The State of Israel arose in a stormy confluence of historic circumstances. The Zionist movement that originated as an idea in hearts and minds met with a dynamic circumstantial environment at the end of a shocking world war, including the systematic genocide of Jews – the Holocaust.

The global change that occurred within mere decades was very intense:
The First World War marked a shift on a global scale, moving away from a world dominated by empires and colonialism towards a trend of embracing statehood and self-determination for diverse nationalities, as inspired by Wilson’s declaration. The Second World War which immediately followed included the destruction of massive industrial and mechanized infrastructure, made clear the price of war, and presented humanity with difficult changes and shocking new realities, including nuclear weapons, genocide and more.

In the midst of this drama emerged the opportunity to return the Jewish people to their homeland and to establish a national and political home in it, thereby integrating Zionism into the new world order after the global trauma of the preceding half-century.

Decades after the State of Israel was established her citizens still reflect on the circumstances and rationale of its creation, its operational planning and the foundations that give it being. The myriad conceptual efforts to create a shared and essential definition of what Israel is and what is required of her leads to confusion. These ongoing efforts led to an intermediate period in which Israel’s fundamental systems were formed, a period of clay in the hand of the molder –  a time to re-examine, learn, discover, think, design, build and establish.

In the decades since its official establishment, Israel has been busy with many challenges: positioning itself in the Middle East, fighting for its independence and image, absorbing mass immigration and building its economy. Many of these tasks were carried out in the chaotic heat of unfolding events; during a stormy day, the people and their leaders first respond to the most urgent, then to the important, and lastly begin to consider the optimal.

During times of self-examination and deliberation, the need for navigational aids rises again; constitutive documents, points of reference, steadfast anchors, a moral-value compass – all serve as a lighthouse in the darkness.

Given the turmoil of its establishment, Israel acted on the basis of a survival directive, not an orderly manner given by a grand strategy from which all decisions could be derived down to the point of particular tactical moves. Regrettably, in the absence of a textual infrastructure such as a Constitution, we return to the Declaration of Independence – which is an impressive founding document – and to the writings of the leaders of Zionism to explain the past, our present, and to receive guidelines for the future.

Although Israel and her leaders’ operational-tactical performance have improved beyond recognition – demonstrating good performances in military operations, campaigns, and wars –  their frequent lack of an orderly strategy is noticeable. The lack of an overall grand strategy is especially acute. Such a strategy would examine, identify and clarify the State’s situation in terms of resources and challenges. Having defined these fundamental elements, it could carry out long-term planning for generations in a systematic, professional, critical and continuous manner.

The basic lines of the grand strategy for Israel derive, among other things, from the following assumptions:

  • Anti-Semitism in the world is destiny, at least in the visible timeframe. Range.
  • Jews survived genocide, Inquisition and progroms due solely to their religion and heritage.
  • The Jewish people have rights to the Land of Israel based on historical and moral validity derived from ancient texts, centered on the Bible.
  • The Jewish people who maintained a permanent presence in the Land of Israel returned en masse from the diaspora and established their sovereign nation-state there.
  • The State of Israel is a defensive fortress, a beach of safety, a refuge and a source of strength for the Jewish people, and therefore will constantly work to protect Jews in Israel and the entire world – to the best of its abilities.
  • In the State of Israel there is full and complete equality of rights for all citizens, yet it is a Jewish and democratic state.
  • Israel will strive for excellence and global leadership in every field in the spirit of the Bible and the prophets of Israel.
  • Israel will continuously and persistently strive to be the spiritual, historical, and values base of the entire nation of Israel wherever it is.
  • Israel will preserve with determination and full intention the Jewish heritage, the cultural assets of the people of Israel and the teachings of Israel.
  • Israel is located in the Middle East, within the boundaries of the historical Land of Israel and is in a struggle for its security and borders.
  • Within the borders of Israel there are heritage, religious and cultural sites of various religions; these will be responsibly maintained by the state institutions and full freedom of worship will always be possible in them.
  • As the modern world moves at lightning speed, changes and develops, Israel will prepare and work to be a relevant and cutting-edge leader while always planning ahead – building the infrastructure to absorb the Jewish people into its sphere, both in times of crisis and times of normalcy.

From these basic principles there emerges a need to maintain an orderly discourse, a sustained learning process that ensures clarity, situation identification and long-term planning for Israel. The outcome of such a process is the creation of position papers as a basis for strategic planning, collected and curated in an archive that documents and preserves a national strategic process.

These documents are stored as basic drafts until they are utilized at a specified time as fundamental, constitutive documents. Given the current  absence of such an infrastructure, a strong team focused on the development of a grand strategy should be assembled; a team that thinks, talks, learns and teaches as an aid to the establishment of the people of Israel in its land. This is the mission of Eitan Center.