Israeli deterrence is limited against terrorist organizations - opinion

What will be the role of the deterrence strategy, which collapsed against Hamas, in Israel’s security policy after this war? To answer this question, I propose we go back to David Ben-Gurion, the founder of the IDF and father of Israel’s security policy, and examine what went wrong and why Israeli deterrence failed, leading Israel to find itself under attack on multiple fronts over the past year.

“We need deterrence, not victory in war. In any campaign, we will have heavy losses – and we cannot afford to lose the best of our youth; therefore, the main thing is deterrence,” Ben-Gurion wrote in his diary on October 19, 1958, as part of his lessons from the Sinai operation. Following this conclusion, Israel’s first prime minister, who was also the defense minister, initiated a secret program to develop nuclear weapons as the ultimate deterrent against the destruction of young Israel in the hostile Middle East.

In time, the deterrence strategy became a cornerstone of Israel’s security doctrine. During the first two decades of the nation’s existence, Israeli deterrence relied on the IDF’s conventional power; and in the decades that followed, according to foreign sources, it added a nuclear deterrent against an “existential threat” to Israel. Other components of Israel’s security doctrine include early warning against war, decisive outcomes, and in later decades, defense.

The failure of deterrence against Hamas, and the challenging multi-front conflict that Israel has been facing in recent months, have sparked a lively public debate about Israeli deterrence in the region, its “reconstruction,” and its future. Some commentators have recommended resorting to the use of “unconventional means”; others advocate fighting at all costs “until complete victory”; others suggest launching a preemptive strike against Hezbollah to strengthen deterrence; and more.

The debate is legitimate (with the exception, of course, of calls for the use of nuclear weapons...), but the main problem is that many of the speakers and writers on the subject do not distinguish between the different types of threats that Israeli deterrence on both levels – nuclear and conventional – is supposed to address and the various deterrence objectives derived from them. There is also a lack of understanding among many in the Israeli public, and more seriously among senior politicians, that Israel’s nuclear deterrence goals are entirely different from its conventional deterrence goals.

And even worse, over the years, as Avner Yaniv defined it: “Deterrence is the be all and end all of Israel’s security strategy.” Its leaders have ignored the basic fact that deterrence is a strategy to prevent war and not a policy designed to resolve conflicts between neighboring countries, and certainly not an internal communal conflict such as between Israel and the Palestinians. Below, I will try to clarify the central concept related to Israel’s security today.

In the professional literature, it is commonly assumed that states that choose deterrence are those seeking to maintain the political and territorial status quo, while their challengers seek to change the existing situation. This assertion was true for Israel since its inception, and for this reason Israel’s wars have served as prominent test cases for the study of deterrence over the years. Indeed, in the decade between the Sinai War and the Six Day War, Israel managed to establish stable general deterrence vis-à-vis its neighbors. But in May 1967, following the introduction of Egyptian military forces into Sinai and evacuation of the UN emergency force, deterrence collapsed. After various attempts to resolve the crisis failed, war broke out.

The major victory on three fronts completely changed Israel’s security situation, seemingly for the better. Israel gained strategic depth on the southern and northern fronts, and in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip found itself directly controlling the lives of about a million Palestinians. However, a few months after the war, Egypt launched a war of attrition along the Suez Canal, and on October 6, 1973, Israel was hit by a surprise attack by Egyptian and Syrian armies. The human and economic costs were extremely heavy. Israeli deterrence against Egypt and Syria had failed.

The main reason for the collapse of deterrence in October 1973 was that the new political and strategic situation in which Israel found itself following the June 1967 victory did not lead to any adjustment in its security policy. The various governments and the IDF continued to sanctify deterrence designed to maintain the (new) status quo at all costs, despite the fact that the new situation from Egypt’s point of view was intolerable.

The problem with Israel’s deterrence strategy in the years after Ben-Gurion until today is that it is divorced from the new political reality. The view has always been purely military. “They will not dare because the price they will pay will be unbearable.” Really? Anwar Sadat declared that he would be willing to sacrifice a million soldiers to return Sinai to Egyptian sovereignty. The Israelis did not believe him. And they paid a heavy price for that disbelief.

Decision-makers in Israel in the years between 1967 and 1973 did indeed declare their willingness to reach compromises based on “land for peace,” but when mediators arrived and negotiations were conducted, it turned out that these declarations were mere lip service. Israel did not leverage the achievements of the war to achieve peace, and it adopted the concept that the Egyptians and the Syrians were deterred and would not dare. The Egyptian president dared to attack, and following his success in breaking the status quo in a limited war, he managed ultimately to return all of Sinai to Egyptian sovereignty. 

On the other hand, under Menachem Begin’s leadership, Israel gained a valuable peace agreement with the largest Arab nation in the region, which improved its strategic position in the conflict with Arab states for generations.

Israel’s nuclear deterrence and the Iranian threat

According to foreign sources, Israel has had a monopoly in the Middle East on undeclared military nuclear deterrence capability for about five and a half decades. 

Moreover, in recent decades, according to these same sources, Israel has developed a “second strike” nuclear capability from submarines cruising somewhere in the Mediterranean. The ultimate goal of Israel’s covert nuclear capabilities is deterrence against an existential threat to the state. In the early decades of its existence, the fear was of annihilation as a result of defeat in a conventional war against a coalition of Arab states; and in the last four decades, deterrence against a nuclear attack.

Despite its nuclear capabilities, Israel has a paramount interest in preventing Iran from becoming a nuclear state. According to the Begin Doctrine from the 1980s, Israel conducts an intensive campaign at various levels to delay and disrupt Iran’s progress in its nuclear program. But unlike the Iraqi and Syrian nuclear programs, which Israel attacked from the air, Israel does not have the ability to stop the Iranian program by military means alone, and it hoped that the US would act to halt the program.

During the Obama administration, after years of economic sanctions on Iran, the US managed to build an international front to freeze Tehran’s nuclear program. In 2015, an agreement (JCPOA) was signed between Iran and the six major powers (the US, the UK, France, Germany, Russia, and China) to freeze development for 15 years. Since then, the US under the Trump administration withdrew from the agreement, and during the Biden administration it unofficially rejoined. Following the US withdrawal, Iran exploited the weakening of the agreement to move forward with the program and has effectively became a threshold nuclear state. 

After the signing of the agreement, Israel returned to being a minor player in the Iranian nuclear story, and rightly so. The expiration date of the agreement is mid-2031, by which time Iran will have to decide whether to renew it or to complete its program and declare itself a nuclear state with all the implications that would follow. The brief discussion above was intended to clarify that the current military confrontations between Israel and Iran and its regional proxies are not directly related to the Iranian nuclear program and Israel’s nuclear deterrence, which is not relevant to the current crisis.

The failure of conventional Israeli deterrence

The failure of Israeli conventional deterrence following the Hamas attack on October 7 was primarily in the context of the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. However, Israel’s situation worsened significantly with the involvement – albeit limited and measured – of Hezbollah in Lebanon and the other Iranian regime proxy organizations in the fighting. Moreover, Iran’s direct attack on Israel in April 2024, following the assassination of an Iranian general in Syria, increased fears in Israel and around the world of a regional war in the Middle East, in which the US and other countries might be forced to join the conflict to some extent.

This leads to the question of the effectiveness of deterrence in the internal conflict with the Palestinian people. In recent decades, Israel has been “managing the conflict,” which is a sanitized expression for the continued occupation and control of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, and avoiding efforts to find a mutually agreed solution between the two peoples living in the same land between the river and the sea. The main problem, of course, is that Israeli society is divided internally regarding the resolution of the long-standing conflict with the people sharing this land. The issue with this policy is that historical experience shows that deterrence from an established army against a terrorist organization, guerrilla fighters, or national liberation movements is always limited in its ability to contain the situation, not to mention empty slogans about achieving “total victory” in the conflict between the two sides. 

Terrorist actions by Palestinian organizations against Israel began shortly after the end of the 1967 war. The price was heavy, but Israel managed to contain them. In June 1982, Israel invaded large parts of Lebanon in an attempt to militarily defeat the Palestinian organizations. Israel succeeded in expelling the Palestinian leadership to Tunis, but afterwards paid a heavy price for controlling various parts of Lebanon for 18 years.

Later on, the popular uprising – intifada – that broke out in the territories at the end of 1987 led to the Oslo Agreement in 1993, establishing the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and Gaza. However, the assassination of prime minister Yitzhak Rabin two years later by an opponent of the agreement, and the outbreak of the Second Intifada in 2000, which was much more violent than the first, completely halted implementation of the agreement. In 2005, prime minister Ariel Sharon initiated a highly problematic unilateral withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and evacuation of the Jewish settlements established there. Two years later, the Hamas movement took control of the Gaza Strip and expelled the Palestinian Authority personnel.

The military conflict with the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank has had ups and downs over the years, culminating in a new peak with the attack on October 7, 2023. In his 16 years as prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu adopted a policy of divide and rule in regard to the Palestinians, completely avoiding talks with the Palestinian leadership in Ramallah and strengthening the extremist faction of the Palestinian people, Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

Following the brutal attack by Hamas on the border communities on October 7, Israel launched a massive war to crush the organization’s military power. This mission was largely successful. Apparently, Israel and the IDF have succeeded in restoring deterrence against the Palestinians, until the next round. From a historical perspective, I believe that we need to talk with the moderate Palestinians about peace, not deterrence. Israel should enter into talks mediated by the Americans and Saudi Arabia on adapting the Arab peace plan from 2002 to the new circumstances created by the recent war. This process will likely continue for years, but when we talk, fewer people die on both sides.

Deterring Iran and its proxy organizations

The involvement of Hezbollah from Lebanon, the Houthis from Yemen, and full backing from the Iranian regime in Tehran in the campaign against Israel in October 2023 presented Israel with an unprecedented military challenge of the threat of war on multiple fronts. Israeli deterrence against this Shiite front failed, and for the first time in its history Israel had to rely on unequivocal deterrence messages from US President Joe Biden at the beginning of the war. In the past month, the Iranians were deterred from attacking Israel in response to the assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran. As of this writing, American deterrence has worked, and the fear of a regional war in which Israel could find itself at the center has diminished.

The question is: How should Israel restore its conventional deterrence against Iran and its proxy organizations over time?

After the end of the war in the South and the North, Israel must cooperate with the United States in its efforts to form a defense alliance with moderate Sunni Arab states, led by Saudi Arabia, to contain Iran’s expansion in the region. Success in forming such an alliance will likely depend on Jerusalem’s willingness to allow the rehabilitation of the Gaza Strip, including the integration of the Palestinian Authority in administering life in the Strip.

At the same time, Israel should draw up new red lines and deliver clear deterrence messages to decision-makers in Tehran regarding Iran’s conduct toward the Shiite proxy organizations under its control. Israel’s deterrence messages will be formulated after coordination and comprehensive discussions on the issue with the new American administration, and with the other member states of the defense alliance.

Israel will make it clear that it has no interest in a war with Iran and with the weak and failed Arab states from whose territory it may be attacked, but it will continue to resolutely act militarily against the continued supply of missiles and offensive weapons from Iran to its proxy organizations. In the event of an attack on Israel by Hezbollah, the Houthis, or the other pro-Iranian militias, Israel will consider itself free to strike them directly, and depending on the severity of the conflict, it may decide to target strategic sites in Iran itself from the air, including oil fields that are unprotected, unlike its nuclear facilities.

If Iran decides not to renew the nuclear agreement it has signed and becomes a nuclear state with Chinese and Russian support, this could increase Iran’s determination to continue its policy of expansion in the region. In such a case, Israel should declare that this will not prevent it from using conventional means to strike strategic targets in Iran. In the nuclear realm, there would be a “regional nuclear balance of terror” between Iran and Israel, similar to the situation in the Indian subcontinent between India and Pakistan.

The October 7 attack caused an earthquake in the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians and in relations with Iran and its proxy organizations, primarily Hezbollah in Lebanon. My hope is that, similar to the years after the Yom Kippur War, the new generation of Israeli leaders will choose to pursue a diplomatic path of dialogue and efforts to resolve the internal conflict with the Palestinians. Negotiations on peace arrangements with the Palestinians that would be supported by the Sunni Arab countries would strengthen Israel’s general deterrence in the region. ■

Dr. Dan Sagir is a research fellow at the Davis Institute for International Relations at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and author of the book Weapons of Mass Deterrence: The Secret Behind Israel’s Nuclear Power, available on Amazon.