Col (res.) Shai Shabtai
BESA Center Perspectives Paper No. 2,233, Nov. 19, 2023
‘The issue of captives and missing persons has become the Achilles’ heel of Israel’s national security. It makes us vulnerable in the eyes of our enemies, weakens our regional status in the eyes of potential allies, and is baffling to our international and regional partners, particularly the Americans.”
Before I address this difficult issue, I want to make clear that my heart goes out to the hostages in Gaza and their families.
Decisions affecting human lives that are made on the national level have to be based on risk management. Thus, decisions about safety measures, COVID lockdowns, the prevention of deadly infections in hospitals, medication availability, the combating of crime, and others are all based on risk assessments. Public opinion and political pressures factor into these assessments, but they are not usually the predominant factors.
Not so in security. In recent decades, a “shadow principle” has entered Israeli security theory that prioritizes the minimizing of casualties and the creation of “absolute security” above all other considerations. This principle represents a shift from national security to personal security. The Israeli security organizations obsessively focused on preventing any casualties, and a public discourse requiring “a thorough investigation of every casualty” was enforced. All of this transformed security thinking into straw thinking that was centered on local and tactical risk, making it difficult to see the holistic broader picture. This kind of thinking collapsed on 7 October, and a clear shift back in the direction of national security doctrine is evident.
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