another danger is the links that might be established with violent Islamic movements, such as the Hamas and Islamic jihad, in the occupied territories and elsewhere. These projected consequences should be viewed together with some

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countervailing factors. The rise of Islamic fundamentalism could cause a real rift between the fundamentalist Moslems and other Moslems, not to mention Christians and Druzes. The movement also has to face strong secularist political forces from among the Arabs themselves. Such largescale internal social and political factionalism may neutralize some of the adverse effects of the movement on Arab-Jewish relations. The Israeli milieu will impose even much greater restraint. The strong democratic state will extend to the nonfundamentalist Arabs protection against religious coercion and deter Moslem extremists from taking subversive actions. The fear of Jewish reaction and the general democratic atmosphere will also split the Islamic movement into various factions on the pragmatism-fundamentalism continuum, thereby preventing it from consolidating its power.24 Another likely development is the immigration to Israel during the 1990s of one to two million Jews from the former Soviet Union. Jewish immigration on such an enormous scale will impact Israeli Arabs in two different ways. They will be hurt like all Israelis by soaring unemployment, budget shortfalls, and failures in services and facilities. Since Israel already suffers from economic stagnation and has difficulty raising the enormous funds needed to finance immigrant absorption and expand the economy, the oldtimers—Arabs included—will have to assume the lion's share of the necessary capital. This would mean a higher rate of unemployment, erosion of the standard of living, cuts of the welfare state services and allowances, and greater hardship in competing with the better-credentialed newcomers for jobs and for admissions to postsecondary and academic institutions. The Arab population of Israel, however, will probably have to bear an extra cost. They will be denied the preferential treatment accorded in the labor market to new Jewish arrivals. All Arabs will be hurt because the newcomers are willing to take any job, but Arab university graduates, two-fifths of them already either unemployed or underemployed, will fare worst. Another possible disturbance may be caused by the settlement of a significant proportion of the immigrants close to Arab localities in order to Judaize the predominantly Arab areas, or at least to deterritorialize the Arabs. This will deprive the Arabs of some of their lands or of their prospects to obtain nearby state lands for development, and will intensify frictions between the Arabs and Jews who share the same area. The depletion of public funds will also bring about disproportional budget cuts in the Arab sector that is struggling to close the large historical gap with the Jews. Finally, the Arabs' proportion in the general population and in the electorate will drop; hence they will be further marginalized and neglected.

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This negative impact of mass immigration from Eastern Europe is quite probable during the five-year transition period. Thereafter, if economic growth is generated, the Arabs like all Israelis, will greatly benefit from a larger and stronger economy. But the privations and dislocations that the Arabs are going to experience during the first phase of Soviet immigration will push them into the open arms of the Islamic movement, heightening their potential threat to the Jewish state's national security. A third source of friction is the protracted stalemate in the Arab-Israeli peace process, continuation of Israeli occupation, and a spiraling escalation of the intifada. The Study Group of the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv University deliberates the ramifications of this option for Israeli Arabs, as one of six on Israel's peace agenda. It concludes: T o the extent that unrest continues in Judea, Samaria and G a z a , that the P L O is perceived as moderating its positions, and that Israeli demands for equality are not dealt with effectively, then the status q u o could generate extensive violent activity and increased radicalization among Israeli A r a b s , to the detriment of Jewish-Arab relations inside Israel.

Yet there is nothing new in this Arab response because " A radicalization process began among Israeli Arabs long before the intifada."26 Anyone who rejects the Israeli Arab steady "radicalization thesis,"27 will also question the plausibility of the JCSS Study Group forecast, which constitutes a straightforward extrapolation of the status quo, as seen from this perspective. Israeli Arabs have not been radicalizing, nor have they been drifting away from the state. Even the intifada has not caused grave violence or severe crisis. It is possible, however, that a certain breakdown of Arab-Jewish coexistence will stem from the addition of some crucial elements to the already troublesome situation. These fresh irritants might entail mass killing and the transfer of part of the Palestinian population on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, the endemic spread of Islamic fundamentalism among Israeli Arabs, the immigration of two million Jews to economically depressed Israel, and deterioration of an already problematic Arab policy (including the use of violence against Israeli Arabs, curtailing their civil rights, and more generally, shifting to a policy that slights the distinctions between them and the Palestinians in the occupied territories). The last possibility to be considered is a peace settlement Israel's retreat from most of the territories occupied in 1967, and the formation there of an independent Palestinian state under the PLO. Lustick holds that "following such a sacrifice the regime would redouble its efforts to develop Israel proper as a Zionist state and to create within it as much

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room as possible for future Jewish immigrants."28 Israel would thus lose much of its already limited ability to integrate and equalize its Palestinian citizens. Israeli Arabs' radicalization would further intensify. Their sense of relative deprivation would be sharpened by the constant comparisons they would make with their brethren in the new Palestinian state where ample opportunities will be available. "In their struggle for greater equality as Israeli citizens and for recognition of Arab prerogatives to cultural and regional autonomy," Lustick concludes, Israeli Arabs "would come to make secessionist demands" that would "elicit strong political and material support from Palestinians across the border." The scenario of the JCSS Study Group is less bleak and rather conditional: The advent of a Palestinian state would be advantageous for Israel in terms of the Israeli Arab community, only if it were accompanied by a parallel policy of greater integration of Arabs into Israeli society, together with adequate deterrents against radical incitement, while the Palestinian state itself successfully curtailed irredentist tendencies. This would ensure more harmonious Jewish-Arab relations. It would be disadvantageous if the Palestinian state sought aggressively to spread irredentist incitement, or if Israel failed to counter the effects of Palestinian statehood by encouraging greater social and economic integration.29

In contrast with these two pessimistic or reserved predictions, based on the assumption that Israeli Arabs are currently heading toward confrontation with the Jewish state, Jewish leftists and Israeli Arab leaders tend to stress the beneficial impact of the creation of a Palestinian state on Arab-Jewish coexistence by removing a cardinal dividing issue and clearing the way for fulfilling the duty of military service. One fails to see why there should be any decline in ultimate Jewish control and its deterring and accommodating influence on Israeli Arabs. It is also doubtful that a new Palestinian state would go to the trouble of inciting Israeli Arabs to launch a secessionist movement, or that such incitement would be heeded at all. On the contrary, there are grounds to expect Palestine to be "the state of the Palestinian people," much as Israel is "the state of the Jewish people." In this case Israeli Arabs would have the legitimacy—and would be under strong pressure—to accept Israel as is. They would step up their struggle for equality, and Israel would have to make certain adaptations in order to accommodate them. In the event of a Palestinian state the threat to Israeli security from the Arab minority would be reduced rather than amplified. The ascendance of the Labor party to power in July 1992 appreciably contributed to the peaceful accommodation of Arabs and Jews in Israel. Three positive developments were noticeable immediately following the

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change of governments. The most visible unfolding was the favorable atmosphere surrounding the peace process and the high probability of instituting autonomy for the Palestinians in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip during the term of the Labor government. Any headway made on the Palestinian question would reduce, of course, Arab-Jewish tensions within Israel. The other immediate change was the willingness of the United States and the European Community to grant loans or loan guarantees to Israel for immigrant absorption. The expected flow of capital from abroad and the shifting of budgets from the territories to Israel will resume economic growth and reduce unemployment. This positive effect will be moderated by an increase in anti-Arab discrimination as a result of continued Jewish immigration. Most important is the already felt boost in the Israeli Arabs' leverage. This is the first time in Israel's political history that the Arab vote made a difference in actually deciding which of the two ruling parties would be in power. Without the Arab vote cast for the Labor party and the Zionist left (Meretz) and without the support of the Arab political parties, the new Labor government could not be formed and voted into power. The Labor party conceded its dependence on Arab backing by sending the Arab parties letters promising to make policy change on the behalf of the Arab minority. Under the new circumstances the Labor government will have no choice but taking Arab interests into account in 1992 and later. The dependence of the stability of the Labor government on Arab support gives Arabs better protection against discrimination and a certain degree of participation in decisionmaking over their own affairs. In consequence, the coming of Labor to power alleviates the obstacles for Arab-Jewish coexistence and improves the broader contexts (progress on the Palestinian issue, economic growth) for rapprochement. The chances for peaceful accommodation after mid-1992 improved because the Labor government that Arabs will deal with will depend on Arabs and must be sensitive to Arab interests. Conclusions The Arab citizens present a certain threat to Israel's external and internal security. They constitute a numerically significant, indigenous, nonassimilating, discriminated-against, ideologically dissident, and enemy affiliated minority. Furthermore, they are highly politicized, maintain numerous organizations, and have genuine, independent leadership. The Follow-up Committee is the top representative body deliberating matters of general concern to the entire Arab community and making binding

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decisions. Since its establishment in 1984, this unofficial parliament has passed many important resolutions, the most outstanding ones being the declaration of a significant number of well-observed general strikes. The Arabs are also occasionally involved in security violations, a tendency that increased to some extent during the intifada. The high level of mobilization and repeatedly tested capability to conduct general strikes have made the Arabs a powerful minority whose threat to security cannot be ignored. The extent of this threat is directly shaped by the position of the Arab world vis-à-vis Israel. Arab rejection of Israel's existence and the maintenance of a state of war against it cast deep suspicion in the Jewish mind on the loyalty of the Arab minority to the Jewish state. In Jewish eyes, this constant suspicion has been justified by objective conditions, and the Israeli Arabs' limited incidence and seriousness of security violations should be credited more to the government's countermeasures than to basic Arab loyalty. It is widely feared that the upsurge during the intifada of Islamic fundamentalism in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, which (according to an estimate for 1990) commands the support of over twofifths of the population there, totally rejects Israel, calls for the use of violence to dismantle the Jewish state, and sends extremists for violent assaults against Jewish soldiers and civilians, will spread to the growing Islamic movement among Israeli Arabs. While this rationale cannot be glibly dismissed, one must also note that the historical trend in the Arab world of coming to terms with the existence of Israel significantly diminishes the security threat posed by Israeli Arabs. The Arab world has slowly but steadily been shifting away from its traditional intransigent rejectionism toward the Jews in Israel. The peace treaty with Egypt and the 1988 PLO move to recognize Israel, accept U.N. Resolution 242, and renounce terrorism, are breakthroughs in the Israeli-Arab dispute. Most importantly, the PLO mainstream and its supporters in the occupied territories agree on a division of labor among the three segments of the Palestinian people: the PLO-headed Diaspora carries a diplomatic struggle and occasionally some guerrilla operations, the Palestinians under occupation wage the intifada, and the Palestinians in Israel serve as a lobby or a pressure group for peace. Operating according to this tacit understanding, the Arabs of Israel have not been called to join the intifada, but in March 1990 Yasir Arafat asked all the predominantly Arab political parties with representation in the Knesset to support a Labor coalition government in hopes of maintaining the peace process. This political role carved for the Arab minority recognizes and legitimizes the reality of its loyalty to the Jewish state. Realizing that they need to win Jewish public opinion, the Palestinians in the territories and abroad show a vested interest in the Arab minority's continued loyalty to Israel. This, they recognize, is essential for reassuring the Jewish public

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that an independent Palestinian state would not necessarily destabilize Israel. The threat Israel's Arab citizens pose to national security is greatly influenced, however, by the Jewish position. Since Israel is an "ethnic democracy" in which Jews are accorded superior status, the Arab citizens do not enjoy fullrightsand opportunities. They cannot identify themselves with Zionism, the Jewish state symbols, or the national goals of Jewish immigration, Jewish land settlement, and the fostering of Jewish culture. Since Israel cannot offer them an all-encompassing Israeli nationalism, Israeli Arabs have no choice but to turn to Palestinian nationalism and pan-Arabism. While national security is a real factor, it is often exaggerated and misused to camouflage the excesses of ethnic democracy. Israel has opted to handle the genuine threat Israeli Arabs pose to its security by excluding them from its security institutions. This exclusion has in turn reinforced their alienation from the state and solidified their inferior status in society, making them even more suspect by Jews and less willing to serve their country. Paradoxically, both sides see the vicious circle as a lesser evil or convenient arrangement. The distrustful Jews wish to keep their most cherished security organizations as dependable as possible. In Jewish eyes, only when the IDF, GSS, and Mossad are Jewish and Zionist in their spirit and staff can they truly be trusted and properly keep a close watch on the Jewish state's Arab enemies. The exclusion of Arabs from the most important institutions for Jewish survival in Israel is, therefore, both a matter of self-defense and enactment of Jewish identity and nationalism. This precisely mirrors the attitude of Israeli Arabs. By resigning themselves to nonparticipation and even declaring their resistance to the military draft, they reassert their dissent from the Jewish consensus, their separate Palestinian identity and nationalism, their protest against the discriminations and restrictions emanating from the Jewish state's ethnic democracy, and their conviction that they cannot be fully equal in and loyal to the state. Since Israel's ethnic democracy, together with the wider Israeli-Arab conflict, fuels the alienation of the Arabs and thus their threat to Israeli national security, one should not expect the disappearance of this problem when peace is achieved. A comprehensive peace settlement will more fully expose ethnic democracy, step up the disgruntled Arab minority's struggle for equality, and turn the external threat to Israel into an internal security problem. However, the advent of peace will remove the only legitimate and agreed-upon obstacle to the participation of the Arabs in the security system of their state. Since Jewish and Arab political leaders consent to full Arab mobilization in the defense of Israel's security in the event of peace, the Arabs will then be drafted into the IDF and even be admitted

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into the secret services, no longer subject to the various security-related restrictions. Ethnic democracy will become a salient dividing issue, but has not been and will not be a ground for either the exclusion of Arabs from the security services or for their refusal to serve in them. The radical switch from prepeace nonparticipation to postpeace full participation of the Arab minority in Israel's national security will markedly transform the security system and induce significant changes in the status of Israeli Arabs and in the society at large. Most importantly, ethnic democracy will have to be moderated and recast so that Palestinian citizens of the Jewish state will be more equal and thus more attached to their country. Arab-Jewish coexistence will have to be based on more trust, understanding, cooperation, mutual respect, compromise, cultural cross-fertilization, and tolerance than ever before. In peacetime Israel will have to weather possible Arab pressures for doing away with certain features of its Jewish-Zionist character and for Arab autonomy, or will have to counteract lingering secessionist sentiment among some of its Arab citizens by more fully involving them in its national security, rather than by tightening controls over them. Notes 1. Maurice Janowitz, The Military in the Political Development of New Nations (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1964). 2. Cynthia Enloe, Ethnic Soldiers: State Security in Divided Societies (Athens, Ga.: University of Georgia Press, 1980). 3. Warren Young, Minorities and the Military: A Cross-National Study in World Perspective (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1982). 4. Enloe, Ethnic Soldiers, p. 15. 5. Young, Minorities, p. 31. 6. Sammy Smooha, "Minority Status in an Ethnic Democracy: The Status of the Arab Minority in Israel," Ethnic and Radical Studies 13 (no. 3, July 1990): 389-413; Yigal Allon, Curtain of Sand (Tel Aviv: Hakibbutz Hameuhad, 1969), (Hebrew). 7. Nadim Rouhana, "The Political Transformation of the Palestinians in Israel: From Acquiescence to Challenge," Journal of Palestine Studies 18 (no. 3, 1989): 38-59. 8. Yehezkel Dror, Grand Strategy for Israel (Jerusalem: Academon, 1989), (Hebrew). 9. Ra'anan Cohen, Complexity of Loyalties: Society and Politics: The Arab Sector in Israel (Tel Aviv: Am Oved, 1990), (Hebrew). 10. For a more detailed account of the characteristics of and political developments among Israeli Arabs, see Elie Rekass, "The Israeli Arabs and the Arabs of the West Bank and Gaza: Political Affinity and National Solidarity," Asian and African Studies 23, no. 2-3 (November 1989), pp. 119-154; Sammy Smooha, Arabs and Jews in Israel. Vol 1: Conflicting and Shared Attitudes in a Divided Society (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1989); and Sammy Smooha, Arabs and Jews in

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Israel. Vol. 2: Change and Continuity in Mutual Intolerance (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1992). 11. Ian Lustick, Arabs in the Jewish State: Israel's Control of a National Minority (Austin, Tx.: University of Texas Press, 1980). 12. Yigal Allon, Curtain of Sand (Tel Aviv: Hakibbutz Hameuchad, 1969), p. 332, (Hebrew). 13. There are striking similarities between the enlistment of the Druzes in Israel and of the Japanese Americans in World War II. At the time of their enlistment both minorities were very small, their loyalty was questioned to such an extent that they were placed in closed areas (the Israeli Druzes under military administration and Japanese Americans in detention centers), they were proved to be detached from the menacing external nationalism they were suspected of (pan-Arabism and Palestinian nationalism, and Japanese nationalism, respectively), they initiated their military draft in order to gain support and equality with the majority, and the state was pleased with their military performance and consequently improved its treatment of them (Petersen, 1989). 14. Some Bedouin are taken to the standing army as paid soldiers, but like other Muslims are not enlisted. There are also a few cases of non-Bedouin Muslim and Christian Arabs who are admitted into the army. 15. The authorities have been deliberating for a long time the possibility of instituting voluntary or compulsory civil service for Arab men in their own Arab communities, in lieu of military service. The Arabs demand full equality and settlement of the Palestinian question before rendering any service to the state (Jerusalem Post, December 25,1990; Maariv, December 26,1990). 16. The failure of the civil defense system to operate in the Arab sector was strongly felt and criticized during the Gulf War. Arab heads of local councils complained that their localities lacked sirens to sound alarms, shelters, support personnel, equipment to deal with destruction of property and human life, and more generally resources to cope with emergency or war situations (Ha'aretz [February 6,1991]). 17. Hadashot, December 20,1990. 18. Israeli Arabs are not allowed to organize charities or raise contributions in Arab countries, and of course are not allowed to receive monies from the PLO. They are also afraid of soliciting funds from Western countries because they may expose themselves to the charge of indirect funding from terrorist organizations. In 1990 the Knesset passed the first reading of Amendment No. 3 to the 1949 Prevention of Terror Act which aims to excessively tighten the restrictions and penalties on any body that knowingly or unknowingly, directly or indirectly, receives any financial support from terrorist organizations. The activities of over 200 Israeli Arab nonprofit associations that depend on donations from abroad were threatened by the suggested amendment which has been strongly criticized as repressive (see Itzhak Galnoor, "Preventing Terror: Just an Excuse," Israeli Democracy, Winter 1990, Tel Aviv: Israel Disapora Institute: 10). By 1992 the severe internal and international criticism of the amendment brought about its silent burial in the Knesset Law and Constitution Committee. 19. David Kretzmer, The Legal Status of the Arab Minority (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1990). The most significant modification is "The 1979 Emergency Authorities (Arrests) Law" which requires that any administrative detention of a citizen or a permanent resident of Israel must be ordered by the Minister of Defense, limited to six months, approved by a civilian judge within 48 hours, and subject to an appeal to the Supreme Court.

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20. Knesset Proceedings (December 4,1990); Asa'd Ghanem and Sara OzackLazar, The Green Line, Red Line—Israeli Arabs and the Intifada (Givat Haviva: Institute for Arabic Studies, 1990, p. 15), (Hebrew). 21. Ha'aretz (January 7,1991). 22. The Follow-up Committee, the most representative body in the Arab sector, did not convene at all during the first month of Gulf War, probably because of wide disagreements among its members. The Committee of Heads of Arab Local Councils issued a statement that "strongly deplores the victims among the civilians and the destruction which the war caused, including what was incurred by the missile attacks against cities in Israel" (original text of statement from January 29, 1991; it was cited in Al-Ittihad, January 30, 1991). The statement deplores, but not condemns, the missile attacks and puts them in the context of the effect to civilians of the strategic bombing of Iraq by the coalition allies. Arab members of the Knesset expressed different views. For instance, while Darawshe, the head of the Democratic Arab party, condemned the missile attacks against Israel, Mi'ari, the leader of the Progressive List for Peace, either avoided the issue or took an evenhanded stand. The pro-Iraqi reporting of the war in Al-Ittihad, despite the official position of the Israeli Communist party and the Soviet Union against the occupation of Kuwait by Iraq, is telling indeed (Yosef Algazi, "Strong Pagination, Transparent Threat," Ha'aretz, February 8,1991). 23. Many Israeli Arabs were proud of the technological know-how and steadfastness shown by Iraq. They thought and hoped that the Iraqi missile assaults on Israeli towns would moderate the Jewish stand on the Palestinian question. Jews would reject this line of thinking. Their stance could only be more strengthened by the official announcement of detection of an espionage cell, consisting of a dozen Israeli Arabs, who were accused, among other things, of reporting to Iraq the exact location where the missiles fell in order to improve their targeting (Ha'aretz, February 6, 1991). It became clear later on that the charges were unfounded and dropped, but the initial framing nourished popular Jewish suspicions. See also Amira Hess, "Not a Personal Revenge but the Principle," Ha'aretz, January 29,1991 (Hebrew). 24. Ibrahim Malik, "The Islamic Movement in Israel: Between Fundamentalism and Pragmatism," (Givat Haviva: Institute for Arabic Studies, 1990), (Hebrew); Thomas Mayer, The Awakening of the Moslems in Israel (Givat Haviva: Institute for Arabic Studies, 1988), (Hebrew). The murder of three Israeli soldiers in their army tent camp near Kibbutz Galed by four Israeli Muslim fundamentalists from the Triangle on February 14,1992, is an unprecedented assault by Israeli Arab citizens against their fellow Jews in Israel within the Green Line. It revealed how extremist and bloody Islamic fundamentalism could be. On the other hand, an analysis of the incident shows, rather, the moderation of the Islamic movement in Israel. The convicted murderers were not common members of the movement but dissenters and drifters. The leaders of the movement unanimously and publicly condemned the crime as did all other Israeli Arab leaders. The police and the Jewish political establishment exercised considerable self-restraint and refrained from blaming the Arab community or even the Islamic movement for the massacre. For the murder story, see Israeli newspapers, especially the Jerusalem Post and Yediot Acharonot, on February 16,1992; for the arrest of the Arab suspects and public reactions, March 6-10,1992; and for their conviction and sentencing, April 30,1992. 25. JCSS Study Group, The West Bank and Gaza: Israel's Options for Peace. A Report (Tel Aviv: The Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies, Tel Aviv University,

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1989), pp. 26-27. 26. Ibid., p. 25. 27. See, for instance, Sammy Smooha, "The Arab Minority in Israel: Radicalization or Politicization?" Studies in Contemporary Jewry 5 (1989): 59-88. 28. Ian Lustick, Arabs in the Jewish State: Israel's Control of a National Minority, pp. 266-267. 29. JCSS Study Group, The West Bank and Gaza: Israel's Options for Peace: A Report (Tel Aviv: The Jaffe Center for Strategic Studies, Tel Aviv University, 1989), p. 98.

6 Vox Populi:

Public Opinion and National Security Asher Avian

National security issues are very salient to Israelis, who are exposed to these matters from an early age. Society reinforces this exposure: political socialization in Israel is coextensive with an introduction into matters of national security. This has been true throughout Israel's history: fathers, teachers, big brothers, boyfriends, and uncles have gone off to the army, to military reserve service, and to war; an important element in the status system of adolescents is the army unit to which they aspire, and the one into which they are finally accepted.1 These patterns were fortified during the 1991 Gulf War in which the home front became the battlefield. Everyone—including infants and children—wore uniforms and/or gas masks, and all were recruited for active service, as schools and nurseries closed for weeks. Television had special war-related news programs for children, and the war built to a crescendo during the Jewish holiday of Purim (a joyous festival, especially for children, celebrating the defeat of the Biblical Haman with masquerading and reveling). There can be no doubt of the salience of national security issues in Israeli life. Salience, however, is not the same as impact. That there is an unusually high degree of awareness of national security issues does not in and of itself explain how these issues affect the course of Israeli politics, nor indeed how public opinion impinges on the direction of national security. These issues will be explored by concentrating on four aspects of Israeli public opinion and national security: (1) the ability of public opinion to incorporate complex assessments of the security challenge with optimistic estimations of the state's ability to overcome these challenges; (2) the simultaneous championing of security efforts and a democratic political system; (3) the tradeoffs between democracy, security, and other competing values; and (4) the change in key attitudes over time.

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Figure 6.1 Israel Can Overcome 100%

Syria

Terror

Uprising

- US

+ USSR

All Arabs

1990 survey

Confidence and Apprehension National security matters have elicited a dual reaction from Israelis.2 On the one hand, Israelis are aware of the numerical superiority of their adversaries, to which the oft-repeated phrase "the few against the many" is testimony. On the other hand, there is a persistent belief in the ability of Israel to overcome (see Figure 6.1). At extremely high rates, hovering around 90 percent, Israelis believed that the state could overcome a war against Syria, terrorism, and an Arab uprising. The high degree of confidence in coping with an Arab uprising pertained to both the Arabs in the territories and to an uprising of Israeli Arabs. A second group of contingencies generated a slightly lower—but still high, at 70 percent—assessment that Israel could overcome a reduction of aid from the United States or a massive increase of support to Israel's Arab enemies by the former Soviet Union. Regarding the ability of the state to be victorious in a war with all the Arab states, 62 percent were certain that Israel would vanquish its enemies. Regarding the Eastern-front states of Iraq, Jordan, and Syria alone (not shown in Figure 6.1), 83 percent were confident of an Israeli victory. These data are especially important because of their stability over

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time. In the five years of surveys reported here, these questions were repeated and the same pattern of response was reproduced. The period of these surveys, of course, was hardly uneventful: the first survey was conducted soon after the withdrawal from Lebanon, the second at the beginning of the intifada, and the fourth immediately before and after the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. Through all of this, the security confidence of the public, and the stability of its ranking of the problems, persisted. Along with the stability, there were fascinating shifts in the assessment by the Israeli public of the security situation during this period. The hope for peace and the likelihood of war both increased (see Figure 6.2). In 1986,57 percent were certain or very certain that peace with Arab states could be achieved in the foreseeable future; by 1990,63 percent thought so. On the other hand, 55 percent thought that war was probable or very probable between Israel and an Arab state in the following three years; by 1990, the corresponding figure was 68 percent.3 The dual approach to national security was also apparent in the very somber Israeli appraisal of Arab aspirations (see Figure 6.3).4 The ranking of the aspirations as perceived by the public was relatively unchanged over time. A small minority of less than 10 percent thought that the Arabs wanted to recapture some of the territory lost in the Six Day War of 1967. A slightly larger group (about 20 percent) reported that they thought that the Arabs aspired to recover all of the territories they had lost in that war. A larger group (about 30 percent) believed that the Arabs wanted to conquer the State of Israel. By far the largest group, representing almost half the sample, thought that the Arabs really wanted to conquer the State of Israel and destroy most of the Jews living there. In 1990 two improvements of the sampling design allowed for a more complete understanding of public opinion: (1) 54 percent of the interviews were conducted before August 2, the day of the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, and 46 percent afterward; and (2) a special subsample was also taken of 119 Jewish respondents living in the territories of the West Bank and Gaza. This breaking down Israeli perceptions of Arab aspirations revealed two important points: (1) Israeli public opinion is very sensitive to ongoing security events, such as the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait;5 and (2) while the respondents from the territories tended to have views that could be characterized asright-wing,they generated patterns not very different from those of the Israeli population in general (see Figure 6.4). These breakdowns augmented the patterns found in the total national sample; they certainly did not contradict them. Coping with the inconsistencies that arose from these multiple assessments demanded from the Israeli public a rich repertoire of mechanisms. Some of the skills they employed included denial, appreciating success, and reliance on an ideology that fostered their self-image of being a chosen people.6

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Figure 6.2 Peace and War 70%

65%

60%

55%

50%

1986

1987 Peace possible

1988

1990

War likely - 3 years

Figure 6.3 Arab Aspirations 50%

40%

30%

20%

10%

Return some terr.

H

1986

Return all terr.

H11987

Conquer Israel

I T J 1988

C o n q u e r / k i l l Jews

I I S 1990

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Figure 6.4 Arab Aspirations, 1990 50%

Return some terr.

• 1 1990

Return all terr.

H O before 2.8

Conquer Israel

L J after 2.8

Conquer/kill Jews

H i Settlers

The picture presented, then, was of a population deeply distrustful of the aspirations of its adversaries, aware of the stark challenges faced by the country, quite optimistic regarding the ability of the country to overcome a series of dire situations, and progressively wary about the eventuality of war and hopeful about the possibility of peace.

Security and Democracy One of Israel's most impressive achievements has been to maintain the level of sacrifice and alertness necessary to handle its security problems while sustaining a democratic political system. Just as features of Israeli democracy are often criticized by observers and participants, so too is the fit imperfect between security-related issues and democratic practices. Tensions between the two were often near the surface. Israel's short history has been replete with dilemmas concerning the rule of law, censorship, freedom of organization, the politicization of the military, and the multiplicity of roles played by the military.

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The Rule of Law The choice between the two polar extremes—security on the one hand, and the rule of law or other considerations on the other—was a stark one, and most situations allowed for more flexibility of definition and interpretation. But this dilemma characterized public debate in Israel, especially in the 1980s. In the face of the Lebanon campaign in 1982 and then with the onset of the intifada in 1987, the public scrutinized relations between the political and military spheres, and the manner in which the military operated within the framework of the rule of law.7 The issues were especially complex regarding the intifida, because the IDF had been neither designed nor trained for the type of police action that resulted from the low level of hostilities, almost always against stone-throwing demonstrators, that characterized the early stages of the uprising. The tactics used to repress and deter the Arab population called into question the army's commitment to the rights of the demonstrators, and focused attention on the zealousness of certain officers and soldiers in interpreting the orders of commanders and political leaders. The public perception was that the actions that the IDF was called upon to undertake in the territories were having a deleterious effect on its fighting morale. Using a 7-point scale, with 7 points being the most positive effect and 1 point the most negative, the mean score of the samples between 1986 and 1990 fell from survey to survey from 4.2 to 3.6. Implementing the rule of law is often frustrating, since what seems right and necessary at the moment must be deferred due to abstract principle and legal maneuvering. Whether fighting crime or waging wars, the temptation to suspend the rule of law is always present. Respondents were asked to rank their own opinion regarding the dilemma between security considerations on the one hand (rank 1) and observance of principles of the rule of law (rank 7) on the other. The 1990 result was 3.4, similar to the survey results in the other years, and indicating a slight preference on the whole for security considerations. Thirty-six percent of the sample placed themselves in the first two ranks, while 14 percent identified their positions as 6 or 7. To get another reading of the priorities of the Israeli population, respondents were also asked to place themselves on a 7-point scale ranging from the opinion that security must always be the highest priority (rank 1), to the opinion that always preferring security considerations above social and economic ones may be more harmful than helpful in the long run (rank 7). The mean ranking in each survey was near 3.0 on the 7-point scale, again indicating a tilt toward security as the highest priority. In 1990, 45 percent of the respondents placed themselves in the first and second ranks, strongly supporting the security position, compared with only 7

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Figure 6.5 Results of the Vote on Security/Rule of Law, 1988

s e c u r i t y « 1 / rule of law • 7

percent in ranks 6 and 7. These attitudes were weakly related to social class variables such as education, and more strongly related to political attitudes and the reported vote.8 These findings reinforce the basic understanding of Israeli public opinion on security matters as being malleable: public opinion is not blocked by immutable bonds to social class or ethnic background. Therefore it is the political system and its leadership that hold the keys for opinion change—or lack thereof. Figure 6.5 displays the results of the 1988 vote on the security/rule-oflaw question. Voters of the Likud and the right, and voters of the religious parties, were much more likely to be near the security pole than were voters of Labor and the left. But the results must be understood in a relative manner; while it was true that the left was farther away from the security pole, it is also important to point out that the score of the left on the security/rule-of-law question was 4.1, just a bit over the midpoint 4.0 of the 7-point scale. So while they were more "liberal" than the voters of the right and the religious party supporters, using this measure the left in Israel was very close to the center in a more absolute sense. In the 1987 survey, the following question was presented: "To what

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extent does the present political leadership give preference to security interests as opposed to the principle of the rule of law, or on the contrary, do they prefer the rule of law to security interests?" Thirty-six percent responded that the leadership preferred the rule of law always (6 percent) and usually (30 percent), and 64 percent thought they preferred security interests usually (53 percent) and always (11 percent). When asked "about the political leadership at the time of independence," the responses indicate that they think that decisions were even more security-oriented in the past than they were at the time of the poll. A very high 76 percent thought that then security interests were always given primacy (28 percent) or usually (48 percent), compared with only 24 percent who thought rule-oflaw issues were always (3 percent) or usually (21 percent) preferred. In response to a more specific question, more than half thought there was sufficient supervision of the activities of the GSS and the Mossad, a little less than a quarter of the sample thought there was too much oversight, while an additional quarter thought there was too little control. This tough-minded evaluation of the security situation is an important characteristic of Israeli public opinion. This same quality was evident regarding a different set of questions asked in the 1987 survey. In the period before the field work, Jonathan Pollard, an American Jew working for the U.S. Navy, had been convicted of spying for Israel. The respondents were asked whether it was "justifiable for Israel to spy on the United States in order to procure information vital for Israel's security." Forty percent of the sample thought this was very acceptable (11 percent) or somewhat acceptable (29 percent), with 60 percent rejecting the notion somewhat (35 percent) or completely (25 percent). Astonishingly, this distribution is almost identical to the responses for a second question: whether it is "justifiable for the United States to spy on Israel in order to procure information vital for America's security." In response to that question, 36 percent responded affirmatively and 64 percent disagreed.

Democracy and Civil Rights Israelis were not unanimous in their evaluation of democracy, but on the whole their assessment was positive. In 1987, 58 percent said that they were pleased (50 percent) or very pleased (8 percent) with the functioning of Israeli democracy, compared with 42 percent who were somewhat displeased (33 percent) or very displeased (9 percent) with it. When asked in 1990 whether or not the political system of Israel was too democratic, 52 percent said it was just right, 34 percent said it was too democratic to a very great extent (7 percent) or certain extent (27 percent), and another 14 percent thought that it was not democratic enough to a very great extent

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(2 percent) or certain extent (12 percent). As in other democratic countries, civilrightswere upheld by Israeli public opinion, especially in their abstract form.9 As they became more concrete, support for these principles dwindled. For example, whereas 87 percent of the 1988 sample acknowledged democracy to be the best form of government, 24 percent accepted the statement that under certain conditions it is best to take the law into your own hands; and 66 percent agreed with the principle that "everyone must have the same rights before the law regardless of their political views," but only 41 percent of that same sample disagreed with the statement that "Jews who commit illegal acts against Arabs should be punished less severely than Arabs who commit illegal acts against Jews." In the event that the territories are annexed to Israel, the public was divided regarding the civilrightsthat should be extended to the residents of the territories. About one in five were in favor of granting these Arabs full rights, including the right to vote in Knesset elections. An additional third was for extending civilrightsbut not the right to vote for members of the Knesset. Leaving the situation as it is now was supported by a third, and the remainder were in favor of decreasing theirrights.As we shall see in the next section, the willingness to extend rights decreased as the intifada continued, among respondents who were asked the question twice within a period of a year. Advancing rights was a good test of the willingness to support democratic principles in a very difficult situation.

Leadership The Israeli public felt that the government should take its opinion into account when declaring war. Two-thirds agreed with that position, while an additional one-third thought it unnecessary for the government to do so. The question was asked in the 1987 survey, with the experience of the Lebanon War fresh in mind. The invasion of Lebanon was the most controversial of Israel's wars, and the public was probably reacting based on its memories of that situation. When asked whether the invasion of Lebanon was worth undertaking in light of the results and the price Israel paid, 37 percent said yes, and 63 percent said no. There was only a slight correlation between the two replies, but for both questions, two-thirds of the sample thought that the public should be considered when declaring war, and that "Operation Peace for the Galilee" (as the military invasion was officially called) was not worth it. Israelis put great stock in the defense of the country, and were respectful of the security establishment, but the cynicism that characterized the society was not far from the surface. For the most part, respondents reported that they trusted the statements of their leadership

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regarding security. Between 70 and 80 percent said they completely trusted these statements, with 20 to 30 percent more reluctant to do so. The motivations of the leadership when making decisions in the security sphere, however, were viewed with a jaundiced eye by the public. When asked whether the country's elected leaders made their decisions regarding security solely on the basis of objective and relevant considerations, or whether other considerations also played a role, one-third reported that objective considerations guided their decisions, and two-thirds thought that considerations other than those of security also played a role. When the same question was asked regarding the IDFs senior commanders, the view was less skeptical, but still far from trusting. Less than half of the respondents thought that the decisions of the army commanders were always motivated only by professional and relevant considerations, and a little more than half thought other considerations also came into play.10 The notion of a strong leader superseding the rule of law has long been supported by Israeli public opinion.11 That tradition was extended in 1988, when the survey respondents were asked whether "A number of strong leaders could benefit the state more than all the talk and laws." Fifty-six percent agreed, 23 percent were not certain, and 21 percent disagreed. In a 1990 survey, the same issue was sharpened by a bolder question, and then the public proved reticent to replace democracy with a strong leader. The question was whether one agreed or disagreed, "given the present situation in the country, to declare a state of emergency and to give up the democratic frameworks provided by the Knesset and the cabinet, and to have a strong head of government with unlimited powers to deal with the situation." Seventy-one percent disagreed, 26 percent agreed, and 3 percent agreed to the arrangement for a limited amount of time. Consensus and Compliance Israelis placed great importance on consensus during times of national security stress. Between 80 and 90 percent agreed it was imperative to support the government during wartime, even if one disagreed with government policies. When asked if criticism was permitted under these circumstances, more than one-third said no, only 9 percent said that even vocal and strenuous opposition was permitted, with more than half of the sample allowing criticism, but of a subdued and restrained manner. The other side of trusting the statements and motivations of the leaders regarding security is the willingness to do as ordered, even if one disagrees with these orders. The War in Lebanon and the intifada made obedience and disobedience to orders a prominent issue in the 1980s. Before that

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decade, Israelis had seen service in the army as an eagerly anticipated duty. The positive reinforcements associated with army service were enormous. The overarching consensus was for service to the country, supported by the aphorism that all citizens are soldiers and that the entire state is the front line. The patriotic duty to serve found expression in basic security myths widely accepted in Israel:12 • • • • •

The guardian of Israel will neither slumber nor sleep (91 percent). If one rises to kill you, kill him first (91 percent). Massada will not fall a second time (85 percent). The Eternal of Israel will not lie (80 percent). It is good to die for our country (69 percent).

The problem of conscientious objection, a very visible issue in the 1990s, had been relatively marginal in the first decades of statehood. Those who had chosen not to serve were seldom mentioned. Some probably left the country in order not to serve; others who were deferred or excused for whatever reasons generally chose not to advertise the fact. The special arrangements by which certain yeshiva students did not serve were widely seen as a necessity of the political parties for coalition purposes, but it was understood that they were exceptions to the norm, rather than the establishment of a new norm. Even after Lebanon and the onset of the intifada, army service and obeying orders were still clearly the societal norms. In the 1990 survey, for example, only 16 percent justified conscientious objection of any form. When asked about one's own hypothetical behavior, specifically relating to service in the territories, 83 percent reported that they would obey orders, 8 percent answered that they would serve in the territories but would request not to have any assignment related to putting down the uprising, 7 percent said that they would request service outside of the territories, and only 2 percent of the sample said that they would refuse the order to serve in the territories. Refusing orders was generally considered an inappropriate pattern of behavior. In the 1987 survey, less than two years after the withdrawal from Lebanon, the respondents were asked about the correctness of certain types of behavior on the part of an officer who disagreed with government policy. Most respondents (about 70 percent) approved of the officer advising superiors of the policy disagreements and asking to be relieved of command. One-third of the sample condoned the officer's expressing opinions in the mass media or writing an anonymous letter on the issues at hand. Only 15 percent of the respondents were of the opinion that it was permissible for the officer to disobey orders.

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Competing Values Values cannot be understood in a vacuum, but must be assessed in relation to competing goals and in terms of the priorities the public places on them. Only in an ideal world can one secure all goals without having to sacrifice some benefits. So too in Israel with topics such as security and democracy. Israel faces the dilemma of having to order the following values: (1) a country with a Jewish majority; (2) Greater Israel (retaining the territories); (3) a democratic state with equal rights for all (including the Palestinians of the territories); and (4) peace, or maintaining a low probability of war. If the country opts for Greater Israel, it must either restrict civil rights for the Arabs of the territories or face the possibility of a country without a Jewish majority, or perhaps raise the probability of war. If it opts for a democratic country with a Jewish majority, then the notion of keeping the territories becomes less attractive. If one wants a Greater Israel with a Jewish majority, the demographic imbalance between the Jewish and Arab populations will have to be redressed. Some support the notion of transfer, while others think denying civil and political rights to the Palestinians renders the issue moot, and yet others believe massive Jewish immigration will solve the problem. The permutations are many, and the substance of these trade-offs is the stuff of Israeli politics. Peace, some on the left tell us, is possible only by returning the territories and avoiding the necessity of dealing with the 1.6 million Palestinians there under Israel's military rule. Activists on the right argue that the strategic depth provided by the territories, coupled with massive Jewish immigration, will strengthen the state, offset the demographic advantage of the Arabs in the territories, and offer the best recipe for a low probability of hostilities. When respondents were asked to rank these four values in 1990, the two goals receiving the most first-place choices were a Jewish majority and peace (see Figure 6.6). The least frequently held value, with the smallest number of first choices, was democracy, with the Greater Land of Israel close behind. Democracy scored higher on later choices; the least frequently chosen priority after the first choice was Greater Israel. This depiction is not the popular view of Israeli politics; rather it flies in the face of those who portray politics in Israel as a struggle between the camp that wants to keep the territories intact and that which is willing to give up parts or all of the occupied territories if this would lead to a secure Jewish state. Conceived as a trade-off between these four priorities, the picture changes. Given the choice between these goals, Greater Israel was not the major value of many; quite the contrary, the most important goals were a Jewish majority and peace; democracy and Greater Israel might serve

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Figure 6.6 Priorities 1990 45%

35%

25%

15%

I Jewish majority

H i Peace

i M Democracy

] Greater Israel

those other ends, but were not viewed by most as ends in themselves. Voters of both the right and the left had more in common in their priorities of values than they had differences. In both cases, a Jewish majority and peace were the two highest values. For voters of the Likud and for parties of the right a Jewish majority and peace were ranked first and second, followed by Greater Israel (see Figure 6.7). Voters for Labor and the left set peace as their highest priority, followed by a Jewish majority, and then democracy (see Figure 6.8). The overlap of priorities is fascinating to consider, notwithstanding the rhetoric of the politicians. Democracy was not a very important issue to respondents on the whole, and neither was Greater Israel. Given four values, there are twelve possible permutations for combining the first and second choices. In fact, eight combinations were enough for the vast majority of the sample; 84 percent arrayed their first two choices as seen in Table 6.1. This array reinforced the basic point: The more important values for most of the population—if made to choose—were a Jewish majority and peace (each with five mentions in Table 6.1), only then followed by democracy and Greater Israel (with three mentions each).

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Figure 6.7 Priorities of the Left, 1988 Vote

40%

20%

0%

Jewish majority

Peace

Democracy

Greater Israel

Democracy

Greater Israel

Figure 6.8 Priorités of the Right, 1988 Vote

40%

20%

0%

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Peace

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Table 6.1 Ranking Values* Rank

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

7. 8.

1st Choice

Greater Israel Jewish majority Peace Jewish majority Jewish majority Peace Peace Democracy

2nd Choice

Jewish majority Greater Israel Greater Israel Democracy Peace Jewish majority Democracy Peace

Percentage of respondents 9 17 6 11 15 19 14 9

8 The order of the items was based on a right-left self-placement continuum. On a 7-point scale with 1 right, and 7 left, 2.3 was the mean for group 1, and 4.6 was the mean for group 8.

The first two—a Jewish majority and peace—were characterized by a higher degree of consensus than were the second two—democracy and Greater Israel. Accordingly, political and rhetorical combat focused on the divisive issues, namely democracy and Greater Israel. The effort to win over Israeli public opinion was centered on these latter issues, even though other values were also invoked. For example, the Likud often used the Greater Israel argument in its appeals, and Labor pointed out that only its policies would allow a democratic regime in Israel. Israeli public opinion viewed things differently, however. Regardless of appeals, both Greater Israel and democracy were valued less highly than a Jewish majority and peace. When asked which party would be better able to secure a list of values, including a Jewish majority, land and peace, democracy, true peace, and tranquility and order in the territories, the Likud consistently scored better than Labor. The only instance in which the public saw the competing parties as equal in the 1990 survey was in regard to democracy. Opinion Change and Security Public opinion in Israel has proven sensitive to both internal and external political developments. A good case in point is the effect of the intifada. The Arab uprising seemed to force the Israeli public and political leadership to think about the future of the territories in a more concrete and realistic manner than it had before.13 It spotlighted for Israelis anomalies that had long been evident, and even written about, but largely ignored. The implication of making no decision about the future of the territories and their inhabitants was brought home more powerfully than it had been

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in the previous twenty years.14 A low-level, protracted situation of constant violence forced Israelis to confront issues that many of them had conveniently pushed aside.15 This was brought to a head as much of the world's mass media treated Israel's policy of attempting to suppress the intifada in a very negative manner. The evidence suggests that the intifada was more intense in its third year—1990—than it had been in 1987.16 By 1990 there were signs that more lethal weapons were being used by the Arabs. Killings of Jews by Palestinian attackers in Jerusalem and Jaffa brought a sense of urgency to the population that had been absent in earlier phases of the uprising. Until Scud rockets actually began falling on Israeli cities in January 1991 the public seemed more concerned with the threat of violence from Palestinian street action than from large-scale attack by Iraqi military forces. The intifada had an impact on Israeli public opinion, as the Israelis said quite clearly. In the 1990 survey 53 percent reported that their opinions regarding security and politics had not changed as a result of the intifada. One in five respondents reported that their opinions had moderated as a result of the intifada, and an additional 28 percent said their opinions had hardened.17 Other indications of the intifada's impact were clear in answers to questions about its effect and these are portrayed in Figure 6.9.18 In 1990 two-thirds of the respondents reported that their vote intention was not affected by the intifada. However, the remaining one-third reported that the intifada had influenced their voting decision: More than 20 percent of the respondents who changed reported that they now planned to vote for the Likud and parties to the right of it, compared to 10 percent who said their vote would now go to Labor and to parties to the left of it. In 1988 the survey was conducted immediately before the elections. In that atmosphere the same pattern was even more pronounced: 48 percent reported no change, 31 percent moved to the right, and 17 percent to the left. In 1988 about half the panel thought that the intifada would have an impact on the upcomimg elections; of those, two-thirds thought the intifada would work in favor of the right, and onethird thought it would further the chances of the left. A more complete analysis of attitude change was made possible by a panel study of 416 respondents, who were interviewed twice, once in the first wave of interviews conducted between December 9,1987 (the day on which the Palestinian uprising began) and January 4,1988; and then again in the survey conducted in October 1988.19 Analysis of their responses indicated three simultaneous processes operating on Israeli public opinion: (1) a generalized hardening of short-term positions since the beginning of the intifada; (2) a steady and increasing moderation of Israeli public opinion on certain long-term issues of security policy over the past few years; and (3) a growing polarization of attitude and political power

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Figure 6.9 Evaluation of Public Opinion as a Result of the Intifada 100%

National Mood H

Territories Arabs

B e t t e r / v o t e left

Personal Mood I

Israeli Arabs

No change

Vote

Live Here

! W o r s e / v o t e right

1990 Survey

between the more conciliatory left and the more hard-line right. As the intifada intensified, intercommunal conflict became more impassioned, IDF difficulties in confronting a hostile civilian population became more prominent, and Israel's failure to reestablish law and order was more widely noted. The dilemmas of the situation sharpened. The Jewish public reassessed the threat posed by the Arabs, and their available short- and long-term options. In terms of long-term goals there seemed to be a trend toward greater moderation and compromise, yet in terms of short-term concerns, policies, and means, Israelis remained as hawkish as ever or became even more hawkish, supporting a strong hand. There was willingness to forsake democratic norms such as the rule of law when these norms jeopardized security concerns, yet that willingness was combined with growing concern about the negative effect of the intifada on the army's morale. Change took place in response to policy questions—but that change was neither monotonic nor uniform. Using a composite measure, the panel on the whole was found to have become militant, but the change was a matter of degree, rather than a complete reversal. In fact, change occurred in both a more militant and a more conciliatory direction, at the same time,

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across issues and across individuals. Four of the questions showed aggregate change in a more dovish direction, four others in a more hawkish direction. On one, respondents indicated greater preference for leaving things as they were. Those that changed in a more dovish direction included the major questions concerning possible long-term outcomes of the conflict: agreeing with the principle of exchanging land for peace versus annexation of the territories, attitudes toward the eventual establishment of a Palestinian state, and toward encouraging Palestinians to leave the country. These results concurred with those of several national cross-sectional surveys, which showed an increase in the number of those willing to consider compromise, return territories, and agree to an eventual Palestinian state. 20 In addition, respondents' assessment of the effect that the army's presence in the territories had on its fighting spirit had become much more negative since the beginning of the intifada. Regarding the question of the Palestinians' civil rights should the territories be annexed, fewer respondents agreed civil rights should be increased in 1988 as compared to 1987, yet most of those who changed their opinion preferred "to leave things as they are now," rather than supporting a curtailment of civil rights. The number of respondents choosing to reduce civil rights actually declined too. This hints at a reluctance to change under pressure.21 During this period of crisis, many opted to retain the familiar rather than experiment with new solutions on this issue, which appeared problematic for both the right and the left. Questions showing a change in the hawkish direction concerned the forced choice the respondents were given between initiating peace negotiations and increasing Israel's military power as the best way to prevent war, and of whether security interests were more important than the rule of law when these two values were in conflict. Change in a more hawkish direction also included the idea of an international peace conference, and negotiations with the PLO. All of these issues referred to means and the short-term time frame rather than long-term goals, although of course these distinctions are not empirically clear-cut. 22 On questions regarding negotiations and various formats for them, it was likely that some opposed negotiations during ongoing violence, and not necessarily because they had come to far-reaching decisions about the Palestinian cause. This is an example of the panel members "rallying around the flag," 23 especially because the two major parties steadfastly opposed negotiations with the PLO, and those views were reiterated during the election campaign.24 Table 6.2 presents the change on policy questions, threat perception, and respondents' vote intention, 25 by descending order of attitude stability. As in other studies,26 vote intention showed the most stability, with a

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Table 6.2 Stability and Change, 1987 to 1988

Vote b Palestinian state Territories Arabs leave International conference Negotiations/military A r a b aspirations 0 Security/rule of law d PLO d Civil rights' 1 IDF*1

Total stable percent

Stable hawk percent

Stable dove percent

Change to more hawkish

Change to more dovish

Net change®

89 74 71 67 65 64 63 50 49 47 43

52 65 37 49 23 14 49 36 22 6 14

37 9 34 18 42 50 14 8 18 28 15

6 11 12 15 22 24 15 36 29 29 23

5 15 17 19 14 13 23 15 22 25 35

+1 -4 -5 •A +8 +11 -8 +21 +7 +4 -12

"Positive net change is in the hawkish direction; negative change is in the dovish direction. b Respondents were divided into one of two categories: Labor and left; and Likud, right and religious parties. c See Figure 6.4. The two responses regarding conquering Israel were here considered hawkish. d These questions include a middle category which was not clearly hawk or dove. The "change to hawk" and "change to dove" categories include moves from and to this middle category.

total of 89 percent retaining their block voting intention for the year between the interviews.27 This was followed by two central policy issues —the future of the territories and the idea of a Palestinian state. On these two issues, three important pieces of evidence stood out: (1) The degree of stability between the two interviews was higher than for any of the other issue questions; (2) The net change was in a dovish direction, although quite modest; and (3) The frequency distribution of these two questions was very different. On the question of the territories the sample split evenly, while on the question of a Palestinian state, a clear majority (about 75 percent) opposed it. The next item in terms of stability referred to encouraging Arabs to leave the country, and here too the trend was in the dovish direction. Another important policy question, regarding negotiations with the PLO, was among the lowest in terms of stability between the two interviews. People had less-entrenched views on this issue, and they were evidently heavily influenced by ongoing developments and by the election campaign. The data presented in Table 6.2 show the complexity of public opinion change in two senses: (1) the different issue dimensions; and (2) the shifts

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of individuals on the issues in different directions. There was much more individual-level change than is evident in the net-aggregate-change figures. Some people responded to the developments by changing to more hawkish views, whereas others moved in the more dovish direction. This was true with regard to all issues (see columns 4 and 5 in Table 6.2, and compare them to the last column, indicating aggregate net shift). The movement between the two surveys was complex but favored the hawkish end of the scale. The other significant trend was the depletion of the center. The middle position shrank by one-fifth between the two time periods, from 34 to 27 percent. The hawk segment grew from one-third to 41 percent, while the dove segment retained its one-third of the sample. The largest categories were of those who did not change between the two questioning periods; in all, half the respondents were in the same category in both time periods. Change was fairly symmetrical, with 5.1 and 5.8 percent, respectively, switching from the extreme hawk to the extreme dove position, and from the extreme dove to the extreme hawk categories. When change was examined by social category, the movement to the right was found to be almost universal. The hawkish direction of change was statistically significant among respondents from Asian and African backgrounds, the religious, those over thirty-five years of age, and men. Respondents under thirty-five began more to the right than did the older group, but both groups shifted in that direction. So too with gender difference: Women and men both moved toward the hawkish pole, with the women starting more to the right. Those closer to the hawkish position had less room for movement than those who began more to the left and moved in a rightist direction. Respondents with all levels of education followed the prevailing pattern toward the hawk pole, but none of the differences were statistically significant. Despite considerable speculation to the contrary, army service in the territories, namely firsthand exposure to the complexities of the occupation, showed no discernible impact on attitudes.28 Respondents who felt most threatened were least flexible regarding policy: as threat perception rose, change toward the militant policy position increased.29 Those who perceived low threat had the lowest score on policy of any of the threat categories, and they were the only ones to change their policy positions in a dovish direction. The middle group barely changed at all. Finally, threat perception was found to be more closely associated with attitudinal change than with political grouping. This suggests that the key to political change rests, in the long run, in alleviating perceptions of threat. This finding, in conjunction with the evidence of the malleability of Israeli public opinion, indicates that the flow of events in Israel influences security, and that change—in both a more conciliatory and a harsher direction—is possible.

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Notes 1. Asher Arian, Ilan Talmud, and Tamar Hermann, National Security and Public Opinion in Israel (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1988), Chapter 5. 2. Surveys reported in this article were comprised of representative samples of the adult Jewish population of Israel. Sample sizes were 1,172 in 1986; 1,116 in 1987; 873 in 1988; and 1,153 in 1990. In 1990, 54 percent of the interviews were conducted before August 2, the day of the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, and 46 percent afterward. The samples did not include individuals from kibbutzim or from the territories. The surveys were prepared and conducted by the National Security and Public Opinion Project of the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv University, directed by the author. The fieldwork was done by the Dahaf Research Institute. 3. For a comparison with European countries, see Jacques-R. Rabier, H. Riffault, and Ronald Inglehart, Euro-Barometer 24 (Ann Arbor, Mich.: InterUniversity Consortium for Political and Social Research, 1986). 4. The wording of the question in the surveys was purposely left vague; were Arab states to be asked about, or Palestinian organizations, or the Arab masses, the response would likely be affected. Asking about "the Arabs" allowed the respondent to focus on aspirations without involving a discussion of intergroup and intragroup differences. 5. Naomi Keis, "The Influence of Public Policy on Public Opinion—Israel 1967-1974," State, Government and International Relations 8 (Hebrew), (September 1975): 36-53; Louis Gutman, "The Israeli Public, Peace and Territory: The Impact of the Sadat Initiative," (Jerusalem: Jerusalem Institute for Federal Studies, 1978); Russell A. Stone, Social Change in Israel: Attitudes and Events 19671979 (New York, N.Y.: Praeger, 1982). 6. See Asher Arian, "A People Apart: Coping with National Security Problems in Israel," Journal of Conflict Resolution (December 1989). 7. Ehud Sprinzak, The Ascendance of Israel's Radical Right (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991). 8. Arian, Talmud, and Hermann, National Security, Chapter 6. 9. Michal Shamir and John Sullivan, "The Political Context of Tolerance: The United States and Israel," American Political Science Review 77 (1983): 911-928. 10. The questions regarding the political and military leadership were asked in both 1986 and 1987 and the response rates were almost identical. 11. Asher Arian, Political Change in Israel: The Second Generation, 2d ed. (Chatham House, 1989), Chapter 12. 12. Numbers are the percentage of agreement from the 1990 survey. 13. Compare William Schneider "'Rambo' and Reality: Having It Both Ways," in Kenneth A. Oye, Robert J. Lieber, and Donald Rothchild, eds., Eagle Resurgent (Boston: Little, Brown, 1987). 14. Gad Barzilai, "National Security Crises and Voting Behavior: The Intifada and the 1988 Elections," in Asher Arian and Michal Shamir, eds., The Elections in Israel—1988 (Boulder, Colo.: Westview, 1990), pp. 65-76. 15. Daniel Bar-Tal, "The Massada Syndrome: A Case of Central Belief," in Norman A. Milgram, ed., Stress and Coping in Time of War (New York: Brunner/Mazel, 1986), pp. 32-51. 16. This section is based on Asher Arian, Michal Shamir, and Raphael Ventura, "Public Opinion and Political Change: Israel and the Intifada," Compar-

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ative Politics (April 1992). 17. The corresponding figures for 1988 were 37 percent, no change; 27 percent, more moderate; 35 percent, more hardened. The apparent differences between 1988 and 1990 may be the result of a larger movement in the initial period, and more stability later. In any event, for both time periods, hardening was more likely than moderation. 18. In 1988,6 percent thought that the intifada improved their own mood, and 5 percent the national mood. On the other hand, 41 percent reported their mood had soured as a result of the intifada, and 59 percent said the national mood had become worse. Seventy-one percent said that the intifada had not changed their desire to live in Israel, and 17 percent reported it had strengthened this desire, while 12 percent thought that it had decreased it. Four percent were more positive about both Israeli and territories Arabs, and 45 percent felt more negative about both groups. 19. The original 1987 survey was comprised of 1,116 respondents, and 416 of these respondents were reinterviewed in the weeks before the November 1,1988 elections. Careful analyses indicated that the panel respondents were representative of both the general population and the original 1987 sample in terms of sociodemographic characteristics and policy attitudes. 20. Gad Barzilai, "The Effects of the Intifada on the Israeli-Jewish Political System," Israeli Political Science Association meeting, Jerusalem, 1989; Elihu Katz, "Majority Hawkish, But Dovish Trend Seen," The Jerusalem Post International Edition (February 18,1989): 5. 21. Robert Jervis, Perception and Misperception in International Politics (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1976); Ole R. Holsti and James N. Rosenau, American Leadership in World Affairs: Vietnam and the Breakdown of Consensus (London: Allen and Unwin, 1984); Charles W. Kegley, Jr., "Assumptions and Dilemmas in the Study of Americans' Foreign Policy Beliefs: A Caveat," International Studies Quarterly 30 (December 1986): 447-472. 22. Michal Shamir and Asher Arian, "The Intifada and Israeli Voters: Policy Preferences and Performance Evaluations," in Arian and Shamir, eds., The Elections in Israel—1988 (Boulder, Colo.: Westview, 1990), pp. 77-92; Morris Fiorina, Retrospective Voting in American National Elections (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1981), Chapter 1. 23. Gregory Flynn and Hans Rattinger, eds., The Public and Atlantic Defense (Totowa, N.J.: Rowman and Allanheld, 1985); Ole R. Holsti and James N. Rosenau, "Consensus Lost. Consensus Regained?: Foreign Policy Beliefs of American Leaders, 1976-1980," International Studies Quarterly 30 (December 1986): 375-409; Benjamin I. Page, Robert Y. Shapiro, and Glenn R. Dempsey, "What Moves Public Opinion?" American Political Science Review 81 (March 1987): 23-43; Bruce Russett and Donald R. DeLuca, '"Don't Tread On Me': Public Opinion and Foreign Policy in the Eighties," Political Science Quarterly 96 (Fall 1981): 381-399. 24. The second-wave interviews were conducted shortly before the 1988 elections, a time when public debate and political awareness were most pronounced. This may be a partial explanation for the incongruence of our results on the issue of negotiations with the PLO with the results of several ongoing surveys of the Jewish public, which showed an increase in willingness to enter negotiations with the PLO over time. Hanoch Smith's time series, for example, reported the acceptability of negotiations with the PLO, if it officially recognized Israel and ceased terrorist activity, moving from 43 percent in April 1987, through 53 percent

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in August 1988, to 58 percent in March 1989. The data were reported in the New York Times (April 2,1989): 1-2. 25. Measured dichotomously by political bloc: Labor and left versus Likud, right, and religious parties. 26. Angus Campbell, Philip E. Converse, Warren E. Miller, and Donald E. Stokes, The American Voter (New York: Wiley, 1960); David Butler and Donald E. Stokes, Political Change in Britain (London: Macmillan, 1969); M. Kent Jennings and Richard G. Niemi, "The Persistence of Political Orientations: An Over-Time Analysis of Two Generations," British Journal of Political Science 8 (July 1978), 333-396; Gregory B. Markus, "The Political Environment and the Dynamics of Public Attitudes: A Panel Study," American Journal of Political Science 23 (May 1979): 338-359; Philip E. Converse and Gregory B. Markus, '"Plus ?a change . . .': The New CPS Election Study Panel," The American Political Science Review 73 (March 1979): 32-49. 27. The total number of respondents switching between Likud and Labor was small. Among them, eleven shifted from Labor to Likud, almost twice the number (six) who moved in the opposite direction. 28. Dan Horowitz, "The Israel Defense Forces: A Civilized Military in a Partially Militarized Society," in Roman Kalkowitz and Andrey Korbuski, eds., Soldiers, Peasants and Bureaucracy (London: G. Allen and Unwin, 1982), pp. 77-106; M. Kent Jennings and Gregory B. Markus, "The Effect of Military Service on Political Attitudes: A Panel Study," American Political Science Review 71 (March 1977), 131-147; Yoram Peri, Between Battles and Ballots (Cambridge, Eng.: Cambridge University Press, 1983); Arian, Talmud, and Hermann,National Security. 29. Karl Birnbaum, "Threat Perceptions and National Security Policies," in Sverre Lodgaard and Karl Birnbaum, eds., Overcoming Threats to Europe: A New Deal for Confidence and Security (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987), pp. 39-67.

7 National Security and the Rule of Law: A Critique of the Landau Commission's Report Mordechai Kremnitzer The Background Its Letter of Appointment required the Landau Commission to deal with two subjects: the investigation methods and procedures of the General Security Service (GSS) on Hostile Terrorist Activity (HTA), and the giving of testimony in court regarding these investigations. As the ground for appointment of the commission, the Letter of Appointment cited the Nafsu case, which was heard by the Supreme Court in Criminal Appeal 124/87. The exposure of the facts regarding the GSS methods of interrogation in the Supreme Court's judgement in the Nafsu case severely undermined the public's confidence in the GSS, and in parallel, caused immense confusion, to the point of a danger of a loss of direction, within the GSS itself. This was not the first shock sustained by the GSS; it was preceded by the shock of the affair known as the No. 300 Bus Affair, which was perhaps even more painful. The Bus 300 Scandal On Thursday, April 12,1984, an Egged Bus on line 300 made its way from Tel Aviv to Ashkelon in the early hours of the evening. While on the highway the bus was hijacked by four Palestinians, who ordered the driver to continue driving due south. A pregnant passenger who did not feel well was allowed to get off the bus and immediately called the police. A state of emergency was declared in the area, and a large assortment of various security forces joined in a frantic chase of the hijacked vehicle. Close to daybreak the bus was stopped by gunfire near the town of Deir al Balah, in the southern sector of the Gaza Strip. Within minutes the bus was A previous draft of this chapter appeared in 23 l.L.R. 216 (1989). That entire issue was dedicated to the Landau Commission's Report.

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stormed and taken over by Israeli security personnel. Two of the hijackers and one passenger—a soldier—were killed. On the initial charge, two other hijackers were beaten by soldiers to overwhelm them and then taken to a nearby field for interrogation. Radio and newspaper reports the next morning carried conflicting accounts as to what really happened. At first the word was that two of the hijackers had been captured alive and two others were killed. Later reports from official sources claimed that all four hijackers were killed. Pictures taken by press photographers, showing two of the hijackers being held by Israeli security personnel, were banned. Facing persistent reports in the world press that two of the hijackers had been killed after being captured alive, Minister of Defense Moshe Arens, acting under Section 537 of Military Justice Law 5715-1955, appointed a commission of inquiry under Meir Zorea, a retired major-general with a reputation for extreme integrity. By the end of May, less than a month after its appointment, the Zorea Commission submitted its report. The report stated that two of the hijackers had died of broken skulls. Accordingly, Zorea and his fellow commissioners recommended further investigation. A judicial commission under State Attorney Yona Blatman was appointed, and submitted its own report in July 1985. Following the findings of the Blatman Committee, it was decided to bring disciplinary proceedings against Brigadier General Yitzhak Mordechai, five GSS personnel, and three police officers. Brigadier General Mordechai and the five GSS people were acquitted, and the attorney general decided subsequently that there was no cause to hold disciplinary proceedings against the three police officers. On May 18,1986, the attorney general submitted a complaint to the chief commander of the police. He noted that he had received information from three top officials of the GSS, which indicated that the factual circumstances as to the involvement of the GSS personnel in the two terrorists' deaths were completely different from the statements and testimony given by GSS staff to the Zorea Committee, the Blatman Committee, and the disciplinary tribunal. The attorney general specified certain facts that pointed to the commission of grave criminal offenses by the GSS personnel (homicide, inducement to give false testimony, and obstruction of justice) and requested the chief commander to order a police investigation, as is customary. On June 25,1986, the president of the state granted a pardon to the director of the GSS and to the three GSS employees addressed in the attorney general's complaint, with respect to "all the offenses entailed in the affair known as Bus 300, following the events of the night between the 12th and 13th of April, 1984, until the signing of this writ." In the course of a police investigation that was conducted pursuant to

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a petition requesting the High Court of Justice to order an inquiry of the affair, the president of the state granted pardons to seven more GSS personnel. The police investigation revealed that the two terrorists were killed by the GSS men pardoned by the president's second pardon, under an order from the head of the GSS. The GSS men who testified before the Zorea Committee, the Blatman Committee, and the disciplinary tribunal were briefed, also under a directive issued by the head of the GSS, to deny GSS participation in the deaths of the terrorists, and acted accordingly. G, a member of the Zorea Committee, and three legal advisors of the GSS (pardoned by the first pardon) participated in these briefings.

The Izzat Nafsu Case An appeal was submitted by Izzat Nafsu, by leave of the president of the Supreme Court, in accordance with Sec. 440-9 of the Military Justice Law, 1955. The findings of facts in the appeal were determined on the basis of the appellant's admission before the Supreme Court of facts that constitute an offense of exceeding authority to the point of imperiling state security, under Section 73(a) of the Military Justice Law, 1955. The prosecution, for its part, agreed to have the Special Court Martial's judgment of June 29, 1982, set aside, in which the appellant was also convicted of grave offenses of treason, espionage, and aiding the enemy during wartime, for which he was sentenced to 18 years' imprisonment from the day of arrest, January 4,1980, and dismissed from the army. It also agreed to have the Military Appeals Court's judgment given on June 29,1986, set aside. Instead, the Supreme Court sentenced the appellant to 24 months' imprisonment, and demoted him from lieutenant to sergeantmajor. Before convicting the appellant of the offense, the Supreme Court convinced itself, on the basis of a thorough clarification that it conducted with the appellant in court, that his confession before the court was a truthful one. As stated in the Supreme Court's judgment, Nafsu maintained in a "trial within the trial" held concerning the confessions he gave to his interrogators in 1980, that during his interrogation, GSS interrogators committed acts of violence against him, which included pulling his hair, shaking him, throwing him to the ground, kicks, slaps, and insults. He was ordered to strip and was sent to take a shower with cold water. He was prevented from sleeping for hours at a stretch and was forced to stand in the prison yard for long hours when he was not being interrogated. He was also threatened with the arrest of his mother and wife, as well as with the publication of personal information about himself that the interrogators possessed.

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These allegations were denied in the testimony under oath of the interrogators, headed by the person who at that time was the head of the GSS interrogation team which had investigated Nafsu's case. The Court Martial preferred their denial over Nafsu's testimony, and after weighing the evidence, in a very detailed judgment, it accepted Nafsu's confessions as truthful and lawfully obtained, and convicted him—principally on the basis of these confessions—on all the counts of the indictment, including the smuggling of combat material for a terrorist organization from southern Lebanon into the country. In its judgment, the Special Court Martial rejected Nafsu's allegations concerning violence exerted on him and threats made against him as did the Military Appeals Court. Some time before the Military Appeals Court gave its judgment, the criminal conspiracy entered into by several senior GSS personnel to obstruct the proceedings of committees investigating the bus affair which occurred on April 12,1984, was revealed. In this conspiracy, a senior GSS official, Mr. Yossi Ginnosar, acted as a "Trojan horse" on the Zorea Committee, as a committee member sitting with Major-General (ret.) Zorea. Mr. Ginnosar also headed Nafsu's investigation. When this disgraceful conspiracy was revealed, the doubts among GSS personnel concerning the justness of Nafsu's conviction, which had existed here and there in the GSS already beforehand, increased, and in January 1987 the new head of GSS ordered that an internal investigation be conducted to reexamine this case. In this investigation, the interrogators admitted the validity of most of Nafsu's claims in the trial concerning means of pressure exerted on him, with the exception of his contentions regarding blows and slaps. As a result, prior to the hearing of the appeal by the Supreme Court, an agreement was reached between the chief military advocate, who represented the prosecution in the appeal and who had also investigated the case himself, and the defense. In the agreement the prosecution, with the concurrence of the attorney general, agreed to annul the judgments of the first two instances, after admitting that because of the means of pressure exerted on Nafsu, it could no longer be argued that the confessions obtained from him were admissible and credible. The appellant Nafsu for his part confessed, in accordance with the agreement, to the lighter offense of which he was convicted by the Supreme Court, as noted above. In the above-mentioned internal investigation, which was conducted in February 1987, Nafsu's interrogators maintained that in using means of pressure they had not gone beyond what was allowed to them in the GSS directives that existed at the time, and—what was even graver—they claimed that even in giving false testimony at the trial within the trial, in which they denied having exerted such pressures, they also had not deviated from accepted practice in the GSS, and this with the knowledge

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of their superiors. These contentions on the part of the interrogators drew not one word of reservation by anyone taking part in the internal investigation.

The Significance of the Landau Report The principal significance of the Landau Commission report lies not so much in its call for a closer scrutiny of the GSS as in its conclusion that, under the provisions of the necessity defense, the moderate exertion of physical pressure is both justifiable and permissible in the interrogation of persons suspected of hostile terrorist activity (Peilut Hablanit Oyenet in Hebrew, or PACHA). This conclusion extends both forward to the future and backward to the past. For the future, it licenses the use of physical pressure in such investigations; as to the past, it lends significant support to another of the commission's conclusions, that no proceedings be instituted against persons found by the commission to bear prima facie responsibility for serious criminal offenses (i.e., perjury at the very least). The Landau Commission did indeed act courageously, both because it published part of its report, and because Justice Landau himself was willing to participate in the public discourse—one not always supportive of his position—that developed in the wake of the commission's report. As Justice Landau has pointed out, the most severe critics of the report, who were also the most strenuous in denouncing the compromise of liberal values for reasons of national security, were Israeli critics. However, it is not at all surprising that Israeli reactions were the most vehement. The application of moderate physical pressure permitted by the report is practiced on behalf of all citizens of Israel—almost as if each and every one of them is doing it in person. And, because rights in Israel are protected not by a bill of rights but by Supreme Court decisions, Supreme Court Justice Moshe Landau's imprimatur on such a report was especially alarming. The Rule of Law: The Formal Aspect

There are two principal meanings to the rule of law. The first is that the powers of government—or, more specifically, those of the executive branch of government—are defined by the law. That is, the government cannot infringe on civil rights without the express and specific authority of law (including the conditions and limits of the infringement, and the identity of the governmental body authorized to act). This is to protect citizens from governmental arbitrariness and, to that end, to ensure

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supervision and control over government, first and foremost by the citizens themselves. Hence the citizens' rights to know the areas and limits of governmental activity. This knowledge also allows the citizen to adjust his expectations and to plan his acts accordingly. Such legal certainty and predictability are important assets of citizens of a state under the rule of law. As Justice Barak wrote in the Katlan case: Every person in Israel enjoys a fundamental right to physical integrity and to the safeguarding of his honour as a p e r s o n . . . . [Tjherefore, in order for the prison authorities to administer an enema without the prisoner's consent and justify a criminal offence and a tort of assault, they must point to a statutory provision which allows them to do so.

Justice Landau stated the case even more clearly:

It may be, therefore, that we are faced with vital interests which are of even greater importance than the need to protect a person's bodily privacy. And as to our Sages, never did they turn a deaf ear to incondemnable necessity, and they always saw a way to make emergency regulations..., when they believed it was necessary, in order to save the public from a heavy calamity.... In the final analysis, however, I, too, am of the opinion that this subject can only be treated through primary legislation or by force of authority clearly granted by primary legislation.

The laws of the land are laid down through legislation, which can be seen as an expression of public view as to the proper balance between different rights and interests. This is a democratic philosophy, purporting that "the people know best." Clearly—and such was the opinion of the Supreme Court in Katlan—the necessity defense is not a legal provision that creates a precisely defined domain of permitted action. Should additional evidence be required, it can be found in the commission's own report, which saw fit to define and limit the use of force by means of binding guidelines. However, the commission did not bother to address the question of the relationship between those guidelines and the necessity defense. If recourse to the necessity defense remains available, as the commission maintained, then those guidelines cannot close off that path. Thus, until the Supreme Court rules otherwise, any investigator can genuinely claim that other methods of pressure, of different types or degree than those permitted by the guidelines, are protected under the aegis of necessity. There is a substantive difference between a situation of necessity, characterized by a conflict between private interests in which one individual is granted the right to harm the interest of another, and a conflict

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between a public interest and a private interest or right, in which the authority is permitted to infringe upon the individual's rights. The difference is to be found not only in that necessity allows the individual greater freedom of action vis-à-vis the authority, while in the latter case, the individual's autonomy and freedom of action shrink before the authority. The necessity defense granted the individual rests on a basis of mutuality, namely, that A may do to B what B would be permitted to do to A in identical circumstances. This basis does not exist in a "necessity" granting power to the authority only. In addition, in a liberal state under the rule of law, in which government is intended to serve the individual, and in which a skeptical or suspicious attitude exists toward government due to its concentration of power with the attendant dangers, granting power to government carries special significance as opposed to granting power to the individual. Moreover, the necessity defense is based upon the unique, isolated, and extraordinary character of the situation that makes it an exception to the rule. The law recognizes the need for natural conduct in very unique, unnatural situations. The individual does not act in accordance with the law, but rather reacts to pressures of the situation or the moment: "Necessity knows no law." Even if one regards necessity as a justification defense, the justification is in effect granted ad hoc, after the fact. Due both to the type of situation foreseen by the defense, of sudden emergency and danger requiring quick reaction, and the general, abstract way in which the defense is worded, it is difficult to conceive of it as guiding behavior in advance in a specific situation. In contrast, granting of power to an authority is an integral part of the legal system, and the exercise of that power in accordance with rules is studied, institutionalized, and normal. At the outset, the concern is not over extraordinary situations, but over typical ones. In retrospect, even the more unusual appears commonplace due to the institutionalization of the authority and its exercise. The very existence of rules permitting the use of force, rather than the situation itself, becomes reason enough to wield the force permitted. The two types of power—"necessity" as a general defense from criminal liability, and the authority granted the government for defined acts—deal with different subject matter, and they must be treated separately. The method of the commission is arguably not merely extralegal but contralegal. Both the special, unqualified provisions of Section 277 of the Penal Law, concerning "oppression by a public servant," and the recognized right of a suspect to remain silent, lead clearly to the conclusion that Israeli law expressly and specifically precludes the use of force in investigations. It should be noted that no exceptional circumstances that might justify an alternative finding were involved here. The situation was neither new nor unknown, as the law has been acquainted with terrorist murder

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since the nineteenth century. The problem of extracting information vital for the saving of human life has been acutely experienced in the past, when hostages were held in life-threatening circumstances. Indeed, the phenomenon is not so special, unique, or unforeseeable as to demand a response so urgent that legislation cannot be enacted in time—quite the contrary! It is reasonable to assume that the legislature considered the question and decided it. Moreover, it cannot be maintained that the situations, though of the same type, are so varied that they cannot be treated in a general manner. The problem in question is specific and characterized by recurrent typical features: special, defined, and detailed statutory regulation would thus be appropriate. Such regulation, which would rest upon substantive conclusions and would therefore have an instructive effect, is clearly preferable to the general formula of necessity, which lacks any value judgment or guiding force. An example of such special regulation is the indications model for abortion. The fact that the commission itself fixed detailed rules for the application of physical pressure demonstrates both the possibility of specifically regulating the issue, as well as the need to do so. Against this background, reason has it that the absence of statutory regulation—in spite of the possibility, advantages, and necessity of such regulation—constitutes a negative response to the question of the existence of the power to use force in interrogations. The commission itself recommends the establishment of a small ministerial committee which will be empowered to reconsider the guidelines as may be thought necessary in light of changing circumstances. The commission takes exception to the view that the activity of the security services in their war against terrorism occurs in a "twilight zone" outside the realm of the law, and therefore the services should be freed from the bonds of the law and must be permitted deviations from the law. The commission stated:

This way must be utterly rejected. The law, which expresses the will of free people, is the keystone for the existence of a state such as ours, which believes in values of liberty and equality. If the GSS, with its immense latent power, is not to be subject to the rule of law in its interrogations, who will determine its way in that regard? Will it be its own conductor or will the political echelon lay down for it a legality of its own?

But is this not the very result the commission ultimately achieved, of legality determined by the political echelon, which is decisively influenced by the recommendations of the heads of the security services? And is this not the same result of which the commission wrote:

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It is easy to see that if this way is followed, control over the GSS is one day liable to fall into the hands of an unscrupulous person or group of persons, and from there to the despotism of a police state it is but a hair's breadth. If we do not preserve the rule of law zealously in this area as well, the danger is great that the work of those who assail the existence of the state from without will be done through acts of self-destruction from within, with "men devouring each other."

Secrecy and uncertainty are fundamental to the effectiveness of interrogation methods, particularly those involving the application of pressure: the suspect never knows what awaits him at the next stage and fears the unknown. It may be assumed that in time, HTA suspects will become aware of the limits set by the guidelines. The information will become available through the day-to-day practice of interrogations and the testimony presented in "trials without trials," and will be passed on through the training frameworks of the organizations. As a result, the available methods for exerting pressure will lose effectiveness and will have to be intensified in a vicious circle. An inherent escalation process will thus require continual intensification, until the methods of interrogation include what the commission too would consider torture. There are also other reasons to assume that moderate pressure may become less moderate. 1. The commission itself states that it may be justifiable to employ actual torture to discover a bomb about to go off in a crowded building, and that there is no significant difference between a bomb set to explode in five minutes and one set to detonate in five days. Furthermore, if the necessity defense can be maintained, then the commission's guidelines need not be viewed as a comprehensive, absolute, and authoritative treatment of the uses of pressure permitted in the interrogation process. In fact, the commission itself employs necessity in defense of past conduct which, in all probability, deviated from the commission's proposed guidelines. 2. The commission points out that even in the past—when there was broader license to employ physical pressure—deviations occurred from the guidelines then in force. It is difficult to imagine conduct free of exceptions, particularly considering, on the one hand, strong personal, institutional, and national motivation and the sanctity of the cause; and, on the other, the fact that the suspects are not "our people" but rather Arabs. 3. Whereas in the past interrogators were restrained by the correct belief that the use of force was prohibited by law—both directly by the duty to obey the law, and indirectly by moral inhibitions stemming from

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this belief—the Landau Commission report has removed that restraining effect. A substantive difference exists between the restraining influence of a general, absolute, qualitative prohibition, and that of a quantitative prohibition concerned only with degree. It is much easier to accept and internalize the more convincing norm that the suspect's body is sacrosanct and injury thereof taboo than to convince oneself of a somewhat arbitrary rule allowing the first and second blows while prohibiting the third, or which forbids using fists while allowing palms. Psychologically, lowering this barrier may sweep away the dam. If a suspect's body is no longer offlimits, what is one more blow relative to the sanctity of the cause? In addition, the use of force is a dynamic process. The more it is employed by an interrogator, the greater his desire to succeed and the lesser his willingness to accept failure. If the first blow fails to yield results, it invites a second, and the information sought becomes ever more essential in order to legitimate retroactively the pressure applied to obtain it. The existence of the license to employ physical pressure—despite its qualifications and limitations in the report—is also liable to constitute a negative incentive regarding the development and perfection of nonviolent means of interrogation, and thus to reduce the effectiveness of the interrogation and increase the number of cases in which recourse is made to physical pressure. What is supposed to be, according to the commission, a last resort may become—out of considerations of efficiency and economy in personnel and time—the first method tried. Physical pressure may become a refuge for the lazy, impatient, unskillful interrogator. The license to apply physical pressure may also increase the number of such interrogators, because following publication of the report, the service may become a magnet for people with sadistic tendencies. As a result of being legalized, the use of physical pressure may also become subject to routinization and bureaucratization, of which one manifestation is the use of softening, suppressing language to describe physical means. This process may dull sensitivity to the true nature of this means and its implications for the person under interrogation, rendering it routine and used even to open an interrogation. In the commission's efforts to be persuasive in its far-reaching conclusions and recommendations without offending the sensibility of readers of the report, it failed—at least in the public part of the report—to clarify the gravity and extreme exceptionality of the use of physical means. Moreover, the guidelines set by the commission may be interpreted as applying to the normal, typical cases, but not exhausting all possibilities for special cases. It is a common belief that alongside every explicit license is a twilight zone of gray areas in which the prohibition is not quite so absolute. Interrogators may also come to view the report as a compromise

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between the requirements of the law and the demands of security, the latter demands receiving only partial expression, out of concern for the state's reputation. It is difficult to imagine that the role of "sewer cleaning" has been totally erased from the self-image of GSS personnel. Neither the commission's understanding, forgiving approach toward past offenses, nor its "flexible" approach to the law can contribute to instilling an appreciation for the importance of abiding by the law in the consciousness of GSS personnel. When interrogators feel that the commission's guidelines interfere with or hamper effective interrogation, there is a great danger that they will deviate from the guidelines with the excuse—legitimized by the commission—of necessitas non habet legem, including, according to the report, necessity that is not real but imagined, as long as the mistake as to its existence is reasonable. Absent an external supervisory body empowered to make surprise inspections of interrogation facilities, and in light of past experience, it is unlikely that such negative developments would be discovered. In such a situation, the commission's aim of adjusting the legal norm to the reality so as to prevent, at a very heavy price, perjury in courts, would not be attained either. By empowering a ministerial committee, the commission paves the road to severe torture. And, if further evidence is sought, it can be found in the history of torture, always characterized by a great disparity between norm and practice. To sum up, the Landau Report violates the formal aspect of the rule of law principle. The Rule of Law: The Substantive

Aspect

The second aspect of the rule of law is substantial. Even if the Knesset was to enact a formal and public law—instead of the executive secret code— permitting the use of moderate physical pressure in investigations, this would still be in violation of the rule of law. This is because the rule of law places limits on expression of public will, limits that are basic and universal norms, derived from natural law and the desire for justice. One of these limits is an absolute prohibition of torture and degrading treatment. The inborn right of liberty, which belongs to every human being as such and distinguishes the human from the nonhuman, finds expression, as Kant put it, in "Unabhängigkeit von eines anderen nötigender willkur" ("independence from another's imposed arbitrariness"). The subjugation of a person's will, coercion to act against one's basic beliefs and nature, is the most serious violation of a person's liberty. A suspect under physical pressure is transformed from subject to object—a reservoir of information, a means for achieving an end that is not his own. The information cannot be extracted without the conscious cooperation of the interrogee,

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whose very consciousness and will are rendered instruments that pass on the information to the interrogator. A suspect so compelled to consciously and actively cooperate with his interrogator against his own interests by incriminating himself, turning over his friends, and betraying a cause dear to him suffers deep indignity. The very use of physical pressure out of a perception of the suspect as an object is injurious to human dignity, regardless of the degree and intensity of this pressure. Such employment of force also constitutes torture, or at least degrading treatment. The terms "torture" and "degrading treatment" are not measured only according to the criterion of physical suffering caused, but also by the subjective sensation of the "treated" and the mental suffering caused him. From the victim's perspective, Hegel has taught us that "Meiner Körper von anderen angetane Gewalt ist Mir angetane" ("Violence inflicted on my body is violence inflicted on me"), where "me" is in the sense of "my spirit." The suspect's endurance is based partly on self-confidence and self-respect; the interrogator's aim is to destroy these components of the suspect's character and self-consciousness. The acts committed against the suspect are colored by their purpose, which accords them special significance in the eyes of the suspect. An occasional cold shower may be commonplace, healthy, and pleasurable under normal circumstances, but it can be degrading treatment when forced upon a person as a means of breaking down his resistance. Subjected to physical pressure by interrogators, a subject feels at the mercy of their whim and helpless before their power. This feeling—as the interrogators must be fully aware—erodes the suspect's self-confidence. In a normal situation, one may at least compensate for an injury to one's own body by resisting the attack and defending oneself from it. Thus one gives expression to one's rights, reclaims self-assurance, and demonstrates self-control. Under interrogation, however, the subject is helpless and objectively defenseless. These effects are all intensified by the license granted by the commission to exert physical pressure on the suspect, as this license renders the suspect's sense of helplessness not only factual, but normative. The law, generally seen as a source of protection, here permits the suspect's injury, obligates him to suffer it, and thus renders him legally helpless. More significant than the actual physical blows and suffering themselves— which should not be taken lightly—is the knowledge that the "taboo" has been lifted from harm against one's body, that "one has given one's back to the smiters," that the legal barrier that protects one's most valuable assets—one's body and liberty—has been lifted. The law itself, originally intended for societal and individual protection, has turned its back and allowed injury to the suspect. It is clear, I think, that in light of all the above, the suspect is caused severe anguish and suffering, and the anguish

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turns even moderate physical pressure, too, into "torture" (or at least "degrading treatment"), as defined in international law. Despite the commission's genuine desire to limit the severity of physical pressure permitted, it recommends means that, by their nature, are capable of overcoming a suspect's considerable resistance (according to the commission's description). Otherwise, of course, there is no point in employing them. Means of this nature, applied with the aim of breaking a suspect's resistance, violate human dignity and necessarily cause severe mental suffering; they constitute, therefore, instruments of torture. This is why in Greece—following the historical experience mentioned by the commission—the proscription of torture in the constitution and in the penal code includes, inter alia, the prohibition of: "jedweder körperlicher Misshandlung oder Gesundheitsbeschädigung oder pshychischen Gewalt" ("any physical mistreatment or injury to health or psychological violence"), as an example of the more general formula "Verletzung der Menshenwürde" ("injury to human dignity"). It turns out, then, that what the commission describes as "moderate physical pressure," which does not reach the point of torture or degrading treatment, is in itself exactly that. What may be moderate as compared to other methods of torture is not moderate in and of itself. The commission, then, ended up permitting what the commission itself considered illegitimate. The respect to human dignity—the most fundamental and important feature of democracy—entails an absolute prohibition of such methods under any circumstances, including a state of war, internal political instability, or any other public emergency. A still worse injury to human dignity relates to the innocent. Where a suspect is innocent and knows no information whatsoever, he is asked to deliver what he does not possess, and the commission permits the use of physical force in order to extract it from him. He has no right to resist, and, even if he cries out, his cries will be in vain. He cannot be aided because, legally, no wrong is being committed. The license to apply physical pressure here turns a particularly terrible wrong into a lawful act. This is degrading treatment by any standards. Other than a quote from the Parker Commission's report, the report contains no discussion of the danger that a suspect may falsely confess under physical pressure, that he may wrongly implicate others, and that his false confession may become but the first link in a chain of false confessions that may very likely lead to wrongful convictions. The all-too-common assumption of the legal system is that an innocent person is better able to withstand pressure than one who is guilty, because innocence creates strong resistance to "confess," and there is the practical difficulty of fabricating a confession, whereas guilt may force its way out. However, this assumption is untested. Much depends on a suspect's physical and mental condition, life experience, imagination,

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fears, and especially experience and ability to deal with pressure situations. All of these obviously differ from one person to another. Particularly dangerous are those situations in which the crime the suspect is expected to confess is relatively minor in terms of its social significance and expected sentence; even more so, situations in which a person is pressed to provide incriminating information about others that does not affect him personally, as here the instinct for self-preservation is inactive. A study carried out on behalf of the British Royal Commission on Criminal Procedure revealed that the pressures that may cause guilty suspects to confess are no different from those that may bring innocent suspects to make false confessions. For this, even such pressures as isolation, fatigue, and a strong display of authority, which fall short of physical pressure, may suffice. One can thus understand why even in ancient Rome torture was regarded as a dangerous means of getting at the truth, it being liable to extract confessions from innocent people wishing to release themselves from pressure. And Beccaria, in 1764, comprehended that the ability to withstand torture is not a function of innocence but rather of the capacity to endure pressure. He stated that there was no better way to acquit the strong and guilty and convict the weak and innocent. Beccaria's description is even more apt to the situation before us today than to the reality of his day. Active members of terrorist organizations have greater endurance to interrogations, primarily due to their training for and/or prior experience of such situations. Thus the danger is especially great of obtaining false confessions from innocent suspects or false information from passive members or merely verbal supporters of terrorist organizations, who may break as the result of their lack of information, experience, and training in interrogations. There is perhaps no greater calamity for an individual, a legal system, or a society than to stigmatize an innocent person and deprive him of his freedom. The commission was aware that in most cases the investigators possess no external evidence to corroborate or refute a suspicion. The suspect's confession is thus almost always the primary evidence of his guilt (and in truth, in light of Israeli law and precedent in the matter of "some additional evidence," the only significant evidence). Therefore, the commission pointed out the importance of obtaining a truthful confession from a suspect brought to trial for HTA offenses. It is odd that cognizance of this situation did not prevent the commission from condoning methods that might endanger the truthfulness of confessions and may lead to the conviction of the innocent. It is all the odder, given the great importance attributed by the commission to the interest of justice, as manifested in its position that the necessity defense cannot justify perjury. Was the commission unaware of the view that it is preferable to acquit ten who are guilty than to convict

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one who is innocent, or did the commission consider this view inappropriate in dealing with HTA suspects? A self-respecting legal system will not permit an innocent person, mistakenly convicted, to cause even light damage to property in order to escape from prison where he is held legally but without cause. However, any self-respecting legal system must ensure that the utmost caution is exercised to prevent conviction of the innocent, and obviously it may not employ means that are liable by their very nature to lead to such a result. Evidently the commission placed confidence in the judgment of GSS investigators regarding the guilt or innocence of suspects. Nevertheless, no investigatory body, particularly including the GSS, should be granted such drastic power over the fate of human beings—the authority to use physical pressure in interrogations, along with the power to decide the fate of suspects—since in practical terms the GSS interrogators' judgment concerning the culpability of the suspects is the decisive judgment. Frederick the Great's description of torture as a means as cruel as it is effective—and, one should add, dangerous as well—was thus exceptionally apt. It applies just as well to "moderate physical pressure." To sum up, the Landau Report violates the rule of law principle from its substantive aspect. National Security Versus Human Dignity Striking a proper balance between state security and other interests is extremely difficult everywhere, and this is especially true in Israel, which faces very real danger to its security. Due to historical experience, there is a strong tendency to identify state security as the mere physical existence of the state. Although state security is an extremely complex interest, the discussion often lacks any effort of concretization: Exactly which aspect of state security is endangered? What is the degree of risk? Other factors add significant obstacles to the process of balancing: the heavy veil of secrecy covering security matters and the natural inclination of those in charge not to take risks, to describe what may be helpful as absolutely necessary and essential; in other words, to color the picture so as to allow maximum efficiency and freedom of action. This might have a crucial impact. Who would dare, in security questions, to reject the opinion of those in charge who are equipped with both expertise and full information? The chances of state security prevailing over other interests are indeed high, notwithstanding the concrete weight of the balanced interests. Without underestimating the interests threatened by terrorist activity, it must be made clear that such activity does not threaten the very

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existence of the state. Contrary to the commission's undiscriminating approach to different types of danger, of information, and of interrogees, one should note that (1) in the typical case, there is no concrete immediate danger to life; (2) the desired information pertains to terrorist organizations as a general source of danger; and (3) the suspects are not only individuals suspected of actual terrorist activities but also a large public suspected of being passive members and/or verbal supporters of terrorist organizations, people not necessarily desirous of the destruction of Israel and who, in any case, are neither actively working toward this end nor attempting to kill Israel's citizens. The commission attempted to present physical pressure as a necessary means for obtaining information but it is not at all clear that this is the case. Precisely because the object of the investigation is not to deal with a concrete and immediate danger but rather to gather general information on terrorist organizations, there are various alternative means of investigation, as well as different means of obtaining information. The commission attempted to present a record of limited and wellcontained use of physical pressure, both in terms of the range of people susceptible to it and the subject matter investigated. Such a portrayal is inaccurate for two reasons: (1) Due to the wide definition of terrorist activity a very large population in the administered territories, and even Israeli citizens, are susceptible, since, as stated, to be interrogated one need only be suspected of terrorist activity and this suspicion may be due to merely verbal expressions of support. (2) History has demonstrated the cancerous nature of the institution of torture and its tendency, typical of all forms of force, to expand, strengthen, and free itself of any conditions or constraints. What begins in HTA investigations of Arabs as moderate physical pressure may turn into severe torture in various types of investigations of both Arabs and Jews. Lifting the taboo against harming the person and dignity of the suspect sets the process of moral regression in motion. The commission attempted to understate the significance of the physical pressure it permitted. For reasons that are dealt with above, however, even moderate physical pressure is a most severe measure, and can even constitute degrading treatment and torture. It is a cruel, and hence unjustified, ineffective and dangerous measure—because of the danger of convicting the innocent and the dynamics of regression from moderate physical pressure to severe torture. As contended in the foregoing, the means permitted by the commission are deeply injurious to supremely important elementary rights— human dignity, autonomy, liberty, and individual security—as well as to the state's ideological foundations, its purpose, and its image. The balancing task before us requires us to address basic questions of the relationship

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between the individual and the state, the role of the state, and the liberty-security relationship. A substantive discussion of these issues is far beyond the scope of this chapter. Suffice it to conclude, therefore, with a number of assumptions that arguably characterize the liberal state under the rule of law. An important purpose of the state as a social institution is obviously to safeguard the physical existence of its society as a whole and of each of its individual members. However, this is a means and not an end. If one regards this function as the be-all and end-all, striving to achieve security at all costs and by any means, one is led to sacrifice liberty on the altar of security. The insecurity of freedom is thus liable to lead to the security of nonfreedom that characterizes a totalitarian dictatorship (Machtstaat). In a liberal law-abiding state, the state is a means for the individual (not vice versa), and its purpose is to ensure each individual's right to decent human existence, one allowing human development, self-realization, human dignity, and autonomy. Security is indeed a necessary condition, but still only a means to this end. On the other hand, as has been pointed out, without strict respect for human dignity it is impossible even to guarantee the individual's physical existence, and thus a license to violate human dignity is injurious to security as well. A liberal state of law is distinguishable from a nonliberal state of law by its emphasis on the supremacy of liberty over security. In a liberal state of law, liberty (as an end) is granted preeminence over security (as a means to that end). This preeminence is expressed by the principle in dubio pro libertate (in doubt, prefer liberty). When it is not clear that greater security is necessary to achieve greater freedom, the decision will favor freedom and oppose its curtailment. If—as in the matter under discussion—it cannot be unequivocally established that the use of coercive physical pressure is essential to security, such pressure must be prohibited. The second difference is that the coercive means used by a liberal state must meet two criteria: they must be capable of serving the end they are intended to serve (zweckrational), and they must be just and moral means (wertrational). How are their justice and morality determined? First, the means must pass the test of universalization: anyone in a similar situation may use them, and may use them against anyone else if the required conditions exist, as determined in advance. Are any of us prepared to accept this with regard to the means allowed in the report? Let us suppose that in a certain state the security service deteriorated to the base level of murdering and laying false blame, while the government as a whole refused to take any action and did everything to prevent an investigation. A group of people, wishing to alert public opinion and stop the abuses, kidnapped the head of the security service, and through the use of physical pressure extorted from him a confession of the crimes. Would the com-

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mission be prepared to allow such action in advance as well? One may point to two additional standards for the justice and morality of means: one is derived from the supreme constitutional principle of human dignity, constituting both an absolute criterion for all other norms and a test of their validity. According to this standard, any measure is obsolete if it is inconsistent with the protection of human dignity and with the prohibition against its violation. As has been pointed out already, physical pressure grievously violates human dignity when it is intended to subjugate a person's will, destroy character, and use the person as a means to obtain information. The other standard is the sense of flagrant injustice aroused by the use of physical pressure in interrogations. This reaction may be found on the personal level, in the aversion and outrage felt at the use of such means, as well as on the collective level. Evidence of this sentiment may be found in the universal denial of the use of physical pressure in interrogations, even where such a practice exists. By both these standards, then, the means of physical pressure is invalid. The commission itself refers to the criterion of the "concepts of morality implanted in the heart of every decent and honest person." The commission's conclusion—at least in its more sweeping form— may be refuted by rephrasing one of its own questions: Are we to accept the offense of assault entailed in slapping a suspect's face or threatening him in order to induce him to reveal the names of members of a terrorist cell, admit his own membership, or admit that he expressed praise, sympathy, or support for a terrorist organization? It suffices that fair-minded people may disagree on the answer or may find it difficult to decide for the necessity defense to be disallowed, at least in such cases. A similar conclusion may be reached if one applies the following tests: (1) If there were true necessity here, it would be difficult to imagine an interrogator refusing to apply physical pressure for reasons of conscience. Yet it is easy to imagine such conscientious objection in a case such as ours, and, what is more important, it is easy to imagine that the commission would agree that such refusal on an interrogator's part should be respected. (2) In a situation of necessity, the gap between the sacrificed and the rescued interests is so large and clear that the victim of the act of necessity is required to accept the injury to his autonomy as an expression of social solidarity that the situation demands. Can a similar demand—not as a practical suggestion but as a moral-legal demand—be made of the suspect on whom physical pressure is applied, in the atypical case where the suspect has a general sense of solidarity with Israeli society? Even if the balancing leads to a different conclusion, one final obstacle remains to reaching the commission's conclusion. As Winfried Hassemer

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claims, it may be that in a normal utilitarian balancing process the value of human dignity does not stand a chance against the value of human life. If this is true, the value of human dignity should be protected by taking it out of the balance, making it unverfiigbar, a part of natural law. Thus, for example, according to the German Code, recourse to necessity requires the additional condition that the act intended to prevent the harm is an appropriate means for the prevention of the danger, according to the fundamental principles of the legal system. For the reasons expounded above, physical pressure in interrogations, being injurious to human dignity, should be viewed as an unacceptable, improper means, which rules out recourse to the necessity defense to justify its use. What the commission recognized as an "incondemnable necessity," in its words, is condemnable, even if one regards it as a necessity. The condemnation is universal and it applies—as all are agreed— also to past uses of torture, in situations where the torturers perceived necessity, correctly in the then existing legal context. Due to the special status of the value of human dignity and the repugnance of the very thought of torture, torture should not be permitted—even in circumstances of concrete and immediate threat to human life. However, this conclusion is based on three additional factors: (1) the danger of the "slippery slope," of which the commission's method is an instructive and very worrying example; (2) the thought that what is usually required in situations where the value of life is placed on one side of the scales, is a tilting of the scales to the other side, in light of the natural tendency to belittle the weight of any interest placed opposite human life on the one hand, and on the other hand, the absence of any real danger of a decline in the value of human life, the protection of which is a human instinct; and the educational-symbolic effect of restricting state power, which limit can only be provided in absolute terms. Nevertheless, after the fact, and considering the exceptional nature of those situations where human life is indeed in concrete and immediate danger, the mental state of the interrogator who violated the prohibition under pressure of circumstance, and the redeeming value of the rescuing effect of his acts, one must seriously consider whether it is justified and necessary to take legal action against him and to hold him criminally responsible. It should be emphasized, however, that there is a difference between a situation where pressure is applied against a person seen placing a bomb in a building in order to force him to reveal the bomb's location or to neutralize it, and the application of pressure against a person who has information about a bomb without having been involved in its placement. Only in the first case does the pressure applied have the character of self-defense against an attacker in a situation of ongoing attack, where the purpose of the pressure is to stop attack or to prevent the attacker from causing harm. Even those of the opinion—not shared by this writer—that

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the exertion of pressure is justified in the first case, should not extend this view to the latter situation, which is one of necessity in the strict sense.

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8

The Press and National Security Pnina Lahav

Something is puzzling about the state of the communications media in Israel. On the one hand it may be described as vigorous and thriving, an optimistic indicator of the healthy state of Israeli democracy. On the other hand, however, it may also be described as stifled and suppressed, an ominous sign of malaise. Take the positive view first: Israel's commitment to democracy anteceded the creation of the Jewish state and is rooted in the practice of the multiparty World Zionist Congress. It appears in Israel's birth certificate, its declaration of independence.1 A democratic commitment was immediately put into practice as nationwide elections took place in January 1949, when the War of Independence was barely over. This election and all the elections that followed strictly adhered to the principle of one person, one vote. Men and women, Arabs and Jews, old-timers and non-Hebrew-speaking, sometimes illiterate, often nonZionist olim (immigrants) all had the right to cast a ballot. The political spectrum, ranging from ultra-left to ultra-right, was well represented in the media and has been so ever since. If in its first decades the Israeli press displayed partisanship and restraint, the last two decades have seen the emergence of a critical spirit of independence. A reader of the Hebrew press would find articles of virtually every imaginable ideological persuasion, often using strong and vociferous language. Investigative journalism is widely practiced. Local papers have mushroomed, covering the life and needs of local communities. Pungent intellectual commentary on current events has also found a niche. To maintain the balance between a thriving press and important interests such as the right to privacy and the right to reputation on the one hand and the requirements of national security on the other hand, a press council was established in the mid-1960s, and has tried, on a voluntary basis, to monitor the press and urge it to observe certain norms of journalistic ethics. The positive view is enhanced by Supreme Court decisions. Back in 1953, during the escalating estrangement between the Ben-Gurion government and MAKI—the Communist party, the minister of interior repeatedly exercised his statutory powers to suspend the publication of the 173

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party's Arabic and Hebrew newspapers (Kol Ha'am and Al Ittihad). In the celebrated case of Kol Ha'am, Justice Simon Agranat held that the principles of freedom of speech and freedom of the press are an integral part of Israel's constitutional system.2 Hence Agranat ruled that suspension of publication cannot be justified unless there was probable danger to national security. Like Marbury vs. Madison3 in the United States, the case became the cornerstone of Israeli public law. In the late 1970s and 1980s, Israel's Supreme Court, under the leadership of its president, Justice Meir Shamgar, and Justice Aaron Barak, had further developed the theoretical and doctrinal foundations of the commitment to free speech. For example, the late Meir Kahane's inflammatory, sometimes venomous, racist speech was held repeatedly to be protected.4 When the Broadcasting Authority, a carefully balanced statutory body in charge of the electronic media, tried to deny live coverage to West Bank Palestinians suspected of links with the PLO, the court in the Zichrony case ruled the decision vague and overbroad.5 In 1988, when a local newspaper in Tel Aviv wished to publish an article naming and criticizing the head of the Mossad, Israel's equivalent of the CIA, the censor objected. In the Schnitzer case, for the first time in Israeli history, the Supreme Court reviewed the power of the military censor to prevent publication of information in Israel. The court unanimously held that the needs of national security did not give the censors a blank check to censor anything they deemed detrimental to the nation's security.6 In a brilliant opinion, Justice Barak, speaking for the court, ruled that security matters are subject to judicial review, like any other administrative decisions. Further, Barak ruled, the burden of proof that actual damage to national security interests is highly probable rests upon the censor.7 The court emphasized that "because of the implications that security-related decisions have on the life of the nation, the door should be opened to a candid exchange of views on security matters. In this context it is imperative that the press be free to serve as a podium for deliberation and criticism in matters vital to the individual and to the community."8 More recently Justice Barak erected another cardinal pillar of free-speech jurisprudence. He held that public officials could not invoke the law of defamation in order to suppress criticism of their activities.9 Of course, the court is not alone in the development of these principles. It is being spurred by that watchdog of democracy—the Association of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties—and by such lawyers as Avigdor Feldman, who have argued the case of Zichrony before the court, and have generally been on guard for violations of free speech. Now comes the negative view: the concept of journalists as guns for hire was exposed as part of Israel's emerging political culture when Prime Minister Ben-Gurion,

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shortly after the establishment of the state, referred to reporters (his critics) as "mercenaries of the pen."10 In so doing, he in fact denied the legitimacy of the role of the press in any true democracy: that of being a watchdog for government abuses. Furthermore, the Knesset and the government left intact the Defense (Emergency) Regulations of 1945 and the Press Ordinance of 1933,11 both of which remain in force to this day. Every Israeli newspaper is required to obtain a permit to publish.12 A license to publish a newspaper was denied as recently as 1989. Souleyman Shakour, an Israeli citizen of Palestinian origin, was denied a permit to publish a Palestinian nationalist monthly in the Hebrew language. The decision denied Israelis who do not read Arabic an opportunity to acquaint themselves with primary Palestinian sources.13 In addition, a permit can be revoked or suspended by the military censor or the district commissioner.14 Not only the press and the electronic media, but the entire publishing industry, are subject to the rules of military censorship. Prior to publication they must submit articles related to certain topics to censorial review. Violations may be punished not only by fines but also by suspensions of publication for any number of days the censor sees fit, or even by revocation of the license to publish.15 In short, regardless of what the court says, Israel's formal system of laws does not recognize the most fundamental guideline of the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution: the distinction between prior restraint and subsequent punishment. Dina Goren, in The Press Under Siege,16 documents the extent to which information on issues vital to Israel, not ordinarily classified as potentially dangerous to national security, have been withheld from the public for political reasons. Informed decisions by the Israeli citizenry, as are essential to a free and democratic government, have thereby been hindered. In Paper Tiger, Israel's foremost commentator on the press, Moshe Negbi, described in detail the various means employed by the government to control the coverage of the 1982 War in Lebanon.17 He warned that the press is in an intolerably vulnerable position since its freedom to report and expose public activity is dependent upon the good will of the government. Unlike the situation in the United States, there is no First Amendment to curb the natural urge of officials to denounce the bearer of bad news, nor, as will be related later, is there a culture of tolerance to nurture and support the legitimacy of dissent. One might ask, Where is the judiciary? The answer is that the court is not unanimous in its commitment to press freedom. There are eleven justices on the court. Unlike the members of the U.S. Supreme Court, they do not sit en banc but in panels of three. A press-related case that comes before a panel of justices who prefer the dry letter of the law to the democratic value of press freedom, will be decided against the press.18 A case in point is that of Hadashot.19 In 1984 this daily was a budding

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newspaper, recently established, committed to both an entrepreneurial style of management and provocative, rather liberal reporting. In 1984 Palestinian terrorists hijacked a bus in southern Israel. After a frightful night the bus was intercepted by the security services. The cabinet spokesperson subsequently announced that the terrorists had been killed in battle. However, it was later made public that they had been shot after the battle was over. The minister of defense ordered an investigation, and Hadashot published these facts. The censor decided that this was a breach of security censorship. He moved to punish Hadashot by suspending its publication for three days. It was an extraordinary step. The entire world soon learned about the episode (it was reported on in detail by the New York Times). Israel's security services may have broken the law of the land. Should Hadashot have been punished for insisting on adherence to the high standards of Israeli democracy, by bringing the shocking truth to the attention of the people? Should Hadashot have been punished for assisting in the safeguarding of the rule of law, which would specifically prohibit the killing of persons who have surrendered to the security forces? Suspension of Hebrew papers had been tabooed in Israel since the KolHa'am decision of 1953.20 At that time the court held that only proof of probable danger would permit a breach of press freedom. One would have expected the court to be very cautious before allowing the government to break this important taboo, but the court nonchalantly observed that under the law the censor is free to suspend. No serious effort to reconcile such a result with previous case law has been undertaken.21 What is the meaning of a case like Hadashotl From the legal standpoint, the court itself is not bound by its precedents, and since it does not sit en banc, it can produce contradictory precedents. There are the precedents of Justices Shamgar, Barak, and Bach upholding press freedom, and there are the precedents of Justices Elon and Dov Levin.22 The latter precedents consider suppression a legitimate part of the legal system. The lower courts are free to choose the precedents that fit their philosophy. Moreover, the overlapping images of the positive and negative views stop at the 1967 borders of the State of Israel. In the occupied territories only one picture obtains, and it is decidedly ugly. Newspapers are closed down and banned at the whim of the military authorities. The eyes of the censor penetrate everywhere. Palestinian newspapers, in contradiction to Hebrew newspapers, must submit all of their materials to the censor, even recipes, advertisements, and obituaries. Often the Palestinian press is denied the right to publish what has already been printed and disseminated in the Hebrew press. Books easily obtainable in Israel are prohibited in the territories.23 The negative view has been ably documented by Meron Benvenisti's center, by the American Committee for the Protection of Journalists, and more recently by Be'Tselem, the Israeli human rights watch organization.24

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Interpretation: The Conventional Explanation Both parts of the picture—the vigorous and lively press protected by the courts, and suppressed expression, licensed, censored, sometimes even punished—constitute integral parts of the Israeli scene. It is tempting to overlook the contradictions and inconsistencies and see a coherent whole. The choice of which part to ignore and which to amplify, would of course depend upon the ideological standpoint of the beholder. Thus one may either hail Israel's commitment to free expression or condemn the lack thereof, and marshal evidence to prove either. Such an endeavor, even if intellectually sincere, would in itself be an exercise in suppression, as the fact of the existence of a puzzle with all its contradictory parts does not fade away simply because one chooses to ignore certain parts. Most commentators concede that both liberal and suppressive elements characterize the performance of the media in Israel, but they are not puzzled.25 Over the years, some conventional explanations of these contradictory elements have developed. All of them contain a grain of truth, but tend to overlook the complexity of the problem. These explanations are generally intertwined or lumped together, but for analytical convenience they can be broken down into four groups26 and discussed separately. 1. The Historical Explanation: The Draconian measures used to suppress the press have been inherited from the British colonial regime and are gradually declining in importance. 2. The Comparative Explanation: Israel is no different from other Western democracies. 3. The Security Justification: Suppression of expression in Israel is necessitated by grave national security concerns. 4. The Monistic or Rule/Exception Justification: The principle guiding Israel's constitutional system is freedom of expression. Occasional suppressions are mere aberrations, or exceptions to the rule. The Historical Explanation The historical explanation begins from the fact that prior to Israeli independence an authoritarian colonial regime had operated in PalestineEretz-Israel.27 This regime had introduced the Press Ordinance of 1933 and the Defense (Emergency) Regulations of 1945 with their elaborate administrative devices to suppress expression.28 These rules were maintained in the transition to independence, primarily because of the grave security concerns that plagued the young state (the national security explanation). The Draconian quality of the normative structure, so runs the explanation, is therefore not "Israeli" since Israelis did not create it;

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the State of Israel, in contrast to its colonial predecessor, has been committed to democracy and hence to freedom of the press; with time, Israeli law will replace the Draconian elements with a system at once attentive to the needs of national security and loyal to the liberal principle of free expression. Both the Kol Ha'am and Schnitzer cases29 may be presented as proof of the validity of this explanation: Kol Ha'am, because it modified the power to suspend newspapers under the Press Ordinance, and Schnitzer because it modified the powers of the military censor to restrain the publication of information. Seemingly very persuasive, particularly in view of Justice Barak's impressive free-speech jurisprudence developed over the last decade, this explanation is in reality hopelessly myopic. In the 1990s, forty-odd years after independence, neither the Press Ordinance nor the Defense (Emergency) Regulations may be called British or colonial. The Press Ordinance operated under British control for fifteen years and has been a part of Israeli law for the past forty-three years; and the Defense (Emergency) Regulations of 1945 were applied by the British for three years and by the Israelis for forty-three years. It is time to concede that these are genuine Israeli devices, not merely relics of an authoritarian past. As will be related presently, there are some indications that Israel's government is planning to retain both devices and incorporate them into Israeli law. Worse, some of the spirit of these devices seems to have been integrated into the Israeli world view. On the level of the judiciary, the strand of limiting the contours of expression is sufficiently strong to suggest that the urge to suppress is powerful and enduring.30 Repeated prosecutions and convictions for violation of censorship regulations on the lower court level prove that neither the Ministry of Justice, in charge of executing the laws, nor the courts interpret the suppressive legal devices as mere relics of the past. Rather, they see them as an integral part of the Israeli legal system. A look at the legislative record proves a similar trend. From time to time one hears of suggestions to reform the Press Ordinance, but one does not hear suggestions to drop it altogether.31 An effort to reform the institution of the military censor (discussed below) was met with significant opposition. A quick study of the bill of rights suggested by the Ministry of Justice (Israel currently has no bill of rights), shows that there is no plan to abandon the control over the press.32 Hence the contention that a historical process is in progress whereby Israel has been undergoing progressive reform, replacing the elements of an authoritarian colonial regime with tolerant and liberal approaches to press freedom, is not really corroborated by Israeli realities. Clearly, some progress has been achieved, but suppression has persisted on a very significant scale. Apologists for the status quo in Israel would dismiss such criticisms. After all, the status of the Israeli media is certainly much more

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secure than that of the media in neighboring Arab countries, and not worse than media status in any other Western democracy. More accurately, other Western democracies committed to press freedom have resorted to similar suppressive devices when they experienced threats to their own national security. This is what has been characterized above as the comparative explanation. The Comparative

Explanation

Naturally, one needs a standard, a yardstick by which to assess Israel's performance. But it would be a grave mistake to use Arab countries as such a yardstick. While it may be true that the rampant suppression in the Arab belt surrounding Israel has left an indelible imprint on the Israeli psyche, it is emphatically untrue that Israel's founders have ever considered the Middle Eastern model an example worth following. Quite the contrary, Israelis have always considered themselves a part of the Western political and constitutional traditions. While it is true that, in comparison to Arab countries, Israel's treatment of its mass media is exemplary, such arguments prove nothing and are merely public relations gimmicks designed to avoid the problematics of the puzzle discussed above. The yardstick provided by Western democracies is a different matter. From its inception Israel aspired to resemble the Western democratic order and adopt its consitutional heritage. However, one needs to draw a distinction between ordinary times and national security crises.33 When the standard for comparison is Western democracies during routine (nonwarlike) times, the attempt to make Israel look good by comparing it to the West can succeed only if the observer ignores the less attractive part of the Israeli reality. After all, no Western democracy has retained the Draconian devices that Israel keeps in its lawbooks as permanent measures. The fallback position of the comparative argument, then, is that Israel is involved in a unique security crisis, and that it resembles other democracies in the sense that when other democracies were confronted by comparable conditions, they too resorted to equally harsh measures. As other contributions to this volume demonstrate, parts of this argument rest on solid foundations. Israel is faced by grave threats to its existence and other Western democracies, when faced by similar threats, reduced the freedom their communications media had generally enjoyed.34 The problem, however, lies with the concept of "security crisis" as applied to the Western democracies on the one hand and to Israel on the other hand. The United States, England, and France, to name just three such democracies, have experienced periods of crisis, but these periods were limited in time. Once the crisis was over, the suppression faded away and ordinary

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consitutional norms were restored. In other words, both the crisis and the suppression to which it gave rise were temporary. Furthermore, once the crisis was over, and with the sobriety that follows the storm, a general understanding had emerged that the suppressive measures taken during the crisis were excessive and unnecessary.35 During the crisis, the commitment of these nations to democracy was at best questionable. In contrast to the West, the conditions of crisis prevailing when Israel came into being have largely persisted ever since. Israel's four and a half decades of sovereignty have been a never-ending chain of national security crises. Unlike the democratic West, then, Israel has experienced crisis as the permanent norm and peace as the temporary exception. Furthermore, there is very little to indicate that its decisionmakers have learned from the lessons drawn by Western democracies in the aftermath of their own crises. In other words, when pressed, Israelis tend to resort to very similar measures of suppression as have been invoked by the West, measures which in hindsight were pronounced abusive and excessive by these societies. For all of these reasons, the comparison of Israel to the experience of the West does not seem helpful. In the West such situations are temporary and are recognized as undemocratic, at least in hindsight. In Israel the situation is permanent, at least for the foreseeable future, and is not generally recognized as posing an obstacle to the democratic process. The National Security Argument Certain information clearly needs to be kept out of the public domain in order to protect the nation's security. The question, however, is how security is defined. Clearly, when Saddam Hussein of Iraq was attacking Israel with missiles (as was the case when this article was being written), it made ample sense to censor the information as to where the missiles hit, so as not to assist enemy targeting. But if the history of governmental suppression teaches anything, it is that the concept of national security has been quite elastic, and has been used by governments to shelter information that was politically embarrassing or that for some political reason the government did not wish the people to know. The Schnitzer case is a good case in point. A local newspaper in Tel Aviv planned to publish criticism of the activity of the chief of the Mossad "casting aspersions on his efficiency."36 The initial position of the censor was that such "criticism . . . is prejudicial to the operational capability of the Mossad, at all its levels . . . [particularly] in regard to relationships both with parallel organizations in other states and with operators in the field."37 In other words, the censor wished to save the Mossad from embarrassing criticism. True, when taken to court, this

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prohibition was declared contrary to Israeli law. But the present argument is different: as late as 1988, after forty years of sovereignty, with a few years of relative calm on Israel's borders and at the heels of the Bus 300 scandal (discussed in greater detail in Mordechai Kremnitzer's contribution to this volume) which has exposed the danger to the rule of law lurking in GSS and Mossad unaccountability,38 Israel's chief censor still thought that the intelligence community should be above criticism39 and the Ministry of Justice, in charge of defending the censor in court, thought the case was worthy of litigation.40 If the Schnitzer case bears some relationship to defense interests, and hence may be used as an example of the familiar phenomenon of overzealous censorship, the censorship of immigration to Israel has clear political color. In March 1990 Israel's cabinet decided on security grounds to prohibit the publication of information related to the Jewish exodus from the Soviet Union.41 The official order to the military censor to implement censorship in this respect constitutes a clear example of the abuse of military censorship for political purposes, and it also illustrates why it would be hard for an Israeli censor to distinguish between matters clearly related to security, hence censorable, and other matters.42 Included in the order prohibiting publication were the number of immigrants arriving in Israel, the estimates of how many were scheduled to arrive, and the European ports of transit. From the outset it seemed clear that the order had a political reason: embarrassed by the outrage of international public opinion precipitated by his declaration that "a large aliya [immigration] calls for a greater Israel," Prime Minister Shamir—a former Mossad officer himself—decided to withhold all information about the settlement of Soviet Jews. The decision caused considerable confusion and opposition in the government, from people who thought that publicity rather than secrecy would better serve the goal of immigration absorption.43 As had happened in Israel many times before, the remedy came from the outside. After major newspapers such as the New York Times had published such information, the military censor gave up and permitted domestic publication as well.44 In September 1990 the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Security Committee appointed a subcommittee to study the question of censorship. The composition of the subcommittee reflected the entire party political spectrum. It came to the unanimous conclusion that the concept of national security applied by the censor was excessively broad.45 The committee wrote: 1. Some of the topics subjected to censorship are a legacy of the distant past, and under present circumstances there is no justification to include them, t46' 2. The long list of censorable topics obscures the raison d'etre

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of censorship, the need to shelter highly classified secrets, the disclosure of which might cause the State actual grave and irreparable harm. 3. Some of the topics presently on the list touch upon the political realm or are relevant to "public morale" and may push the censors to treat subjects outside their jurisdiction. 4. The unreasonable proliferation of topics subject to censorial review might bring about a general condition of disrespect for the censor, and it is likely that such a condition has already occurred.47

The point of this quote is simple: the explanation for the puzzle—the stifling of expression alongside protection of free speech—that it is due to considerations of national security, is not persuasive. It is not persuasive because even a conventionally responsible body such as the Knesset Subcommittee on Censorship concedes that Israeli censorship is excessive. The Monistic, Rule/Exception,

Justification

The elasticity and occasional abuse of the national security argument also affects the strength of the final argument, that in Israel freedom of speech is the rule and suppression its occasional exception. The rule/exception justification is rooted in the tendency of legal scholars to see the world as a coherent whole, and interpret contradictions in dichotomous terms: the legal world is dominated by principles; deviations from these principles are either wrong or constitute exceptions to the rule. But the content of the rule/exception in our case also reflects a yearning to align the Israeli polity with the West, by arguing that in the main Israel does adhere to the principle of free speech and only deviates from it when absolutely necessary, when national security considerations prevail. But beyond wishful thinking there is no good reason to hold that the "positive view" presented above reflects the general situation and that the "negative view" is the exception.48 It is true that the Supreme Court issued a good number of very substantial opinions defending freedom of expression, opinions elaborating at length on the theory of free speech and courageously reaching unpopular results. At the same time, one may find a good number of opinions, perhaps shorter and less elaborate (who wants to elaborate on a theory of suppression?), which either sanction suppression or defer to a governmental restraining order. A good illustration of the weakness of the rule/exception justification is the Knesset Censorship Report of 1990. The report indicates that the committee did consider the possibility of substituting the Defense (Emergency) Regulations with a new censorship law, and decided not to pursue it,49 despite the committee's findings that censorship is often overbroad and overinclusive. If freedom of expression had been the dominant prin-

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ciple in Israel's political and legal culture, and censorship the exception, it is inconceivable that the Knesset would not seize the opportunity to amend the Draconian Defense (Emergency) Regulations so as to conform with the principle (and, for that matter, with the Schnitzer opinion) rather than expose its fragility.50 An Alternative Interpretation The analysis thus far reveals a fundamental premise, namely, that it is not possible to explain away one part of "the puzzle" by treating it as either subordinate or marginal to another part. The current condition of the Israeli media reflects both a meaningful exercise of press freedom and an alarming measure of suppression. What then explains this situation? The beginning of wisdom is to understand that Israel, its self-image notwithstanding, is not a regular Western democracy. What typifies most Western democracies is the experience and history of the Enlightenment:51 the internalization, after centuries of authoritarian rule, of the ideas of self-government, self-fulfillment, and "the search for truth" as foundations for the behavior of the press and its relationship to the government. This does not mean "internalization" in the sense that the practice now conforms to the reality, but rather that the constitutional system by and large does reflect these values. Israel is located in the Middle East, a region that has experienced feudal Ottoman rule and French and British colonial rule, both strangers to Enlightenment philosophy. Its Arab population, therefore, has never had a chance to confront this philosophy. Its Jewish population has largely arrived either from Eastern Europe or from the Middle East and North Africa. None are regions with a history of experimentation with the Enlightenment. While Israel's founders brought with them the socialist statism of Eastern Europe, Israel's Oriental Jews brought with them the pre-Enlightenment religious traditionalism and deference to absolutist government.52 Israel's founders did, however, aspire to a Western democracy, and the "positive view" presented in the beginning of this essay proves that considerable progress had been made in shaping the Israeli reality in light of this ideal. The retention of the colonial laws and the basic approval of their content, as is manifested by their enforcement, proves that this achievement is somewhat qualified. The internalization of Enlightenment values has been hindered by two important forces: Israeli nationalism and the Arab/Israeli conflict.53 Nationalism is at the root of Zionism. The basic idea of Zionism, the liberation of the Jewish people, called for a renewal of the Jewish people along the lines of the nineteenth-century European nation-state: as a people with its own territory and political sovereignty. Nationalism in its

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essence is particularist and in tension with the universal values that form the theories of freedom of expression. Whereas historically Zionism had aspired to maintain a modus vivendi between nationalism and universal values,54 the decades since the Six Day War, and particularly since the 1977 rise to power of the right-of-center Likud party, have seen a significant strengthening of Israel's nationalist spirit. This spirit is at odds with the idea of tolerance for criticism and dissent and considers press freedom in Israel an obstacle to, not a requirement for, Israeli welfare. The Arab/Israeli conflict exacerbates and feeds these trends. For two millennia the Jews were locked within ghettos in hostile surroundings. Experience taught them that self-criticism would often be abused and exploited by ill-wishing outsiders. They developed a suspicion of open expression and brought that suspicion with them to Palestine,55 where it found fertile ground in the local milieu of violent tensions between Jews and Palestinians,56 and was exacerbated by the horrid experience of the holocaust and the bloody War of Independence, which came as Jews were barely beginning to comprehend the dimensions of the holocaust. The fears engendered by this history seemed confirmed by Arab hostility to the State of Israel, and were further deepened by the perceived need, in view of the circumstances, to maintain secrecy and retain a united front. It was in this way that actual national security concerns got mixed up with antipathy to anyone who would break the people's unity or provide information casting Israel in a negative light.57 Further, the understanding of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict in dichotomous terms—that any concession to Palestinian aspirations for national self-determination and sovereignty mean the demise of the State of Israel—placed all expression of understanding or empathy to the Palestinians beyond the pale of acceptable boundaries of tolerance.58 A good metaphor by which to explore the nature of the forces militating against freedom appeared in a letter to the editor in the daily Ha'aretz on December 12,1989. The letter, entitled "There Is a Limit to the Public's Right to Know," denounces Ha'aretz, Israel's most respected daily, for claiming an absolute commitment to the public's right to know. In radio commercials Ha'aretz had promised potential readers that it would publish newsworthy information, even if that information is described (note: neither classified nor censored) as potentially damaging by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The letter writer then proceeds to offer the following metaphor: "I am reminded of a passenger in a ship who drills a hole in his cell's floor. When his fellow passengers protest that the entire ship is endangered if the water penetrates through that hole, he responds: in my cell I am at liberty to do whatever I wish." What this passage invokes is the incredible sense of isolation and fear. Israel is a ship, alone and vulnerable at sea. The anxiety in the metaphor

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is particularly powerful when read against the decades-long Israeli fear that all the Arabs wish is to throw them into the sea. Also interesting in the ship metaphor is the conception of the polity. Passengers on a ship differ radically from citizens in a democracy. The passengers are passive. They neither expect nor are expected to possess the skill or know-how of sailing. Nor are the passengers expected to participate in a deliberation about the particular route to be taken to reach the ship's destination. All of this is exclusively in the hands of the professionals, the captain and crew. In a democracy, on the other hand, civic virtue and political participation are not only a right but a duty. A citizen should have a view about politics, hopefully informed by facts and analysis, and should constantly partake in decisions about the ship's destination. This leads to the final point emanating from the metaphor, the conception of the press. The reader views the press as an irresponsible passenger, acting in pursuit of its self-interest and with total disregard for the public good. It is interesting and symptomatic that the letter does not charge the "passenger" or the press with assisting the enemy. Rather, the letter contrasts self-interest with the collective interest as reflected in the captain's judgment. All deviation from or criticism of the collective line is to the letter's author a harmful and subversive practice, in pursuit of selfish self-interest. The idea that the press, in addition to pursuing business interests, is performing an important civic duty by informing the citizens about the condition and destination of the ship of state, and that such information is essential for the democratic welfare of the state, seems to be totally absent from this description. The ship metaphor resonates with a good number of Israelis, for the Israeli public as a whole feels isolated and scared, yearning to trust its captains. It views information as a weapon in the war against the Arabs, indeed against world public opinion, and therefore sees unauthorized information as subversive. A plurality of views and harsh and vociferous criticism is something many Israelis at worst resent and at best feel Israel, the lonely ship, cannot afford.59

Particularism Versus Universalism: The Military Censor The legal status of the military censor is a good illustration of the complex attitude toward media freedom in Israel. The military censor is the quintessential foe of the press. Operating in good times as well as in bad, it is distinctly more heavy-handed with the Arab than with the Hebrew press.60 But it seems fair to say that its unwelcome presence is felt by both sectors of the Israeli press.61 This situation is in many ways without parallel in democratic societies.

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No Western democracy has a system of licensing. No Western democracy has so much discretion vested in executive officials to grant and suspend permits. No democracy has a censorship bureaucracy operating on a regular basis. Many Western democracies, however, do have what they perceive to be serious security concerns. What would happen to Israel if it should take the radical step of abolishing both the Press Ordinance and the Defense (Emergency) Regulations altogether? Is Israeli security indeed dependent upon a system of censorship, or has the state become addicted to it, in the way a patient becomes addicted to a pain-killer? The censorship has been an inseparable part of the Israeli polity for almost half a century. It carries with it the warmth and comfort of the familiar. Indeed, Israel's media does not know the true taste of freedom or the true test of the responsibility that comes with it. There is always Big Brother to provide guidance. Is it perhaps no more than a pain-killer, whereas the disease, the original cause for the medication, has long been gone? Any attempt to answer this question has to start from a recognition that the abolition of the licensing and censorship systems does not abandon Israel to the mercy of an unfettered press, nor to licentiousness. Four perfectly legal devices, known in every democracy, will still be available to the government to protect information: 1. A censorship system can remain on the books and be activated during a period of "actual" crisis (as distinct from the state of emergency in which Israel has been legally ever since its inception), for the duration of that emergency. Thus, the 1967, Yom Kippur, and Lebanon wars, as well as the more limited military operations (such as Entebbe or the bombing of Osiraq) and the Gulf War, which brought about Iraqi attacks on Israeli civilians, could be sheltered by special censorship rules, activated when necessary. 2. A good system of classification (already in action) is designed particularly for the purpose of protecting that which should be kept secret from the enemy. If it is absolutely necessary to keep the name of the head of the Mossad secret, a classification of top secret, together with the third available device described below, will suffice. 3. The criminal law can and in fact does protect the viability of the classification system.62 Should the press violate any of the classification orders, a prosecution in court, for violation of the classification law, will provide for justice as well as deterrence. In most Western democracies this is the method by which governments protect their secrets. The criminal law, with its elaborate safeguards, also guarantees that the prosecution is not simply a rubber stamp for the government's determination and that the rights to freedom of speech and freedom of the press will remain

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secure. 4. If worse comes to worst and a classified document is about to be published, the government can petition the court for an injunction. This method is used both in Great Britain and in the United States. For example, in the United States it was invoked both in the case of the Pentagon Papers and in the Progressive cases and in Great Britain it was used most recently in the Spycatcher case.63 Of course, one should remember that a failure by either the press or the government in the injunction proceedings is still a triumph for democracy inasmuch as it rests on the determination of an independent court of law as to whether there is a need to bend the principle of freedom of speech. This proposition would be regarded a radical one only in the Israeli context. In fact, the abolition of censorship was upheld by Blackstone more than two hundred years ago, in his famous distinction between prior restraint and subsequent punishment. 64 The advantages of this system are obvious: (1) It stops the suppression resulting from political abuse as well as from bureaucratic inertia, so closely associated with licensing and censorial devices. (2) It takes the power to sanction limitations away f/om the executive branch and puts it in the hands of the judiciary, where manipulation is much less likely and justice is seen, not only done. (3) It is also efficient and cuts costs inasmuch as it directs those good people presently doing the work to more productive and necessary jobs. Furthermore, one need never forget that the legal system is but one aspect of the political culture. The pressures of the political system, which lead to self-censorship and news management, are not and practically cannot be eliminated with the elimination of the Press Ordinance and the Defense (Emergency) Regulations. From this perspective, life will go on just as before. (4) Finally and most importantly, government reliance on court injunctions will bring press freedom in Israel much closer to the state described above as the "positive view." The subject matter was studied by a Knesset committee in 1990. Precipitating the Knesset's undertaking were the growing disenchantment with the limitations put upon the press, a growing yearning to adopt the Western model of media freedom, particularly on the part of younger journalists who tired of what they perceived as the senior generation's complacency, 65 and the support these forces received from the Association of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, from scholars such as Moshe Negby, and from the Supreme Court. But the committee's report was exceedingly disappointing. Despite the awareness of the committee that censorship in Israel is excessive and abusive and undermines the spirit of democracy in the country, the committee came to the conclusion that the status quo should prevail subject to minor modifications. 66

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It is interesting to note that the committee did not even mention the possibility of abolishing the office of the military censor altogether. Rather, the committee considered and rejected the idea of a new censorship law, "which would safeguard the media of communications against arbitrary abuse on the part of the defense authorities, which may be guided by nonsecurity reasons—related to politics or public morale... and at the same time guarantee the vital defense interests of Israel." The reasons for this conclusion are interesting and revealing. The committee advanced three reasons for declining to consider a new law: 1. All the representatives of the media in Israel—official, public and private, editors and journalists—are opposed to such a law. The Committee did not wish to impose on the media a law it is not interested in. 2. The Committee is not sure about the character and content of the new law. The Committee is worried that the Knesset, under the political circumstances prevailing at present and in its current composition, will be unable to issue a progressive and adequate law and that such enactment will prove to be a drawback to the interests of press freedom. 3. The Committee could not agree on the necessity of a new Israeli censorship law. 67

These conclusions reflect the puzzle alluded to above. Some members of the media in Israel are at peace with the status quo and some are eager for change. There is certainly not enough weight, either among members of the media or among the legislators, to change the situation in a meaningful way that would be more in line with Israel's democratic commitments. Furthermore, the fact that the committee explicitly expressed its worries lest the Knesset "under present political conditions and in its present composition" prove incapable of enacting a more progressive censorship law, hinting that a more restrictive and Draconian measure may result, is a sad confirmation of the existence of the "negative view." Indeed, the opposition to press freedom in Israel is strong and lively, it is not fading away, and is not a relic of the past.

Conclusion The attitude reflected in the ship metaphor and the laws concerning press freedom are interrelated. The ship metaphor rests comfortably with the Draconian devices of the Press Ordinance and the Defense (Emergency) Regulations. At the same time, these laws, by virtue of being the law of the land, tend to legitimize the current normative situation, giving it an aura of necessity and even normalcy. (There must be a reason for the law; if there were no necessity there would be no law.) Both threaten the tender

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democratic fiber of Israeli society. But politics, not the concern for more democracy, animates most Knesset members. An analysis of the Knesset subcommittee report on censorship shows clearly that the reasons for retaining the current system are not related to substantive security concerns. Under such circumstances, one may only recommend mild steps of reform, of the kind undertaken by the progressive opinions of the Supreme Court. At the same time, one should aim at strengthening and encouraging the liberal forces in Israel that give rise to and reinforce free expression. One may only hope that the liberal elements will prove more robust than the suppressive ones and that eventually Israel will mature into the liberal and open society it often claims to be but, as has been argued here, has so far not been. The most important intellectual contribution to a study of the performance of the Israeli media in the context of security concerns and the legal regime that regulates it, is not to suppress either side of the picture in an effort to confirm one's sense of outrage or complacency. Israel operates neither as a garden-variety democracy nor as a Third World dictatorship. It is a society struggling with traditionalism, authoritarianism, and nationalism, the latter sometimes masquerading as religiosity. At the same time, Israel does have an impressive record of commitment to liberal and progressive values and enough influential persons in its elite (journalists, commentators, academics, lawyers, and judges) committed to the struggle against what has been described here as the "negative view." One should condemn authoritarian trends when they rear their ugly head, rather than provide apologetic explanations for them or pretend they are merely harmless aberrations. At the same time, one should nurture and support progressive trends when they make their mark, rather than dismiss them as token gestures or lip service, which they are not. It is very difficult to fashion a profound and meaningful practice of openness under conditions of fear and anxiety. Hence the need to appreciate the progress made in Israel thus far. It is true that this is not enough. It may well be that as long as the occupation of Arab land continues the democratic forces in the Israel of the 1967 borders will remain on the defensive. Hopefully sociopolitical conditions will enable invigoration of the democratic forces. In the meantime, one must understand the struggle at hand, make an effort to expose illiberality, and encourage the steps taken toward further democratization.

Notes 1.1.R. 5708; 1 L.S.I. 3 (1948). 2. Kol Ha'am v. Minister Of Interior, 7 P.D. 871 (1953); 1 Selected Judgments

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90 (1948-1953). For a discussion see Lahav, "Israel's Press Law" in Lahav, ed., Press Law in Modem Democracies (New York: Longman, 1985). 3.1 Cranch 137 (1803). 4. Neiman v. Chairman of Central Elections Committee (1984) 39(2) P.D. 225; Kahana v. Broadcasting Authority (1985) 41(3) P.D. 255. 5. Zichrony v. Broadcasting Authority 37(1) P.D. 757 (1983). 6. Shnitzer v. Chief Military Censor 42(4) P.D. 1617 (1988). 7. "In reviewing the reasonability of the military censor's decision, the court has to take into consideration the pattern of facts on the one hand and the evaluation of these facts in light of the close probability of actual danger to security on the other hand. The question in every case is whether a reasonable military censor could reach the conclusion, on the basis of the given facts, that indeed the publication might cause—i.e. that there is a close probability that it might cause—a major or actual damage to the security of the state." Ibid., p. 636. "Every prior restraint of freedom of expression carries a heavy presumption of illegality. A heavy burden rests upon the authority trying to prove that prior restraint in the particular case was valid. The military censor failed to lift this burden." Ibid., p. 644. 8. Ibid., p. 634. 9. Avnery v. Shapira, C.A. 214/89. Another important case, which considerably limited and in fact put to rest the authority of the censorship over plays is Laor v. Film and Theater Censorship Board (1986) 41(1), P.D. 421, where the court overruled a decision to censor a play that negatively portrayed the behavior of the Israeli military in the occupied territories. 10. Dina Goren, Secrecy, Security and Freedom of the Press (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1976), pp. 140-142. 11. Defense (Emergency) Regulations (1945) Palestine Gazette (no. 1442, 1945) at p. 1058 (Supp. II, 1945); Press Ordinance 2, R. Drayton, Laws of Palestine 1215 (1933). 12. Art. 94 of the Defense (Emergency) Regulations and Section 4 of the Press Ordinance, id. 13. Article by Yizhar Beer, Ha'aretz Magazine, (Jan. 1990), p. 16. 14. Art. 94 of the Defense (Emergency) Regulations; Section 19 of the Press Ordinance. See generally Lahav, Israel's Press Law, supra n. 2. 15. Z. Segal, "The Military Censorship: Its Authority, Judicial Review Over Its Activities, and a Proposal for an Alternative Arrangement," Tel Aviv University Law Review 15 (no. 311,1990). For documentation see Lahav, Israel's Press Law, supra n. 2. 16. D. Goren, Secrecy, Security and Freedom of the Press (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1976); and D. Goren, Secrecy and the Right to Know (Tel Aviv: Turtledove Pub., 1979). 17. M. Negbi, Paper Tiger: The Struggle for a Press Freedom in Israel (Tel Aviv: Sifryat Hapoalim, 1985). See also "Paper Tiger: The Struggle For Press Freedom in Israel," Jerusalem Quarterly 39 (no. 17,1986). 18. For a good review of Israel's constitutional structure see A. Maoz, The System of Government in Israel, Tel Aviv Studies in Law 9 (1989). 19. "Hadashot," Inc. v. Minister of Defense (1984) 38(2) P.D. 477. 20. Supra, n. 2. 21. For a critique see Lahav, "A Barrel Without Hoops," Cardozo Law Review 10 (no. 3,1989): 529-560. 22.1 am referring to the dissenting opinions of Justice Elon and Justice Dov

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Levin in Ben-Shalom v. Central Elections Committee arguing (against the majority) that a political party which challenges the characterization of the State of Israel as "a Jewish state" should not be permitted to run in the elections. See Elections Appeal (February 1988). 23. The reality of segregated systems of expression, one relatively free and the other in total bondage, gravely affects both Israeli democracy and the Palestinians of the territories. The Palestinians, denied the taste of a free press under King Hussein's rule prior to 1967, have come to relish it. They see how democracy works, the pleasures of thinking and writing, and they desire the same for themselves. Ironically, the democratic freedoms in Israel are in themselves causes of the intifada, and cannot be removed unless Israeli democracy sacrifices itself on the altar of territorial retention. At the same time, Israelis are getting used to practicing suppression. As masters of the territories, not only do they become masters of the art of stifling press freedom; they are assisted by a whole support system that teaches them that they are doing the right thing. On more than one occasion the Supreme Court of Israel itself ruled that as far as the territories were concerned, the same suppression that is anathema to Israel would be perfectly legitimate. Can the men and women who on a daily basis practice suppression, and persuade themselves and others that it is politically justified, turn around and be, to quote Voltaire, "prepared to be killed so that their [Israeli] opponents retain their right of free speech"? One must wonder about the damage that a twenty-two-year occupation does to those who administer it, and what kind of civic example and education it gives to a substantial portion of Israelis. The true and overriding danger of the segregated systems of suppression and freedom is that the suppression will spill over and flood the freedom within the Green Lines of 1967 Israel. 24. M. Benvenisti, The West Bank Handbook: A Political Lexicon (Boulder, Colo.: Westview, 1988); Journalism Under Occupation: Israel's Regulation of the Palestinian Press B'Tselem, The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, Jerusalem (occasional pamphlets). 25. For a representative sample, see "Conference on Free Speech and National Security," Israel Yearbook on Human Rights 18 (1988): 11-87; Lederman and Tabory, "Criminalization of Racial Incitement in Israel," Stanford Journal of International Law 24 (no. 24, 1988); Rothstein, "Adjudication of Freedom of Expression Cases Under Israel's Unwritten Constitution," Cornell International Law Journal 18 (1985:247); Bernstein, "Freedom of Speech in the Israeli Occupied Territories: The Search for a Standard," N. Y. U. Journal of International Law and Politics 21 (no. 3,1988): 527; Maoz, "Defending Civil Liberties Without a Constitution: The Israeli Experience," Melbourne University Law Review 16 (no. 18, 1988): 815; Cantor, "On Clear and Present Danger, Clear Probability, and Free Speech Standards in Israel," Israel Yearbook on Human Rights 16 (1986: 260); Zamir, "Human Rights and National Security," Mishpatim 9 (no. 17,1989:); Segal, "The Military: Its Authority, Judicial Review over Its Activities, and a Proposal for an Alternative Arrangement, Tel Aviv University Law Review 15 (no. 311, 1990). 26. Since in reality the arguments are interwoven, the act of surgically differentiating them necessarily results in the presentation of ideal types (some would even protest that some are "straw men"). I believe that such an approach is helpful in trying to clarify the problem of press freedom in Israel. 27. Pursuant to the British Mandate (GAORII Supp. 11 Vol. 2,18) the British established a highly centralized system of government which placed ¿1 powers in

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the executive branch. The hostilities between Arabs and Jews led to the ever-increasing centralization of power, structured by the notorious Defense (Emergency) Regulations. 28. See Lahav, "Government Regulation of the Press: A Study of Israel's Press Ordinance, (Parts I and II)," Israel Law Review 13 (1978): 230,489. 29. Supra nn. 2 and 6 respectively. 30. See Hadashot supra n. 19; Shaha v. Dardarian, 39(iv) P.D. 734 (the publication that an Arab resident of the occupied territories is collaborating with the Israeli authorities does not constitute libel since it cannot bring the plaintiff into disrepute); and Spiro v. State of Israel denying review of a conviction for insulting a public servant (Section 288 of the criminal code) and attempting to improperly influence a judge (Section 250 of the criminal code). The defendant was convicted of sending offensive letters to judges, protesting the heavy punishment of a fourteen-year-old Arab found guilty of throwing a Molotov cocktail at a bus in one case and the admission of evidence in another trial where Arab defendants were accused of having murdered a Jewish boy (permission to criminal appeal 3207/90 per Justice Maltz). See also the pending trial of Israeli Arab poet Shafik Habib for publishing a poetry book which amounts to sedition, Ha'aretz Magazine (June 7,1990): 5. 31. AlHamishmar (Apr. 6,1990): 11. 32. See Knesset Bill for Basic Law: The Rights of Man, ... section 19: "the fundamental rights of the person shall not be violated except by law suitable to a democratic state and in proportion not exceeding what is necessary," section 20(b): "Rights according to this basic law may be violated by those serving in Israel's Defense Forces, in Israel's police, in the prison service and in other security services of the state, provided that the violation is in accordance with law and for reasons or organization, order, regime or discipline"; and section 20(c): "the fundamental rights shall not be used for the purpose of damaging the existence of the state, the democratic regime or the suppression of human rights" (author's translation). Each of these sections may be served as a justification for limiting freedom in the name of security. 33. Further, a distinction should be drawn between the Anglo-American model and the continental model, the latter being less tolerant of expression. See Lahav, Press Law in Modern Democracies, supra n. 2. 34. The Iraqi missile attacks on Israeli civilian population centers during the Gulf War is yet another reminder of Israel's vulnerability. 35. See, e.g., R. Errera, "Press Law in France"; A. Sofer, "Freedom of the Press in the United States"; M. Supperstone, "Press Law in the United Kingdom," all in Lahav, Press Law in Modern Democracies, supra n. 2. 36. Supra n. 2 at p. 623. 37. Ibid. 38. For excellent analysis see Mordechai Kremnitzer, "The Landau Commission Report—Was the Security Service Subordinated to the Law, or the Law to the Needs of the Security Service?" Israel Law Review 23 (1989). 39. This in fact is a variation on the pre-Enlightenment English holding that "The King can do no wrong." Another incident is the attempt by Israel's government to ban the U.S. publication of Victor Ostrovsky's book, By Way of Deception. The attempt, The State of Israel v. St. Martin's Press, Inc. and Victor Ostrovsky, M-4087and M-4088, failed in the appellate division of the Supreme Court of New York, Sept. 13,1990. Israel's government claimed that the book, criticizing Mossad practices, would endanger the lives of Mossad agents and other personnel.

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40. The department in charge of defending state agencies before the High Court of Justice, one of the most prestigious in the Ministry of Justice, does not take cases automatically. When in their judgment the case has no merit, they decline the invitation to litigate, thereby forcing the agency in question to refashion its policy. 41. Pursuant to section 28(a) of Basic Law: The Government S.H. 5718.69:12 L.S.I. 85 (1958). 42. This is so because the government itself does not honor the distinction between security and political information and uses the censor to monitor and enforce both types. 43. G. Allon, Censorship from the Hip, Ha'aretz (June 5,1990), Bl. Among those opposing the censorship orders were the director general of the Jewish Agency and Minister of Immigration. As a result of the confusion, those newspapers that had ignored the order simply published whatever information came to their attention. Others, following the order, submitted their stories to censorial review, only to learn that they could not publish them. 44. In a recent debate about media censorship at Tel Aviv University, Israeli television correspondent Moshe Shlonsky pointed out that "All of the major stories broke in the foreign press, and we then did follow-up stories." As examples, he cited the Vanunu affair (an Israeli who had revealed highly sensitive information about Israel's nuclear capability), the assassination of PLO leader Abu Jihad in Tunis, the kidnapping of Sheik Obeid from Lebanon, and relations with South Africa. Tel Aviv University News (Fall 1990) 15. 45. Report of the Censorship Committee (June 12,1990), SH-M 3399. 46. The report refers to the list of topics distributed by the censor. Newspapers are obliged to submit to censorial review all stories falling under one of the topics. 47. Author's translation, censorship report, p. 4. 48. Neither would it be persuasive to hold that suppression is the rule and tolerance the exception. Either phenomenon is sufficiently powerful to resist subordination to the other as its exception. 49. The idea is modeled after the Emergency Powers (Detention) Law of 1979 which replaced the Defense (Emergency) Regulations as applied to administrative detention in Israel (as distinguished from the occupied territories). The 1979 statute restructured the scope of administrative detention and subjected it to judicial review. See generally Bracha, "Addendum, Some Remarks on Israeli Law Regarding National Security," Israel Yearbook of Human Rights 10 (1980): 289. An interesting proposal along this line was put forward by Segal, Military Censorship, supra n. 50. The censorship report also exposes the weakness of the historical and the comparative argument. TTie decline to draft a new law shows that there is no antipathy to the measures inherited from the colonial regime and no linear progress toward more tolerance and liberality. The comparison to Western democracies is weakened since no Western democracy has a censorship law, and it is hard to imagine any Western legislature recommending to leave such authoritarian measures in place. 51. When I say "most" I have Germany in mind as an exception, a society that did not go through the Enlightenment but whose history since the end of World War II shows considerable progress in internalizing the values of liberalism and open society. 52. That attitude also typified many of the Eastern European Jews as it was quite prevalent in Eastern Europe of the beginning of the century.

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53. See Galnoor, "Israeli Democracy in Transition," Studies in Contemporary Jewry 5 (1989): 126; Eisenstadt, The Transformation of Israeli Society (Boulder, Colo.: Westview, 1985); and Lissak and Horowitz, Trouble in Utopia: The Overburdened Polity of Israel (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1989). 54. See Sh. Avineri, The Making of Modern Zionism: The Intellectual Origins of the Jewish State (New York: Basic Books, 1981). 55. The written word has been held sacred and revered in Jewish history. But over the centuries the Jews have also learned to see the pen as an enemy no less formidable than the sword. The (blood) libels, the official and unofficial anti-Semitism, the Protokols of the Elders of Zion, and Der Stiermer all have created suspicion toward the word in the Jewish collective consciousness. A good contemporary example is Saddam Hussein's constant reference to the "Imperialist-ZionistNATO Alliance" against the Arab world (Boston Globe, Feb. 16, 1991). One instinctively fears not only what the gentiles say (e.g., the Protokols), but one also trains oneself not to "hang one's dirty laundry" in public lest the gentiles make use (abuse) of it. Such deep-seated currents, not always clear to the very participants in the drama, are extremely powerful. 56. The Jewish press was then serving in tandem with the Yishuv institutions, all efforts harnessed to the project of founding a Jewish state. 57. There is one more factor to explain the vulnerability of the positive view, and it has to do with Zionism itself. It was Thomas Friedman, in From Beirut to Jerusalem (New York: Farrar, Strauss, Giroux, 1989): 425-450. who had observed the obsession of the Western media with the fulfillment of the Zionist dream. On the one hand, the admiration; on the other, the resentment, the secret wish to see the dream explode. This led to a very skewed coverage of Israel. Journalists sometimes misrepresent and distort the reality of events. For example, in an article in the Philadelphia Inquirer (Sept 6.1989): 11A., "Days of Rage" Gives Distorted Picture, Eric Goldstein has recently observed that the PBS documentary "Days of Rage: The Young Palestinians" was not only one-sided, but also careless with facts. For example, in the film, a witness says that dumdum bullets were used against his brother. Dumdum bullets are banned under international treaties. Goldstein, who works for Mideast Watch, observes that even Palestinian doctors concede that there is no proof that Israeli soldiers are using dumdum bullets. Misrepresentation occurs regularly. This situation puts further pressure on Israel, which in any event feels isolated and misunderstood in the international arena. It fortifies the inclination to treat the press as the enemy and the Arab-Israeli conflict as a public relations problem. Again, such forces militate in favor of more regulation and more suppression. 58. Amendment No. 3 to the Prevention of Terrorism Act. See Galnoor, "Preventing Terror: Just An Excuse," Israeli Democracy (Winter 1990, Tel Aviv: Israel Diaspora Institute): 10; see also Negbi, On Occupation, Intifada, and Crisis in Israel, The Jerusalem Quarterly 52 (Fall 1989): 18-36. 59. For an interesting statistical analysis supporting this point see E. Yaar, "Who's Afraid of a Free Press," Israeli Democracy (Winter 1990, Tel Aviv: Israel Diaspora Institute): 19 (more than 60 percent of Israelis believe that freedom of the press endangers national security). The conviction that silence is a patriotic calling was nicely echoed in remarks made by Hana Zemer, a leading Israeli journalist (former editor-in-chief of Davar, the Labour party's daily). Justifying the Israeli press decision not to publish information about the immigration of Ethiopian Jews to Israel she said: "Would I take responsibility for such a failure [of the immigration] on myself just

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to satisfy my liberal ideal?... N O ! . . . When I saw the plane land and the people getting off I didn't feel happy because I was a member of the exclusive club of the Editor's Committee, but because I am a member of the exclusive club of the Jewish people." Tel Aviv University News (Fall 1990): 14. This statement can be read as an effort to refute the perception emanating from the metaphor discussed in the text, that the press is motivated solely by self-interest. 60. With regard to the Hebrew press, a special agreement with the Editor's Committee governs the censor's operations; see Negby. 61. The same is true also with regard to the foreign press. 62. Sections 117-120, Penal Law, 5737-1977. 63. In the United States see New York Times Co. -v. U.S., 403 U.S. 713 (1971); U.S. v. Progressive, Inc., 467 F.Supp. 990 (W.D. Wis. 1979); A G . v. Guardian (the Spycatcher case), (no.2)(1988) 3 All E R 545 (1990) 1 Ac 109. See also CN, Inc. v. Noriega, 111 S.Ct. 451 (1990). 64. Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1770), pp. 151-152. 65. See, for example, Reuven Pedhazur, military correspondent for Ha'aretz, who criticized the Israeli press for assisting the government "in concealing everything they wish to conceal... to a considerable degree voluntarily and willingly" Tel Aviv University News (Fall 1990): 15. 66. The Committee recommended the following changes in Committee Report, p. 3: 1. That the agreement between the Censor and the Editor's Committee apply to all media of communications in Israel and not only to those media whose editors are members of the editor's committee. This step, if taken, will make the Censor's treatment of the media more uniform and more liberal. 2. That an appeal of a decision of the Censorship Committee would be held before a neutral arbiter, preferably a judge, whose decisions would be appealable under the arbitration law. Currently the appeal is heard by the Military Chief of Staff. 3. That foreign journalists also be parties to the above agreement. 4. That all newspapers be free to cite whatever is published in other newspapers in Israel [the reference is to newspapers published in Arabic] unless the Censor determines that the clear and probable danger standard is met in the spirit of the opinions of the High Court of Justice. 5. That the Minister of Interior and the Censor will not close down a newspaper whose editor is not a party to the above-mentioned agreement, before the newspaper had time to appeal in a court of law. 67. Committee Report, p. 2.

Nuclear Weapons, Opacity, and Israeli Democracy Avner

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Israel often congratulates itself for being the only true democracy in the Middle East. Its political culture is distinguished by a lively and open debate on virtually all matters of public policy. But there is one consistent exception: the nuclear issue. It is probably the only instance in which Israeli democracy—so vital, aggressive, and vocal otherwise—has waived its fundamental responsibilities and looked the other way. The Israeli bomb remains as it has been for a quarter of a century—opaque, invisible, and unacknowledged. Since December 1960, when Ben-Gurion told the Knesset that Israel was building a "peaceful" nuclear reactor near Dimona in the Negev, the nuclear issue has evolved into Israel's "black hole." It stands as the nation's collective ineffable. More than any other matter relating to national security, the nuclear issue is treated in Israel as the ultimate manifestation of kedushat habitachon—the sanctity of security—an issue that both proponents and opponents would rather not talk openly about. Everything relating to "the bomb" has commanded a striking degree of acquiescence from an otherwise democratically energetic public. The paradox of the Israeli bomb is that it is conspicuous in its absence. Another way to express the paradox, using the headlines of articles that appeared in the Economist in two subsequent weeks, is this: The Israeli bomb is "the world's worst-kept secret";1 nevertheless it is also "the bomb that never is."2 On one level, the paradox may be explained by the country's long-held official position. Israel's declaratory stance—sometimes described as the Eshkol formula—neither confirms nor denies the reality of the Israeli nuclear program, pledging only that "Israel will not to be the first nation to introduce nuclear weapons to the Middle East." Since the early 1970s this formula has been understood to be consistent with a posture of "bomb in the basement."3 This policy has certainly had its own political wisdom, and most Israelis still believe it is the right one. This mute consensus, however, is hardly based on any knowledge of the facts. Indeed, the public domain in Israel is wholly deprived of authorized information on any aspects of the nation's nuclear weapons activities, 197

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past or present. Israeli citizens have been left in the dark not only about the activities themselves, but also about the democratic base of those activities. They do not know who has formulated the policies that guide those activities, who has authorized and overseen them, to what democratically elected bodies these decisionmakers have reported, to what extent the nation's nuclear weapons program came into being in due democratic process; that is, did it follow proper formal discussion and decision in the Israeli cabinet, or was the legitimacy of that process "bestowed" only after fact? Given the absence of a constitution in Israel, how much authority does an Israeli prime minister have in making nuclear decisions? How far can the prime minister decide personally? How much authority can the prime minister delegate to the nuclear guardians? How many of these issues should be decided by the whole cabinet? It has been said too often that the whole process of Israeli national security decisionmaking is grossly faulty, on both procedural and substantive grounds. There is no clear formal definition of authority between the top civil servants and the political leadership; nor is there a division of labor and responsibilities between these two levels as to who is in charge of articulating the national security doctrine. Though the cabinet as a collective body is legally the highest seat of national authority in Israel, it generally has been reluctant to take on the task of articulating a coherent overall national strategy. Traditionally this task has been left in the hands of the prime minister, the defense minister, and to some degree the foreign minister. In reality, however, the top civil servants by default have reluctantly found themselves doing this job. The result is a chronic situation of conceptual and political confusion about what the foundations of a coherent Israeli national strategy really are. These chronic problems are even more paradigmatic where nuclear decisionmaking is concerned. Not only is the present legal-democratic grounding of nuclear weapons decisionmaking in Israel utterly opaque, but even its early history— over three decades of activities—is not available. No other national topic, except intelligence, is as opaque as the nuclear issue. One may only wonder how much of that secrecy is designed to protect an unaccountable modus operandi, that is, methods by which the executive branch is free to carry out sensitive activities that are exempted from normal democratic control and political accountability. In Israel, even decades after those activities were carried out, they are still democratically unaccounted for. The veil of secrecy itself is positive evidence of a profound tension between democratic norms and the practice of opacity. To be sure, not only Israel is faced with these problems. Examples of

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this tension were experienced in one way or another by all other democracies that have gone nuclear. Indeed, by looking at the known cases of democracies going nuclear, one can appreciate how intrinsic the by-passing of democratic procedure is to the logic of this process. Against the global background, the Israeli case appears more as a persistent limiting case than as an exception. If in the other cases there is much less problem of researchability, in particular as far as the "old" history is concerned, this does not hold true for the Israeli case. In the latter case, since no "authorized past" exists, we do not know how far democratic procedures were brushed aside. Though one may construe a strong case suggesting that Israeli opacity has allowed nuclear decisionmaking to escape democratic accountability, little hard evidence is available to prove the case. Secrecy is designed to conceal things, and one does not know what one does not know. One must acknowledge, then, not only that there is a serious researchability issue here, but also that this issue is intimately linked with the general problem: nuclear opacity and democracy. The researchability problem is testimony of the unaccountable nature of opacity. And the problem at stake is certainly too important to be left untouched due to the lack of hard evidence. The mission of scientific inquiry in liberal democracy is more than just finding new facts and evidence, but also to raise questions and concerns when evidence is not available. But is it possible to say something that is both meaningful and responsible on an opaque subject? How can one "see" and "read" through opacity? The answer is intimately tied to the paradox of opacity. Though one cannot "see" through opacity directly, one can still sense its presence. Though opacity cannot be observed in itself, its effects can be traced. Opacity has no voice of its own, but it does manifest itself. The absence does present its own marks. The ways by which the nuclear issue is avoided and denied are, in themselves, part of the relevant evidence. As in the case of "black holes" in the exotic world of cosmology, "opaque nuclear programs" such as Israel's, in the equally exotic world of bureaucratic politics, can be traced indirectly. The evidence for their existence is indirect, negative, and circumstantial.

Israel and the Bomb: A Case History Israel's persistent avoidance of any mention of its nuclear program is not unique in itself. A not entirely dissimilar attitude was characteristic of the

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posture of all Western nuclear powers for a number of years. The uniqueness of the Israeli case, however, lies in its persistent opacity. Opacity is what makes the Israeli behavior so radically different from the other examples. In thirty-five years of secret nuclear development, Israel has pushed nuclear opacity to its limits. Though Israel started building its nuclear weapons infrastructure in the late 1950s, and is believed to have assembled its first weapons a decade later, its nuclear activities have remained opaque and unacknowledged. The Israeli bomb is both nowhere and everywhere, invisible but knowable, absent but present.4 Opacity is at extreme odds with democratic-liberal principles, and, consequently, it pushes to new heights the basic tension between nuclear weapons and democracy. In retrospect, there is no doubt that the Israeli project, in line with its Anglo-Saxon counterparts, started as a dedicated—that is, weaponsoriented—program from the very outset. The fact that a reprocessing plant was part of the original plan of the site, and its underground construction is believed to have begun as early as 1958, highlights the goal-directedness of the initial project.5 The Israeli project was conceived by the highest political authority of the land, Israel's first prime minister and minister of defense, David Ben-Gurion. Though Ben-Gurion's thinking about the bomb is not accessible—all of his writings on the nuclear question are still classified—the "old lion" is the true political father of the Israeli bomb. For Ben-Gurion, the bomb was the ultimate reassurance of Israel's security. In a way, it was a response to his own pessimistic outlook about the future of the ArabIsraeli conflict. The bomb was perceived as a way to assure that no military catastrophe could ever be inflicted on Israel against superior Arab conventional forces. It may also have been a vehicle to convince the Arabs that Israel was in fact permanently established. The secret nuclear cooperation between Israel and France, as formalized in a set of agreements between the two governments in October 1957, was the jewel of the "special relationship" between the two states. Out of this cooperation, the Israeli bomb was bom. A certain analogy can be drawn between Prime Minister Attlee of Great Britain in 1947 and Prime Minister Ben-Gurion a decade later. While they faced very different political situations, both leaders became convinced that the bomb was vital for the future of their nations. They recognized that a national nuclear program must be conducted under utmost secrecy and discretion, avoiding detection by foes or friends, abroad or at home. Both leaders wanted to avoid the need to debate the

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issue, clearly concerned about the strategic consequences of a domestic nuclear debate, even among closed circles of top governmental officials, fearing that such debate would inevitably endanger the young project and undermine national security. Due to concerns about expediency and secrecy, both placed the project under their most faithful guardians. Both projects were administered and funded outside normal government channels. The project was exempted from common democratic procedures of bureaucratic and financial accountability. However, the British nuclear project was not only dedicated but also explicit about its mission, as clearly stated when the project was authorized in the formal decision of the ad hoc ministerial committee, known as General Committee 163 and chaired by Attlee himself. The mandate of Gen. 163 was to study the desirability and feasibility of a British bomb. Though due to secrecy considerations Attlee kept the project away from the full cabinet, "he certainly did not take it singlehanded."6 The point is clear: Attlee received the highest formal authorization from his cabinet for undertaking the nuclear plan. In comparison, how explicit and formal was Ben-Gurion in his nuclear pursuit? Consider, for example, the following questions: To what extent, if at all, did Ben-Gurion bring his atomic vision to his cabinet, to the extent that Ben-Gurion had an overall nuclear vision at all, beyond the desire to possess the bomb? Did the prime minister consult or even report the nuclear contacts with France on the eve of the Suez campaign in October 1956 (the Severe meeting)? If not, at what point was the Israeli cabinet briefed about the decisionmaking process that had preceded finalizing the details of the secret French-Israeli nuclear agreements in October 1957? Did Ben-Gurion brief his ministers, or some of them, about the full implications of the French-Israeli nuclear agreements, and if so, to what extent? To what extent was the cabinet—the seat of Israel's highest executive authority—aware of what was going on? In essence, did BenGurion follow democratic procedures in his nuclear pursuit? Evidently, no historically documented answers to these questions are yet available. However, one can make some enlightened guesses, based on the known background material. At least five types of considerations, general and specific, are relevant for such speculation, briefly: (1) the sensitivity of the subject itself as perceived by Ben-Gurion; (2) the French example of going nuclear prior to any democratic authorization; (3) Ben-Gurion's own style of decisionmaking on defense and foreign affairs; (4) the institutional authority of the prime minister's office; and (5) the Israeli ethos of kedushat habitachon. These types of considerations are

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further elaborated below: 1. The far-reaching scope of the French-Israeli nuclear agreements, never made public to this day, made them even more sensitive to Israel than they were to France. Under those agreements France assisted Israel in establishing its nuclear infrastructure, including a reprocessing plant to separate plutonium. Any exposure of the details of the agreements could be politically explosive, with international, regional, and domestic ramifications for both nations. This sensitivity was highlighted by the extreme secrecy that both governments had used. Israeli military censorship banned any publication that could even indirectly hint that such collaboration had taken place. For example, the fact that all but one of the members of the Israeli Atomic Energy Commission (IAEC) resigned from their post, presumably in disagreement over these agreements, was considered for years a most sensitive state secret. Even today the Israeli public is deprived of the facts about this collective resignation. 2. The second consideration has to do with France of the Fourth Republic—a regime that set the historical standard for the art of going nuclear opaquely and incrementally. Under the Fourth Republic significant nuclear activities and decisions were pushed by sympathetic ministers and committed governmental bureaucrats acting on their own. As the supreme seat of authority, the government could maintain correctly that no final political decision was made. The French experience was that a nation can all but build the bomb without the need to bring the issue to a formal and explicit political decision. Utmost nuclear secrecy can hide the fact that the political leadership allows itself to be manipulated. The French way of going nuclear was something that Ben-Gurion's chief nuclear guardians, especially Shimon Peres and Ernst David Bergmann, were personally exposed to, both as observers and participants. 3. The third set of considerations has to do with Ben-Gurion's own modus operandi. More than any other prime minister in Israel's history, Ben-Gurion enjoyed the authority and political legitimacy to act alone, and secretly, especially on matters of national security. This often allowed him to act first, only later reporting his actions to his cabinet colleagues—a tactic he used on the road to the Sinai operation in 1956. 4. The fourth consideration is closely tied to the previous one, having to do with the authority of the prime minister. Though Israeli law declares the cabinet as one collective body, and not the prime minister, to be the source of the executive authority in Israel, in practice the prime minister is regarded as the highest executive authority in the

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land. It was Ben-Gurion's dominant style of leadership that set that practice. This means that the prime minister alone has the final authority in deciding what issues to submit to the cabinet, and when to submit them. As a tradition originated with Ben-Gurion, this privilege has been understood to apply especially to the two most sensitive areas of governmental operations, intelligence and nuclear affairs, whose chiefs report directly to the prime minister. The scope of prime ministerial freedom of action in these areas is practically indefinite, since no Israeli Basic Law set formal legal restraints on the power of the prime minister to act alone. In fact, no Israeli Basic Law sets any limits on executive operations in these areas at all. 5. Finally, one must be reminded that going nuclear is a process that takes place in a broader social, political, and cultural context. In the Zionist ethos of the young State of Israel, the tension between national security and democracy hardly existed as an issue. While the ethos of Zionism is based on democratic consent, the consensus is that when matters of national security are at stake, democratic considerations are a luxury. The nation's security is intimately linked to the state's very survival, and as such, the cause of security must override all other causes, democracy included. The concept of kedushat habitachon manifests this attitude. More than any other Israeli leader, it was Ben-Gurion's leadership that was built on this value. In those days the young democratic institutions of Israel, such as the press and the court system, were very reluctant to challenge the government's judgment on matters of security. Against all of these considerations, one should balance Ben-Gurion's nuclear modus operandi. The nuclear issue was one of the most fateful decisions Ben-Gurion made, and perhaps the most sensitive one for the future of Israel. In launching the nuclear project Ben-Gurion gambled against far-reaching and unprecedented risks. The major source of opposition is the risk that an Israeli nuclear project would open the door for a nuclear arms race in the Middle East. It has always been understood that nothing would be worse for Israel than Arab counternuclearization. If Ben-Gurion was to go nuclear, he had to do it stealthily and nondemocratically. Though the historical documents are not available, one can have a good feel for Ben-Gurion's modus operandi of secrecy and evasiveness on the nuclear issue. Ben-Gurion had neither need nor interest to consult politically about his ultimate purpose. Though it is not known, it seems very unlikely that Ben-Gurion brought his nuclear vision into formal

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cabinet discussion and vote. On the contrary, given the lack of consensus on this matter, political prudence dictated a strategy of secrecy and vagueness in the cabinet. The nuclear agreement with France was too politically sensitive to discuss, and for those ministers who were generally aware of the massive project—the construction activity at the Dimona site in the late 1950s being of unprecedented magnitude in Israeli terms—it was impossible to uncover and grasp the full scope of the project. For example, it is most unlikely that the cabinet knew anything about the reprocessing plant—which identified the project as a dedicated bomb project. In the absence of national consensus, and due to Ben-Gurion's reluctance to stir debate about the bomb, it is almost certain that he deliberately left ambiguous the ultimate goal of the project; apparently it was presented to the cabinet as an "option" to be decided at some later date (that is, when the infrastructure was ready and further decisions were needed) but certainly not as an irreversible act. It was in this environment of total secrecy, when the erected Dimona plant was still called a "textile plant," that the distinctly antidemocratic threads of the Israeli nuclear posture were sewn. From its outset, the nuclear project was recognized as the nation's most sensitive enterprise. The military censor was delegated the job of protecting its secrecy. As in other countries, hypersecrecy made Israel's nuclear project function as a "state within a state." Soon it became a matter of habit: Nuclear affairs were just too sensitive and too complex to be muddled by politicians; they must be run from the prime minister's office. No member of cabinet or lawmaker has ever publicly challenged this practice. When word spread among insiders that Ben-Gurion was funding the secret project in unorthodox ways, using private fundraising among wealthy Diaspora Jews, no politician dared to leak this explosive information to the press. To go public with procedural charges on this sensitive issue would compromise the secrecy of the entire project. Even the strongest political opponents of Ben-Gurion's nuclear project did not dare violate the taboo. Under strict nuclear secrecy, voices of dissidence remained mute. Here the seeds of Israel's nuclear taboo were planted. The Nuclear Debate of the Early 1960s In Israel, as in the other democracies that went nuclear, secrecy has had a double role. While one role of secrecy was to prevent outside exposure and keep the Arabs guessing, another aspect was to keep the Israeli body

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politic in the dark and inhibit domestic nuclear debate. The two roles are closely connected. Since no domestic debate can be kept secret for too long, a debate is likely to increase international exposure. International uproar in turn is likely to incite a sharper domestic debate. As a rule, the desire to repress the democratic debate is intrinsic to the enterprise of going nuclear. As long as Israel's nuclear activities remained unrevealed, domestic debate was avoided entirely. But secrecy on a project of this magnitude cannot last long. On December 18,1960, the New York Times broke the Dimona story, and as expected, it was politically explosive, sparking immediate speculations about Israel's nuclear intentions. The public revelations allowed the U.S. government to ask Israel for an explanation of the matter. For the first time the nuclear issue appeared as a center of American-Israeli tensions. It forced Prime Minister Ben-Gurion to go public on the nuclear issue, confirming the fact that Israel was building a nuclear research facility, including a 24-megawatt research reactor. He stressed, however, that the project would be for "peaceful research" only. In the wake of Ben-Gurion's dramatic announcement in the Knesset, the domestic nuclear debate was opened. Worldwide press speculations about an Israeli bomb in the not-too-distant future stirred in Israel feelings of both patriotic pride and nuclear anxiety.7 The next six years, from 1961 to 1967, was the only period when the nuclear issue came close to being an item on the Israeli political agenda, both internationally and domestically. These were the only years when Israeli democracy attempted, unsuccessfully as it was, to face the nuclear issue and generated a sort of nuclear debate. 8 Though much of the debate was subdued, inhibited, and even obscure, it visibly reflected the mixture of ambivalence, confusion, even discomfort that most segments in Israel's body politic felt. The fear was that a commitment to the "nuclear option" would set the country, and the Middle East as a whole, on a course down the slippery slope of regional nuclearization. The bottom line of the antinuclear camp was that preventing nuclearization of the Arab-Israeli conflict was a supreme Israeli national interest, and that a responsible Israeli leadership had to guard against irreversible nuclear drift. Significantly, the antinuclear voice existed both inside and outside of the government. By 1962 Israel, following the footsteps of other nuclear democracies, began to discover its own nuclear ambivalence, the difficulty of "thinking the unthinkable." 9 The center of antinuclear activity was the Committee for Denuclearization of the Middle East, founded by a group of prominent Israeli scientists and intellectuals, including two of the members of the Atomic

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Energy Commission who had resigned previously over the contacts with France. Its founder and leader was Eliezer Livne, a prominent parliamentarian from the MAPAI ruling party. Briefly, the committee made the general point that nuclear weapons are a radically distinct type of weapon, the only weapon with the unique potential to destroy the whole Zionist experiment. Given Israel's geopolitical and demographic predicament, it simply cannot tolerate nuclearization of the conflict. Israel would never be safe if nuclear weapons were to fall into Arab hands, and the only way to prevent such a danger was to ban nuclear weapons from the entire region. The presumption was that an Israeli advantage in this field would be short-term: sooner or later the Arabs would either produce their own equalizer, or would purchase it from a nuclear power. The implicit assumption was that an Israeli monopoly would be just a transitional stage toward a mutual balance of terror, something that ought to be totally unacceptable for Israel. One could not have a stable nuclear monopoly in the Middle East. The only way to prevent nuclearization of the region, they argued, would be by a political agreement among the parties to create a Middle East free of nuclear weapons. The bottom line of the committee's domestic message was that it was up to Israel to determine the nuclear future of the region. If Israel continued promoting its "nuclear option," the region would sooner or later become nuclearized. During Ben-Gurion's administration the committee acted as an antinuclear lobby. Though it framed its public position in regional terms, its true context was domestic. It saw itself as an intellectual and political opposition against the type of "nuclear activism" headquartered in the offices of the prime minister and the Ministry of Defense. Its two archrivals were Ben-Gurion's most trusted nuclear guardians, Deputy Minister of Defense Shimon Peres, and the chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission and scientific advisor of the Ministry of Defense Ernst Bergmann. Given Ben-Gurion's way of acting alone, the committee was concerned that under the shroud of secrecy he could go nuclear without making appropriate political consultations. Given the dynamics of secret technological development, the committee was certainly aware of the short path from the "option" to the bomb itself once the infrastructure was completed. It should be remembered that by 1962 or 1963 much of the Dimona facility, including the reactor, was about to become operational. Some privately worried that Ben-Gurion might surprise the entire nation one morning by conducting some kind of "peaceful" nuclear test, just as he had stunned the nation in 1961 by launching the Shavit II rocket.

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Once the "option" reached its maturity, Ben-Gurion could present it to the cabinet as a fait accompli. Clearly such an announcement would be received with patriotic pride, and would make nuclearization of the region virtually inevitable. Justified or not, these concerns were based on the strong suspicion that Ben-Gurion and his nuclear guardians did not fully report to the senior ministers about the state of the nuclear project. A public nuclear debate did take place in Israel, but it was repressed and inhibited. In various ways the defense establishment, including the GSS (Shin Bet), made efforts to repress the antinuclear activities of the committee, insinuating that they were damaging national security,10 demanding that the public debate take place under the rigid restrictions of military censorship by the Ministry of Defense, and encouraging selfcensorship by the participants. In its publications the committee could not spell out the full extent of its domestic concerns and suspicions. Whether they were true or not, to debate them openly would harm the national interest. Even the most vigorous critics recognized that the real issues had to remain largely hidden from the public. In Israel, as elsewhere in the West until the 1980s, nuclear critics were elitists, not populist democrats. This elitism was reflected in the activities of the committee, which concentrated on lobbying the leadership of the nation's political parties. Also, in its writings and public lectures it attempted to educate the intelligentsia about the dangers of nuclear weapons in the region.11 To maintain a credible nonpartisan stance, the committee pushed its antinuclear case among all Israeli Zionist political parties, making special efforts to influence policy from within by briefing parliamentarians and other party leaders. Given the scientific and political weight of the committee's leaders, they had good access to prominent political figures, among both the coalition and the opposition parties.12 Among the prominent political figures with whom the committee had contacts were Pinhas Sapir and Levi Eshkol from MAPAI, H.M. Shapira from the National Religious party, Pinhas Rosen of the Progressive party, Allon and Galili from Achdut Ha'avoda, Hazan and Bentov from MAPAM, and others. If in 1962-1963 all major political parties in Israel were engaged in one form or another of internal nuclear debate,13 much of the credit goes to the committee's activities. One way to force more accountability of a secret nuclear program is to politicize the issue. Throughout 1962 a number of attempts were initiated by the committee and by individuals to politicize the nuclear issue—that is, to force the mainstream Zionist parties to consider the issue. Given the committee's suspicions about Ben-Gurion's intentions, politi-

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cizing the nuclear issue made it more difficult for Ben-Gurion to go nuclear on his own. However, these efforts were not particularly successful. As in other Western democracies, the Israeli party system was ill prepared to deal with the nuclear issue. Certainly there was no desire in Ben-Gurion's own party—MAPAI—to publicly confront the prime minister and the leader of the party. Even those MAPAI ministers who had their reservations about Ben-Gurion's nuclear project were reluctant to bring their case to formal discussion in party forums. They considered the issue too secretive, too sensitive, and too complex for discussion within the political system. Coalition parties discussed the nuclear issue in closed and informal forums, without pushing for a party line. Israel's political system, like others in the West, was too ambivalent—hence too reluctant—to make the nuclear question a public issue. In Israel, as elsewhere, nuclear secrecy has proved to have a profound inhibiting effect. In this respect, too, the Israeli case is more of an extreme than a real anomaly. A more sensible strategy of action than politicizing the issue was to mobilize an informal antinuclear camp within the cabinet itself. The committee maintained close contacts with a few cabinet ministers who were known to have both strategic and financial reservations about the wisdom of Ben-Gurion's nuclear program. It was a useful channel of communication for both sides: the ministers received professional insight on nuclear technology and nuclear weapons, while the committee had access to policymakers. In 1962-1963, for example, the committee made a strong lobbying effort to inform decisionmakers and politicians on the significance of the Partial Test Ban Treaty (PTBT). They argued that Israel must sign the PTBT to symbolize its political commitment to prevent nuclearization. But privately they considered the significance of Israel joining the PTBT as more than just a symbolic demonstration. For them it was a way to cap Ben-Gurion's nuclear ambitions, particularly to prevent a situation in which Ben-Gurion could stun the nation one day by announcing a nuclear test. The debate was inhibited not only on the factual level, but also on the intellectual level. Just as it was impossible to state what the debate was really all about, so too were there no clear-cut targets to attack. The antinuclear lobby was shaped as a reaction to the activity of the pronuclear lobby. Yet none of the committee's opponents openly advocated an Israeli bomb. The nuclear advocates in the government kept a guarded posture. Their public statements were rare and abstruse. They preferred to "create" nuclear facts, rather than advocate them openly. Shimon Peres, for example, known as the great champion of the "nuclear option," never

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publicly advocated the nuclearization of the region, or the development of an Israeli bomb. In his public speeches he invoked loaded phrases like "nuclear option," "qualitative edge," "technological base," and so forth, as a way to hint at intentions without explicitly stating them. If in the early 1960s the strategy of the antinuclear camp was to highlight the dangers of regional nuclearization in order to politically delegitimize the possibility that Israel would go nuclear via the "French path," the strategy of the pronuclear camp was nuclear ambiguity through secrecy. While the former wanted to expose the issue and to stir internal debate, the latter wanted to repress such debate. The advocates of the nuclear option opposed debate for both strategic and domestic reasons. Strategically, they wanted to keep an element of nuclear deterrence for Israel by ambiguity—just by keeping others guessing about Israel's capabilities and intentions. Domestically, they wanted to keep the nuclear card very close to their chest, avoiding public debate until the proper moment came; that is, until the government was in a political and technical position to make a nuclear move. And until then, Israel should say as little as possible. Those commentators outside the government who were sympathetic to the pronuclear camp could not be too explicit either, as they had to play by the rules of the military censorship. The word "bomb" in reference to Israeli weapons was banned altogether by the censorship; the only phrase commentators were allowed to use was "the nuclear option." The debate was not on the bomb itself but rather on the prudence of developing a "nuclear option." While one aspect of the tight censorship was to keep the Arabs guessing, another aspect was to keep the debate obscure. The Nuclear Camp at Bay (1963-1967) In one sense, the strategic-political vision of those with reservations about going nuclear has prevailed, at least nominally. Under Ben-Gurion, Israel did not go nuclear. In 1962-1963, as the nuclear infrastructure was being completed, the question of the "nuclear option" was presented and discussed at the highest forums of the Ben-Gurion government in order to make a fateful decision on the nuclear issue: should Israel move ahead with its "nuclear option" and adopt an appropriate nuclear doctrine as part of its basic national security posture, or should it keep a strict R&D "option"? In other words, should Israel follow the basic path of the other nuclear weapons states, as they moved from secret nuclear R&D to visible

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deployment and strategy, or should Israel put things "on hold" at the R&D level?14 Following a series of intense and lengthy discussions, Ben-Gurion's government apparently decided against adopting a nuclear doctrine.15 It accepted Yigal Allon's proposal to continue to concentrate on building up Israel's conventional forces and avoid introducing nuclear weapons to the Middle East. At that point the conventional camp won the argument. As for the "nuclear option," it remained an option. It would be better for Israel to keep its "qualitative edge" in the form of an "option"—as a potential, not an actuality. So, while work on nuclear research would continue, Israel would not cross the nuclear threshold. Operationally this meant that instead of allocating major funds for the tasks required by a nuclear doctrine (e.g., first-strike survivability, and command and control), it was decided to allocate funds to strengthen Israel's conventional weapons, mostly armor and air force. Whether Ben-Gurion himself truly supported this decision, or whether he had to accept it reluctantly, is not known. It is known, however, that in 1961-1963 Ben-Gurion was under heavy political pressure on the nuclear issue, both at home and abroad. In particular, as Dimona got closer to completion, U.S. pressure intensified. In April and May 1963 President Kennedy sent a number of letters to Ben-Gurion on the nuclear issue. Reportedly, the bottom line of those letters was the U.S. demand for strict international inspection of the Dimona facility. On June 16,1963, Ben-Gurion shook the nation when he announced his resignation. The reasons for his resignation were never published, and Ben-Gurion in a brief note referred to "personal needs." The nuclear decisions were left to his successor Levy Eshkol. Less than a month after Prime Minister Eshkol assumed power, Kennedy renewed his pressure. Eshkol, unlike Ben-Gurion, was ready to reconsider the U.S. requests. It was his government that took the steps to execute and solidify the decision not to adopt a nuclear doctrine. On the diplomatic level, Eshkol eased significantly the atmosphere with the United States on this "sensitive matter." In response to a new letter from Kennedy, Eshkol made good Ben-Gurion's old pledge and allowed institutionalized annual visits by U.S. government scientists to the Dimona facility. It was Prime Minister Eshkol who made more explicit the commitment that Israel would not unilaterally nuclearize the region. He moved out of the total-silence policy of the Ben-Gurion government, and made the now-famous statement that "Israel will not be the first to introduce nuclear weapons to the Middle East" into Israel's declared policy. While it is true that a similar phrase had been used previously by

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Shimon Peres during his brief meeting with President Kennedy in 1963, it was mostly for evasive purposes. For the Eshkol government, it was really a political commitment not to cross the line, despite its flavor of ambiguity. On the operational level, while Eshkol continued to support the notion that Israel should prepare a "nuclear option," he reduced its profile. Ambitious projects advocated by the chief nuclear advocate, Chairman of the IAEC, Ernst David Bergmann, were canceled or postponed. In 1966 Bergmann resigned from both posts he held, at the commission and at the Ministry of Defense. His resignation—it is still not clear whether he was forced to resign or whether it was a demonstration of protest and anger— was welcomed by Eshkol, who appointed himself chairman of the IAEC and transferred the agency from the Ministry of Defense to the prime minister's office. This change of guard was another clear signal of a shift in Israel's behavior.16 All these changes were hardly discussed in public. Most of them were not even discussed in the regular meetings of the cabinet, and certainly not in the open sessions of the Knesset. Unlike Ben-Gurion, Eshkol did consult with senior politicians and sought to reach consensus before a decision was made. However, those issues were discussed in small nonformal bodies, including the small Ministerial Committee for Defense Issues. The press hardly discussed those matters on its own. To the extent that the issue was publicly discussed, it was largely through veiled references and leaks, the meaning of which could only be deciphered by insiders. At this fateful junction the nuclear debate in Israel took a new turn. The old parties in the debate changed roles. While during Ben-Gurion's tenure it was the antinuclear opposition that had suspicions and made masked charges against the pronuclear establishment, once Eshkol took over it was the other way around. As the antinuclear, conventional camp got the upper political hand, the old nuclear guardians (by 1966 both Peres and Bergmann were out of official responsibility) began to leak charges about "security blunders." In 1965, as the political rift between Eshkol and Ben-Gurion became irreconcilable, the nuclear issue emerged—still in a veiled fashion—as part of the election campaign. It was Ben-Gurion's new party—RAFI—that suggested that the Eshkol government committed a major "security default" by making unacceptable concessions to the United States on the "sensitive issue"—a common euphemism for the nuclear issue. As stated above, 1961 to 1967 was the only period in Israel's history when some sort of nuclear debate took place. Though the real issues of the debate were hidden, their shadows were projected in the public arena. As

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in Plato's cave, those shadows were both obscure and distorted. Since there was no way to present the issues straightforwardly to the public, the issues were only hinted at by personal charges and countercharges. Even the language became distorted; the terms were emotionally and politically charged, and at times used in bad faith. To the present day, the "nuclear option" remains a most confusing phrase, never clearly defined by those using it, and meaning various things for different people at different times.17

The Decision That Never Was: The Post-1967 Shift Though the seeds of opacity had been planted in Israel with the birth of its nuclear program, it was in the post-1967 era that opacity was established as a strategic and domestic posture. Without altering a dot in the declared nuclear program, its meaning became increasingly opaque as Israel's strategic environment quickly changed. While those changes were made secretly, they soon became known. By early 1968 the CIA learned that Israel was in the midst of a nuclear push, and for the next two years the world press was filled with stories and rumors that Israel had become a nuclear state. By July 1970 U.S. intelligence leaked the story that the United States assumed the Israelis already had an atomic bomb or the makings of one. The secret thus became accepted fact by consensus and ever since that time Israel's undeclared nuclear status has been taken for granted. Though no Israeli-based account of why and how Israel crossed the nuclear threshold has ever been made public, and though the accounts given in non-Israeli sources are sketchy, vague, and unconfirmed, there is sufficient background and context to construe a plausible historical narrative for the birth of the Israeli bomb. As in the French case where the impact of the 1956 Suez crisis led to the final push to develop the bomb, for Israel it was the Six Day War that opened the way for the Israeli bomb. Specifically, three sets of factors make up much of that narrative: the crisis that preceded the war, the changes in defense leadership, and the new postwar strategic and domestic environment. As is so common, those factors are interrelated. At no time in its short history had Israel experienced such acute anxiety over its survival as it did during the crisis weeks that preceded the Six Day War. As the Egyptians concentrated massive forces in the Sinai and Gaza, the world looked the other way. The perception in Israel was

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not only of international isolation, but worse, a profound sense of abandonment and betrayal at the nation's moment of highest need. This sense of political isolation intensified the national anxiety. For a nation born out of the ashes of the holocaust only a generation earlier, there could not be a more traumatic moment of truth. Beyond the general sense of unprecedented crisis and national anxiety, there were also concrete political and strategic issues. In failing to respond quickly to Nasser's blockade of the Straits of Tiran, the Johnson administration was perceived in Israel as violating a commitment that President Eisenhower had given to Israel in 1957—that the United States would use force, if necessary, to keep the straits open. The United States was perceived as unreliable; but for the Israeli defense establishment the French behavior was much more betraying and alarming. Not only had De Gaulle done nothing to reverse the Egyptian aggression that had led to the Israeli decision to launch the war, but he also imposed an embargo on June 1,1967, in the hope that this would deter Israel from using force. Thus, overnight, Israel was abandoned by its main arms supplier. The French arms embargo was a turning point for what Shimon Peres used to call "the orientation of ourselves," that is, as far as its existential security is concerned Israel must be as self-reliant as possible. It was precisely to prevent such vulnerability that Ben-Gurion had launched the nuclear project a decade earlier. If there was ever a scenario in which an Israeli bomb was really needed, it was during these crisis weeks. Yet in those weeks of May 1967, Israel had no credible nuclear option in the eyes of the Arabs. Had Israel then possessed a credible nuclear deterrent Nasser would not have been tempted into miscalculation. For the Ben-Gurionite nuclear advocates who had lost the hidden debate just a few years earlier, the war was a moment of vindication. In fact, there are veiled but reliable Israeli indications that during the weeks of waiting prior to the war, Israel did prepare a crude atomic device. If true, such preparations must have created some momentum. However, the great military victory did not open the road to peace. On the contrary, the Arabs states reaffirmed their total rejection of Israel in the first postwar Arab summit held in Khartoum in late August 1967. The summit produced the famous three Arab No's—no peace, no negotiations, and no recognition. In addition, the Soviet Union, in aggressive pursuit of a solid foothold in the region, was increasingly perceived as a possible threat18 Dayan especially highlighted the possibility that the Soviet Union might be directly involved in a new Arab-Israeli confrontation. At the same time, Israel's great victory in the Six Day War signifi-

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cantly weakened the disincentives for Israeli nuclearization. The defeat left the Arabs with no short-term military option of preemption against Israel, and certainly with no option to strike Israeli nuclear sites. The possibility of Arab acquisition of nuclear weapons technology seemed unlikely for the short term, provided that Israel would not provoke the Arabs. In addition, the Israeli victory stirred popular sympathy toward Israel in the West. From the perspective of the pronuclear advocates, the postwar situation provided Israel with a unique "window of opportunity" to make the irreversible move and to go nuclear. But despite those favorable conditions, by 1968 Israel could not go nuclear openly. This was the year that the Johnson administration, in close cooperation with the Soviet Union, finalized the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). The NPT was clearly a centerpiece in U.S. global policy—rendering the presumption against nuclear proliferation an international norm. In 1968 much of the U.S.-Israeli relationship hung on the question of the treaty. Secretary of State Dean Rusk, one of the chief architects of the NPT, considered Israel a pivotal state for the treaty, and exerted a strong pressure on Israel to sign. Discussions on arms sales to Israel, particularly the sale of the F-4, were intimately linked to the question of the NPT. Israel's response to the U.S. pressure was cautious and guarded. Though Israel did resist the pressure to sign the NPT in a rush, it certainly could not defy it openly. No Israeli cabinet would have done so. For this reason, too, there was no chance to revise the earlier nuclear decision from the early 1960s. If Dayan was to push for going nuclear in 1968, the only way to do it was opaquely. On the other hand, if there was a good political time for Israel to go nuclear opaquely, this was the time. In reflection, the post-1967 circumstances did not strengthen the original Ben-Gurionite rationale for going nuclear. On the contrary, one may argue that that rationale was only weakened in light of Israel's victory. If anything, the war demonstrated the Tightness of the antinuclear camp, which had pushed to strengthen Israeli conventional forces. And in any case, the Ben-Gurionite presumption that the bomb should be compensation for Israel's lack of strategic depth became pass6 in the post-1967 situation. Rather, the post-1967 situation created a new strategic rationale for the old nuclear advocates: Israel must have a "last resort" deterrent against a new type of worst-case scenario. This point is connected with another important domestic factor. The Six Day War shattered the entire national agenda in Israel, releasing new ideological and political forces and issues, creating new political alliances, and obliterating some of the old issues. The question of the occupied

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territories, soon to be equated with the "Palestinian issue," became the great political, strategic, and ideological divide of Israeli politics. It redefined the basic categories on the national agenda, such as what counts as hawkish and dovish, right and left. All other ideological-political questions were subordinated to the new great divide. The old nuclear debate did not reconcile itself easily into the post-1967 situation. As the original BenGurionite rationale for openly going nuclear became pass6, so quietly died the antinuclear lobby. In the wake of the Six Day War, the Committee for Denuclearization of the Middle East became extinct. Its ever-present leader, Eliezer Livne, transformed his political energy for a new cause: the Movement for the Greater Israel. Yigal Allon, the most effective antinuclear force within the government, remained politically opposed to adopting a nuclear doctrine, but now he devoted his political energy to push for the "Allon Plan" on the territorial issue. The nuclear issue, by now not easily reconciled into the new national agenda, no longer had a clear political constituency. Under these circumstances, the nuclear issue was buried deeper than ever in the exclusive secrecy of the executive branch. Under the post-1967 circumstances, it became impossible for the old antinuclear camp to maintain the pre-1967 nuclear order. It appears that via a series of "incremental steps," and by avoiding a decision at the national level, Dayan was able to "upgrade" the "nuclear option"—moving from an "option" to a "bomb in the basement" status. Here lies the cradle of Israeli nuclear opacity. Opacity was born as the modus operandi of going nuclear without acknowledging such a move, either internationally or domestically. As a posture, opacity was built on a profound "schizophrenic" duality: Israel can be seen as both a nuclear and nonnuclear state. Internationally, while opacity allowed Israel to enjoy the benefits of (opaque) nuclear deterrence, it also allowed Israel to pursue a declared nonnuclear stance. But the origins of opacity were no less domestic than strategic. Domestically, opacity was born as the grand compromise between the proponents and opponents of the "nuclear option." The proponents, for all practical purposes, won the debate, overriding the old pre-1967 nuclear order; for the opponents, Israel changed nothing in its Eshkol-Allon declaratory stance. Under opacity, both sides can be seen as winning the issue. Going nuclear opaquely may have been strategically wise, but it certainly had a democratic cost. Opacity itself is the antithesis of democracy. Dayan's modus operandi on the nuclear issue, if what is suggested approximates the truth, was deliberately tailored to determine an issue

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while avoiding a debate and formal decision. By moving incrementally, without pushing for a formal policy decision, the decision was made anyway. As the nuclear issue was left opaque and officially undecided, each side in the debate could see what was convenient for its own point of view. And since the issue was highly classified anyway, the traditional watchdogs of democracy, such as the press and the parliament, had no opportunity to do their job. Under the veil of secrecy, opacity as a modus operandi provided a means of escape from political accountability. Opacity, Accountability, and Democracy The Israeli nuclear program is not remarkable for having been born secretly, nor even because it crossed the nuclear threshold opaquely, but rather because nuclear opacity has persisted for over a quarter of a century. Unlike the French case, in which nuclear opacity was a short-lived transitional phase, in the Israeli case opacity has evolved as both a strategic posture and a domestic pattern of going nuclear. The same strategic conditions that determined the way Israel crossed the nuclear threshold opaquely in the late 1960s have remained unchanged ever since. Opacity created a situation in which Israel enjoyed most of the benefits of open nuclear deterrence, without paying most of the price of nuclearizing the politics of the region. Notwithstanding Iraq, the region has accepted the Israeli rules of the game of opacity. No matter what Israel actually did in the nuclear field, those activities have remained beyond the public realm, internationally and domestically. It is important to recognize that Israel alone could not make opacity work. To be the basis of a regional nuclear regime, opacity demands the acquiescence of other international forces. Given the realization that Israel was already nuclear and determined to remain so, regional and global forces found themselves reluctantly acquiescing with Israel's opacity. To acknowledge Israeli nuclear weapons would only make matters worse, forcing them into actions they would rather avoid. Opacity has allowed those forces an excuse to look the other way. In retrospect, opacity functioned as a paradigm of cooperation without coordination in the international realm. Since 1970 or so the United States has been the most important accomplice in maintaining Israeli nuclear opacity. Once it became known that Israel had irreversibly crossed the nuclear threshold, the United States clearly preferred opacity to transparency. The most difficult issue

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on the U.S.-Israeli agenda during the 1960s, on both practical and symbolic grounds, dropped out of sight almost overnight soon after the NixonKissinger policies took over. In 1969 the last U.S. visit to Dimona had taken place, and since then no further U.S. government requests for such visits were made: by this time both sides preferred to keep Dimona opaque. Just as post-1967 Israel no longer sought to maintain an image of nuclear innocence, so the United States did not wish to appear noncredible. If in 1968 President Johnson had asked the CIA to keep their findings about Israel's bomb secret even from Rusk and MacNamara, by 1970 the issue could no longer be kept such a secret. Yet a public recognition of the Israeli nuclear program would involve only problems as far as the administration was concerned, both internationally and domestically. As the major sponsor of the nonproliferation regime, the United States would be hard-pressed to do something about a country openly defying that regime. The Israeli bomb had become a reality to be dealt with discreetly, off the public agenda. While in 1968 the Johnson administration still had some hopes that Israel could sign the NPT, as Israel continued to claim that the matter was "under review," by the 1970s it became clear that Israel would not join the treaty. The combination of Israeli determination and a sympathetic U.S. administration neutralized the issue. However, unlike India or Pakistan, Israel was cautious not to reject the nonproliferation presumption; nor did Israel criticize the logic of inequality inherent in the treaty. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s the U.S.-Israeli gentlemanly disagreement over the NPT became ritualized. As the United States had to assert on occasions its position that Israel should sign the NPT and open its unsafeguarded facilities to IAEA inspections, Israel found the NPT inadequate for its political situation, insisting instead on direct negotiations with its neighbors in order to establish a nuclear-weapons-free zone (NWFZ). Such a diplomatic ritual could be played only against the background of opacity: as long as the Israeli nuclear weapons remained undeclared, and Israeli declaratory policy remained committed not to "introduce" nuclear weapons to the region, the United States could look the other way. Under opacity the old U.S.-Israeli dispute over the nuclear issue became opaque in itself. All subsequent U.S. administrations recognized the soundness of the logic of opacity and avoided placing the nuclear issue on the bilateral agenda. The various U.S. nonproliferation bills of the 1970s, especially the 1976 Symington amendment, all took for granted the opacity of the Israeli program. Invoking these nonproliferation laws by exposing Israel's nu-

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clear program would also create domestic political problems. Even if an administration were willing to exert pressure on Israel on the nuclear issue, it is doubtful Congress would go along. In retrospect, given the reality of the Israeli bomb, it is not even clear that any U.S. administration really wished to erase Israel's nuclear monopoly. Nor could the United States do it anyway. Even so, the United States could not openly recognize Israel as a sui generis case within the context of the nonproliferation regime. The U.S. indifference to—and complicity in—Israel's nuclear program reflects a clear preference for opacity as a posture to any other likely posture. The United States was not alone in preferring Israeli nuclear opacity by default. The Soviet Union also appeared to prefer an opaque to a visible Israeli nuclear posture. A visible Israeli posture would open the Soviet Union to direct pressure from its Arab clients, or make it more difficult for the Soviets to openly resist providing those clients with explicit nuclear guarantees. Soviet tolerance of Israel's opaque posture appeared to have well-defined limits.19 Even the Arab states have tended to avoid amplifying the sporadic attention that Israel's nuclear program has received. Both Arab moderates and hard-liners, for various reasons, preferred Israeli nuclear opacity over visibility, as became evident in the wake of the Israeli destruction of the Iraqi Osiraq reactor in 1981. After the first shock of that bombing there was no further confrontation. Even the Vanunu revelations in 1986 did not significantly change the Arab states' response to the alleged existence of Israeli nuclear weapons. Though ambiguity was reduced, Israeli opacity persisted. As long as the Arabs do not have their own bomb, their interest compels them to favor opacity over visibility. In retrospect, it was the Vanunu affair that demonstrated how politically robust Israeli opacity was, under the circumstances. Over the last twenty years opacity has become the foundation of the nuclear order in the Middle East, based on unacknowledged Israeli nuclear monopoly. Notwithstanding the case of Iraq, Israeli opacity created a point of equilibrium, allowing all the players to look the other way. This was the case at least throughout the Gulf War. No Arab state except Iraq decided that it was worthwhile to challenge this regime. Thus opacity has turned out to be a great Israeli strategic asset. Opacity, however, has been not only a successful strategic posture, but also the historically evolved, domestic Israeli method of nuclearization. While much was written about the strategic benefits and liabilities of opacity, almost nothing was said about its domestic aspects. To begin with,

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the logic of nuclear opacity depends on phenomenally tight nuclear secrecy. Opacity requires keeping classified all aspects of nuclear-weaponsrelated activity. But, in a democracy, opacity requires more than official secrecy, depending on citizens' tacit agreement to look the other way, to acquiesce. Nuclear opacity can function only if all citizens, particularly those within its democratic institutions, accept it as legitimate, for even opacity cannot withstand democratic pressure. This is the crux of the Israeli case. As noted earlier, secrecy and military censorship did not prevent Israel from having a nuclear debate in the early and mid-1960s. That debate took place because the issue was truly an undecided political issue, and a great political divide opened between the pro and con camps. Equally, it was not military censorship and secrecy that erased the issue from the face of Israeli public life in the wake of the Six Day War. The nuclear issue disappeared because it was no longer an undecided political issue under the new circumstances. How did it happen domestically? The answer lies in the historical and cultural context that made opacity the Israeli modus operandi of proliferation. As noted, after 1967 Israel simply could not go nuclear openly. Given the reality of the NPT, it was recognized that whatever Israel could do in the nuclear Held, it must not change or tamper with its old declaratory stance—the Eshkol-Allon formula. In this respect, both opponents and proponents of the bomb favored opacity, regardless of the fundamental strategic and political differences between them. They all shared the assumption that the less the nuclear issue was discussed in public, the better Israel's national security would be served. Publicity would only harm Israeli interests. But it appears there were additional reasons for their preference for opacity: For nuclear proponents, opacity is a way to go nuclear with minimal outside intervention, both internationally and domestically; for nuclear opponents, opacity enables Israel to preserve inviolate its declared commitment. Given Dayan's modus operandi, opacity may actually have concealed the true nature of the new situation from the Israeli leadership itself. Opacity, by its very nature, is universal: if it is assumed vis-à-vis outsiders it must also be applied internally: those who favored going nuclear considered the new reality a vindication of their old views, while those who opposed nuclearization could still believe that nothing of substance had changed, since without open declaration and doctrine the real threshold had not yet been crossed. Under opacity, each side could interpret the Israeli situation however it pleased. Opacity made the old debate more impenetrable than ever before: somehow Israel had become

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both a nuclear and a nonnuclear state. As Israeli opacity thickened, the nuclear issue ceased to be debated publicly by politicians. Critical nuclear decisions were considered too classified, too politically sensitive, and too technical to be discussed in the full cabinet. And since Israel did not change its declared posture, and it was understood that the cabinet was not the proper forum to discuss matters of nuclear strategy, it seemed more convenient to leave those "technical" issues to the discretion of the ministers specifically concerned. Since the 1970s or so, nuclear matters were decided in consultations between the minister of defense and the prime minister, based on recommendations from the executive branch. At the discretion of the prime minister some of these decisions were reported to a handful of key ministers, members of the inner cabinet, or of the ministerial committee for defense and foreign affairs. For the most part, at least during the 1970s and early 1980s, the Defense and Foreign Affairs Committee was marginally informed, let alone consulted, about these decisions. But beyond the decisionmaking process itself, politicians no longer treated nuclear weapons as a purely political issue. Instead, nuclear matters were perceived, very much like intelligence matters, as a national issue—indeed, the most sensitive national issue. In such a climate not only was the nuclear issue rarely brought to the attention of most ministers and other political leaders, but there was no political interest to know the details. The top political echelon accepted the norm that those sensitive strategic issues should not be discussed by politicians. In fact, most senior politicians did not really understand the issues at stake. Those very few politicians who had some familiarity with the issues did not dare to discuss them. In short, the nuclear issue became a taboo. No opposition party publicly contested the government position on the issue, either by openly challenging the veracity of the government's pledge "not to be the first to introduce," or by asking for public clarification of what, if anything, the government actually means by that pledge. Likewise, no opposition parties, including those on the far right, publicly urge the government to develop nuclear weapons. None of the parties challenge the wisdom of the government's position. As to the question of parliamentary oversight and control of the nuclear complex, this issue itself is also a "black box." Though presumably a mechanism exists for such oversight, the Israeli citizenry—including the majority of Knesset members—knows nothing about it. Actually, parliamentary oversight procedures have not been discussed publicly; the procedures themselves are apparently classified. Privately, prominent

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members maintain that a small subcommittee of the Foreign and Defense Affairs Committee has a mandate over these issues. They admit, however, that the level of parliamentary oversight is minimal, and even this is great improvement in relation to the recent past. As it turns out, the antidemocratic spillover of opacity was not only harmful to Israel's democratic spirit, but it even tainted some of the strategic success. What followed from the fact that the issue virtually ceased to exist was a tacit acceptance that there are no democratic duties concerning such a nonexistent issue. No Israeli member of the Knesset has ever called openly for a stricter parliamentary oversight of the nation's nuclear complex. No one ever told the Israeli voter to what extent, if any, his elected representatives in the Knesset oversee his nation's nuclear activities. For a quarter of a century the Israeli public has continued to behave as if no new fateful nuclear-related activities and decisions have been carried out; as if no issue of democratic control and public accountability exists. Apart from those rare occasions—mostly in response to some outside pressure—in which the government has been impelled to state its position on the question of nuclear weapons, the nuclear issue has literally disappeared from the Knesset public agenda. All the other guardians of democracy have followed suit. They have all looked the other way, pretending that the issue does not exist. While the Israeli press is notoriously aggressive, especially in matters of national security, it still avoids the nuclear issue. This issue is perhaps the last manifestation of kedushat habitachon as an absolute value, a testimony of the last taboo. This attitude was particularly striking at the peak of the antinuclear protests of the early 1980s. As a whole, Israeli political culture behaved as if the nuclear question was somebody's else problem, not its own. Perhaps the most revealing episode of this seeming absence of the nuclear issue was the Vanunu affair. Although there had been claims and rumors about Israeli nuclear weapons for some fifteen years, the Vanunu revelations—published in the London Times on October 5,1986—differed significantly from those of the past, in that they were both credible and detailed. Yet the public response to the substance of the Israeli revelations was a deafening silence. Not only were there no official Israeli responses to the revelations (nor any domestic pressure for such response), but the public appeared disinterested in or incapable of engaging in substantive discussions, or even raising hypothetical questions. All the public seemed to want to know was how such a breach of security could happen in their most sensitive national facility, or what could have made the Israeli Jew, Vanunu, capable of betraying his country. The point that

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the case was born out of the essential tension between nuclear secrecy and democratic rule was implied by the defense, but wholly dismissed by the judges. If anything, the affair dramatically demonstrated how much Israeli democracy wishes to look the other way, to avoid the nuclear issue. Israeli silence about nuclear matters should be viewed as much more than mere acquiescence with the policy of official secrecy. In a sense, the military censorship is only an institution that oversees and reinforces the sense of self-censorship. Israeli editors rarely argue with the military censorship on nuclear matters. No Israeli paper has ever appealed in a full legal process in fighting a censorship administrative ruling, as they did in recent years on other issues of national security. Much of the self-censorship can be explained by the appeal to strategic considerations; opacity as the preferred Israeli nuclear posture has been endorsed by most politicians and political analysts. The press, like the Knesset, aquiesced with the call for secrecy and acknowledged the complexity of nuclear matters; nor have most journalists been knowledgeable in those issues. But the absence is as much a cultural matter as it is a strategic one. Opacity allows politicians and the public at large to leave uncomfortable nuclear issues untouched. The general public appears to be as inhibited about nuclear weapons as the political elite is.

Conclusions The Israeli nuclear predicament is built on a set of oddities—anomalies, paradoxes, and dilemmas—concerning the nation's democracy. The Anomaly. The nuclear issue is truly Israel's "black hole." Not only is it effectively hidden and insulated from the public at large, but it is sealed off to the highest reaches of Israeli officialdom. No other issue of comparable consequences for Israel's future has been so meagerly debated, in public or in private. Virtually all of Israel's democratic institutions—the Knesset, the party system, the press, the court, and academia—have treated the nuclear issue as nonexistent. In the face of this issue all of their fundamental duties within a democratic society—checking, debating, informing, adjudicating, and critiquing—were brushed aside. For if the issue does not exist, there are no democratic duties to fulfill about it. No other issue, except operational aspects of intelligence, is perceived as being so intimately related to kedushat habitachon—the sacredness of security—as is the nuclear issue. Paradoxically, the nuclear issue is conspicuous in its

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absence, an absence that stands out as a remarkable anomaly in a political culture distinctly characterized by lively and open questioning of virtually every aspect of the nation's public life. The Paradox. Though Israeli democracy clearly has failed to exercise its rights on the nuclear issue, this failure can be explained by adherence to a fundamental democratic value—the consent of the governed. At bottom, the absence of the nuclear issue from Israel's public life is more a matter of tacit public reluctance to confront the nuclear issue, and less due to coercive and imposed methods effectively banning the issue. It is as if there is—in addition to institutions such as the censorship so aptly described by Pnina Lahav above—a collective tacit understanding, binding Israel's governing bodies with its governed public, to prevent raising the nuclear issue. The Dilemma. What underlies and backgrounds both the anomaly and the paradox is that the Israeli nuclear predicament is built upon a genuine dilemma between democracy and political and military prudence. Democracy makes the case for the citizen-voter's right to know, the role of public deliberations in shaping national security posture, and the need to maintain full accountability of the executive branch before the elective democratic institutions. Political and military prudence make the case in favor of concealment and secrecy. Furthermore, it is practically impossible to resolve the dilemma in full accordance with democratic procedure: for any democratic attempt to "waive" the rights of democracy, as far as nuclear policy is concerned, carries the distinct risk of being counterproductive. If tight secrecy is required to maintain a nuclear posture, there is virtually no way to avoid infringing on democratic rights and privileges. The Israeli experience just proves the case.

Notes 1. Economist (October 26,1991). 2. Ibid. (October 19,1991). 3. Avigdor Hazelkorn, "Israel: From an Option to a Bomb in the Basement," in R. M. Lawrence and J. Laras, eds., Nuclear Proliferation Phase 2 (Lawrence, Manhattan, and Wichita: University of Kansas, 1976), pp. 149-182. 4. Recently, the editors of the Economist happened to manifest the paradox of the Israel bomb in their choice of language in reference to it. See notes 1 and 2 above.

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5. For years the existence of such plant remained only sheer speculation; the facility's existence was never acknowledged by Israel, and it was revealed (by Vanunu and French sources) two decades later. 6. Margaret Gowing, Independence and Deterrence: Britain and Atomic Energy (1945-1952) (New York: St. Martin, 1974). 7. See, for example, Shabtai Tevet, "The Competition Between China and Israel," Ha'aretz (December 22,1960). 8. A certain analogy can be made between Israel of the early 1960s and the United States of the years 1945-1947. This was the period that the body politics of both nations debated the nuclear issue. In a sense, both nations perceived themselves locked in a similar dilemma: either pushing for unilateral nuclear development that is likely to ignite a dangerous nuclear arms race with the rivalry, or seeking far-reaching international arrangements that would ban the bomb. Both nations perceived themselves enjoying a significant technological edge over their prospective rivalries; in the U.S. case in 1945-1948 it was an actual monopoly, whereas in the Israeli case of the early 1960s it was a technological superiority. On the other hand, both nations were concerned about the other side's reaction, in particular how much time it would take it to reach a similar capability. The antinuclear camp in both contexts called for denuclearization on an international/regional scale. But eventually the antinuclear side lost its political force: the prospects for an international mechanism to cooperate in banning the bomb looked hopeless; both nations perceived themselves facing increasing danger in the future. In retrospect, both nations have taken a similar path—adopting the nuclear option. 9. See, for example, Amos Elon, "Nuclear Dilemma," Ha'aretz (May 25, 1962). 10. On the impact of nuclear weapons on Israeli democracy, particularly the difficulties in bringing the nuclear issue into a national open debate, see Eliezer Livne, "Nuclear Interim Review," Ha'aretz (October 12,1962). Livne, one of the most prominent figures in the antinuclear lobby, personally experienced the tension between democracy and the nuclear issue. In early 1962 some government officials from the defense establishment exerted pressure on the nation's journalists' association to cancel a briefing by Eliezer Livne on "Nuclear weapons in the Middle East," invoking reasons of national security. The talk was canceled, but the episode brought a flurry of critical responses in the press. This was perhaps the first time that the tension between freedom of the press and the nuclear issue came openly in the Israeli press. See, for example the editorial comment "Unacceptable Intervention," Ha'aretz (March 27,1962). 11. See, for example, "Professors Against Nuclear Armament in the Middle East," Ha'aretz (March 13,1962); "Scientists Call for Regional Denuclearization," Ha'aretz (July 25,1962). 12. Among the prominent political figures with whom the committee had contacts are Pinhas Sapir and Levi Eshkol from MAPAI, Shapira from the National Religious party, Pinhas Rosen of the Progressive party, Eolian and Carmel from Achdut Ha-avoda, Bentov from MAPAM and others. 13. "Discussions Among the Parties on Nuclear Armament in the Middle East," Ha'aretz (March 15,1962); "The Liberal Party on the Issue of Denuclearization: Voices in the Party in Favor of Israeli Initiative," Ha'aretz (May 29,1962);

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"Party* Heads Discuss the Issue of Nuclear Armament in the Region," Ha'aretz (May 6,1962); "Discussion in Mapam on Nuclear Free Zone in the Region," Ha'aretz (June 17, 1962); "Appeal to Mapai to Discuss Denuclearization," Ha'aretz (July 7,1962). 14. The information on this fateful decision is fragmentary and partial. See Yair Evron, Israel's Nuclear Dilemma (Tel Aviv: Hakibbutz Hamuchad, 1987), pp. 16-20; Yigal Allon, Contriving Warfare (Tel Aviv: Hakibbutz Hamuchad, 1990), pp. 193,195-196; Moshe A. Gilboa, Six Years, Six Days (Tel Aviv: Am Oved), p. 14. 15. Evron, "The Uses and Misuses of Ambiguity": 1330. 16. It is important to note that concerns over democratic control and accountability of a secret nuclear program that were raised earlier are also relevant for the Eshkol era. During Ben-Gurion's years in office the concern was that a dominant prime minister known as the father of the nuclear program can create a situation of a fait accompli. Such concerns existed, however, even where less of a nuclear enthusiast became the prime minister. In general, the combination of a powerful and dedicated classified research program, and ambivalent political leadership, may be the ideal home for not-fully-authorized activities. A cabinet's vague authorization of research to maintain an "option" might be translated by the program's powerful zealots as a license for highly classified and dedicated R&D activities. The highly technical and classified nature of such activity might never be reported to the political level. In principle, a committed program's head can push forward by going nuclear incrementally and secretly. The Fourth Republic is a case in point. 17. Since the early 1960s the term was used as a code word for the hidden wishes of the pronuclear camp. But, for obvious reasons, such nuclear advocacy could not be publicly stated. At that time Israel had no nuclear infrastructure, so the phrase "nuclear option" was sold as formally no more than a commitment to build an infrastructure. After all, it is difficult for Israelis to argue against Israel having a nuclear "option." The nuclear advocates certainly wanted more than just an "option": they wanted the real thing, but it seemed better to leave the end goal vague. However, once the infrastructure was completed, it was the "antinuclear" camp, headed by Yigal Allon, that wanted to guarantee that the nuclear project would be truly a research option only, without really crossing the the bomb threshold. This camp was antinuclear in the same sense that Israel's declaratory policy is still antinuclear: it did not want Israel to be the first to introduce nuclear weapons to the region. It certainly supported keeping the option as just an option, but it was this camp that was charged by the "nuclear option" advocates as endangering that "option." 18. According to Seymour Hersh, in the last few months of 1967 Israel "learned from American intelligence that the Soviet Union had added four major Israeli cities—Tel Aviv, Haifa, Beersheba, and Ashdod—to its nuclear targeting list." Hersh, Samson's Option, (New York: Random House, 1991), p. 177. 19. Avner Cohen and Benjamin Frankel, "Opaque Nuclear Proliferation," in Benjamin Frankel (ed.), Opaque Nuclear Proliferation (London: Frank Kass, 1991), pp. 4-14.

10 An Imperfect Democracy? Avner Yaniv

The foregoing leads to a very simple conclusion: Israel is a robust democracy but as a democracy leaves much to be desired whenever national security is at stake. The most fundamental flaws of Israeli democracy are revealed, for obvious reasons, when the system is evaluated against the universal standard of the rule of law. As Mordechai Kremnitzer points out, no democracy is perfect if it allows the rule of law to be inhibited by political interventions of the executive branch. Israel allows such interventions. Therefore Israel is not the perfect democracy it claims to be, even if the justification for these interventions relates to national security. The same conclusion emanates with an equal degree of stárkness from an evaluation of Israeli democracy through a First Amendment prism. Democracy and infringements of the freedom of information, speech, and assembly are incompatible, regardless of the reasons for such infringements. Israel, as Pnina Lahav argues and demonstrates with substantial empirical evidence, has tolerated since its establishment a number of critical infringements of these sacred freedoms. Therefore Israeli democracy is imperfect even though all such infringements of basic freedoms that have occurred were in the name of a clear and present danger to national security. Such flaws in the working of a democratic system are all revealed with harsh clarity when attention is focused on the treatment of a minority. Democracy is one and indivisible. As such, it ought to be blind to differences of all kinds. Therefore a system that applies in one way to one sector of the population, but in another way to another sector, is an approximation of democracy but not democracy itself. Sammy Smooha's analysis of Israel's treatment of the Arab minority reveals substantial differences between the treatment of Arabs and the treatment of Jews in the Jewish state. Therefore, once again, Israel is an imperfect democracy even though the justification for this inequality is related to national security and is not a figment of a twisted imagination. Another way of underscoring flaws in the working of Israeli democracy was offered in this book by Avner Cohen. No one in his right mind 227

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would handle the issue of nuclear weapons with less than absolute care. It touches not only on the security and well-being of Israelis but on that of the entire Middle East and possibly the entire world. Yet, again, democracy is indivisible and as such cannot accept restrictions of any kind on basic freedoms. Israel's posture of opacity, as Cohen terms what others have previously called ambiguity, has ample strategic justification. But it requires by its very nature restrictions on basic freedoms and therefore constitutes an unmitigated infringement of the country's democratic order. Does this volume offer any saving graces at all? At the level of principle the whole notion of saving graces, mitigating circumstances, or special pleading is inadmissible. But to stretch the point too arduously is to place Israel in the company of its adversaries—of countries such as Syria, Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, or Iran—which are not merely imperfect democracies but, if such were possible, perfect dictatorships. And to avoid this there is a need for the kind of perspective that has been offered—alongside the criticism—in most of the contributions to this volume. Thefirstand most obvious saving grace is that even if Israel sometimes appears paranoid, it has always had formidable enemies and has, indeed, always been in a very precarious situation. Having imposed itself on a region that refuses to accept its legitimacy, it has no escape from living on its sword. At the level of national doctrine this fundamental problem has had critical implications. During Israel's first twenty years the perception of an existential danger and frightfully thin security margins has led to a national security posture emphasizing a preemptive strike as its chief power multiplier, in compensation for the absence of strategic depth and reliable allies. Such a posture depends on surprise and deception. But how can a strategy of surprise and deception be implemented with the full consent of the governed? If the enemy is to be preempted with complete surprise, the public at home has to be kept in the dark, indeed preempted as well. Hence the incessant (and often quite inadmissible by normal democratic standards) emphasis on secrecy in all but the most obvious issues of national security. Furthermore, Horowitz also explains most convincingly how Israeli strategy has been transformed since the 1967 War. The most significant change has occurred as a result of the acquisition of strategic depth, an acquisition which from the strategic point of view has not really changed as a result of the peace treaty with Egypt and the demilitarization of the Sinai, which is an integral part of it. Another major change as a consequence of the post-1967 situation has been Israel's far greater dependence on the United States. Together, these two elements have led to a shift in Israeli strategic

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thinking from preemption to a patently defensive posture. This would have been a cause for gratification, Horowitz's article implies, but for the lamentable fact that it has been accompanied by the imposition of military occupation on 1.5 million Palestinians for whom Israel's security turns out to be a net loss. Yet, although a democracy cannot retain its purity while imposing totalitarian rule over others, in a certain sense Israel's very democratic nature has prolonged and aggravated the agony of the Palestinians. Specifically, both Horowitz and Lissak imply, the very intensity and rancorous nature of the Grand Debate in Israel over the future of the occupied territories violated the autonomy (in other words, pure professionalism) of national security decisionmaking, and has also prevented a clear-cut Israeli decision over the future of the territories. Such a decision would lead either to annexation or to withdrawal, and in either case the result would be more in conformity with the most fundamental precepts of democracy. Another important saving grace of Israeli democracy has been the consolidation over the years of a very proper modus vivendi between the military and political realms, which is sketched out in Yaniv's chapter. The starting point was very inauspicious. The Yishuv—the preindependence Jewish political community in Palestine—was so deeply split that independence nearly brought with it civil war, as indeed it has in so many other contemporary cases. Yet after a few tense days the would-be rebellion was put down. For the next fifteen years or so there was clearly politicization of the military, inasmuch as all supporters of the various dissident organizations were firmly barred from any prominence in the IDF. However, this pattern gave way to the normal separation of a professional military from the rancorous and irresponsible turmoil of the political elite, from the prime ministership of Levi Eshkol to the present day. To be sure, very often the military had to define for itself the political parameters for its operational doctrine and practice. But this has not been the consequence of an improper invasion of politics by the military in the infamous style of Latin America, Asia, and Africa. Indeed, the problem was, if anything, the reverse: for a variety of short-term political reasons the politicians often failed to determine with sufficient clarity the political dimensions of the national security doctrine. This created an impossible situation for the armed forces, such that the only solution was to assume hypothetically what the politicians would or would not authorize, and act upon these assumptions as if they were actually laid down as they should have been. If and when the political echelon disagreed (which seldom happened) it could always offer correctives. This was not an erosion of democracy but, as in the case of the policy vis-à-vis the occupied territories, quite the reverse: democracy with a vengeance. Yet another saving grace of Israel's imperfect democracy is the fact—

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underscored most forcefully in the chapters by Sammy Smooha and Pnina Lahav—that there has been a very strong tendency toward consolidation of ever more sound democratic practices. As noted in the introduction to this volume, Israeli democracy in the first decade or so was top-heavy, dominated not merely by a Bolshevik-like dominant party, but indeed by an imposing democratic dictator. It had a controlled media, a military government over the Arab population, an inadmissible degree of political involvement in military promotions and appointments, and smoke-filled party central committees ruled supreme. By the 1990s, however, none of these vestiges of a bygone world were still in evidence in any of Israel's major parties. Israeli democracy has become a vibrant participatory system. The media is free despite the censor, and, if anything, excessively powerful. Most of the vestiges of the military government in the Arab sector have been lifted, and parties elect their cadres through various kinds of free ballots. But undoubtedly the most important saving graces of Israel's imperfect democracy are related to public opinion. As Avner Cohen argues with regard to the nuclear issue and Asher Arian proves with a formidable array of empirical evidence, most of the flaws of Israeli democracy have been accepted by the electorate as the inescapable price the Jewish state has to pay in order to survive in the violent and dangerous environment it is situated in. To put it bluntly, the public has never objected to the thick veil of secrecy imposed on all issues related to the Dimona operation; has not been at all opposed the abduction and trial of Mordechai Vanunu, who sold Israel's nuclear secrets to the Sunday Times; has by and large accepted Justice Landau's argument that the GSS should be allowed to apply "mild physical pressure" in interrogations; and has not objected to censorship or to the banning of dissident newspapers, nor, indeed, to the harsh measures that the IDF sometimes took against the rebellious Palestinians. Even if the Israeli public were normally docile and inarticulate, this acquiescence with practices that are patently incompatible with the elements of democracy could hardly be presented as the consent of the governed. But the Israeli electorate is possibly the most politicized and involved public in the democratic world, as was clearly demonstrated in the immediate aftermath of the Yom Kippur War and even more so in the course of the Lebanon War. Its quiescence during antidemocratic practices by the authorities should therefore be seen as a form of approval. The Israeli experience examined in this volume thus presents a paradox: a democracy that accepts by democratic means the limitation of itself. The sole and only reason for this appears to be Israel's very special security predicament, although Israel may not be as unique in this sense as it sometimes presents itself. Was fifth-century Athens, wartime Britain, or, for that matter, is the United States very different?

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About the Contributors

AsherArian is a distinguished professor of political science at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York and professor of political science at the University of Haifa. Avner Cohen is codirector of the project on nuclear arms control in the Middle East at M.I.T. He has taught philosophy in Israeli and U.S. universities. He is author of The Nuclear Age as Moral History (in Hebrew) and coeditor of Nuclear Weapons and the Future of Humanity. Dan Horowitz (1928-1991) served as professor of political science and political sociology at the Hebrew University, where he also served as director of the Leonard Davis Institute for International Relations. He was Simon fellow at the University of Manchester, visiting professor in the department of political science at the University of Michigan, visiting professor in the department of government at Georgetown University, and fellow of the Institute for Advanced Studies at Princeton University. He is coauthor of The Israeli Army (with Edward Luttwak), Origins of the Israeli Polity: Palestine under the Mandate (with Moshe Lissak), and Trouble in Utopia: The Overburdened Polity of Israel (with Moshe Lissak). Mordechai Kremnitzer is dean of the law faculty of Hebrew University. His fields of research include criminal and military law. He is currently a member of a team of two assigned to prepare a new penal code for Israel. Pnina Lahav is professor at Boston University School of Law, where she teaches constitutional law and political and civil liberties. She has published numerous articles analyzing Israeli legal culture and is currently completing the intellectual biography of Israel's former chief justice Simon Agranat. Moshe Lissak is S.A. Shaine Professor of sociology at the Hebrew University. He has been a fellow of the Committee for Comparative Study of 245

246

Contributers

New Nations at the University of Chicago, research fellow at the Center for International Affairs at Harvard University, and senior associated member at St. Antony's College, Oxford. He has been editor of Megamot (Behavioral Science Quarterly) for many years and was recently editorin-chief of The History of Jewish Settlement in Eretz Israel, 1880-1860, published by the Israel Academy of Science and the Bialik Institute. Sammy Smooha is professor of sociology at the University of Haifa. A specialist of comparative ethnic relations, he has published numerous books and articles on the internal divisions in Israel. Among his books are Israel: Pluralism and Conflict, Social Research on Arabs in Israel (2 vols.), Social Research on Jewish Ethnicity in Israel, and Arabs and Jews in Israel (2 vols.).

Index

Adenauer, Konrad, 3 Africans, hawkish attitudes of, 148 Agranat, Simon, 174 Ahdut Ha'avoda organization, 3 Air force, 16-17,38 Al-Ittihad, 115,174 Allon, Yigal, 12,88,208; civilian component of national security and, 6768; nuclear issue and, 44,210; Palmach and, 86; preemptive strikes and, 20 Allon Plan, 28,29,214 Altalena, sinking of the, 85 American Committee for the Protection of Journalists, 176 Arab Emirates, 36 Arabs: Follow-up Committee and, 121-122; independent Palestinian state and Israeli, 119-120; institutional equality denied to Israeli, 105109,112-115,123-124,227; intransigent rejection of Jews by, softening of, 122; Jewish immigration and Israeli, 118-120; military expansion of, 33,36; national security violations by Israeli, 115-117,122; nuclear development and, 47-48; nuclear opacity of Israel supported by, 218; political/strategic implications of policies concerning, 69; public opinion on aspirations of, 131,133;

reaffirmation of rejection of Israel by, 213-214; threat to Israel posed by Israeli, 110-112,121; voting leverage by Israeli, 121 Arens, Moshe, 44,89-90,154 Arms race stimulated by petrodollars, 32-33,36 Army as nurturer of young, 67 Art of command, 17-18 Ashkenazi group, 4,107 Asians, hawkish attitudes of, 148 Association of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, 187 Attlee, Clement R., 200-201 Ayalon, Avraham, 56,68 Bach, 176 Barak, Aaron, 174,176 Barak, Ehud, 87,101,158 Bar-Lev, Chaim, 29 Beccaria, Cesare, 166 Bedouins, 108 Begin, Menachem: Dash party and, 4; governing patterns of, 98-100; IZL and, 84-85; judicial commission on Lebanon War and, 100; Lebanon War and, 41; Likud government formed by, 87; nuclear issue and, 45 Ben-Gurion, David, 87,88,90; arming Israel and, 34; civilian component of national security and, 66-67;

247

248 democratic dictator status of, 3; foreign and defense policies interdependence and, 12; MAKI party and, 173-174; media and, 174-175; militias dissenting and, 85-86; nuclear issue and, 197,200-205,207-208, 209-211; personality and unique status of, 96-97; preemptive strikes and, 20; world opinion and, 91 Benvenisti, Meron, 176 Bergmann, Ernst D., 202,207,211 Bernadotte, Volke, 85 Be'Tselem, 176 Birth rates, 67,70 Blackstone, William, 187 Blatman, Yona (Blatman Committee), 154-155 Borders: military philosophy concerning, 14-15; preemptive strikes related to close, 20,21; security increased by expanding, 13; Six-Day War of 1967 creating defensible, 23; stability of, 5; Yom Kippur War and analyzing defensible, 23-24,26 Britain, 177-178,187,200-201 British Royal Commission of Criminal Procedure, 166 Broadcasting Authority, 174 Bus 300 Scandal, 153-155,176 Casus belli, 21-22 Censorship. See Media; Military censor Christian Arabs, 108 Circassians, 108 Civic education, 73 Civic principles: civilian component of national security and, 70,71-72; Israeli Arabs and, 105-109,112-115, 123-124,227; Landau Commission and, 157-172; military-civilian relations and, 93-94; occupied territories and, 137; Palestinians in occupied territories and, 146 Civil defense, 114 Civil Defense Law of 1951,114

Index Civil Guard, 114 Civilian component of national security: Allon and, 67-68; Ben-Gurion and, 66-67; changes in the concepts of, 70-72; classifying, 69-70; conditions encouraging and hindering, 5658; institutional linkages and, 61-64, 72-76; military-societal relations and, 58-61; scholars and, 68-69 Civil war, aversion of, 83 Clausewitz, Karl von, 14,41 Commissioner for soldier's complaints, 93 Committee for Denuclearization of the Middle East, 205-208,214 Communication, military involvement in mass, 74-76 Conscientious objection, public opinion on, 139 Constitution, piecemeal establishment of a, 96 Controlled escalation, 14 Control vs. resourcefulness, 18-19 Convergence phenomenon, 60 DASH party, 4 Dayan, Moshe, 12,13,86; decreasing importance of, 97-98; innate inferiority of Israel and, 88-89; Likud policies differing from, 31; nuclear issue and, 45,212-215; peacetime military operations and, 21; preemptive strikes and, 20; Sinai campaign and, 19 Defense (Emergency) Regulations of 1945,115,175,177-178,188-189 Defense Ministry, 74,75 Defense policy, foreign policy's interdependence on, 11-12,26 De Gaulle, Charles, 212 Demilitarized buffer zones, 24-26,28 Democracy: ethnicity and, 106-109, 123; national security and relationship with, 1-2; occupied territories linked to erosion of, 6; public opinion on, 136-137,140-141,143; sav-

Index ing graces of Israeli, 228-230; universal rule of law compared to Israeli, 227. Deterrence strategies, 21-22 Diaspora Jews, 69,70,71,204 Diaspora Palestinians, 105,122 Dimona nuclear facility, 204,205,206 Disadvantaged youth, education and, 73-74 Domino effect, 22 Dormant war, 11-12,13-14 Dovish orientation, 29,46-48,146-148 Draft, Israeli Arabs and the, 113-114 Dror, Yehezkel, 68-69 Druzes, 108,113 Eban, Abba, 23 Education, military involvement in, 73-74 Egalitarianism. See Civic principles Egypt: command collapses in War and, 19; peace between Israel and, 5,31-32; Yom Kippur War and, 23, 36-37 Egyptian-Israeli separation-of-forces agreement (Sinsi II), 24 Eitan, Rafael: Begin and, 98,99; political preferences of, 87; rearranging political order and, 41; settlements and, 29 Elon, 176 Enlightenment, problems with internalizing values of, 183-184 Eshkol, Levi, 87,97,208,212 Eshkol formula, 197,210-211 Ethnicity and national security, 106109,113-114,123-124 European Community, 34,121 Exploitation of opportunities theory, 42-43 Familialism, 94-95 Farouq (King), 4 Feldman, Avigdor, 174 First Amendment, lack of, 175,227 Follow-up Committee, Arab citizens

249 and,121-122 Ford, Gerald R.,33 Foreign Affairs and Security Committee, censorship and, 181-183,187189 Foreign aid, increasing dependence on,32-36 Foreign policy, defense policy's interdependence on, 11-12,26 Fragmental boundaries, 61 France: nuclear agreements between Israel and, 200,201-202; secrecy over going nuclear in, 214-215; Strait of Tiran and, 213 Frederick the Great, 167 Freedom of the press. See Media GADNA (paramilitary youth battalions), 74 Galei Zahal (Military Broadcasting System), 74 Gaza Strip, 26,27,35. See also Occupied territories General Security Service (GSS), 82, 112,136; Bus 300 Scandal and, 153155; Landau Commission's confidence in, 163,167; Nafsu court case and, 155-157; nuclear debate repressed by, 207 German code, physical pressure and the, 171 Ginnosar, Yossi, 156 GNP. See Gross national product Golan Heights, 24,25,37,38. See also Occupied territories Goren, Dina, 175 Great powers, fostering relations with, 91-92 Greece, proscription of torture in, 165 Green Line, 25,112 Green Patrol (Hassayeret Hayeruka), 113 Gross national product (GNP), 16,82 GSS. See General Security Service Gulf War of 1990,116-117,129 Gun ownership, ethnicity and, 114

250 Gur, Mordechai, 87,98 Gush Emunim movement, 71 Ha'aretz, 184 Hadashot, 175-176 Hagana (Defense) organization, 84 Haifa, 39 Hareven, Alouf, 69 Harkabi, Yehoshafat, 56 Hassayeret Hayeruka (Green Patrol), 113 Hassemer, Winfried, 170-171 Hawkish-military orientation, 29,4548, .146-148 Hegel, George W., 164 Hersh, Seymour M., 215 Herut party, 3,30 Histadrut trade union movement, 3 Holocaust, 184 Hostile Terrorist Activity (HTA) suspects, 153,157,161,166-168 HTA. See Hostile Terrorist Activity Human dignity, respect for, 165,168172 Hussein, Saddam, 180 IAEC. See Israeli Atomic Energy Commission IDF. See Israel Defense Forces Illegalism, 71,92-93 Immigration and absorption, 70; Israeli Arabs and, 118-120; military censor and, 181; Security Service Law-1949 and, 67-68; values prioritization and, 140 Improvisation vs. planning, 18 India, rejection of NPT by, 217 Institutional linkages, civilian/military sectors and, 61-64,72-76 Integral boundaries, 60 Internecine conflicts, emphasis placed on, 42-43 Interrogation procedures, necessity defense and, 157-172 Intifada, 5-6; IDF public support eroding because of, 71; Israeli Arabs

Index and the, 116; obedience in military and, 100-101,138; public opinion on, 134,137,143-145 Iraq: Israel attacked by, 6; nuclear aspirations of, 5; nuclear reactor attacked in, 13,31,34,47,218; petrodollar military purchases by, 36 Irgun organization (IZL), 84-87 Islamic fundamentalism, 117-118,119 Israel: community-based nation, 94; democracy in early, 2-3; Greater, 13, 140; innate inferiority of, 87-90; peace between Egypt and, 5,31-32; political isolation of, 34; war of attrition against, military options in a, 38-40. Israel Defense Forces (IDF): Arab participation in, 123-124; civilian ethos of, 92; combat training in, 16-17; educational-cultural activities of, 73-74; evolution of, 82, 8387; historical roots of, 18; intifada causing erosion of public support for, 71,134; mass communication and, 74-75; nondisciplinarian and semichaotic traits of, 93-96; operative flexibility in battle and, 17-19; public opinion on, 138; role expansion and, 59-60; scholars critical reappraisal of, 81; Sharon misleading, 99-100 Israeli Atomic Energy Commission (IAEC), 202 IZL. See Irgun Jericho Plan, 12 Jewish Agency for Palestine, 84 Jewish majority, public opinion on a, 140-141,143 Johnson, Lyndon B., 213,214,217,218 Jordan, 22,28 Jordan valley school of thought, 26 Judea. See West Bank Judiciary, media rights and, 175-176, 178,187 Kach movement, 71

Index

Kahana, Meir, 174 Kant, Immanuel, 163 Kedushat habitachon (sanctity of security), 197,201,203,222 Kennedy, John F., 209 Knesset, 96; ethnicity in the, 114; foreign and defense policy interdependence in, 11; media and the, 175, 181-183,187-189; nuclear issue and, 198,201,219,220,222 KolHa'am, 174,176,178 Kremnitzer, Mordechai, 227 Kuwait, 36 Labor party: Arab-Jewish peaceful coexistence and, 120-121; domination of political arena by, 30; political strength lost by, 3-4; public opinion on values within, 141,143; security/rule of law continuum and, 135; territorial compromise and, 28 Labor strikes by Arabs, 122 Landau Commission: formal aspect of rule of law and, 157-163; human dignity and, 168-172; public opinion and, 230; reasons for forming, 153; substantive aspect of rule of law and, 163-167 Land for peace, 146 Lavon, Pinhas, 97 Law: 12 Basic Laws, 96; classifying state secrets and the, 186-187; defamation and the, 174; formal aspect of rule of, 157-163; intifada and forsaking rule of, 145; Israeli democracy vs. universal rule of, 227; lack of respect for, 92-93; prime ministerial freedom and, 203; public opinion on security vs. rule of, 133-136; substantive aspect of rule of, 163167; western democracies reconciling security with rule of, 1 Leadership, public opinion on, 137138 Lebanon War, 5; compliance to orders and, 138,139; Israeli bombing

251 offensive against PLO in, 34; justifications for, 41-42; media coverage of, 175; protest movements and, 6; public opinion on, 137; Sharon's misleading of IDF during, 98-100 LEHI, 84-86 Levi, Moshe, 87 Levin, Dov, 176 Liberty vs. security, 169 Likud party: 1977 elections and, 3031,87; innate inferiority of Israel and, 89; nationalism and, 184; political strength increasing for, 3-4; public opinion on values within, 141, 143; security/rule of law continuum and, 135 Livne, Eliezer, 206,214 Lohamei Herut Israel (LEHI), 84-86 Luckham, A. R., 60-61 MAKI party, 173-174 MALAV (Department for Intelligence and Detection), 113 MAPAI party, 3,87,206,208 MAPAM (United Workers Party), 68,85 Marbury vs. Madison (United States), 174 Media: institutional linkages and, 7475; liberal and suppressive elements in, 177-183,183-185; military censor's legal status and the, 185188; nuclear opacity and the, 220; occupied territories and the, 176; suppressing the, 175; vigorous and thriving, 4,173-174,189 Meir, Golda, 97 Mifleget HaPoalim HaMeuchedet (MAPAM), 68,85 Military. See Israel Defense Forces; Military-civilian relations; Reserves, military Military Appeals Court, Nafsu case and, 155-156 Military Broadcasting Service (Galei Zahal), 74

252 Military censor: Bus 300 Scandal and, 176; immigration and, 181; legal status of, debate over, 185-188; makeup of, 75 Military-civilian relations, 89-90; civilian supremacy in, 100-101; evolution of, 83-87; IDF's nondisciplinarian and semichaotic traits and, 93-96; institutional linkages and, 61-64,72-76; security doctrines and, 58-61; strengths and weaknesses in, 66,81-83,99 Military-industrial complex, 73 Military-political organizations, 84-87 Ministerial Committee for Defense Issues, 210 Ministry, of Justice, media rights and, 178 Mishmar Ezrahi (Civil Guard), 114 Missiles, surface-to-surface, 38-39 Mitzna, Amram, 101 Mordechai, Yitzhak, 154 Moslem Arabs, non-Bedouin, 108,113 Mossad, 82,136,174,180-181 Mountain ridge school of thought, 26 Nafsu, Izzat (court case), 155-157 Nationalism, 183-184 National security: consensus and, 12, 20,29-31,138-139; definitions of, 55-56; democracy and relationship with, 1-2; ethnicity and, 106-109, 113-114,123-124; explicitness lacking on doctrines of, 64-65; kedushat habitachon theory and, 197,201, 203,222; National Unity government of 1984 and, 44; salience on issues concerning, 129; transforming concept of, 40-44; West Bank occupation and debate of, 27-29. See also Civilian component of national security; Necessity defense Nation in arms doctrine, 65 Necessity defense, interrogation procedures and,157-172 Negbi, Moshe, 175,187

Index Netziv Kvilot HaChayalim (Commissioner for Soldier's Complaints), 93 Neuman, Stephanie G., 56 Newspapers. See Media 1948 War, peace prospects after, 4-5 Non-Ashkenazi group, 107-108 Non-Bedouin Moslems, 108 Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), 213, 217 NPT. See Non-Proliferation Treaty Nuclear issue, 44; advocacy of, 19; antinuclear forces gain strength on, 209-212; citizens' ignorance on, 198199; debate of early 1960s over, 204209; hawk/dove debate over, 45-48; historical roots of, 199-205; opaqueness on, 216-222,228; paradox involved in the, 197,222; post-1967 shift on, 212-215 Occupied territories: democracy in Israel linked to solving problem in, 6; ideological-political divide caused by, 215; Israeli Arabs restrictions on ties with, 114-115; Labor party and, 120-121; land for peace vs. annexation in, 146; media censorship in, 176; public opinion on civil rights in, 137; settlement policy debate over, 29; stability of views on, 147 Operation Peace for the Galilee, 31, 41,137 Operation Rotem, 22 PACHA. See Hostile Terrorist Activity Pakistan, rejection of NPT by, 217 Palestinians, 69; Allon Plan and, 28; independent state for, 119-120,147; institutional equality denied to Israeli, 105-109,112-115,123-124, 227; intifada and, 5-6; Jewish immigration and Israeli, 118-119; lobbying efforts by Israeli, 122; media censorship of Israeli, 176; national security violations by Israeli, 115-

Index 117,122; Sabra/Shatilla massacres and, 100; threat to Israel posed by Israeli, 110-112,121; voting leverage by Israeli, 121 Palmach organization, 84-86 Paper Tiger (Negbi), 175 Partial Test Ban Treaty (PTBT), 207 Patriotism, public opinion and, 139 Peace: Arab-Israeli peace process, 119-121; Egypt and Israel sign treaty for, 5,31-32; Israeli-Arab relations after, 123-124; land for, 146; 1948 War affect on prospects for, 4 5; public opinion on, 131,140-141, 143; Syrian-Israeli separation-offorces agreement and, 37-38 Peliut Hablanit Oyenet (PACHA). See Hostile Terrorist Activity Pentagon Papers (United States), 187 People's Council, 96 Peres, Shimon: dormant war and, 12; nuclear development and, 202,206, 208; political experience of, 98 Permeable boundaries, 60-61 PESACH (Evacuation, Support, Casualties), 114 Petrodollars and arms race, 32-33,36 Pikkud Ha'oref (Rear Command), 114 Planning vs. improvisation, 18 PLO: Gulf War of 1990 and the, 116; intransigent rejection of Jews by, softening of, 122; Israeli Arabs and the, 108; Lebanon War and, 34,100; low-intensity operations by, 5; negotiations with, public opinion on, 146, 147 Political culture, 70,73-74 Political-military complex, 72 Political-military organizations, 84-87 Political parties: changes in system for, 4; institutional linkages and, 6162; nuclear issue and, 208,220; Palestine under British control and, 83-84 Politicians, nuclear opacity and, 219220

253 Politika, 81 Pollard, Jonathan, 136 Preemptive strikes, 36; adopting policy of, 20-21; modifying policy of, 23; wars of attrition and, 39-40; West Bank territorial compromise and,28-29 Press. See Media Press Ordinance of 1933,175,177178,188-189 Press Under Siege (Goren), 175 Prime minister, governing patterns of the, 96-98,202 Progressive cases (U.S.), 187 Protest movement (Israeli), 6-7,100 PTBT. See Partial Test Ban Treaty Public opinion, 129; changing nature of, 143-148; compliance to orders and, 138-139; confidence and apprehension in, 130-133; democracy and, 136-137,140-141,143; Jewish diaspora and, 82; leadership and, 137-138; opinion polls used to shape, 4; security/rule of law continuum and, 133-136; surviving in dangerous times and effect on, 230; values and, 140-143 Public service restrictions, Israeli Arabs and, 114 Rabin, Yitzhak, 11; deterrence strategies and, 21; Eshkol and, 97; governing patterns of, 98; Palmach and, 86; security orientations and, 44 RAFI party, 3,210 Reagan, Ronald, 34 Rear Command, 114 Red Lines, Syria and, 44 Reserves, military: civilian ethos of I D F and, 95; large-scale mobilization of, 39,65-66; quality vs. quantity equation and, 15-16; strategic depth and, 20 Resourcefulness vs. control, 18-19 Rosen, Pinhas, 208 Rusk, Dean, 213

254

Sabra massacre, 100 Sadat, Anwar, 5 Samaria. See West Bank Samson Option, The (Hersh), 215 Sapir, Pinhas, 208 Saudi Arabia, 36 Schnitzer case, 174,178,180 Secrets of the state, classification system for, 186-187 Security. See National security Security Service Law-1949,67-68 Sephardic group, 3,4,107-108 Settlements in occupied territories, 29 SHABAK. See General Security Service Shahak, Amnon, 101 Shakour, Souleyman, 175 Shamgar, Meir, 174,176 Shamir, Yitzhak: immigration news suppressed by, 181; LEHI and, 8485; political appointments by, 87 Shapira, H.M., 207 Sharett, Moshe, 97 Sharon, Ariel, 40; exploitation of opportunities theory and, 43; innate inferiority of Israel and, 89; Lebanon War and, 98-100; political platform advancements by, 94; rearranging the political order and, 41 Shatilla massacre, 100 Shavit II rocket, 206 Shomron, Dan, 87,101 Sinai War of 1956,5,19,34-35 Sinsi II. See Egyptian-Israeli separation-of-forces agreement Six-Day War of 1967,6; antithetical situation posed to Arabs by, 37; casus belli for, 22; command collapse of Egyptian army in, 19; consensus demise after, 29,30; defensible borders concept and, 15; innate inferiority of Israel and, 88; nuclear bomb development pushed by, 211,213-214; peace prospects after, 5; preemptive strikes and, 21;

Index strategic depth as outcome of, 23 Soviet Union: Egypt and Syria turn to, 5; Egyptian air defenses aided by, 38; Non-Proliferation Treaty and, 213; nuclear opacity of Israel supported by, 217-218; war of attrition along Suez Canal and, 35 Sprinzak, Ehud, 71 Spycatcher case (Britain), 187 Spying, public opinion on, 136 State celebrations, symbolic nature of, 76 Stern gang, 84-86 Straits of Tiran, 21,22,212 Strategic depth, 14,140,228; demilitarized buffer zones and, 24—25; diaspora relations and, 70; differences evolving over, 26-27; military-civilian relations and, 66; problems associated with, 20; Six-Day War of 1967 affect on, 23 Strategic studies school in international politics, 14 Strikes (labor) by Arabs, 122 Study Group of the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies (Tel Aviv University), 119,120 Supreme Court: freedom of the press and, 173-174,187; Katlan case and, 158; Landau Commission's report and, 157; Nafcu case and, 153,155-156 Symbolic domain, institutional linkages and, 75-76 Symington amendment of 1976 (U.S.), 216 Syria, 5; Lebanon War and, 100; Red Lines and, 44; separation of forces agreement between Israel and, 3738; war of attrition by, 38 Tabenkin, Yitzhak, 85 Tal, Israel, 55,57,68 Tamir, Avraham, 68 Technology and weapons, 16 Terrorism, 5. See also Hostile Terrorist Activity

Index

Third World countries diplomatic break with Israel, 34 Threat barometer: compliance to orders and, 82; Israeli Arabs and the, 110-112,121,123; military-civilian boundaries and, 65,88-90; policy positions and, 1-2,57-58,148 Torture, necessity defense and, 157172 Totalitarian regimes, 57,169 Travel restrictions on Israeli Arabs, 114-115 12 Basic Laws, 96 U.N. resolution 242,37,122 United States: classifying state secrets in, 187; extended deterrence role of, 91-92; Israeli dependence on, 3236,228; Labor party and loan guarantees from, 121; Non-Proliferation Treaty and, 213; nuclear issue and tension with, 205,210; opaqueness of nuclear issue in Israel supported by, 216-217; public opinion about spying on, 136; Straits of Tiran blockade and, 213; Yom Kippur War increases influence of, 12 United Workers' party (MAPAM), 68,85 Universalization, test of, 169-170,171 Vanunu, Mordechai, 219,230 Values, public opinion on, 140-143 Vietnam War, 38 Voluntarism, 68 Voting, 94-95,121,146-147 War of Attrition along Suez Canal (1969-1970), 5,31; analysis of outcomes from, 36-37; escalation by Israel of, 38; Soviet Union and, 35 Weizman, Ezer, 13,31,89,98 West Bank: Jordanian armor moved

255 into, 22; national security debates over occupation of, 27-29; strategic depth and, 25-26. See also Occupied territories Western democracies: citizenship and nationality in, 109; Enlightenment philosophy in, 183; media in Israel compared to those in, 179-180; meeting standards of, 92; military censor in, 185-186; rule of law reconciled with security in, 1 Women, hawkish attitudes of, 148 World opinion, impact of, 91-92,100 World War II, 38 World Zionist Organization, 84,173 Yadin, Yigal, 13,86,98 YASAM (Unit for Regional Order), 113 Yishuv, 229 Yom Kippur War of 1973: analysis of outcomes from, 36-37; Arab states investments in military and, 33; command collapse of Egyptian army in, 19; consensus demise after, 29-30; defensible borders concept and, 2324,26; Egyptian political triumphs in, 36-37; innate inferiority of Israel and, 88; protest movements and, 6; rearmament after, 5; U.S. increasing influence after, 12,35-36 Za'im, Hosni, 4 Zichrony case, 174 Zionism, 84; civilian component of national security and, 69-70,70-71,74; Israeli Arabs and, 108,109; nationalism and, 183-184; nuclear secrecy aided by ethos of, 202-203; politicalmilitary organizations and, 84 Zorea, Meir (Zorea Commission), 154-155,156

About the Israel Democracy Institute

The Israel Democracy Institute is the first pro-active, policy-oriented think tank in Israel. It has undertaken to provide the best possible professional assistance to law- and decisionmakers in Israel, providing them with the kinds of services that are rendered by think tanks, the Congressional Research Service, and congressional aides in the United States. Israel's brief experience with regard to responsibility toward political sovereignty and direct participation in the political realm has been described in many ways. This young and crystallizing sovereignty is fostering the variegated facets of its nation-state, while existing continuously in the eye of the storm—in its ongoing struggle for survival, in its efforts to absorb new immigrants, in trying to break through the walls of its isolated economy. It is within this context that theoreticians in the academic world are frustrated as they are distanced from the ongoing hectic pace of decisionmaking among politicians. It is also within this context that the Israel Democracy Institute (IDI) has endeavored to pioneer the establishment of practical and tangible means to bridge the gap between the world of knowledge and the practice of politics. IDI programs focus on political and economic reforms, the need to restructure the political system in Israel being a given. IDI research fellows work on options and recommendations to democratize political parties, reform the relationship between central and local governments, and reform the electoral system, as well as on a series of reforms in the politicaleconomic complex. Political and economic reforms are supported by the Institute's computerized information center, which provides lawmakers with a comparative perspective. A variety of "extra-curricular" activities for the members of the Knesset complements the other two programs. Israel Democracy Institute P.O. Box4702 Jerusalem, Israel 91040 Tel: 02-818244 Fax: 02-635319 256

About the Book

The Arab-Israeli conflict in general and the Palestinian intifada in particular have given rise to a wave of critical reappraisals of the Israeli experience—reappraisals that increasingly have come from those who can only be described as mainstream Israelis. Situated within this emerging tradition of scholarly criticism, this book addresses a variety of problems that arise from the fact that Israel has been, since its inception, a democracy under siege. The authors offer analyses of Israel's concept of national security, its civil-military relations, Jewish-Arab relations within the boundaries of Israel, the challenge of maintaining a progressive interpretation of the rule of law against the background of a tense security situation, the problem of maintaining freedom of the press in these circumstances, the domestic implications of Israel's opaque nuclear posture, and, finally, the "saving graces" of an imperfect democracy.

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