Israel's Preparedness for High Consequence Terrorism
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Israel’s Preparedness for High Consequence Terrorism Ariel Merari ESDP-2000-02 BCSIA-2000-30 October 2000 CITATION AND REPRODUCTION This document appears as Discussion Paper 2000-30 of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs and as contribution ESDP-2000-02 of the Executive Session on Domestic Preparedness, a joint project of the Belfer Center and the Taubman Center for State and Local Government. Comments are welcome and may be directed to the author in care of the Executive Session on Domestic Session. This paper may be cited as Ariel Merari. “Israel’s Preparedness for High Consequence Terrorism.” BCSIA Discussion Paper 2000-30, ESDP Discussion Paper ESDP-2000-02, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, October 2000. ABOUT THE AUTHOR Dr. Ariel Merari is a Research Fellow with the International Security Program at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, John F. Kennedy School of Government and Director of the Political Violence Research Unit at Tel Aviv University, Israel. Dr. Merari received a B.A. degree in psychology (1964) and in economics (1965) from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, and a Ph.D. in psychology from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1969. In 1969 he was a Population Council fellow at Stanford University. He has been a faculty member of the Department of Psychology, Tel Aviv University since 1969. His duties at the Department included: Head of the Experimental Division (1969- 1975) and Chairman of the Department (1982-1985). During the period of 1978-1989 he was also a Senior Fellow at the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv University, where he founded and directed the Project on Terrorism and Low Intensity Warfare. He has also been a visiting professor at the University of California, Berkeley, and at Harvard University, where he co-taught a Winter Term course on terrorism and political violence at the Harvard Law School in the years 1988-1991. He has studied political terrorism and other forms of political violence for more than two decades. He has authored, co- authored or edited several books and many articles, monographs and chapters on these subjects. He established the Israeli Defense Forces' Hostage Negotiations and Crisis Management Team and commanded it for more than 20 years. He has served as a consultant to various branches of several governments. In this capacity, he was a member of the Review Board of experts, appointed jointly by the U.S. Departments of Justice and Treasury to investigate the siege at Waco, Texas. Recently, he was a member of an international panel of experts, invited by the Congress of Argentina, to examine terrorist attacks which took place in that country and recommend policy guidelines. The views expressed in this paper are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Taubman Center for State and Local Government, Executive Session on Domestic Preparedness, or Harvard University. Reproduction of this paper is not permitted without permission of the Executive Session on Domestic Preparedness. To order copies of the paper or to request permission for reproduction, please contact Rebecca Storo, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, 79 John F. Kennedy Street, Cambridge, MA 02138, phone (617) 495- 1410, fax (617) 496-7024, or email [email protected]. The Executive Session on Domestic Preparedness is supported by Grant No. 1999-MU-CX-0008 awarded by the Office for State and Local Domestic Preparedness Support, Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice. The Assistant Attorney General, Office of Justice Programs, coordinates the activities of the following program offices and bureaus: the Bureau of Justice Assistance, the Bureau of Justice Statistics, the National Institute of Justice, the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, and the Office for Victims of Crime. Points of view or opinions in this document are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. Since its creation in 1948, Israel has had to contend with the constant threat of terrorism. To meet this challenge, Israel has created and maintained an elaborate counterterrorism system. Much of the Israeli effort has focused on developing defensive measures designed to prevent attacks on the civilian population and minimize casualties. Israel has developed this strategy for two reasons. First, most Palestinian terrorist attacks, as well as a smaller yet significant number of attacks by Lebanese groups, have been random attacks against civilians. Second, all Israeli governments have been highly sensitive to civilian casualties. In this paper, the term “high-consequence terrorism” refers to terrorist attacks that result in high numbers of casualties. To maximize casualties, terrorists may use large amounts of conventional explosives (e.g., car bombs); apply unique methods, such as crashing a hijacked airliner into a city neighborhood; or employ weapons of mass destruction (WMD), specifically chemical and biological agents. The focus of this paper is preparedness against WMD attacks. The paper consists of four main sections. The first section is a review of Israel's experience with terrorism. It examines the form and scope of the problem and the countermeasures Israel has adopted to deal with this persistent threat. The second section describes Israel’s effort to prevent high-consequence conventional attacks. The third section examines Israel’s preparedness for WMD attacks. This section describes the organization, responsibilities, and procedures related to the management of a WMD attack. The fourth section considers the debate in Israel concerning investment in preparations against a WMD attack. The paper ends with some observations on preparations. AN OVERVIEW OF THE TERRORIST THREAT AND ISRAEL’S RESPONSES The Palestinian-Arab struggle against Israel has taken many forms: civil disobedience, riots, guerilla warfare, several conventional wars fought by Arab states with minor Palestinian participation, and of course terrorism.1 1. There are many definitions of terrorism that emphasize different aspects of this form of warfare. For an extensive survey and comparative analysis, see A. P. Schmid and A. J. Jongman, Political Terrorism (Amsterdam: North-Holland, 1988). In this paper, the main differences between terrorism and guerrilla warfare are the following: (1) terrorists do not try to establish control of a territory (e.g., create “liberated zones”); (2) guerrillas use relatively large units in operations-- platoons, companies, or sometimes battalions or brigades--whereas terrorist operations involve very few people; and (3) guerrillas use mainly regular armies' weapons and tactics, whereas terrorists employ specialized weapons and techniques (e.g., car bombs, improvised explosive charges, hijacking, and sophisticated bombs onboard aircraft). Ariel Merari Palestinian Terrorism In the last quarter-century, the terrorist campaign against Israel has been carried out mainly by organized Palestinian groups.2 These groups have maintained offices and bases in Arab countries, which have also been their main source of financial and logistical support. The Palestinian organizations have been among the largest insurgent groups in the world, considerably larger than West European groups, and similar in size and military capability to the Mujahedeen in Afghanistan and the Union for the Total Independence for Angola (UNITA). If other constituents of power that contribute to the overall strength of an organization, such as international political support and economic strength are factored in, the Palestinian organizations probably have been unparalleled worldwide. Since 1971, the annual number of Palestinian terrorist incidents has ranged from less than 200 to nearly 600.3 About 80 percent of the attacks have been directed against civilians; the rest have targeted military installations and personnel. Forty-five percent of the attacks on civilian targets have consisted of explosive bombing; 28 percent, fire bombing; 14 percent, artillery shelling of towns and villages from across the border; and 5 percent, armed assaults. Two types of incidents have had particularly deep psychological and political impact: hostage incidents (18 since 1974) and suicide bombing attacks (34 in Israel and the Territories since 1993). A relatively low number of indiscriminate, spectacular terrorist attacks account for many of Israel’s high-casualty incidents. In 1974, for example, there were several such incidents, including the explosion in midair of a TWA airliner (88 fatalities), the Kiryat Shmona attack4 2 Since 1982, Israel has also had to cope with Shiite groups. This strife, however, has been almost exclusively conducted in the form of guerrilla warfare on Lebanese territory. 3 From June 1967 until their expulsion from Jordan in September 1970, the Palestinian groups' main effort took the form of a guerrilla campaign against Israel, waged from neighboring Arab countries, particularly from Jordan. Their attacks included shelling across the border, mining roads, and ambushing. During that period there were 3,425 incidents along the Jordanian border, 346 incidents along the Syrian border, and 181 incidents along the Lebanese border. These figures exceeded by far the number of incidents inside Israel and the Territories. SeeYehoshua Raviv, "Bitkhon Israel Ba'shana Ha'shlishit Le'milkhemet