Since the early days of its occupation by a settler colonial state, Palestinian history has been punctured by a constant stream of milestones, not many of which can be considered as immense as Operation Al-Aqsa Flood on 7 October 2023. The operation stands out as an unprecedented shock to the Israeli army; with limited provisions and simple tactics, it undermined widely-held assumptions of Israeli technological superiority, considered a firm foundation of its military strategy. Given the continuous support and excessive confidence that the Israeli security establishment has received from the West, especially the US, Al-Aqsa flood came to challenge concepts of power and weakness, recalculating equations about the ability of the Palestinian resistance to adapt and innovate. It set off a strategic earthquake that shook the Israeli army and its doctrine to the core, and sparked a series of questions about future strategies for managing the occupation and the new balances that may reshape the region.
This crisis represents a pivotal moment in Israeli history, after undermining the very foundation of Israeli military doctrine. This is not limited to military concepts such as the deterrence strategy it has developed throughout the subsequent decades but goes as far as shaking very the pillars of the settler-colonial project. Israeli military doctrine is not just an operational system that determines war strategies and tactics, but is a defining component of Israeli mindset, identity, and psyche. It consequently forms a pillar of the central Zionist ideology in shaping settler colonial society in Palestine. Israeli academic Baruch Kimmerling described militarism as “central organizational principles” of Israeli society.[1] To clarify this, a general overview of what Israeli military doctrine is and its implications should be considered at two levels:
-
Strategic-operational level: The doctrine that makes up the system of principles and concepts that define war strategies and tactics, military operations, and the security system.
-
The broader, “existential” level: The military doctrine ingrained in society, culture, economy and other sectors, whereby military values and concepts permeate all aspects of life, including that which ostensibly appears to be “civilian”.
