The introductory chapter sets up the empirical puzzle of the book: Paradoxically, while large swaths of the Israeli electorate have long thought of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as “Mr. Security,” the Israeli security community has for decades viewed him as a security liability. The Israeli public’s general indifference to the years’ long, publicly expressed views of senior veterans of the security establishment is a fascinating and important phenomenon this book aims to explain. The book’s twofold argument is stated here: First, a chasm characterizes the relationship between the Israeli national security community and Netanyahu – on a personal level but also in terms of his approach toward national security; second, that three interconnected trends explain the security establishment’s diminished status in Israeli society: Perceived military debacles since the 1973 Arab-Israeli war; the disintegration of the political left in the aftermath of the second Intifada, with the security community being a casualty of the left’s collapse given its association with the Israeli-Palestinian peace process; and the rise of populist nationalism in Israel. Following a historical survey of civil-military relations in Israel, this chapter concludes with a description of the book’s structure.

Chapter 4 begins with a look at the decline of the IDF’s once-unassailable reputation due to perceived failures on the battlefield. In the aftermath of the debacle of the 1973 Yom Kippur War, the IDF underwent important changes, mirroring changes in Israeli society, which negatively impacted the generals’ role in shaping public opinion. The second Intifada, moreover, led the general public to conclude that Israel lacked a Palestinian negotiating partner – a widely accepted opinion that has been firmly entrenched in Israeli society in the first quarter of the twenty-first century. The “no partner” mantra has further diminished the generals’ clout given the security establishment’s association with the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. This chapter also addresses the implications of the national religious camp’s ascent and its increased influence in both the IDF and in the political arena.

Chapter 5 focuses on the rise of populist nationalism in Israel. The collapse of what was once called the “peace camp” at the start of the century opened up the political space for nationalist politicians to link the security establishment with “the failed left” given its close association with the Oslo peace process. The continuous attacks by populist-nationalist politicians on the top echelon of the army and intelligence services must be seen as part of the broader pattern of assaults on state institutions including the courts and the media – all targeted as part of the maligned “leftist” elite. The security officials who have challenged the right’s policies – particularly, its approach toward the Palestinians – have found themselves ostracized and, in some cases, their careers cut short for their so-called “leftist” agenda. Senior veterans of the security establishment, who are more free to speak their minds, have likewise found themselves targeted by populist politicians on the right in an effort to neutralize the criticisms and dire warnings often issued by ex-generals and retired heads of the Mossad and Shin Bet security services.

Chapter 6, the concluding chapter, synthesizes the key themes discussed in this book and summarizes the central conclusions drawn from the empirical research and why they matter. The practical implications of the book’s research findings include potentially open disobedience by the IDF top brass of orders as a developing norm; an ever-escalating clash over values and incongruous visions for Israel’s future between the security community and the messianic religious-right; the delegitimization of institutions that serve as the gatekeepers of Israeli democracy, such as the media, the courts, human rights NGOs, and even the IDF; and significant economic and political repercussions for Israel if it ceases to be a liberal democracy.

Chapter 1 focuses on the Israeli security community’s desire to preserve Israel as a Jewish and democratic state, a sentiment that serves as the basis for the security veterans’ disproportionate support for the two-state solution. This chapter explores the assessments of the security establishment from the 1967 War to the Oslo peace process of the 1990s to the breakdown of the peace process in the 2000s. It shows that proposals for a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip were submitted by the IDF and intelligence services to the Eshkol government even before the conclusion of the 1967 “Six Day” War. Two decades later, the IDF top brass played an important role during the first Intifada in prodding the Rabin-led government to pursue peace talks with the PLO. During the second Intifada in the early 2000s, retired senior security establishment officials urged Prime Minister Sharon to resume peace diplomacy with the Palestinians. As this chapter shows, Israeli governments have varied in their commitment to pursuing a deal with the Palestinians based on the two-state solution, often putting them at odds with the national security community.

Chapter 3 focuses on the policy disagreements with the security community in the period following Netanyahu’s return to power in 2009, a decade after he lost his reelection to Barak. His dismissal of the two-state solution and aggressive settlement policy in the West Bank; his approach toward Hamas-led Gaza; and key aspects of his policy aimed at thwarting Iran’s nuclear program have encountered serious opposition by the security establishment and retired senior security officials. This chapter describes how civil-military tensions spiked following the formation of Netanyahu’s sixth government in December 2022 and its pursuit of its highly controversial legal overhaul.

Netanyahu’s worldview, his modus operandi, and the significant steps he has taken to keep the generals at bay are explored in Chapter 2. It is argued that he is a pragmatic hardliner – a lifelong right-wing ideologue and opponent of Palestinian statehood who nevertheless has displayed flexibility, enabling him to remain coy about his territorial vision for Israel. A master manipulator of the media, he has cultivated an image of himself as “Mr. Security” and sought, early on, to exclude the IDF generals from the decision-making process, associating them with the political left and seeing them as potential rivals. The security community, for its part, sees Netanyahu not as “Mr. Security” but, rather, as a politician who routinely places his personal and political interests ahead of national security concerns.

The post-Oslo period in which this study is situated refers both to the buoyancy of a potential reconciliation in the immediate wake of the 1993 Oslo Peace Accords and the subsequent demise of a viable two-state solution. As evidenced in this chapter, perceptions of the formulation of the Oslo Accords and the reasons for the agreement’s key successes and failures remain a subject of narrative dissent. Rather than provide the reconciliatory framework and confidence-building measures to address past grievances, as was intended through the interim nature of the 1993 agreement, the post-Oslo period therefore witnessed an ongoing irreconcilability of key narratives. This chapter offers both a holistic understanding of the political and societal impact of these historic accords and an overview of the key events that were influenced by – and affected – subsequent implementation and interpretations of the Oslo peace agreements. The events and societal trends highlighted in this chapter do not provide an exhaustive analysis of Israeli-Jewish or Palestinian politics in the post-Oslo era; however, they do seek to render formative insights into the societal underpinnings that explain the rise and persistence of exclusionary identity politics that form the main interest of this work.

Through a study of the most prominent Holocaust institutes in Israel – Yad Vashem, Lohamei Hagetaot, and Yad Mordechai – Chapter 5 demonstrates that Holocaust mnemonic rituals serve a defined political purpose, namely the justification of the need for a strong and independent Israeli state as the only viable way to hinder a recurrence of the Holocaust. The deliberate usage of teleological architecture at Yad Mordecai and Yad Vashem seeks to inspire a redemptive visitor experience through a regulated physical move from the exhibited darkness and catastrophe of Europe to the light and rebirth in Israel, the former destroyed; the latter victorious. The emphasis on a Jewish rebirth in the wake of the Holocaust in the institutes’ historical exhibits and in annual commemorative ceremonies prompts the merging of the dissonant categories of victim and victor, forming a metaphorical testimony to what Martin Jaffee described as “the victim-community” in which “the victim is always both victim and victor.” Beyond the overt minimization of the fate of non-Jewish victims and post-Holocaust diasporic Jewry, the Zionist panacea channeled at the memory sites demands a foregoing of the physical Palestinian history of the three sites themselves. As a result, visitors to the historic exhibits and participants in annual mnemonic rituals continue to take part in a cultural palimpsest as they are propelled to remember the physically superimposed Jewish watershed rather than the Nakba.

The fragile political status quo between Israel and Syria existing since the end of the last formal war between the two states in 1972 – a tense and fragile armistice – serves as the background for Israel’s policy in the current Syrian conflict surveyed in the chapter. Israel’s policy was modeled according to an organising principle combining humanitarian and military activity: building civilian bridges, on the one hand, while acting militarily to secure Israeli interests, on the other hand. Israel was acting initially as a ’passive onlooker’, then as a ’good neighbour’, and, more recently, as a declared rival against the Iranian presence in Syria. The chapter explores these Israeli policies, in addition to ’humanitarian diplomacy’ – the civilian and government assistance provided in the Syrian Golan Heights area – and Israel’s role in the efforts to build a set of common interests with Syrian opposition groups. Finally, this chapter addresses the new challenges and opportunities facing Israel in light of the shifting situation across its north-eastern border.