“Israel”: “The entire nation is an army and the entire country is a front”? 

Muhammad Halsa - Writer and researcher in Zionist affairs

Israel realizes that the home front is its weak point, and that the axis of resistance from north to south possesses advanced missiles and shells that cover the entire occupied Palestinian territories.

As the signs of confrontation with the axis of resistance intensify, the debate is renewed in “Israel” about its being forced, sooner or later, to confront a multi-front war, not only with the Palestinian resistance factions in Gaza and the West Bank, but also with Hezbollah in Lebanon, Syria and Iran.

Israeli media reports have addressed the state of the home front in light of a multi-front war. The Israeli website “Walla” addressed such a scenario, and indicated that “Israel,” if this war occurs, “will witness destruction that it has never witnessed before.”

The website stated that this scenario was simulated by the Israeli Home Front Command during the “Crushing Fist” maneuver, which included the hypothesis of damaging the electricity and water infrastructure, the flight of thousands of workers from essential facilities, such as hospitals and factories, and the flight of settlers from Israeli population centers, in addition to harming the functional continuity of the economy.

The enemy's Minister of War, Yoav Galant, also said during his visit to the Home Front Command in the city of Ramla: "If war breaks out, the Israeli home front is expected to face challenges that we have not known the likes of in our 75 years of existence," and he stated that "the ability of the home front to deal with the upcoming challenges has a decisive impact on the outcome of the battle."

While everyone in Israel is talking about military readiness, especially in light of the internal Israeli conflict and the issue of “refusal to serve” that has emerged in the ranks of various units of the “army,” especially the air force, they have not failed to talk about the ability of Israeli settlers to “resist and persevere” in the face of a long military confrontation.

Israel realizes that harming the Israeli home front has been a primary goal of its opponents in all its recent confrontations with the resistance, in order to undermine its ability to withstand attacks and prevent it from providing support to the Israeli army in its field activities on the confrontation front.

The home front is of paramount importance and a decisive element in the ability to decide the battle and win, especially in a multi-front war. In Israel in particular, where the home front is often a fundamental part of the confrontation, its leaders understand that the fundamental difference between today’s wars and those fought until the mid-nineteenth century is that they have always been wars between armies. Its “civilian” settlers have always remained outside the “war zone.”

The resilience of the Israeli home front generally depends on several factors, including: the duration of the confrontation, the extent of the “army’s” achievements on the front, defensive capabilities, the continuity of effective economic performance, the state’s ability to continue providing vital services to its citizens, in addition to “the public’s confidence and belief” that this is a justified war that must be waged. 

It is true that the “State of Israel” is militarily strong, is constantly preparing its internal front, has one of the strongest economies in the world, has political agreements with Arab countries, and has a strategic alliance with the United States. However, on the other hand, it is experiencing a political and social crisis due to the refusal to serve resulting from the legislative measures led by the government.

Much has been written about the fact that this crisis is harming the operational and deterrent capabilities of the Israeli “army” and the security establishment, but we must not lose sight of the expected damage to the ability of the Israeli home front to deal with possible war scenarios and the damage that the political and social crisis may cause to its ability to withstand war due to the loss of confidence of the entire Israeli society in the political leadership that makes fateful political and security decisions. The home front and the readiness of the citizens, local authorities and all the basic Israeli bodies play an important role in the resilience of the home front and its ability to support the “army to defeat the enemy.”

Historically, Israel has waged its wars across borders and pushed its enemies away from its “borders,” until this changed during the first Gulf War in 1991, when the fires of war reached the heart of Israeli settlements via Scud missiles fired deep into Israel. The arena that Israel had always considered a safe “rear” area turned into the main arena of confrontation in the war.

As a result, an important turning point occurred in the concept of the home front in “Israel”, and it was decided, as part of the lessons of the war, to establish the Home Front Command as the fourth command in the “Israeli” army, and it became the body responsible for preparing the “civilian population” for emergencies and wars.

This step was considered a transition from the old concept that separated the responsibility for fighting on the front (“the army”) from the responsibility for defending the home front (civil society organizations) towards the new concept that gave the security system the responsibility for dealing with the home front as well, as the changes in the nature of war in the region caused the rear (the population) to merge with the front (the army) within a single framework, especially after the possibility of striking the “rear” (the soft belly) became a strategic goal for the axis of resistance, with the aim of quickly influencing the outcome of the war.

In the past, Israel built its national security on the relationship between the traditional concept of security and the concept of field work of the “army,” which relied on three pillars: deterrence, warning, and decisiveness. However, the conflicts that occurred in recent years, and the shift from war against regular armies to fighting against armed organizations and guerrilla warfare, in which it was difficult to make a decisive decision due to the change in the nature of the threat and the enemy, all led to adapting this concept to the security challenges that developed in the wake of attacks on the Israeli “home front” using long-range weapons and martyrdom operations deep inside the occupied Palestinian territories.

Therefore, “defense” was added as a fourth pillar in the concept of national security, and it gradually began to occupy an increasingly central position in the concept of Israeli security, because the home front became a main arena for confrontation with the enemy.

“Israel” realizes that the home front is its weak point, and that the axis of resistance from north to south possesses advanced missiles and shells that cover the entire occupied Palestinian territories, and are capable of hitting vital infrastructure and strategic targets in the depths, paralyzing life and disrupting the daily routine of the settlers as a legitimate tool to pressure the government and decision-makers in the “state” of occupation.

It is well known that the Israeli home front plays two main roles during war. The first is to support the war effort by providing personnel, resources and logistical support to the battlefront. The second, and equally important, is that the home front’s steadfastness through psychological resistance and moral support until the end of the fighting is a fundamental element in Israel’s strength and its ability to resolve conflicts quickly. 

The capacity and flexibility of the Israeli home front are affected by a large number of factors previously mentioned, but Israeli society tends by nature to prefer short, quick rounds over a long war, and its leadership realizes that the public is unable to withstand a long war in which many are killed on the battlefield and on the home front, as happened in the July 2006 war with the resistance in Lebanon. 

The length of the fighting depends not only on the ability of the front lines to withstand the days of confrontation, but also on the condition of the home front and its cohesion in light of the disruptions to education and transportation, the closure of economic facilities, and other restrictions that lead to the impatience of the Israeli public, which tends to “quick action and sharp solutions that reduce the severity of the harm,” and hates “low-intensity fighting that lasts for a long time.”

In short, Israelis prefer to live a quiet routine, and they do not like anyone who threatens and disrupts this way of life. When the situation gets tough and the usual patterns of life are disrupted, their patience runs out. Although the Israeli leadership is stubborn in talking about the resilience of the home front, it does not take the “general position” for granted, and it realizes that the Israeli public needs to be convinced. The longer the confrontation continues, the more doubts and questions rise in the internal and open public discourse, especially since control of information and the image of war is no longer exclusively in the hands of the “state” alone in light of the information revolution and the spread of social media networks. 

It is no coincidence that the issue of the home front has occupied a prominent place in the Israeli national security concept in recent years. It assumes that much of the conflict will take place “deep inside the settlements” in potential future wars and conflicts between “Israel” and its enemies, and that “civilians” will be exposed to increased danger, perhaps more than its soldiers on the front. 

Moreover, the nature of conflicts changes in terms of their continuation with varying degrees of intensity, unlike previous wars that often ended with ceasefire agreements followed by a period of calm. Confrontations with the Palestinians and Hezbollah are characterised by continuity and the intensity of the conflict changes from time to time, which has ended the clear dividing line between the rear (the population) and the front (the army) in the confrontation.

The concept that guided the State of Israel, which sought to transfer the battle to enemy territory as quickly as possible, has become extremely difficult to implement in the age of air and missile fire, and no longer provides a satisfactory response to new threats.

The change in the nature of conflicts has also affected the concept of security. Effective deterrence against hostile states does not have the same effect with fighting resistance organizations, and it is no longer useful for Israel to raise the slogan “the entire nation is an army, and the entire country is a front.”