The paradox of Israel’s vulnerability

The attack by Hamas on Israel on October 7th displayed in the most concrete and tragic manner Israel’s vulnerability. The contrast between that vulnerability and Israel’s military and economic power is ostensibly perplexing.

But Israel is powerful because it is vulnerable — and it is vulnerable in spite of being powerful.

Surrounded by enemies calling for its destruction, Israel is a tiny state with no defensible borders, having thus almost no margin of error. The dictum by David Ben Gurion, Israel’s first prime minister, that the Arabs can afford to lose as many wars as they want while Israel can’t afford to lose even one war reflects this geopolitical reality. This dynamic explains Israel’s tendency to adopt a proactive national security policy. To paraphrase Henry Kissinger, Israel’s crucial battle is the first, not the last one.

Israel faces a dilemma: on the one hand, it has to project an image of itself as a powerful country in order to deter its enemies; on the other, it has to project an image of itself as a vulnerable country in order to win sympathy from others. Striking the right balance between the two is perhaps the most difficult challenge facing Israeli diplomacy.

Israel is both powerful and vulnerable. Conveying such an image to an international audience, often impressed by images devoid of context, is a particularly daunting task.

This has led Israel to adopt, again to paraphrase Kissinger, a precautionary policy — to take the initiative rather than wait to be attacked. But this creates serious diplomatic and public relations problems for Israel, since in order to demonstrate that it is vulnerable, Israel has to wait to be attacked.

This is the dilemma of a country in Israel’s geopolitical situation: having almost no margin of error, diplomatically Israel must wait, even though militarily it must not. And even when it does wait and then reacts, it runs the risk of being seen as the true aggressor, engaged in “disproportionate” retaliatory acts.

Thus, Israeli leaders must explain Israel’s vulnerability in the aftermath of its retaliatory acts, which supposedly portray a far from vulnerable country.

The quandary of the vulnerable state is that it cannot afford to wait to be attacked — but it may have no other choice if it wishes to obtain international support.

Israel has enjoyed widespread international support at times when it was perceived to be vulnerable. Thus, prior to the Six Day War, tiny Israel was seen as a vulnerable country fighting the entire Arab world bent on its destruction. During the First Gulf War in 1991, Israel enjoyed considerable international backing in as it was attacked with Scud missiles by Iraq — even under a right-wing government headed by the seemingly hawkish Itzhak Shamir. Of course, Israel did not retaliate, which helped in this regard.

The reports following October 7th — of Israeli civilians being murdered, whole families being burned alive and children and old women being kidnapped — elicited widespread international condemnation. Images of decimated kibbutz communities were proof of Israel’s vulnerability.

But as those reports diminish from memory and those images gradually fade, conveying Israel’s vulnerability becomes an intellectual exercise, requiring an imaginative leap. After all, how could Israel feel so vulnerable while being so militarily powerful? Israel’s retaliatory responses convey an image of power that may lead to a mistaken perception — it is easier to identify the vulnerable with the victim of an attack than with the perpetrator.

Israel’s vulnerability becomes more difficult to explain because its immediate security challenge is from non-state actors perceived to be weaker, as is the case with Hamas and Hezbollah. To engage in a logical discourse on one’s own vulnerability is less effective than portraying a simple image of vulnerability. It easy for a nation to illustrate its own vulnerability by suffering acts of mass murder aimed at its populace, as occurred on October 7th. It is harder to show vulnerability by pointing to the indiscriminate rocket attacks on civilian areas that Hamas and Hezbollah have launched for years, which are usually thwarted by the Iron Dome, Israel’s anti-missile defense system.

Hamas’s attack demonstrated that deterrence may not always work against a committed international actor seeking destruction. And if deterrence doesn’t work, a country that feels vulnerable is doubly incentivized to use proactive force — particularly if a mistaken assumption might entail immediate death and destruction.

Yoav J. Tenembaum is lecturer in the School of Political Science, Government and International Affairs at Tel Aviv University, Israel. His new book, “Historical Perspective and International Relations,” was just published in Britain.