Table Of Contentmore information - www.cambridge.org/9781107034686
Israel’s Security Networks
Since the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, particularly after
the Arab–Israeli War of 1967, a highly informal but simultaneously
potent security network has influenced Israel’s domestic sphere.
Composed of acting and former security personnel and their partners
in the state’s various civilian spheres, this security network has affected
Israeli culture, politics, society, economy, public discourse, and foreign
relations. This book discusses this major sociopolitical phenomenon
and its effects in a comparative and theoretical perspective.
Gabriel Sheffer is a professor of political science at The Hebrew
University of Jerusalem. He is the author of numerous books, journal
articles, book chapters, and edited volumes, including Middle Eastern
Minorities and Diasporas (2002), Diaspora Politics: At Home Abroad
(Cambridge, 2003), Militarism and Israeli Society (2010), and The
Jewish Diaspora and the Jerusalem Question (2012).
Oren Barak is an associate professor of political science and inter-
national relations at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He is the
author of The Lebanese Army: A National Institution in a Divided
Society (2009) and co-editor, with Gabriel Sheffer, of Existential
Threats and Civil-Security Relations (2009) and Militarism and Israeli
Society (2010).
Israel’s Security Networks
A Theoretical and Comparative Perspective
GabrIel Sheffer
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
OreN barak
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
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Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9781107034686
© Gabriel Sheffer and Oren Barak 2013
This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception
and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements,
no reproduction of any part may take place without the written
permission of Cambridge University Press.
First published 2013
Printed in the United States of America
A catalog record for this publication is available from the British Library.
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication data
Sheffer, Gabriel, author.
Israel’s security network: a theoretical and comparative perspective / Gabriel Sheffer,
the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Oren Barak, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-107-03468-6 (hardback)
1. National security – Israel. 2. Social networks – Israel. I. Barak, Oren, author.
II. Title.
UA853.I75S54 2013
355′.033095694–dc23 2012044894
ISBN 978-1-107-03468-6 Hardback
Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs
for external or third-party Internet Web sites referred to in this publication and does not
guarantee that any content on such Web sites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.
Contents
Acknowledgments page vii
Introduction 1
1 Security Networks: A Theoretical and Comparative Perspective 8
2 The Making of Israel’s Security Network 23
3 Membership, Structure, and Culture 46
4 The Security Network and Israel’s Formal Democracy 76
5 The Network at Work: Shaping Israel’s Foreign and Security
Policies 102
6 Israel in a Comparative Perspective 125
Conclusion 143
Bibliography 151
Index 167
v
acknowledgments
This book could not have been completed without the generous help of
numerous individuals and institutions.
We thank the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute for its generous help in launching
the Workshop on Israeli Security and Society, where we had the opportunity
to develop many of the ideas that culminated in this book.1 We also thank the
Leonard Davis Institute for International Relations at The Hebrew University
of Jerusalem for helping us organize a conference at which we presented and
further developed our ideas.2 In recent years, we presented various parts of
this project at meetings of the Association for Israel Studies, the International
Studies Association (ISA), the Inter-University Seminar on Armed Forces and
Society, and the Israel Political Science Association. We also presented these
ideas in department colloquia at several universities in Israel and abroad. We
thank participants in all of these conferences and seminars for their helpful
comments and suggestions.
Many individuals in Israel and abroad have given us feedback on our project
in various stages and we are indebted to them. We thank Sarai Aharoni, Eyal
Ben-Ari, Oded Löwenheim, Amiram Oren, Shaul Shenhav, Mario Sznajder,
and Eyal Tsur from The Hebrew University of Jerusalem; Stuart Cohen from
Bar Ilan University; Zoltan Barany and Ami Pedahzur from the University of
Texas in Austin; Richard Kohn from Duke University; Jonathan Caverley and
Hendrik Spruyt from Northwestern University; and Christopher Dandeker
from Kings College.
At Cambridge University Press, we thank our editor, Lewis Bateman; Shaun
Vigil; and two anonymous referees who offered valuable feedback on the
1 The proceedings of the workshop were published in Sheffer, Barak, and Oren (2008) and Sheffer
and Barak (2010) as well as in a special issue of the journal Israel Studies.
2 Its proceedings were published in Barak and Sheffer (2009a).
vii
viii Acknowledgments
manuscript. We also thank Theresa Kornak and Colette Stoeber for copyediting
the manuscript.
We also thank Chanan Cohen and Einat Vadai for valuable research
assistance.
Research for this book was made possible by grants from The Harvey
L. Silbert Center for Israel Studies and the Levi Eshkol Institute for Social,
Economic and Political Research in Israel, both at The Hebrew University of
Jerusalem.
