Considering a New Strategic Course
INSS Insight No. 616, October 15, 2014
Gabi Siboni
http://www.inss.org.il/index.aspx?id=4538&articleid=7863

SUMMARY: Refreshing one’s security concept is not a simple task, but Israel
must undertake it, given the particularly complex regional changes. Israel
must reassess its attitude toward sworn enemies. There is more than a little
historical irony in the fact that Israel, a veteran of bitter ongoing
conflict with the radical Shiite bloc, including Hizbollah, Iran, and the
Alawite regime in Syria, now shares an interest with this radical bloc, also
known as the axis of evil. As to stopping ISIS, Israel finds itself on the
same side of the equation as some of the elements of that bloc, though not
with the same degree of prominence or importance, and also has common ground
with the pragmatic Arab states fighting radical elements, whether Sunni or
Shiite. Given this sensitive state of affairs, Israel must make the effort
to wipe the slate of earlier preconceptions that have characterized its
security policy for many years. Circumstances have changed and Israel’s
thinking must change accordingly.

In a television interview in late September 2014, US President Barack Obama
essentially admitted that the United States had underestimated the Islamic
State’s ability to operate and recruit new members, and overestimated the
Iraqi army’s ability to fight the organization. Indeed, within a short
period of time – almost overnight – ISIS embarked on a path to institute a
new world order and managed to position and brand itself as the savior of
the Muslim ummah from the chains of the oppressive West. Contrary to the
assessment of the intelligence community in both the United States and
Israel, the organization succeeded in quickly expanding the area under its
influence and increasing its recruitment, and it seems to be on the brink of
further successes. The source of its power is its radical Islamic,
anti-Shia, and anti-Western message. Even calling this message “nonsense,”
as Obama did, reflects a flawed understanding of the potency of the enmity
between the Sunni and Shiite camps in the Middle East and the attraction the
organization poses, which allows it – alongside its brutal military force –
to seize large swaths of territory and makes any attempt to confront it
difficult.

The fact that US intelligence agencies failed to properly assess ISIS’s
potential power until well into the changed reality in the Levant should
sound a loud wake-up call in Israel. For now, Israel is not at the top of
the ISIS agenda or the priorities of similar outfits, but the country cannot
allow itself the luxury of waiting for the potential threat to be realized
in the form of ISIS or allied operatives turning their organized or sporadic
attention to direct action against it. Israel must therefore reexamine some
traditional strategic conventions.

New strategic insights should form on the basis of the possibility that the
risk inherent in radical Sunni jihadist organizations will sooner or later
be turned against Israel. Israel is liable to find itself having to cope
with ISIS and allied factions just across the country’s borders, such as in
the Sinai Peninsula, Jordan, and the Syrian Golan Heights. Early worrisome
signs of the effect of ISIS’s militant message have already been detected in
the West Bank and even within Israel proper. Therefore, Israel must update
its conceptual, intelligence, military, and political thinking so as to map
the threat and identify a suitable response to the developing regional
reality.

At the same time that Israel prepares itself intelligence-wise and
operationally, the country must rethink its relations with various regional
parties. Shiites in Iraq are under ISIS attack, and in Syria the
organization is fighting Assad’s army. Likewise Nasrallah, leader of
Hizbollah which is fighting alongside Assad’s army, views ISIS as a serious
threat to his own organization in particular and to Shiites in general. The
dramatic change occurring in the map of regional threats and targets
justifies – even demands – an examination of new possibilities and options.

A key question concerns Israel’s policy toward Bashar al-Assad’s regime.
Since the start of the Syrian civil war, and in light of the uncompromising
cruelty shown by the regime in its fight for survival against the rebel
factions, many in Israel’s security establishment thought Israel should help
topple the regime in the war-torn country. Others claimed that Assad’s loss
of control would lead to chaos in Syria and the entrenchment of jihadists on
Israel’s border, liable to create a threat with the potential for military
entanglement, a la the Gaza Strip and the Sinai Peninsula. However, even
without Assad’s regime toppled and his army scattered, insurgent Jabhat
al-Nusra forces are seizing control of parts of the Syrian Golan Heights
near the Israeli border. Should this trend continue, Israel is liable to
find itself under attack, directly or incrementally, by ISIS, Jabhat
al-Nusra, and/or other armed factions entrenching themselves in the region
and filling the vacuum created by the retreat of Assad’s army.

The downing of the Syrian airplane by Israel’s aerial defenses on September
23, 2014 demonstrated the need for a different type of thinking. The plane,
which had accidentally penetrated the airspace over the Golan Heights, was
on its way to attack Jabhat al-Nusra targets. The downing of the plane was
certainly in keeping with instructions whose original rationale is
self-evident. But given that fundamental changes in Syria’s power structure
have occurred, and that it is equally obvious that the Syrian army has
neither the inclination nor the ability to develop a military front against
Israel, it is necessary to ask whether that rationale is still sweepingly
valid requiring automatic operative continuity. In fact, downing the plan
was self-detrimental to Israel’s best interests.

Refreshing one’s security concept is not a simple task, but Israel must
undertake it, given the particularly complex regional changes. Israel must
reassess its attitude toward sworn enemies. There is more than a little
historical irony in the fact that Israel, a veteran of bitter ongoing
conflict with the radical Shiite bloc, including Hizbollah, Iran, and the
Alawite regime in Syria, now shares an interest with this radical bloc, also
known as the axis of evil. As to stopping ISIS, Israel finds itself on the
same side of the equation as some of the elements of that bloc, though not
with the same degree of prominence or importance, and has common ground with
the pragmatic Arab states fighting radical elements, whether Sunni or
Shiite. Given this sensitive state of affairs, Israel must make the effort
to wipe the slate of earlier preconceptions that have characterized its
security policy for many years. Circumstances have changed and Israel’s
thinking must change accordingly.

It may be possible to identify ways of covert, passive coordination with the
Assad regime and even with Hizbollah in order to fight the Sunni jihad. The
way to formulate understandings on active cooperation, such as intelligence
sharing, needs to be considered. Hostility to Israel is too deeply ingrained
in the thinking of the Syrian regime and Hizbollah; any cooperation with
Israel liable to come to light is impossible from their perspective. But
Israel could help the struggle against the radical Sunni force by not
interfering.

Another complex challenge facing Israel is finding a way to help the fight
against the radical Sunni forces, indirectly and clandestinely, while
avoiding damage to the necessary ongoing intelligence and operational
efforts against threats to its security coming from the Shiite bloc. The
fight against Hizbollah will continue in every sense: pursuing efforts to
slow down the organization’s military buildup, maintaining military
deterrence, foiling the organization’s attempt to demonstrate its commitment
to fighting Israel via terrorist attacks as a response to accusations that
fighting alongside Assad’s forces represents a deviation from its raison d’etre,
and especially continuing efforts to keep incidents such as the recent
incident in the Shab’a Farms sector from snowballing into full escalation.
The political and diplomatic battle to foil Iran’s completion of its nuclear
program is also an ongoing task that cannot and should not be conceded. And
there is hardly any need to say that Israel will continue to foil Iran’s
support for Hamas and the consequent military buildup in the Gaza Strip.

The dilemmas Israel faces after the changes of the last few years in the map
of Middle East threats and struggles are far from simple. A common enemy
does not suddenly make Israel and other hostile elements into friends.
Nonetheless, one cannot ignore the fact that given shared challenges to
Israel and its enemies, Israel is impelled to find common ground and ways to
cooperate despite the ongoing hostility and conflict in order to decrease
the risk that a threat currently posed to others will in the future be posed
against it too. Automatic, inert thinking and action are liable to place
Israel in a very tough security position on its borders and enhance the
danger that conflicts in these areas will spill over onto Israeli soil.
Downing the Syrian aircraft must be viewed as a warning sign: Israel can no
longer afford to be a spectator on the sideline and react automatically and
instinctively; rather, it must act on the basis of the idea that it must
help – actively or by refraining from action – anyone fighting radical Sunni
jihadists