Since declaring independence in 1948, Israel has been involved in an intractable conflict with the Palestinians and its neighbors. While violence has ebbed and flowed over the years, the threat of terrorism has remained a constant factor, shaping Israeli security policy in a unique way. Boaz Ganor provides an authoritative analysis of Israel’s approach to counterterrorism throughout its existence. Drawing on unprecedented access to Israeli leaders, he offers a comprehensive insider’s account of the decision-making processes, challenges, and dilemmas at the core of counterterror activities. Beginning with infiltration attacks from neighboring states immediately after independence and proceeding through the formation of organized Palestinian terror organizations up to the present day, this book details distinct eras of terrorism and how the Israeli state has counteracted them. Ganor also highlights the dynamic nature of both terrorism and counterterrorism: Just as waves of terror rise, fall, and evolve, so too do the measures employed to respond to them. He distills the lessons of Israel’s experience into key tenets for other countries facing the challenge of terrorism. The book features revelatory personal testimony from senior Israeli decision makers who have played pivotal roles in counterterrorism strategy, including prime ministers, defense ministers, Israeli Defense Forces chiefs of staff, and directors of Mossad and Shin Bet. Israel’s Counterterrorism Strategy is indispensable reading for students, scholars, and practitioners alike.

The product of painstaking research and countless interviews, A High Price offers a nuanced, definitive historical account of Israel's bold but often failed efforts to fight terrorist groups. Beginning with the violent border disputes that emerged after Israel's founding in 1948, Daniel Byman charts the rise of Yasir Arafat's Fatah and leftist groups such as the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine--organizations that ushered in the era of international terrorism epitomized by the 1972 hostage-taking at the Munich Olympics. Byman reveals how Israel fought these groups and others, such as Hamas, in the decades that follow, with particular attention to the grinding and painful struggle during the second intifada. Israel's debacles in Lebanon against groups like the Lebanese Hizballah are examined in-depth, as is the country's problematic response to Jewish terrorist groups that have struck at Arabs and Israelis seeking peace. In surveying Israel's response to terror, the author points to the coups of shadowy Israeli intelligence services, the much-emulated use of defensive measures such as sky marshals on airplanes, and the role of controversial techniques such as targeted killings and the security barrier that separates Israel from Palestinian areas. Equally instructive are the shortcomings that have undermined Israel's counterterrorism goals, including a disregard for long-term planning and a failure to recognize the long-term political repercussions of counterterrorism tactics.

This thesis analyzes Israeli counter-terrorism strategy and its effectiveness. Because of ongoing suicide attacks from Palestinian and other terrorist organizations, Israel will continue to have an aggressive counter-terrorism strategy. It will study how the impact of past wars, campaigns, and deadly terrorist attacks influenced the thinking of past and current leaders. By gauging the actions, and sometimes nonactions, of the international community, the Israeli government declined to become paralyzed by U.N. and world-wide condemnation of its aggressive counter-terrorism strategies. The Israelis vehemently believe the security of the nation relies on what the Israeli Defense Force (IDF), the Israeli Security Agency (ISA), and Shin Bet do to counter terrorism, not outside governments. The IDF, ISA, and Shin Bet employ three different measures in an attempt to thwart terrorist attacks both in Israel and the Occupied Territories. Defensive, operative, and punitive measures are used in different phases of terrorist attacks in an attempt to protect the lives of Israeli citizens. Of all the three measures used by the IDF and other security agencies, defensive actions have by far been the most effective to date is included.

The expansion and escalation of global terrorism has left populations across the world and decision-makers responsible for contending with it unprepared. This book, now in paperback, is the first attempt of its kind to create a manual of counter-terrorism measures on all the relevant operational levels. The author's main purpose is to give decision-makers the tools to make rational and effective decisions in both preventing and countering terrorism. The need to contend with terrorism can be found in almost every sphere of life: security, prevention and suppression of terrorism, legal and ethical dilemmas regarding democratic issues, such as the individual's human rights, intelligence interrogations, the right of the public to know, as well as coping with social, psychological, and media-related issues.

An expert on terror and political extremism, Ami Pedahzur argues in this book that Israel's strict reliance on the intelligence community and its elite units is fundamentally flawed.

A suggested approach to the policy issue of what and how much should be done by the Government of Israel to counter the objective threat of Palestinian terrorism. Palestinian terrorism is defined as Palestinian acts of low-level violence carried out for a political purpose, with the intent of inflicting casualties and damage as well as inducing fear and rage in Israeli society, and by so doing to incite Israel to react. After a historical analysis of Palestinian violence and Israeli countermeasures, the study focuses on current perceptions and observations. Terrorism is perceived by Israeli society as a major threat, both as a threat to the individual and as damaging to the national image. The perception of terrorism, however, is out of proportion to the share of terrorism in causing casualties, the reasons for which are given. The author suggests that Israel reduce the discrepancy in resource allocation among all casualty-preventing programs (say, preventing car accidents as well as countering terrorism); ameliorate society's perception of the subjective danger of terrorism; and, in general, to not react as expected to terrorist provocations. The study was prepared as a dissertation for the RAND Graduate Institute.

The most comprehensive study to date of Israel's national security. It combines an exhaustive analysis of the military, diplomatic, demographic and societal challenges Israel faces, with the responses it has developed, to present a detailed proposal for an overall new national security strategy, the first such Israeli strategy ever published.