Israel's national security, the Arab position, and its complicated relations with the United States

Abstract

Since its establishment in 1948, Israel has prioritized its national security in the face of several threats, including terrorism, sizeable weapons arsenals and existential nuclear risks. Ehud Eilam's new book provides a meticulous analysis of Israel's national security challenges in the last decade. The author tackles issues ranging from Iran's nuclear programme, Hezbollah's rockets and missiles and Egypt's internal affairs. The book is divided into nine chapters, beginning with a study of Israel's troubled relationship with Iran. Then, the author turns to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), analysing their military strategies towards Hamas and Hezbollah. The remainder of the chapters explore, in turn: the civil war in Syria; the issue of the Golan Heights; Egypt's economic problems; Egyptian relations with the United States; and the question of a Palestinian state. Tracing the history of the Iranian–Israeli conflict from its start in 1979, Eilam argues that ‘Iran's nuclear project is the most important challenge Israel has been facing in recent decades’ (p. 11). As the author explains, Iran has three main goals that would be detrimental to Israeli interests and that would foster regional instability: to expel the US from the Middle East; to overthrow the governments of Arab states and replace them with pro-Iranian leaders; and to destroy Israel. Eilam emphasizes how Israel tries to handle the Iran question with US support. However, both the Obama and the Trump administrations, as well as that of the current US President Joe Biden, have been reluctant to attack Iran's nuclear sites or let Israel carry out those operations on its own. Additionally, stressing the IDF's success in high-intensity wars against Arab militaries in the past, Eilam illustrates ‘how the IDF plans to gain a fast victory over its elusive and well-armed foes’—pro-Iranian groups like Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Hezbollah (p. 39). According to Eilam, such a victory for the IDF will ‘reduce both the casualties and the damages Israel will absorb’ and ‘creates deterrence, which could postpone the next war’ (p. 40).