Counter-terrorist policy of the state of Israel

Throughout modern history, in fact from the moment of formation, the State of Israel is an object of terrorist attacks by various combat groups and organizations. The goal of most of them is the destruction of Israel as an "artificial state formation" in the region. That is why the question “how Israel pursues a counter-terrorism policy” arises.

It should be noted that Israel does not have any traditions of weapons production, like, for example, Russia, Belgium, Germany or the United States do, since the analyzed country exists for about 70 years. Immediately after the establishment of the State of Israel, the Arab world declared war on it; the United States imposed an arms embargo on the conflict zone[1]. Therefore, the young country faced a difficult dilemma: to use the extremely limited budget to buy weapons illegally at inflated prices, risking international sanctions, or to send this money to create their own weapons industry.

Ben-Gurion chose the second option[2], and this is one of the first and perhaps the most important lesson in the history of Israel's military-industrial complex: its birth was made possible thanks to the political decision taken by the country's leadership, which was then unswervingly implemented. It was also extremely important that there was a unity of opinion on this issue both in the coalition and in the opposition of the Israeli parliament of that time.

Thus, the initiative in making this decision belonged to politicians, not military ones, and, it is indicative, it was the political leadership that took the most important strategic decisions in the future concerning new directions for the development of the military-industrial complex of Israel. At the same time, it was initially decided that the creation and development of new types of weapons in the Jewish state will be carried out exclusively by national cadres, citizens of the country, without the involvement of foreign specialists[3].

This principle remains the same today: at all enterprises of the military-industrial complex only Israelis work and each of them has to undergo a strict check in the General Security Service (Shin Bet) before recruitment. Such a rigid staffing policy makes it possible to minimize the leakage of information about new Israeli developments.

[1] Michael Joshua Fleet. Defense and Counter-Terrorism in Israel: The Misappropriation of Deterrence. Politikon: IAPSS Political Science Journal Vol. 26 [Electronic source]. Access mode: https://www.iapss.org/wp/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/66_Volume-26_Volume-26.pdf [4]

[2] David Ben-Gurion. Wikipedia [Electronic source]. Access mode: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Ben-Gurion [1]

[3] Jerry D. Smith. The Effectiveness Of Israel's Counterterrorism Strategy. March 2005 [Electronic source]. Access mode: http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a432673.pdf [2]