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The Journal of Strategic Studies
Vol. 28, No. 1, 57 – 75, February 2005
The Strategic Impasse in
Low-Intensity Conflicts:
The Gap Between Israeli
Counter-Insurgency Strategy and
Tactics During the Al-Aqsa
Intifada
SERGIO CATIGNANI
Department of War Studies, King’s College London
ABSTRACT Over the past 15 years Israel has been involved in a bitter counterinsurgency campaign against the Palestinians. Palestinian insurgency, particularly during the current Al-Aqsa Intifada, has posed serious challenges to the
Israel Defence Forces (IDF). Whilst being able to adapt successfully its tactics to
Palestinian terror and urban guerrilla warfare in order to reduce the level of
Palestinian violence, the IDF has not been able to achieve a battlefield decision or
victory. This has been due to the nature of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, which
ultimately necessitates the provision of a political solution by the Israeli political
leadership, which has relied too often on the IDF as a panacea for its own
strategic and political indecisiveness vis-à-vis the Palestinian national question.
KEY WORDS:
Intifada, Israel, Counter-insurgency
Introduction
During the past 15 years Israel has strategically and tactically
responded to local Palestinian insurgency, which has evolved from
civil disobedience to outright terrorism and guerrilla warfare,
particularly following the now-defunct Oslo peace process. Indeed,
over the past 15 years the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) has tried to
transform its conventional army and adopt low-intensity urban warfare
strategies and tactics against violent rioters, guerrilla fighters and
Correspondence Address: Sergio Catignani, Department of War Studies, King’s College
London, 138-142 Strand, London, WC2R 1HH. E-mail: [email protected]
ISSN 0140-2390 Print/ISSN 1743-937X Online/05/010057-19 # 2005 Taylor & Francis Group Ltd
DOI: 10.1080/01402390500032054
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58 Sergio Catignani
terrorists. This has been particularly the case during the current AlAqsa Intifada, which began in September 2000.1
Notwithstanding the extensive and successful innovations in tactics,
weaponry and training adopted in response to Palestinian attacks, the
political nature of low-intensity insurgencies and, thus, the inherent
strategic restraint imposed by the Israeli political echelon’s decision to
conduct low-intensity warfare ad nauseam without seriously providing
an alternative political resolution to the current Israeli–Palestinian
conflict, have prevented the IDF from imposing a clear battlefield
decision. Thus, the IDF has been unable to achieve strategic success
during the past four years of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict despite the
Israeli political leadership’s belief that the IDF could achieve such
objectives on its own.
Despite the enormous difficulties in fighting Palestinian terror and
guerrilla elements within the villages and cities of the West Bank and
Gaza Strip, the IDF has managed to develop significant tactical and
technological solutions to the Palestinian terrorist and insurgent threat,
albeit occasionally at the cost of collateral damage and cases of
excessive force vis-à-vis the Palestinian civilian population. Such
tactical success, moreover, cannot yield strategic dividends without
greater political and strategic direction from the Israeli political
echelon. Whether or not such tactical successes will be used by the
political echelons to arrive at a strategic solution to the Israeli–
Palestinian conflict is to be seen, especially in light of the Israeli
perception that there is no serious political negotiator on the
Palestinian side.
Strategy
Strategy involves the employment of military forces to achieve a
specific political goal. Since war is an instrument of politics, ‘limited
political aims result in the definition of limited war aims’.2 However,
the use of conventional strategy to low-intensity type conflicts has
always been difficult. The ‘intermingling with enemy forces, mixing
with the civilian population, and extreme dispersion’ have significantly challenged conventional armies particularly within the urban
arena of warfare.3
As shall be seen in the following sections, the IDF has struggled to
deal with Palestinian insurgency since the end of the 1980s. Even
though the IDF has adapted its tactics, particularly since the late 1990s,
to face Palestinian threats head-on within their towns, villages and
refugee camps, it has been unable to attain a battlefield decision in the
Israeli–Palestinian conflict. In fact, such a goal is unattainable: a
strategic doctrine that is geared towards linear conventional threats and
Al-Aqsa Intifada 59
that has clear parameters for what constitutes battlefield decision and
victory cannot be applied to insurgencies, which for the most part, must
be resolved politically. Before elaborating such an argument, though,
the article will first look briefly at Israel’s strategic doctrine.
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Israeli Security Strategy
Since the early 1950s,4 the IDF has customarily differentiated between
two types of military operations: ‘bitachon shotef (‘‘current security’’)
and bitachon yisodi (‘‘fundamental security’’). The former – which
has abbreviated usually to the term batash – includes responses to
terrorist attacks, retaliatory raids and border skirmishes; the latter to
big wars [i.e., conventional], real or potential’.5 The Israeli strategic
doctrine has traditionally focused on fundamental security aspects due
to the greater nature of the threat stemming from a conventional war
against Israel.
Hence, the basic assumptions underlying the Israeli strategic
doctrine, which has focused primarily on the Arab conventional threat,
were:
(1) That Israel was and will continue to live in a hostile environment,
hence, the belief that it was confronted with wars of ‘no choice’
(ein briera).
(2) That Israel was involved in a conflict in which it finds itself
strategically inferior vis-à-vis its Arab enemies both in terms of
manpower and resources.
(3) That no matter how decisive results on the battlefield were, Israel
would never be able to achieve complete strategic victory.
Hence, Israel’s general strategic goal has always been that of
maintaining the status quo by deterring major attacks against it. The
exception in applying such a strategic goal occurred unsuccessfully in
the 1982 Lebanon War when force was not used only to root out the
Palestinian Liberation Organization’s terror infrastructure in South
Lebanon, but also to establish a friendly Lebanese government
controlled by the Christian Maronite minority.
In the case of the outbreak of a conflict, returning to the status quo
ante would be achieved through the attainment of a swift battlefield
decision, which as Avi Kober points out, is not synonymous with
victory. In fact,
battlefield decision can be defined in terms of negating the other
side’s combat capability, victory can be defined in terms of the
correlation between what each adversary defines as its political
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and military war objectives . . . and what it actually succeeds in
achieving during that war.6
That is, battlefield decision in the Israeli case can be equated to
deterrence by denial: once war is imminent or has broken out, the
defending armed forces will try to disrupt as quickly as possible the
aggressor’s military capability by attacking and disrupting the enemy’s
centre of gravity.
Indeed, the three pillars of Israeli strategic doctrine have been
‘deterrence, early warning, and the winning of a decisive [battlefield]
victory’.7 As stated above, the Israeli strategic doctrine has mostly
focused on the conventional threat due to the fact that the Israeli
political and military leadership have always seen it as an existential
threat. Nonetheless, the three pillars of the Israeli strategic doctrine
were called into question in light of the 1973 Yom Kippur War8 and
have proven difficult to put into operation since the Lebanon War when
dealing already with low-intensity type operations, which have
increased over the past 20 years. In fact, Israel’s deterrence policy
based on reprisals vis-à-vis sub-conventional threats and guerrilla or
terrorist forces has served ‘as a means of redress, but has not, generally
prevented recurrence of the provocation’.9
Despite the IDF’s traditional focus on the conventional threat in
terms of strategy, order of battle, manpower policy and training, the
IDF has been for the most part involved in current security operations
particularly since the first Intifada (1987–93). Whereas at the
beginning of the first Intifada, IDF and other security forces such as
the Shabak (General Security Services, GSS) were involved in anti-riot,
policing operations and arrests, towards the end of the first Intifada
and particularly during the Oslo peace process (1993–2000), the IDF
was used increasingly in counter-terror and counter-guerrilla operations.
Moreover, with the outbreak of the Al-Aqsa Intifada in September
2000, the IDF has been in constant operational use against terrorist and
armed guerrilla fighters – many of which were trained, equipped and
mobilized paradoxically under the auspices of the Oslo peace process in
order to ‘to guarantee public order and internal security’.10 Over the
past 20 years, the IDF has also been involved increasingly in routine
policing and anti-riot measures some of which have had a preventative
function, such as the widespread creation of checkpoints and the
extensive use of military patrols. However, the IDF has also resorted to
measures that, although tactically effective, have had more of a punitive
purpose and negative strategic results, such as the imposition of wideranging closures of the Occupied Territories and the enforcement of
protracted curfews within Palestinian cities, towns and villages
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Al-Aqsa Intifada 61
considered to be either hotbeds of Palestinian militancy or outright
terror. The practice of demolishing the houses belonging to terrorists or
to their closest relatives has also been considered successful by the IDF
as a deterrent for other terrorist attacks in spite of the censure expressed
by human rights organizations, by the European Union and other states
as well as by Israel’s closest ally, the US.
Nonetheless, many others have stated that such collective measures
have not had much of a deterrent effect, but have actually galvanized
the Palestinian population. For example, Zuhair Kurdi, a journalist
with Hebron’s Al Amal TV station, has stated somewhat rhetorically
that, ‘the legal father of the suicide bomber is the Israeli checkpoint,
whilst his mother is the house demolition’.11
In spite of the pervasive use of IDF personnel and materiel as well as
the growing threat and lethality of Palestinian terror and guerrilla
operations within Israel and the Occupied Territories, the IDF has not
been able to address strategically the predominant and relatively new
low-intensity dynamic of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. Some Israeli
military (e.g., the former Chief of Staff [COS] and current Defense
Minister Shaul Mofaz and current COS Lieutenant-General Moshe
Ya’alon) and political leaders (e.g., Prime Minister Ariel Sharon) have
come to define as existential threats that which were regarded
traditionally as current security threats (i.e., terror, guerrilla and riot
violence).
In June 2000, for example, then Coordinator of Operations in the
Territories, Major-General Amos Gilad, declared that ‘the purpose of
the IDF’s campaign was to reduce the level of terror, which in the scope
and depth of its damage has become a strategic threat, with the first
signs of threatening our existence in terms of our quality of life’.12
There has not been, however, a major shift in the IDF’s strategic
approach vis-à-vis low-intensity-type conflict scenarios and the belief
that it could impose a battlefield decision or even obtain victory was
shared initially by top officers of the IDF General Staff. Thus, COS
Ya’alon in the most widely-read daily newspaper, Yediot Ahronot,
stated in August 2002 for example that, ‘the only solution [to the AlAqsa Intifada] is to achieve an unequivocal victory over the
Palestinians’ and that such a victory would not come at a low price
or immediately.13
In fact, Israel’s conventional strategic goal of maintaining the status
quo through deterrent retaliatory or pre-emptive measures has been
erroneously applied to the contemporary Israeli–Palestinian conflict.
Whereas in the past maintaining the status quo through deterrence was
geared towards the conventional threat and, hence, towards the
avoidance of a major conventional attack by Israel’s neighboring
states, which could have threatened its existence, today Israel’s
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62 Sergio Catignani
attempts at deterring Palestinian terror and guerrilla attacks have the
very limited goal of reducing the level of violence and maintaining a
status quo. Such a status quo, though, has become unbearable for the
Palestinian population living in the Occupied Territories and has
proved increasingly costly to Israeli society.
Preserving the status quo vis-à-vis the conventional threat was not only
essential to Israel’s existence, but was also a widely-held principle of the
Israeli national security consensus. Nonetheless, upholding the status
quo today has diminished dramatically the already meager Palestinian
standard of living due to extensive curfews and closures – which, together
with the rampant corruption of the Palestinian Authority, have wrung
out of the Palestinian population any notable source of financial
sustenance. It has also eroded the Israeli national security consensus14 –
particularly regarding the continued control of most of the territories
seized during the 1967 Six-Day War. The continuation of the conflict also
has led to a major economic crisis in Israel that has affected all major
government budgets, Israeli living standards, but most crucially, the
defense budget. In fact, a recent survey of 7,200 Israelis aged 20 and over
from all regions of the country commissioned in late 2003 by the Central
Bureau of Statistics found that 35 percent of the survey sample reported
that their financial situation had deteriorated in the past five years.15
Furthermore, the use of the IDF to lower the level of violence – as well
as to convince the Palestinians that Israel would not negotiate under fire
– has led to an over-emphasis on the operational and tactical use of the
IDF as a panacea for the lack of the military and political leadership’s
ability to come up with a new strategic paradigm that will bring about a
strategic decision vis-à-vis the problem of Palestinian terror and other
forms of low-intensity violence. The political echelon’s inability to
develop a new strategic paradigm, given the experiences of the first
Intifada, the 1991 Gulf War and the changed strategic environment
brought about by the Israeli–Palestinian and Israeli–Jordanian peace
accords, was already voiced in 1998 by a Knesset sub-committee chaired
by Knesset member Dan Meridor. The enquiry, in fact, stated that:
The Government of Israel, which is responsible for Israel’s
national security, has not conducted any substantial and
comprehensive discussion regarding the national security policy
and its applications. . . We have not found any integrative and
long-term thinking, examination or decisions. It is critical that
such examinations be conducted at the national level, and not only
by the military or the defense system.16
In fact, until very recently Israel has been able to afford the price of not
addressing the Palestinian problem strategically, because of the IDF’s
Al-Aqsa Intifada 63
ability in providing effective short-term tactical solutions to all forms of
Palestinian violence.
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IDF Tactical and Technical Innovations
The IDF, in fact, has been able to prepare and respond tactically to the
various Palestinian threats used against Israeli civilians and soldiers,
particularly since the mid- to late 1990s when the Oslo peace process
was quickly degenerating into tit-for-tat low-intensity skirmishes and
which eventually erupted in September 2000 into a full-scale guerrilla
and terror campaign. According to then COS Shaul Mofaz, this was
due to the fact that ‘we prepared the military for this confrontation. We
trained and bought equipment for low-intensity conflict’.17 Preparations, in fact, had started soon after the September 1996 riots. Colonel
Gal Hirsh stated that in early 1997 then COS Amnon Lipkin-Shahak
had told him: ‘We must prepare for war and continue with the peace
process; go there and help General Itzhak Eitan, who was the Chief of
the Central Command [i.e., the area responsible for security in the West
Bank], help him to prepare units for war’.18
Despite the rhetoric of such men, Israel’s actual preparedness for the
reality of urban warfare involving a very hostile, well-armed group of
terrorist-guerrillas entrenched in an extremely complex built-up and
densely populated battleground was severely tested. For example,
Operation ‘Defensive Shield’ which was initiated in April 2002 in
response to the late-March ‘Passover Massacre’ suicide bomb attack,19
was the first major Israeli urban warfare operation to be carried out
since the siege of Beirut in 1982. Operation ‘Defensive Shield’ was
initiated in order to seize weapons, arrest terrorists and their support
network, destroy weapons factories and suicide bomb workshops and
kill suicide bombers. The IDF encountered significant resistance in most
Palestinian West Bank cities it entered (e.g., Qalqiliya, Nablus and Tul
Karem), but encountered especially stiff opposition in the Jenin refugee
camp where 15,000 poverty-stricken civilians packed into 600 square
yards.
Around 300 Palestinian guerrilla fighters affiliated to the various
Palestinian terrorist organizations (i.e., the PLO-affiliated Al-Aqsa
Martyrs Brigade, Force-17 and Fatah Tanzim, as well as Palestinian
Islamic Jihad and Hamas) were involved in the battle of Jenin. Snipers,
mines and booby-traps were literally everywhere: inside cupboards,
under sinks, inside sofas, in cars and dumpsters. ‘On one street alone,
an Israeli [D-9] bulldozer detonated 124 explosive charges, some
weighing as much as 250 pounds.’20 Similar to other armies’ urban
warfare doctrine, the Israeli army used in Jenin overwhelming numbers:
there were approximately 100 soldiers for every Palestinian gunman.
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Intelligence
Not only did the Israeli army use overwhelming numbers, it also used
most of its highly sophisticated weaponry and intelligence-gathering
capabilities in order to maintain the initiative, something armies
entering urban theater of operations have always had trouble keeping,
because of the high-tempo and level of confusion that urban battlefields
usually create. Indeed, reiterating the importance of intelligence in the
urban battlefield, IDF COS Ya’alon stated at a recent international
conference on low-intensity conflict warfare that, ‘creating intelligence
dominance is a critical factor for managing and dominating the lowintensity conflict. Qualitative intelligence provides the ability to realize
military power properly and precisely’.21
Hence, the decision by the IDF General Staff to form in April 2000
the Field Intelligence Corps, which includes combat intelligencegathering units trained to gather tactical intelligence and to provide it
in real-time to combat units during operations. This has enabled
information, through the increasing digitization of its armed forces, to
go faster to the troops and, in turn, has reduced the element of surprise
from looming Palestinian attacks.22 Thus, despite the greater freedom
that IDF commanders and soldiers traditionally have had on the
battleground, the improvement in the command, control and communication systems has enhanced the IDF’s ability to monitor ground
operations and provides real-time operational intelligence to ground
troops.
According to an AH-1S Cobra helicopter squadron commander,
during the fighting the Israel Air Force ‘kept four attack helicopters and
two Searcher II reconnaissance Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs)
overhead at all times to ensure commanders knew where their troops
on the ground were’.23 Human intelligence was also provided by
Mistar’aravim (i.e., ‘to become an Arab’) units, who are trained to
blend in with the local population, gather operational intelligence and
sometimes conduct targeted killings. More importantly and underlining
former GSS Chief Ya’acov Peri’s conviction that ‘there is no substitute
for a human source’,24 the GSS had begun by the end of 2000 a large
recruitment drive for Palestinian collaborators given the fact that their
use had diminished significantly since the start of the Oslo Peace
Process.25 Such collaborators, in fact, have been put to good use,
particularly in the targeted assassination of key terrorist leaders, such as
Hamas ‘spiritual’ leader, Sheik Yassin and Hamas ‘political’ leader
Abdel Aziz al-Rantissi in early 2004.
Furthermore, attack helicopters very often were used to pinpoint and
eliminate hostile forces either by using snipers or missile attacks. As one
Special Forces captain stated, for example, ‘in Jenin I was in a
Al-Aqsa Intifada 65
helicopter above everything. I saw it happening. We were snipers; from
the helicopter we were supposed to locate a certain area and eliminate
hostile elements’.26
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Circumvention and ‘Swarm’ Tactics
Such intelligence-gathering efforts, which were initiated weeks prior to
the IDF’s entry into Jenin, were carried out in order to avoid most
armies’ traditional urban infantry ‘attrition approach’ tactics, whereby
operations abide by the ‘move, make contact, deploy, fire and
maneuver model (usually along a linear axis)’.27 The Israelis, on the
other hand, ‘were able to deploy out of contact with the enemy by
selectively seizing small areas of the camp, drastically reducing
exposure to enemy fire and maintaining momentum by only clearing
as necessary’.28 This could be done only through the prior accumulation and analysis of field intelligence.
Various small-unit infantry, armor and air force task forces
‘swarmed’ around the Palestinian forces from all directions, thus,
successfully integrating disparate units and proving their interoperability. Such ‘swarm’ tactics especially managed to confuse Palestinian
guerrilla fighters and terrorists. According to Colonel Gal Hirsh:
In one battle in the Nablus Kasbah in about 24 hours they lost
more than 80 of their gunmen and they never could identify where
we were. We used the air force, combined forces and new fighting
groups. Even if they were inorganic forces, they became task
forces that knew how to fight together.29
The extensive use of tanks in major combat operations within urban
Palestinian areas since Operation ‘Defensive Shield’ is due to the fact
that the IDF’s newest Merkava Mk.4 and upgraded versions of the
Merkava Mk.3 have been ‘equipped with advanced communication
and battle management systems that enable individual tanks or very
small groups of tank crews to operate autonomously for extended
periods in conjunction with infantry units’.30
When faced with dangerous alleyways full of booby-traps and
snipers, IDF forces used D-9 bulldozers to create alternative avenues
of approach within buildings, albeit at the cost of significant collateral
damage. Such circumvention and ‘swarm’ tactics were particularly
used after 9 April when a suicide bomber detonated his explosive belt
in a courtyard where 13 IDF infantry soldiers were instantly killed.
The need to avoid such targeted and lethal suicide bomb attacks as
well as heavy sniping against IDF personnel, led to such an
innovation.
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Since Operation ‘Defensive Shield’ the IDF has also learnt that in
order to eliminate terror cells embedded in Palestinian towns and
villages, it does not have to show overwhelming force, due to the fact
that such large-scale ‘invasions’ into Palestinian areas create
considerable international outcry and negative media exposure.31
The IDF has, in fact, learnt that ‘low-signature’ operations often are
not only more effective, but also domestically and internationally less
controversial due to the stealth and rapidity with which they are
carried out.
Continuous Improvement of Training Capabilities
Despite the IDF’s relative success, the number of both IDF and
Palestinian deaths was perceived as being too high.32 Thus, in order to
obviate ‘high’ casualty rates through better preparation and equipping,
the IDF launched a multi-million dollar program in June 2002 to
upgrade the IDF’s Tze’elim National Training Center in the Negev
desert. The center provides Israeli soldiers with significantly better
urban warfare training facilities. The digital urban warfare center is, in
fact, modeled after Palestinian cities and provides various landscapes in
order to train the Israeli combat soldier for all types of contingencies. It
includes a downtown area, rural village section, market area with
narrow alleys and urban outskirts. The center eventually will help train
around 90,000 reservists as well as all conscript ground forces in urban
warfare battle skills.33
The need to reduce cases of abuse by Israeli soldiers whilst carrying
out security duties after Operation ‘Defensive Shield,’ particularly at
checkpoints and roadblocks, has led to the development of an ethical
and operational code of behavior. Such a code, which is based on 11
key rules of conduct, has been taught over the past two years to both
regular and reservist ground forces units. It provides extensive roleplaying exercises that deal with the dilemmas of how to operate
security checks on civilian and civilian property and, more importantly, with the dilemmas of what rules of engagement are
acceptable within heavily populated civilian areas.34 This, however,
has not eliminated all cases of misconduct given the fact that soldiers
at checkpoints have occasionally abused Palestinians, albeit more as a
result of operational stress than malice.35 In any case, a special
Checkpoint Unit is being formed presently under the command of a
Lieutenant Colonel from the Military Police Corps This unit will be
trained in routine checks using advanced technological measures, in
Arabic and in civil rights issues in order to improve the conditions of
Palestinians trying to enter Israel and to reduce especially the time
spent by Palestinians at checkpoints.36
Al-Aqsa Intifada 67
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Avoiding Non-Combatant Casualties
Efforts at reducing the number of non-combatant deaths during the
current Al-Aqsa Intifada, while not sacrificing the protection of friendly
forces, have led to three major weapons development efforts. The
Israeli Ministry of Defence has commissioned, for example, the
development of a high-speed automatic anti-sniper gun, called
‘Believer’ based on thermal imaging techonology37 as well as the
‘Corner Shot’ non-line-of-sight weapon system, both of which aim to
reduce the soldier’s exposure to enemy fire.38 The IDF has,
furthermore, purchased from Israel Military Industries a new infantry
weapon system called Refa’im, which enables the infantry soldier to
launch grenades against targets beyond visual range. More importantly,
the rifle ‘features a self-destruct mechanism to avoid post-battle
casualties’.39
In order to avoid killing civilians when targeting Palestinian snipers,
who often have used deliberately crowds of women and youth
supposedly demonstrating or rioting as their human shields, the IDF
has decided to equip not only trained snipers, but also regular infantry
with advanced optic sight scopes that have enhanced laser rangefinder
capabilities.40
The IDF ground forces multi-year plan titled, ‘Kela 2008’ [i.e., ‘Shot
2008’] is also under way. This plan will significantly expand the IDF’s
infantry capability by adding five new light-infantry battalions, which
will be based permanently in the Territories.41 Their permanent
stationing in the Territories will increase their tactical knowledge of
the urban terrain and of the civilian population. Such knowledge and
the greater number of infantry brigades will, in turn, reduce the stress
soldiers usually suffer in urban warfare operations due to the greater
turnover of rest periods that such soldiers will undergo. In fact, not only
has the reduction of stress reduced cases of IDF abuse vis-à-vis the
Palestinian population, but the ‘ongoing connection with a single
specific area . . . has greatly improved operational successes’.42
Bitsuism
The reason for the IDF’s successful provision of short-term tactical
innovations and success can be ascribed to the organizational culture
and military tradition of the IDF, which has demonstrated ‘at virtually
every level of war (except, perhaps, the highest: that of strategy) . . .
throughout its history a proclivity for the dashing, the unusual or the
creative solution to military problems’.43 Indeed, within the IDF,
preference for the pragmatic bitsuist (‘doer’) over the reflective thinker
has led to the IDF’s tendency to focus its energies in current security
68 Sergio Catignani
problems often at the expense of long-term vision and innovation. As
one IDF organizational psychologist admitted recently in an interview:
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When I got my education in the officers’ course, the most central
value that you are educated on is ‘complete your task’. There’s
nothing more important than completing your task. Now, this is
one of the ten principles of war: stick to your mission. But the full
commandment is ‘stick to your mission as long as it is directed to
the strategic goal’. Remember the goal of the mission, the aim. But
Israel tends to forget the second half.44
In fact, a typical aspect of the IDF’s bitsuist organizational culture is
‘the concentration of effort on pressing day-to-day problems’ whereby
commanders are not really ‘troubled by the war to come’, but find
themselves instead in a position where they want ‘to be everywhere, to
decide everything, to invest the maximum in whatever engages’ them.45
One battalion commander, for example, stated that in 2003 alone, he
planned and executed over 240 missions throughout the year.46
Such an operational tempo, clearly, reduces the chances of
commanders to focus on the long-term strategic consequences that
any operation may have on the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. This has
been particularly the case during the current Intifada where, due to the
growing lethality of Palestinian terror and guerrilla groups and the
increasing budgetary constraints, the IDF has had to improvise and
make due with fewer resources, despite the growing number of military
operations.47
Another reason for this bitsuist tactical and operational emphasis has
been the IDF’s mantra of avoiding any political considerations and
statements when suggesting to the political-security leadership strategic
solutions to Palestinian violence. Although the supremacy of the
political echelon over the military regarding the decision and nature of
military force to be used is a paramount principle of democratic states –
including Israel – taken to the extreme, military operations may prove
strategically short-sighted if the military practitioners on the ground
avoid making ‘political-strategic’ assessments of their current security
operations.
Thus, the IDF has often found itself conducting missions, which
although tactically and operationally effective, have had negative
political-strategic outcomes due to cases of excessive force and
collateral damage that are often repeatedly aired on major news
networks around the world. A slight break from such a tradition of
overlooking the strategic consequences of day-to-day tactical operations has been initiated by the current COS, Moshe Ya’alon. In fact,
he has criticized the Israeli political leadership’s decision to use heavy-
Al-Aqsa Intifada 69
handed military operations against Palestinian terrorists because of
the substantial collateral damage caused when conducting such
operations and despite the fact that they may have negative strategic
consequences. Ya’alon was quoted in Yediot Ahronot as saying that,
‘in our tactical decisions, we are operating contrary to our strategic
interests’.48
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Collateral Damage
Despite attempts to use precision-guided missiles and highly-trained
snipers to eliminate Palestinian guerrillas and terrorists while avoiding
casualties and major collateral damage, the extensive insertion of
armored and infantry elements during Operation ‘Defensive Shield’
into such a compact battleground did bring about 53 Palestinian deaths
– most of whom were in any case combatants – and structural damage
to over 100 homes. The dilemmas and difficulties IDF soldiers went
through when trying to eliminate Palestinian fighters fighting from
inhabited civilian homes were poignantly voiced by a reservist from the
Nahal Infantry Brigade, First Sergeant Sean Sachs:
One building that I saw in particular was a three-storey building
where the bottom was still booby-trapped, the middle floor had a
family living in it and the top floor was used as a heavy
machinegun post, a 50-calibre machinegun. They were firing at
soldiers coming down one of the alleyways. How do you explain
to someone that the only way that you can take out a heavy
machinegun – which is armor-piercing – is that you have to call in
a helicopter and it has to be a pinpoint strike at that building? So
you hit that top floor. Just the top floor is damaged and the people
on the middle floor are fine. But a cameraman comes and shows
that building. And suddenly it’s a destroyed building and you are
accused of having killed people.49
Still, the IDF has on occasion conducted missile strikes with apparent
disregard for the possible collateral damage that they would entail. A
blatant example is when on 21 July 2004 the Israeli Air Force dropped
a one-ton bomb over late Hamas leader Salah Shehade’s home situated
in a heavily-populated residential area of Gaza City. The operation
wounded over 150 people, killed 14 civilians, including nine children
and led to an official – and embarrassing – apology on the part of the
former IDF Chief of Operations, Major-General Dan Harel.50 The
bombing’s repercussions are still being felt by former Chief of the
Israeli Air Force Major-General Dan Halutz who ordered the strike and
who had to justify the morality of his order in late November 2004
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70 Sergio Catignani
before the Israeli High Court of Justice prior to being appointed as IDF
Deputy Chief of Staff.
Thus, as a result of such collateral damage, the IDF has over the past
two years mapped out most Palestinian cities by developing a system
that divides ‘the urban battlefield into precise increments and gives each
building in a city . . . an individual four-digit designation so both land
and air forces know exactly which target they are trying to hit’.51 Such
detailed mapping and digital designation of Palestinian urban areas
have helped reduce to some extent the cases of operational errors,
which have led often in the past to extensive collateral damage.
Yet, despite efforts at reducing collateral damage Palestinian civilians
have suffered over the past four years; house demolitions have been a
common punitive measure used against families related to terrorists or
suspected of supporting terrorism. According to B’Tselem, an Israeli
human rights organization, almost half of the 628 housing units
demolished since the start of the Al-Aqsa Intifada belonged to people
who had no relation to terrorists. Such deliberate demolitions have led
to the unlawful creation of over 1,200 homeless civilians. Many more,
furthermore, were destroyed during military operations to unearth
arms smuggling tunnels.52 Operation ‘Days of Penitence’, which was
carried out during the first two weeks of October 2004 in order to root
out Hamas Qassam rocket attacks against Israeli towns bordering the
Gaza Strip, led to the destruction of over 90 homes and to the death of
over 100 Palestinians, most of whom were combatants, but which
included also 27 youths.53
Operation ‘Defensive Shield’, successive IDF counter-terror operations, but especially the so-far partial construction of the security fencewall have managed to reduce in any case by 30 percent the number of
terrorist attacks committed against Israeli objectives (from 5,301 to
3,338) and by 50 percent the number of terror victims (from 451 to
213) between 2002 and 2003.54 Moreover, according to a senior IDF
officer there was a further ‘75 percent reduction in attempted suicide
attacks so far this year compared to the same period in 2003’.55
The Strategic Impasse
And yet such tactical and operational successes have not achieved any
major strategic dividends, despite the belief of the higher political and
military echelons – for example, Moshe Yaalon, Ariel Sharon and Shaul
Mofaz – to the contrary. Indeed, according to Brigadier-General (Ret.)
Shlomo Brom:
On the tactical-operational level, the preparations were excellent,
but the problem was, as usual, on the strategic level, because of
Al-Aqsa Intifada 71
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the problem of how to prepare for it. Was it a preparation for a
military conflict? Now in a military conflict you have very clear
benchmarks for success. You have to – in blunt terms – kill as
many of the other side and have as few own casualties as
possible. . . In this type of conflict there is a totally different
benchmark, which should be built on the analysis of how it can be
stopped, not on how it can be won. Thus, in this type of conflict,
my aim should be to minimize as much as possible my casualties
and to minimize as much as possible my opponent’s casualties,
because killing breeds more killing.56
Such an observation is particularly poignant given the fact that
according to IDF Major-General (Ret.) Yaacov Amidror, ‘. . ..Palestinians regard victory differently from Israelis or those in the West. They
measure success not by achieving positive results for their people, but
rather by the amount of suffering inflicted on their enemies’.57 Thus, no
matter how successful the IDF may be at the tactical and operational
levels, the Palestinians are willing to conduct terror and guerrilla
operations and inflict suffering on the Israeli and Jewish settler
population until they achieve a political resolution leading to national
independence. This has been a constant problem for conventional
armies that have conducted low-intensity campaigns with much larger
and better-equipped forces against weaker and poorly-equipped
terrorist and guerrilla fighters.
Even when loss ratios have been considerably skewed in favor of
conventional forces, irregular forces have gained historically the
strategic upper hand on innumerable occasions. For example, in
Vietnam the loss ratios (including civilians) were 16 to 1 in the US’s
favor; in Algeria the loss ratios were 24 to 1 in the French forces’ favor;
in Afghanistan the loss ratios were at least dozens to 1 in favor of the
Soviet forces; and in Mogadishu, Somalia, during an 18-hour battle on
3 October 1993 the loss ratio between US forces and Somali irregulars
and civilians was 56 to 1 in the US’s favor.58 Yet, despite their military
superiority, all such forces ended the conflict without achieving any
battlefield decision or victory as Israel did when it left the South
Lebanese Security Zone in April 2000.59
IDF approaches to low-intensity operations have continued to
maintain by default the traditional conventional goal and ethos of
maintaining the status quo by trying to impose a battlefield decision
through military means. However, the nature of the current conflict
itself makes it very difficult for the IDF to achieve any major strategic
dividends despite its extensive tactical and operational successes,
because of the political nature of low-intensity conflicts, which are
ultimately resolved through political negotiation and diplomacy. The
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72 Sergio Catignani
late Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was able to reach finally such a
conclusion after six long years of Palestinian violence and the IDF’s
unsuccessful counter-insurgency efforts. Current Prime Minister Ariel
Sharon has possibly come to the same conclusion after avoiding any
major political options by relying heavily on IDF over the past three
years.
Thus, it is crucial that the Israeli political-security leadership provide
proactively alternative political solutions to the current conflict,
whether through unilateral disengagement in order to kickstart the
Road Map, which could provide a two-state solution to the Israeli–
Palestinian conflict, the creation of a newly-modified Oslo-type
agreement or any other political resolution that will end the current
conflict. Now seems a particularly auspicious moment given the fact
that the former Palestinian Authority and Palestinian Liberation
Organization leader, Yasser Arafat, has died.
The Israeli political leadership will have to understand finally that
when it is fixed on maintaining the status quo and the Palestinians are
set on modifying it, recurring episodes of fighting between them
become inevitable. It is imperative that the Israeli political echelon find
a political solution to Palestinian insurgency given the fact that it is able
to negotiate from a position of strength – Palestinian terror capabilities,
although not motivation, have been dramatically reduced by the IDF
and Israeli intelligence organizations – and given the fact that
ultimately the occupation over and control of Palestinians will only
continue to wear out both societies and, in particular, the IDF.
When commenting on the need to continuously and creatively
address threats to Israeli security, David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s founding
prime minister and ‘the father of its strategic doctrine stated that ‘‘the
most dangerous enemy to Israel’s security is the intellectual inertia of
those who are responsible for security’’’.60 The IDF has done its part in
trying to provide solutions to Palestinian terror and guerrilla tactics,
now it is up to the politicians to heed Ben-Gurion’s warning against
strategic sclerosis.
Acknowledgement
Earlier versions of this paper were presented at the American Political
Science Association Annual Meeting (2 September 2004) and at the
Inter-University Seminar on Armed Forces and Society Canada Meeting
(3 October 2004). I am grateful to Professor John Mearsheimer,
Professor Sir Lawrence Freedman and the journal’s anonymous referees
for their many useful comments. However, any remaining errors are my
own.
Al-Aqsa Intifada 73
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Notes
1 The IDF and other Israeli security services have had a long tradition in fighting Palestinian
terrorism and insurgency both locally and internationally since the early 1950s. However, the
scope of this article will focus primarily on the period relating to the Al-Aqsa Intifada as, I
believe, it has proven to be the greatest challenge to Israeli counter-insurgency efforts since the
state’s establishment in 1948. For a brief historical overview of Palestinian insurgency and
Israeli counter-insurgency see: Sergio Catignani, ‘The Security Imperative in Counterterror
Operations: The Israeli Fight Against Suicidal Terror’, Terrorism and Political Violence Vol.
17/1, forthcoming.
2 Beatrice Heuser and Lawrence Freedman, ‘Strategy’ in Lawrence Freedman (ed.), War
(Oxford: Oxford UP 1994) p.192.
3 Martin van Creveld, On Future War (London: Brassey’s 1991) p.208.
4 See Ze’ev Drory, Israel’s Reprisal Policy, 1953–1956 (London: Frank Cass 2004).
5 Eliot A. Cohen et al., ‘Knives, Tanks, and Missiles:’ Israel’s Security Revolution (Washington,
DC: Washington Institute for Near East Policy 1998) p.71.
6 Avi Kober, ‘Israeli War Objectives into an Era of Negativism’, Journal of Strategic Studies 24/2
(June 2001) p.187.
7 Efraim Inbar, ‘Israel National Security, 1973–1996’, AAPSS 555 (Jan. 1998) p.71.
8 See Chaim Herzog, The War of Atonement: The Inside Story of the Yom Kippur War (London:
Greenhill Books 2003) pp.270–91.
9 Uri Bar-Joseph, ‘Variations on a Theme: The Conceptualization of Deterrence in Israeli
Strategic Thinking’, Security Studies 7/3 (Spring 1998) p.153.
10 ‘Public Order and Security’, 13 Sept. 1993, Declaration of Principles on Interim SelfGovernment Arrangements, Article VIII, available at 5http://www.jmcc.org/research/series/
dop.html#declare4(accessed 1 July 2004).
11 Matthew Gutman, ‘Destruction, Constructively Speaking’, Jerusalem Post, 9 Jan. 2003.
12 Col. (Res.) Yehuda Wegman, ‘Israel’s Security Doctrine and the Trap of ‘‘Limited Conflict’’’,
Jerusalem Viewpoints 514 (1 March 2004), available at 5http://www.jcpa.org/jl/
vp514.htm4(accessed 1 May 2004).
13 Rami Hazut, ‘The Palestinians Are an Existential Threat: Iraq Is Not’, Yedioth Ahronoth, 23
Aug. 2002, Israel Resource Review, available at 5htttp://israelvisit.co.il/cgi-bin/friendly.
pl?url = Aug-23-02!IDF4(accessed 14 March 2003).
14 For an account of the demise of national security consensus, see Dan Horowitz, ‘The Israeli
Concept of National Security’ in Avner Yaniv (ed.), National Security and Democracy in Israel
(London: Lynne Rienner 1993) pp.27–31.
15 Moti Bassok and Eynav Ben Yehuda, ‘Survey: 46 percent of households cannot meet monthly
outlays’, Ha’aretz, 10 Aug. 2004.
16 Reuven Gal, ‘The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF): A Conservative or an Adaptive Organization?’,
in Daniel Maman et al. (eds.), Military, State and Society in Israel: Theoretical and
Comparative Perspectives (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers 2001) pp.364–5.
17 Steve Rodan, ‘Interview: Lt. Gen. Shaul Mofaz’, Jane’s Defence Weekly (17 Oct. 2001),
available at 5http:jdw.janes.com4(accessed 23 June 2004).
18 Col. Gal Hirsh, Head of the IDF Officers Training School, interview with author, Tel Aviv,
Israel, 6 Aug. 2003.
19 The attack killed 27 and wounded over 100 Israeli civilians celebrating the Jewish Passover at
a hotel reception in Netanya.
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74 Sergio Catignani
20 Yagil Henkin, ‘Urban Warfare and the Lessons of Jenin’. Azure 15 (Summer 2003), available
at at 5http://www.shalem.org.il/azure/15-henkin.htm4(accessed 23 May 2003).
21 ‘Briefing by the IDF Chief of The General Staff’, International Conference on Low-intensity
Conflict, 23 March 2004, available at 5http://www.idf.il/newsite/English/032304-4.stm4
(accessed 23 March 2004).
22 See ‘IDF Steps up Intelligence War against Palestinians,’ Jane’s Defence Weekly (5 Jan. 2001),
available at 5http:jdw.janes.com4(accessed 23 June 2004) and ‘Israel’s Digital Army’,
Foreign Report (22 May 2003), available at 5http://frp.janes.com4(accessed 23 June 2004).
23 David A. Fulghum and Robert Wall, ‘Israel’s Future Includes Armed, Long-Range UAVs’,
Aviation Week and Space Technology (25 June 2002), available at http://www.aviationnow.
com/avnow/search/autosuggest.jsp?docid = 3864&url = http%3A%2F%2Fwww.aviationnow.
com%2Favnow%2Fnews%2Fchannel_military.jsp%3Fview%3Dstory%26id%3Dnews%2
Fmiuav0625.xml4(accessed 14 July 2002).
24 David Eshel, ‘Israel Hones Intelligence Operations to Counter Intifada’, Jane’s Intelligence
Review (1 Oct. 2002), available at 5http://jir.janes.com4(accessed 23 June 2004).
25 According to various estimates the GSS and Military Intelligence ‘ran about 7,000 informers
throughout the West Bank and Gaza during the first Intifada’. See ‘Israel Uses Intifada
Informers to Abet Assassination Campaign’, Jane’s Intelligence Review (1 Dec. 2001),
available at 5http://jir.janes.com4(accessed 23 June 2004).
26 Capt. E., Sayeret Matkal (General Security Services Élite Commando Unit), interview with
author, Tel Aviv, Israel, 18 Aug. 2003. See also Barbara Opall-Rome, ‘Israeli Gunships,
Troops Team for Pinpoint Strikes’, Defence News, 21 April 2003, available at 5http://
www.defensenews.com/pgt.php?htd = i_story_1787859.html&tty = topnews4(accessed
20
May 2003).
27 Jeremy Gwinn, ‘Jenin and the Fundamentals of Urban Operations’, Infantry Online, 15 March
2003, available at 5http://www.benning.army.mil/OLP/InfantryOnline/issue_21/art_125.htm4(accessed 28 June 2003).
28 Ibid.
29 Col. Gal Hirsh, interview with the author, 6 Aug. 2003.
30 See Barbara Opall-Rome, ‘Tanks Fill Wider Role in Israel’s Anti-Terror War’, Defense News,
17 March 2003.
31 On the IDF’s attempts at trying to grapple with media exposure during the Al-Aqsa Intifada,
see Baruch Nevo and Yael Shur, The IDF and the Press During Hostilities (Jerusalem: The
Israel Democracy Institute 2003).
32 Since the start of the Al-Aqsa Intifada, for example, 323 children under the age of 14 have been
killed by IDF fire. See Gideon Levy, ‘Suffer the Children’, Ha’aretz, 2 Dec. 2004.
33 See Barbara Opall-Rome, ‘Objective: Re-create the Fog of War’, Defence News, 24 June 2002.
34 For a detailed account of the IDF Code of Conduct, see Amos Guiora, ‘Balancing IDF Checkpoints
and International Law: Teaching the IDF Code of Conduct’, Jerusalem Issue Brief 3/8 (19 Nov.
2003), available at 5http://www.jcpa.org/brief/brief3-8.htm4(accessed 11 Nov. 2004).
35 Soldiers often find themselves guarding checkpoints from around 8 to 12 hours a day and
dealing with up to 5,000 frustrated and hostile Palestinians. See Eitan Rabin, ‘Army Cameras
Catch Soldiers’ Abuse’, Maariv International, 11 July 2004.
36 See ‘IDF Readjusts to the Needs of the Palestinian Population’, IDF Spokesperson’s Unit, 8
July 2004, available at 5http://www.1.idf.il/DOVER/site/mainpage.asp?sl = EN&id = 7&docid = 32567.EN4(accessed 11 July 2004).
37 Barbara Opall-Rome, ‘Israel Tests Anti-Sniper System in Combat’, Defense News, 15 July
2002.
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Al-Aqsa Intifada 75
38 See Dror Marom, ‘Corner Shot Invests $2m in Weapons Systems’, Globes, 15 Dec. 2003,
available at 5http://www.globes.co.il/DocsEn/did = 751435.htm4(accessed 7 April 2004).
39 See Alon Ben-David, ‘Israel Unveils Refa’im Rifle Grenade System’, Jane’s Defence Weekly 40/
11 (17 Sept. 2003) p.15.
40 See Amir Buhbut, ‘On Target’, Maariv International, 19 March 2004.
41 IDF infantry brigades usually rotate among the three Territorial Commands (North, South and
Central).
42 Amos Harel, ‘Infantry Boosted in Leaner Army’, Ha’aretz, 29 July 2003.
43 Cohen (note 5) p.50.
44 Major (Res.) Danny Gal, MAMDA (IDF Behavioural Sciences Unit), interview with author in
Herzliya, Israel, 12 Aug. 2004.
45 Yaakov Hasdai, ‘‘‘Doers’’ and ‘‘Thinkers’’ in the IDF’, The Jerusalem Quarterly 24 (Summer
1982) pp.16–18.
46 Lt.-Col. A., Sayeret Egoz Commander, interview with author, Shrivenham, England, 23 June
2004.
47 Due to the large budget cuts over the past four years imposed by the Ministry of Finance, the
IDF’s new ‘Shot 2008’ five-year strategic review will envisage the reduction of its ground forces
by more than 25 percent, the withdrawal of older fighting platforms and the drastic cutback in
the use of combat reservists for routine security operations amongst other things. See Alon
Ben-David, ‘Extensive Cuts to Hit Israeli Ground Forces the Most’, Jane’s Defence Weekly 40/
2 (16 July 2003) p.17.
48 Quoted in: ‘Israel Needs Yaalon’, Foreign Report (6 Nov. 2003), available at 5http://
frp.janes.com4(accessed 23 June 2004).
49 First Sergeant (Res.) Sean Sachs, Nahal Brigade, interview with author, Tel Aviv, Israel, 11
Aug. 2003.
50 See Pierre Klochendler, ‘Israeli General Apologises for Civilian Deaths’, CNN, 23 July 2002,
available at 5http://www.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/meast/07/23/hamas.assassination4(accessed 10 Aug. 2003).
51 David A. Fulghum and Robert Wall, ‘Israel Refocuses on Urban Warfare’, Aviation Week &
Space Technology 156/19 (13 May 2002) p.25.
52 See Uri Glickman, ‘Report: Over 4,100 Palestinian Homes Razed by IDF Since Start of
Intifada’, Maariv International, 15 Nov. 2004.
53 See ‘UNRWA Gaza Field Assessment of IDF Operation Days of Penitence’, 20 Oct. 2004,
available at 5http://www.un.org/unrwa/news/incursion_oct04.pdf4(accessed 21 Dec. 2004).
54 See Margot Dudkevitch, ‘50% Fewer Terror Victims in 2003’, The Jerusalem Post, 9 Jan.
2004.
55 Arieh O’Sullivan, ‘Mofaz Terror in Decline, Pressure to Continue’, The Jerusalem Post, 22
June 2004.
56 Brig.-Gen. (Ret.) Shlomo Brom, former IDF Head of the Strategic Planning Division, interview
with author, Tel Aviv, 13 June 2003.
57 Maj.-Gen. (Ret.) Yaacov Amidror, ‘Israel’s Strategy for Combating Palestinian Terror’, Joint
Forces Quarterly 32 (Autumn 2002) p.120.
58 Statistics quoted in Avi Kober, ‘Has Battlefield Decision Become Obsolete? The Commitment
to the Achievement of Battlefield Decision Revisited’, Contemporary Security Policy 22/2
(Aug. 2001) p.111.
59 See: Gil Merom, How Democracies Lose Small Wars (Cambridge: Cambridge UP 2003).
60 Cohen (note 5) p.142.