Israel’s security doctrine sees Arab states as ‘collections of tribes’, says ex-intelligence chief
Israel’s security policy since the 7 October attacks has been guided by an unwritten “concept” holding that most Arab states “are not genuine nation-states, but collections of tribes and ethnic groups lacking a shared history and a foundational national vision”, a former head of Israeli military intelligence wrote.
In a paper published on Monday by the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS), a think tank based at Tel Aviv University, Tamir Hayman set out 10 principles he said could be inferred from the policy now being implemented.
Among them is the assumption that “any arrangement with Arab actors is temporary and deceptive”, and that “peace agreements are merely technical and temporary arrangements requiring constant reassessment”.
Hayman, a reserve major general who led the Israeli army’s Military Intelligence Directorate between 2018 and 2021 and is now the institute’s executive director, wrote that this new concept “has not been formally articulated or presented to the public, nor is it bindingly defined within the defense establishment”.
“In practice, however, its principles inform decision-making and dictate Israel’s approach to security,” he added.
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Hayman described his list as “a subjective, theoretical and deliberately exaggerated interpretation” of current policy, and said the paper was intended as a basis for public and professional debate.
He argued that the change pointed to a shift in Israel’s national identity, and said his aim is addressing “the question of who we are" after 7 October.
Hayman wrote that the premise underlying the concept was that the weakness of Arab states served Israel’s interests.
“Consequently, undermining their stability is viewed as a natural process, one that Israel can manage more effectively than it can contend with strong nation-states, and one that it should even encourage,” he wrote.
He linked this to another principle, under which security is pursued by establishing “communities and outposts in all areas of friction with the Arab population, in Judea and Samaria [the occupied West Bank], and in security zones in Syria, Lebanon, and the Gaza Strip”.
That deployment “further contributes to the destabilization of the ‘synthetic’ Arab states”.
Peace as ‘naive error’
Hayman wrote that under the new concept, striving for peace is seen as repeating the error of the “conceptzia”, the Hebrew term for the prevailing strategic assumptions widely blamed for Israel’s failure to anticipate the 7 October attack.
“A meaningful peace agreement is unattainable in the Middle East, as peace agreements are merely technical and temporary arrangements requiring constant reassessment,” he wrote.
“According to this view, peace is not an intrinsic value that generates security, but a means of achieving other policy objectives.”
Politically, he added, peace is regarded as “a naive concept” associated with the left-wing “peace camp”, in tension with or in direct opposition to the right-wing “security camp”.
The paper said the concept treats war as “essential to national security”, citing the line “silence is filth” from the anthem of Betar, the Revisionist Zionist youth movement founded in 1923 by Ze’ev Jabotinsky.
“War is necessary, and preventive war is preferable because it secures a significant achievement at the outset. Its intensity may vary with circumstances, but its constant presence is an asset to national security,” Hayman wrote.
Severing ties with US
The paper also said the concept views the United States as a “declining power” that will “soon abandon Israel in any event”, and holds that severing ties with Washington is “essential to Israel’s independence and the resilience of its Jewish national identity”.
Other principles Hayman identified include the primacy of the state’s Jewish identity over its democratic system, “even at the cost of eroding its democratic values”.
He wrote that the concept regards the Palestinian national movement as “an inauthentic Western narrative rooted in post-colonial guilt”, and leads to “principled opposition” to any separation between Israel and a Palestinian entity and to the establishment of a Palestinian state.
Under this view, he wrote, security is to be achieved by expanding settlement “both within and beyond the ‘Green Line’ (which is regarded as fictitious)”, while Arab inhabitants who remain “will be granted residency rights and local self-governance”.
‘Self-fulfilling prophecy’
Hayman contrasted each shift with what he described as the founding principles of Israel’s traditional security concept, posing a series of questions for debate.
On peace, he asked: “What is the strategic and moral price of a security concept that defines peace agreements as a ‘conceptzia,’ a flawed delusion to be inherently mistrusted, rather than a strategic asset that enables the state to prosper and should therefore be preserved?”
He asked whether treating peace as inherently temporary risked “becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy that undermines Israel’s long-term security”, and how Israel would address the risk of emigration, “including a brain drain on a scale that threatens its economy”.
He also questioned whether a policy seeking to curtail the civil rights of Palestinian citizens of Israel, who he noted comprise approximately one-fifth of the population, could still align with the state’s definition as “Jewish and Democratic”.
On the use of settlers in forward positions, he asked whether placing civilians as a front-line “shield” reversed the priorities of a sovereign state, which he said places soldiers before civilians, and exposed “noncombatants to precisely the risks that the state, through the Israel Defense Forces, sought to spare them”.
Hayman wrote that the trauma of 7 October necessitated some changes to Israel’s security thinking, but that if the principles he outlined did constitute the new concept, they revealed “a profound and fundamental contradiction” with the foundations of the traditional one.
“Its considerable influence stems precisely from its operation as an unwritten concept revealed through practice, rather than as a government’s declared policy,” Hayman concluded.
“Only then can we determine whether it represents a necessary adaptation to the current and emerging security reality, or an expression of a fundamental, unchecked shift in the state’s identity.”
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