Israeli National Security : A New Strategy for an Era of Change

National security has been at the forefront of the Israeli experience for seven decades, with threats ranging from terrorism, to vast rocket and missile arsenals, and even existential nuclear dangers. Yet, despite its overwhelming preoccupation with foreign and defense affairs, Israel does not have a formal national security strategy. In Israeli National Security , Chuck Freilich presents an authoritative analysis of the military, diplomatic, demographic, and societal challenges Israel faces today, to propose a comprehensive and long-term Israeli national security strategy. The heart of the new strategy places greater emphasis on restraint, defense, and diplomacy as means of addressing the challenges Israel faces, along with the military capacity to deter and, if necessary, defeat Israel's adversaries, while also maintaining the resolve of its society. By bringing Israel's most critical debates about the Palestinians, demography, Iran, Hezbollah, Hamas, US relations and nuclear strategy into sharp focus, the strategy Freilich proposes addresses the primary challenges Israel must address in order to chart its national course. The most comprehensive study of Israel's national security to date, this book presents the first public proposal for a comprehensive Israeli national security strategy and prescribes an actionable course forward. National security has been at the forefront of the Israeli experience for seven decades, with threats ranging from terrorism, to vast rocket and missile arsenals, and even existential nuclear dangers. Yet, despite its overwhelming preoccupation with foreign and defense affairs, Israel does not have a formal national security strategy.In Israeli National Security, Chuck Freilich presents an authoritative analysis of the military, diplomatic, demographic, and societal challenges Israel faces today, to propose a comprehensive and long-term Israeli national security strategy. The heart of the new strategy places greater emphasis on restraint, defense, and diplomacy as means of addressing the challenges Israel faces, along with the military capacity to deter and, if necessary, defeat Israel's adversaries, while also maintaining the resolve of its society. By bringing Israel's most critical debates about the Palestinians, demography, Iran, Hezbollah, Hamas, US relations and nuclear strategy into sharp focus, the strategy Freilich proposes addresses the primary challenges Israel must address in order to chart its national course.The most comprehensive study of Israel's national security to date, this book presents the first public proposal for a comprehensive Israeli national security strategy and prescribes an actionable course forward. This book is the most comprehensive study to date of Israel’s national security. It combines an exhaustive analysis of the military, diplomatic, demographic, and societal challenges Israel faces, with the responses it has developed, to present a detailed proposal for an overall new national security strategy, the first such proposal ever published on Israel. The book argues that Israel’s national security strategy has been highly successful, that Israel can manage the major military threats that remain, and that delegitimization, the Palestinian issue, and demography are the greatest challenges Israel faces today. It thus proposes a more long-term approach, with greater emphasis on restraint, defense, and diplomacy, and in which resolving the Palestinian issue, ensuring Israel’s Jewish and democratic character, preventing Iran from going nuclear, maintaining the “special relationship” with the United States, and preserving the resolve of Israeli society are the primary objectives.