ABSTRACT
This chapter examines Israel’s counter-terrorism and counterinsurgency strategy and campaigns particularly vis-à-vis Palestinian groups on the West Bank and Gaza Strip. It will also briefly look at the Israeli Defence Forces’ (IDF) conduct in Lebanon during its occupation of the country between 1982 and 2000; thereafter it will focus on Israel’s counterinsurgency campaigns during the two Intifadas (1987-91 and 2000-6), periods in which its counterinsurgency and population control measures were seriously put to the test. There are considerable complexities and challenges when a state adopts such a series of kinetic campaigns. This is because, rather than achieving a quick ‘battlefield decision’, ‘victory’ or even diplomatic resolution, the Israeli state has usually succeeded in postponing further rounds of hostilities by temporarily suppressing the level of insurgent violence or shifting the problem to another geographical area until such hostilities reappear, often in a more virulent manner.
