The puzzle of parties, mostly small ones, that are trying to adopt the appealing name "coalition for change" or "healing government" is not an obvious one. The glue that supposedly holds the "Anyone but Bibi" coalition together entails simplistic reasoning that allows parties with polar-opposite platforms to team up.

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Will everyone – parties such as Yamina and New Hope, which are well on the right wide of the political map, and Meretz and Labor, which are committed to a two-state solution and cancelling the Nation-State Law – join forces? The image of wolves dwelling with lambs (Isaiah 11:6) underscores the anomaly, the idealization of irrationality, of this supposed movement. Is anyone buying the ideological message of a "healing" government or a platform that focuses only on the handling of the COVID crisis? To a large extent, this turns government into banality and shows a lack of understanding of the tasks of a government.

Since the founding of the state, and even before, the major divides in the people were ideological in nature, first and foremost the dispute between socialism and revisionism. Ben-Gurion's categorical rejection of the communist and right-wing Herut parties, which marked the "boundaries of political legitimacy" in Israel, cracked after some 20 years ahead of the 1967 Six-Day War with an ad hoc constellation that did not cover up the wide ideological gap between the two sides of the Israeli political spectrum.

In effect, the results of the election for the 24^th Knesset are being parsed by a personal consideration – supporters and opponents of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. This is also how the opposition parties waged their election campaigns, with momentum from the anti-government protests. But a deeper analysis of the moves made by the Zionist left-wing parties anchors the theory that their vision remains what it was, and might even have been sharpened in light of trends in the new American administration under President Joe Biden.

In circumstances such as these, it is almost certain that the media's attempts to create the impression of a honeymoon between the left-wing parties (some of which would prefer to be called "center-left") and Gideon Sa'ar of New Hope and Naftali Bennett of Yamina aligns with the left-wing parties' strategic political plans.

Empirical reality indicates that most of the public holds a worldview that tends to the Right, a tendency that has gained strength in the latest election. Netanyahu's repeated motto – as he is establishing a front to handle major challenges, first and foremost Iran, given the new American administration – which signals that the "special relations" between Israel and the US are losing their meaning, is justified.

A bunch of parties from all over the map that have adopted slogans of "healing," "repair," or "change," are nothing but pot-stirrers that comprise another aspect of the "beats" on route to changing the record for some future government. This places New Hope and Yamina before a kind of honey trap. The logic of ousting Netanyahu assumes that doing so would lead to the destruction of the Likud and the hegemony of the Right.

The appropriate imagery for those pulling the strings of this should be inspired by Leonard Cohen's song "First we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin," or, translated into electoral terms, first we take Bennett, and then we take power.

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No one disputes the convention that elections are the lofty expression of the democratic process, and it's not for nothing they are referred to as a "celebration of democracy." In normal times, political parties would use their election campaigns to promote their socio-economic agendas in such a way that differentiates them from their rivals. Naturally, party campaigns are aimed at affording citizens of the state the basic tools to better understand the political options available and make an educated decision as to which party deserves their vote.

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The complexity of the Israeli political system, and the lack of a clear outcome in the three most recent rounds of voting, in particular, has led to the establishment of a particular kind of campaign ahead of the March 23^rd election. For the first time in an election campaign, the traditional disputes between the political Right and Left have been brushed aside, the controversial issue that is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been intentionally disappeared, and even the vocal arguments over the government's failures in contending with the coronavirus pandemic are being sidelined. It would be fair to say that this election can be summed up as a referendum on public trust in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

This common denominator, which crosses party lines, raises the banner of the "lofty" objective of removing Netanyahu from office, so much so that we may see politicians from a variety of parties across the political spectrum come together to form a coalition that leaves the Likud in the opposition.

"Bringing down Netanyahu is preferable to the premiership," Yesh Atid party head Yair Lapid, the man spearheading opponents of the prime minister, made clear.

We have never before seen abysmal hatred for one politician become a party's refined campaign in an election. The fact that the "Anyone but Bibi" camp's electorate is at peace with this line is an insult to their intelligence. As a famous quote attributed to physicist Albert Einstein goes: "The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits."

In this dangerous game that is being played with Israel's future, the ends justify the means.

A cold analysis of the current circumstances and forces at play on the eve of the election, and the internalization of the implicit message being sent by boycotting Netanyahu, on one hand, and the determination to protest him on the other, are signs we may see an extreme and unprecedented refusal to accept the results of the election should it see the forming of a Netanyahu-led coalition. Not coincidentally, the names of the Netanyahu protest movements, among them "black flag," and "crime minister," make clear their supporters won't accept the outcome unless it suits their doctrine. Allow me to borrow from the world of intelligence assessment and say this is no imaginary scenario but a rather reasonable one, and as such should serve as a genuine warning sign.

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The dynamic consciousness engineering of those who preach an ideology of  "enlightenment" and "anyone but Bibi" will undergo creative mutations adapted to the changing data from time to time.

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The pandemic is running wild, reinventing itself in such a way that it is only natural for it to become a central issue in various parties' platforms. There can be no dispute that the coronavirus decided the fate of former US President Donald Trump in the election.

There can therefore be no doubt that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's opponents will focus their messaging on what they see as a failure to contend with the pandemic, a failure no less grave than the one the country witnessed in the 1973 Yom Kippur War, to remove him from power. They will repeat their slogans of political considerations, selective enforcement of coronavirus restrictions, and personal interests. They will minimize any indication of the government's success, whether on a national or international level, and produce selective data that puts Israel on the same level as a failed state. As far as they're concerned, the imposition of a lockdown will forever reflect an admission of the government's colossal failure in managing the pandemic, even though this is an effective means of reining in the spread.

The credit for the incomparable success in ensuring a high-priority vaccine inventory for all of Israel's citizens goes first and foremost to Netanyahu. Even the prime minister's critics have failed in their attempts to minimize his role in the matter and divert credit to Israel's healthcare providers, anachronistic organizations that have nonetheless stood the test of time.

The vaccination campaign, which by all accounts has been a phenomenal success on a global scale, has elevated Israel's role as a model for actively exiting the pandemic. The availability of the vaccines has served as a catalyst for consolidating a national plan to inoculate 5 million Israelis in three months. This goal is not a pretentious one, and given the logistical organization, is feasible. This is a great, big light at the end of the tunnel by any measure.

Yet it is precisely Israel's impressive achievement, which has the potential to set a realistic date for exiting the health crisis, that is the icing on the cake for Netanyahu's rivals. The way they see it, this is something like a move in chess that allows the opponent to scramble its game pieces as part of the aggressive strategy toward his removal from office.

It's no wonder, then, that the strategic advisers see in the success of the vaccination campaign the central weakness they hope to exploit in their anti-Netanyahu campaign. From an operational point of view, their conclusion is that the focus should be on messages that will be adopted in the public discourse, discrediting the vaccines to some extent by having prominent media figures allude to this and that side effect and voicing skepticism as to the motives behind Netanyahu's extraordinary deal with Pfizer's CEO Albert Bourla.

We have already been unknowingly exposed to a systematic and sophisticated campaign that borders on Machiavellianism for this very purpose. This was the case with the investigation by the Central Helsinki Committeev, which authorizes medical research and clinical trials on humans, as to whether the transfer of epidemiological data about Israelis to Pfizer constitutes a clinical trial. This is a well-known method of psychological warfare.

When Netanyahu is quoted as saying, "When the corona[virus cases] increased, we went down in the polls, and when the corona [cases] decreased, we went up in the polls," he was framing the logic of Israel's beginning to exit the pandemic by March 2021, meaning the eve of the election, as something directly related to the vaccination campaign. This is now the target of the "anyone-but-Bibi" crowd that will use any means necessary to torpedo this potential achievement. From their standpoint, the goal is to shift the image of the prime minister as Mr. Vaccines to one of a man who has the blood of thousands of Israelis on his hands.

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Two weeks later, on Oct. 16, a French history teacher named Samuel Paty was decapitated in the street outside his school by an 18-year-old radical Islamist. The terrorist, a Russian-born teenager of Chechen heritage, succeeded in sending a deeply shocking message to supporters of laïcité, or French secularism: Islamic radicalism in France has no intention of going down without a fight.

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The purported reason the murderer, Abdoullakh Abouyedovich Anzorov, targeted Paty was that the teacher had shown his students the cartoons of the Islamic prophet Muhammad published by the satirical paper Charlie Hebdo in 2015 – images that prompted the invasion of the paper's offices and massacre of its journalists by Islamist fundamentalists. In his speech, Macron had stated that France would not "renounce the caricatures" – in other words, France stands firmly in support of freedom of speech and will not be cowed by terrorism.

Macron's speech was almost immediately followed by accusations from Muslims both at home and abroad that Macron is Islamophobic and a racist. This furious response was especially strong in Turkey, as about half the imams in France are of Turkish descent.

In the speech, Macron attempted to be nuanced about how Islam and French secularism could be integrated. He unveiled a plan to defend French secular values against "Islamist radicalism," adding that Islam was "in crisis" all over the world. He insisted that "no concessions" would be made in a new drive to push religion out of education and the public sector in France.

Macron said the measures were aimed at addressing the problem of growing "radicalization" in France and improving "our ability to live together." He emphasized that "secularism is the cement of a united France," but added that there is no sense in stigmatizing all Muslim believers.

Macron's plan focuses on limiting foreign influence and investing in a new generation of French imams, with a certification process based in France. He categorized "Islamist separatism" as a "parallel society" that threatens France by holding sharia law above French law, which "often results in the creation of a counter-society." Macron said the government will submit legislation in December 2020 designed to "reinforce secularism and consolidate republican principles."

A meaningful act that went under the radar occurred on July 7, when a French Senate Inquiry Commission, headed by French Senator Jacqueline Eustache-Brinio, presented a report entitled "Islamist Radicalization: Facing and Fighting Together".

The report describes the situation in France this way: "Islamist radicalism is not just about the issue of terrorism or transition to violent action, but also involves behaviors that can be peaceful and do not lead to violence. It may be the work of groups that advocate identity, withdrawal or entry into the associative and political world. … The groups that historically, like the Muslim Brotherhood, are active in France and seek to impose their views through networks of association seek recognition of authorities and, more recently, opt for integration in the electoral roll.

"Faced with the rise of Islamism, the authorities have focused, since 1995, on the terrorist threat and the obstruction of violent action. This concern has resulted in the setting in place of a complete legal arsenal and the structuring of interior security services so as to respond to the threat. But the problem now facing French society has changed its nature: It is a multiform Islamist reflecting himself in all aspects of social life and tending to impose a new social norm by prevailing [upon] individual freedom."

Among the commission's main proposals, the following should be emphasized: Know, follow, and prevent the actions of radical Islam; continue to strengthen the human resources assigned to domestic intelligence, taking into account the multiplicity of missions allocated to it and the scope of geographical areas of its field of action. Ensure, as much as possible, a specialization [of] agents on the monitoring of radical Islam movements; urgently set [up] an inter-ministerial committee for the prevention of radicalization, and set up departmental units to fight Islamism and evaluate radical activities; and since the Islamists seek to destabilize our society and gain recognition of their right to rule [according to] the Muslim faith, the response of the public authorities must above all avoid interfering in Muslim religious worship. Further, it is imperative to refrain from the stigmatization of Islam, since there is no such thing as a unified Muslim community, nor is there a single Islam.

The Inquiry Commission refutes the idea that Islamic radicalism is only a reaction to "Islamophobia," but states that challenging the values of the Republic by promoting sharia should not be tolerated.

It's fair to assume that the Senate commission's report inspired Macron's rhetoric on Oct. 2. However, though his intentions were constructive, it appears that his delivery missed the target. The speech was distorted and instantly became a source of grievance across the Islamic world. At the forefront of the furious Islamic response was Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

Turkey is already embroiled in a number of disputes with France. These disputes – over Syria, Libya, NATO, gas exploration in the eastern Mediterranean and Armenia – each have their own context and specifics, but they all stem from French suspicion of Erdoğan's ambition to lead a Sunni Islamic revival.

Erdoğan seized on Macron's speech as an opportunity to position himself as both leader and spokesman of the Arab and Islamic world. On Oct. 26, he sounded a call for the boycott of French goods, claiming: "It becomes more and more difficult to be a Muslim and live an Islamic lifestyle in Western countries." He described Macron as mentally ill.

Erdoğan's stirring up of Islamist ire has resonated across the Arab world. The French ambassador to Pakistan was summoned to condemn Macron's alleged incitement of Islamophobia. From Sanaa to Riyadh, Macron has become a one-man axis of evil. French products are being boycotted. Le Train Bleu restaurant in Doha, Qatar's "quintessential Parisian dining experience," is hastily resourcing its products.

Several French Muslim intellectuals harshly criticized Macron on social media. One said "the president described Islam as 'a religion that is in crisis all over the world today.' I don't even know what to say. This remark is so dumb (sorry it is) that it does not need any further analysis. … I won't hide that I am concerned. No mention of white supremacy even though we are the country that exported the racist and white supremacist theory of the 'great replacement' used by the terrorist who committed the horrific massacre in Christchurch."

Another was even tougher: "The repression of Muslims has been a threat, now it is a promise. In a one-hour speech Macron buried laïcité, emboldened the far-right, anti-Muslim leftists and threatened the lives of Muslim students by calling for drastic limits on homeschooling despite a global pandemic."

The New York Times was highly critical of Macron's plans, writing of a "broad government crackdown against Muslim individuals and groups." American sociologist Crystal Fleming, an expert on white-supremacist groups, tweeted: "It is beyond sad to see French officials respond to violent extremism with violent extremism."

Macron thus finds himself in a very difficult position – not only vis-à-vis Islamists but also among his own Cabinet ministers. Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin used the language of the hard right, describing France as fighting a "civil war" to defend the French secular and unitary Republic against the "separatist" teachings of extremist Islam. Darmanin suggested that ethnic food aisles in supermarkets be closed – in other words, punish innocent French Muslims as well as guilty ones. According to the investigative newspaper Le Canard Enchainé, Macron has asked Darmanin and other ministers to cool their language.

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Macron, who was elected president in 2017 following two years of bloody terror attacks in France, is heading into a 2022 election campaign and expects to succeed where his predecessors failed. He might have bet on the wrong horse, however. Defeating radical Islam needs strong action, but Western governments must try to find a path of compromise to break the cycle of reaction and counter-reaction that creates more extremism and violence.

The French far-right leader Marine Le Pen sees no reason for prudence or tolerance toward Islamists in France. Her reaction to Paty's beheading was to repeat over and over again that "massive, uncontrolled" immigration is at fault for this kind of atrocity.

Considering how fragile the situation in France has become, as well as the anger that has developed between Paris and Arab and Muslim states, there appears to be a high probability of a new wave of radical Islamist terror operations against France and France-related assets. The rage over Macron's statements, which are being taken as evidence of French Islamophobia, creates a common denominator between Sunnis and Shi'ites.

According to reliable intelligence sources, there are several sleeper cells of Islamic terrorist organizations in France, as well as in other countries in Western Europe that can be activated on short notice.

Important French interests in the Arab world might be economically hurt by the explosion of anger, and there may be diplomatic deterioration between Arab states and Paris.

Macron faces a tough dilemma: Stand firm and implement the measures he outlined with respect to radical Islamism in France, or reassess that policy and put his chance of re-election at risk.

Dr. Raphael G. Bouchnik-Chen is a retired colonel who served as a senior analyst in IDF Military Intelligence.

Featured on JNS.org, this article was first published by the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies.

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The government's success in quelling the first outbreak posed the prime minister as the captain who successfully navigates his ship through a massive storm and delivers it to safety. This sentiment was felt across the political spectrum, as seen by polls projecting Likud would win 40 Knesset seats in the next elections.

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The primary mission of "flattening the curb" during the first outbreak was achieved largely due to the strict lockdown and primarily due to public obedience to its directives. And even under those circumstances, there were those who denied a pandemic was raging and promoted conspiracy theories, attributing political motives to the rigid decisions imposed on the public.

Leaders of public opinion in the media even claimed that there was actually no outbreak except for infections in the ultra-Orthodox sector, as it obeyed rabbis over the authorities, and in nursing homes – something that was presented as demanding a parliamentary commission of inquiry.

The spike in morbidity is not a fait accompli – much of it stems from the public's gross dismissal of public distancing and other government directives. This trend is further fueled by a feeling of discrimination between various sectors in society as to the enforcement of the restrictions imposed on public gatherings, and especially over the labeling of very specific parts of society as the "cause" of the outbreak.

The legal limitations by which decision-makers have to abide with respect to curbing the mass protests outside the Prime Minister's Residence in Jerusalem are seen by many as a victory for freedom of expression, but absurdly, this only fuels rejectionism by those who have already understood that the health directives should be obeyed.

Moreover, we cannot ignore the fact that public health experts and epidemiologists, who are agenda-driven on the one hand and are in demand by the media on the other, encourage future demonstrations by citing the generic argument that there is no danger of infection in the open air.

Arguing that there is no data contradicting their claim is unfounded and dangerous from both health and social perspectives.

Given that the global epidemic is elusive, the various experts would be wise to err on the side of caution and assume the worst rather than rely on statistics.

Imposing a lockdown is therefore a legitimate and necessary measure at this time. Reducing morbidity depends on public obedience and the public must believe that this is imperative.

Applying this measure with determination but also using sense and sensibility, as it has the power to change the negative trend in morbidity, as demonstrated in systemic treatment in the first outbreak.

There is also no escape from the assessment that those who criticize the move, and in particular those who label the lockdown as a self-serving move by the prime minister, are striving to undermine all systems in an effort to remove him from power.

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Israel is widely viewed as the villain responsible for the plight of the 1948 "refugees," as well as the "brutal oppression" of the Palestinian people in the "occupied territories." Palestinian-Arab propaganda fuels non-stop anti-Israel campaigns, primarily under the BDS umbrella, that support and reinforce this twisting of history. BDS is the modern version of the near-forgotten "Arab League Boycott" formally declared on Dec. 2, 1945.

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The Zionist movement and later the State of Israel are misrepresented as colonial forces bent on expelling the indigenous inhabitants of Palestine and depriving them of their rights in order to establish a foreign entity to be populated by an influx of immigrants from foreign states. The mouthpieces for these stories never say a single word about the ancient link of the Jewish people to the Land of Israel (or Palestine as it came to be known since Roman times), and flatly deny the validity of the Balfour Declaration of November 2, 1917, ratified by the League of Nations mandate in 1922 calling for the establishment of a national home for the Jewish people in Palestine.

The UN Partition Plan of Nov. 29, 1947, paved the way for the establishment of the State of Israel. It also crystallized the Arabs' determination to destroy the nascent Jewish state by force. As bluntly expressed by then-Secretary General of the Arab League Azzam Pasha: "This will be a war of extermination and a momentous massacre which will be spoken of like the Mongolian massacres and the Crusades."

By 2020, the Palestinian Authority has come to be internationally recognized as the entity destined to ultimately emerge as the Palestinian state, based on a two-state solution. Yet Mahmoud Abbas, the PA's leader, categorically rejects every aspect of President Donald Trump's "Peace to Prosperity" vision and is pushing a propaganda campaign with the slogan "Disappearing Palestine."

At a special Arab League meeting in Cairo on Feb. 1, 2020, Abbas displayed blatantly misleading propaganda maps of "historic Palestine" under the provocative heading, "Palestine Loss of Land." They included the Palestine mandate map, the Partition map of 1947, the June 1967 lines, and "Trump's Projected Plan," with "Palestinian land" shown to have diminished continuously over the decades. This performance was a typical manipulation that took deliberate advantage of the ignorance and superficial historical knowledge of most of the world about the Arab-Israeli conflict. The maps were a form of optical illusion designed to implant the false impression that Palestine was an entirely Arab state throughout human history that was literally stolen by the Jews.

This completely distorted version of history is the cornerstone of the BDS movement. With the Palestinian leadership's and the BDS movement's help, it is persistently reinforced in international thinking about the conflict and has had a substantial impact on policy-making, mainly in Europe and Asia. This has resulted in the broad adoption of a consistently anti-Israel standpoint. Israel finds itself helpless to correct past failures in public diplomacy.

At times, efforts by the Palestinians to reinforce their baseless version of history backfire. On June 20, 2016, Abbas went on an official visit to Saudi Arabia. While there, he gave the Saudi monarch a framed copy of the old daily The Palestine Post. The gesture was meant to reinforce the Palestinian narrative, but did exactly the opposite. As Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu noted at the time, "Mahmoud Abbas this week gave the Saudi king a copy of The Palestine Post as a gift. Abbas apparently didn't know that The Palestine Post was a Zionist newspaper that changed its name to The Jerusalem Post and is still published today, in Jerusalem our capital."

The assertion that the Palestinians are the indigenous inhabitants of this land is central to their dispute with Israel. This claim is repeated regularly by the Palestinians and almost never challenged. In a recent speech, Abbas said: "Our narrative says that we were in this land since before Abraham. I am not saying it, the Bible says it. The Bible says, in these words, that the Palestinians existed before Abraham. So why don't you recognize my right?" Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said, "I am the son of Jericho … the proud son of the Netufians and the Canaanites. I've been there for 5,500 years before Joshua Bin-Nun came and burned my hometown Jericho."

This is all invented history.

One might well wonder why Israel, which faced several genocidal assaults and is constantly the target of terror attacks, is viewed by so many around the world not as a victim but as an aggressor. In other words, how is it that the world has been so ready to believe that when it comes to Palestinian terror, the ends justify the means?

One answer might lie in the thinking of professor Martin Kramer, who published an impressive article on the eve of modern Israel's 72nd birthday. In his piece, titled, 1948: Why the name Israel? Kramer discusses the difficult decision the nascent state had to make about choosing a name. He notes that the selection of the name "Israel" was made by David Ben-Gurion almost at the last minute, just before the official ceremony at which Israel was proclaimed an independent state on May 14, 1948. Other names had been proposed and considered, but they were rejected by Ben-Gurion.

A press report from Sept. 30, 1937, quotes Ben-Gurion thus: "Eretz Israel [the Land of Israel] for us stands for the whole country rather a part of it." This was perhaps why Ben-Gurion couldn't live with the name "Palestina Aleph Yod" (aleph and yod being the initial letters of Eretz Israel) though that was the official Hebrew name of the entire country under the British mandate.

Ben-Gurion was known for his deep fondness for the Hebrew language. He wrote: "Hebrew is the cultural cement while the land is the material cement for the renewing nation." His exclusion of the use of the name "Palestine" for the Jewish state might be explained by his desire to give it the Hebrew name by which it had been known since biblical times.

On this point, it is worth noting an official document from May 1948 issued by The People's Administration, Israel's Cabinet-in-waiting, in which it debated the question of translating the name "Israel" into Arabic. This body reached the conclusion that the state's name in Arabic should be "Israel," just as it was in Hebrew, rather than "Palestine."

One of the arguments in favor of this decision was that "it [is] possible that a future Arab state in the Land of Israel will be named Palestine, so confusion might occur." This thinking displayed not only a very early manifestation of political correctness but historical foresight as well, as the Arab League had unequivocally rejected the Partition Plan and therefore was not party to UN General Assembly Resolution 181, which designated the establishment of an Arab state (alongside its Jewish counterpart) in mandatory Palestine.

The UN's official manner of referring to the conflict in the Middle East was generally consistent until the early 1960s: it used the name "Palestine" for the territory and "Arabs" – not "Palestinians" – for the refugees. This could indicate that when referring to the Palestine question, the United Nations considered Israel the equivalent of mandatory Palestine.

It was not until May 28, 1964 – the date on which the PLO was established – that the name "Palestine" was adopted, one might even say stolen, by an Arab entity committed to the complete abolishment of the Jewish state. This objective was clearly manifested in articles 1 and 2 of the Palestinian Charter (1968) as follows:

1. Palestine is the homeland of the Arab Palestinian people; it is an indivisible part of the Arab homeland, and the Palestinian people are an integral part of the Arab nation.
2. Palestine, with the boundaries it had during the British Mandate, is an indivisible territorial unit.

With the benefit of hindsight, it is arguable that Ben-Gurion's insistence on using the biblical name "Israel" for the young Jewish state – and the accompanying negation of the mandatory official name of this geographical piece of land – was short-sighted and overly driven by a messianic spirit.

The Jewish leadership's voluntary disengagement from the name "Palestine" created a vacuum that was eventually filled by representatives of the Arab "refugees," who dubbed their constituency "Palestinian Refugees."

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This is by no means the only case of a dispute over the selection of a country's name. The most recent instance is the Greece-Macedonia conflict, which reached the brink of all-out war over the name Macedonia. That name is sensitive for the Greeks, who have a province of the same name. In January 2019, the two sides reached a compromise in which the former Macedonia was renamed the Republic of North Macedonia.

A similar ticking bomb concerns the historic China-Taiwan conflict, which has lasted since 1949. Taiwan, officially named the Republic of China, is currently run by the Democratic Progressive Party, which claims it is an independent country. China considers Taiwan a renegade province that must be united with the mainland, by force if necessary. Beijing rebuffs all Taiwanese initiatives to omit the linkage to China by officially adopting the name Taiwan, and reads such attempts as provocations.

This article was first published by the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies.

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The new Israeli government seems keen to promote the application of sovereignty in parts of the West Bank – specifically the Jordan Valley, which is of supreme security importance to Israel. This is not the first time such an initiative has been suggested, but because it is highly controversial, no previous government has dared attempt to make it a reality.

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In January 2014, opposition parties struck back at a proposal to annex the Jordan Valley with their own bill to prevent such an action. The so-called "Two-State bill," as proposed by Labor MK Yehiel Bar and supported by MKs from Labor, Meretz and Shas, claimed that the West Bank's final status can only be determined within the framework of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Annexing the Jordan Valley would, the Labor Party said in a statement, "sabotage Israel in diplomatic negotiations, harm the efforts of the prime minister to come to a two-state solution, and deepen the rift that already exists between us and the US"

While the Israeli internal debate has remained largely the same, a fundamental change took place in the White House that opened up new possibilities. Donald Trump's inauguration led to a series of American initiatives in support of Israeli interests. An indication of a renewed American intimacy with Israel were these words by US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on April 23: "As for the annexation of the West Bank, the Israelis will ultimately make those decisions. That's an Israeli decision. And we will work closely with them to share with them our views of this in [a] private setting."

This was heard around the world as the providing of an opportunity, perhaps never to be repeated, by the Americans to the Israeli government.

A fierce campaign was swiftly launched by local think tanks and influential Jewish pressure groups to head off any Israeli annexation initiative. One particularly vocal group is the Commanders for Israel's Security (CIS), which is composed of 220 retired Israeli generals, admirals and leaders from the Mossad, Shin Bet and the Israel Police. On April 3, CIS placed a full-page ad in Israeli newspapers urging their former colleagues – namely Gantz and Gabi Ashkenazi, both of whom are former Israel Defense Forces chiefs of staff – to insist on blocking unilateral annexation of the Jordan Valley. A few days later, 149 prominent American Jewish leaders joined the Israel Policy Forum in a similar call. Soon thereafter, 11 members of the US Congress issued another warning about the negative consequences of such a move.

All these groups agreed that annexation would be counterproductive if not completely fatal for the prospect of an eventual two-state solution. In addition, they argued that annexation could undermine Israel's peace treaties with Egypt and Jordan, which are a major pillar of US regional strategy. And furthermore, they argue, this reckless move wouldn't just have adverse consequences for Israel's security; it would also have implications for Israel's future as a Jewish democracy.

On April 20, a harsh denunciation was issued by J Street pronouncing deep alarm that "in the midst of the ongoing COVID-19 crisis, Prime Minister Netanyahu has formed a new Israeli government that appears able and determined to carry out unilateral annexation of Palestinian territory in the West Bank, with the approval of the Trump administration, within just months." J Street warned that "any annexation would be carried out with the deliberate intention of preventing the creation of an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel and a negotiated resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict … It would be disastrous for Israel's interests, as well as a gross violation of Palestinian rights."

Not surprisingly, the United Nations and the European Union warned Israel not to annex any part of the West Bank.

In a detailed document evaluating the idea of an Israeli initiative to annex certain areas in the West Bank within the context of Trump's "Peace to Prosperity" vision, The Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) at Tel Aviv University concluded on April 26 that "unilateral sovereignty implementation in Judea and Samaria, without an authentic attempt to reach an agreement with the Palestinian Authority … during this period of the coronavirus crisis, not only won't improve the strategic posture of Israel and its ability to cope with the current and future challenges – those related to the coronavirus as well as those not linked to the crisis – but such a demarche will undermine the fundamental vision of Israel, namely, being Jewish, democratic, safe and ethical, who strives for peace with its neighbors."

This standpoint is anchored in the traditional approach of the Israeli left, which preaches for a two-state solution while underestimating the unique benefits for Israel of the Trump peace plan. The bottom line of their argument is that because Trump's peace plan is fundamentally unrealistic, there is no point in Israel pursuing whatever opportunity his administration seems to be providing to annex the Jordan Valley.

Israeli "liberal" commentators anticipate swift and terrible ramifications of a decision to annex parts of the West Bank. They have dark visions of an intensification of violence between Israel and the Palestinians and a severing of relations by Jordan and Egypt, which might even go so far as to nullify their peace treaties with Israel. They warn that the Gulf States that have been tacitly cooperating with Israel on security and intelligence fronts will end their cooperation; the European Union will condemn Israel in the strongest possible terms; scores of countries will recognize the Palestinian state; the BDS movement will significantly intensify; anti-Semitism will reach new heights; Israel will become a pariah state; and more.

These apocalyptic forecasts are a terrifying nightmare which, if true, should deter any rational policymaker in Israel from implementing annexation on even a small scale. But those uncompromising visions are not realistic, and contain hidden messages that should be exposed and assessed.

Similar warnings were aired by think tanks and left wing politicians with respect to previous Israeli initiatives, such as applying Israeli sovereignty to the Golan Heights (1981), uniting Jerusalem (1967) and even declaring Jerusalem the capital of Israel (1949) and moving the government's ministries to the city (1951). As David Ben-Gurion said in 1955, "Our future doesn't depend on what the Gentiles will say, but on what the Jews will do."

Consider the risk allegedly posed by annexation of the Jordan Valley to the Israeli-Jordanian peace agreement. The CIS has emphasized this risk on several occasions in a way that suggests an unbreakable bond between the Hashemite Kingdom and the Jordan Valley. In fact, the Arabic name of the Jordan Valley is Ghor al-Urdun, which refers to the Jordan River, not the state. Furthermore, on July 31, 1988, the late King Hussein formally announced his decision to politically disengage from the West Bank, leaving the PLO to fill the political vacuum.

It is true that Jordanian officials have made hardline statements about the US peace plan, but it appears their prime concern was possible harm to Jordan's status in Jerusalem. In King Abdullah's words, "Jerusalem is a red line; we are being pressured, but the answer will be a resounding No! The second consideration is the US call for naturalizing the Palestinian refugees in Jordan, which is considered by the regime as a severe threat to the throne and Jordan's stability."

The Jordan Valley was on the agenda of a meeting between Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi and his Palestinian counterpart Riad Maliki on April 24. The ministers warned that an Israeli annexation of the Jordan Valley and settlements in Palestine would "kill" the two-state solution and undermine chances of peace. They called on the international community to combat any such effort and avert a worsening of tensions – especially now, when united efforts are required to tackle the coronavirus crisis.

In an interview on MSNBC on Sept. 29, 2019, King Abdullah issued a warning: "If the policy is to annex the West Bank, then that is going to have a major impact on the Israeli-Jordanian relationship and also on the Egyptian-Israeli relationship because we are the only two Arab countries that have peace with Israel … If there is a box that is being ticked on a certain government getting everything that it wants, without giving anything in return, what is the future? Where are we going to go unless we are going to be able to get Israelis and Palestinians to come together, to live together, and be the message for the future?"

In an interview on France 24 on January 13, 2020, the king said, "What does annexing the Jordan Valley mean, after Trump has already recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, given it permission to annex the Golan Heights, and recognized the legitimacy of some of the settlements?" A few weeks later, a senior Jordanian expert said in an interview with Haaretz, "All of this means Jordan has ceased to be an important element of the peace process."

The Jordanian approach to the possibility of Israeli annexation of the Jordan Valley sounds more like lip service to the Palestinian Authority than a "war alert." If so, this could suggest that the regime is confident it can maintain stability if and when the Israeli initiative is implemented. On the strategic level, this could imply that abolishing the peace treaty with Israel is not considered a realistic option in Amman. A survey conducted in February by the Department of Public Opinion Surveys and Field Surveys at the Center for Strategic Studies at the University of Jordan supports this assessment by dismissing the severing of relations with Israel as a response to Israel's declaring sovereignty over part of the West Bank.

Contrary to INSS's paradigm regarding "annexation under the cover-up of the coronavirus," which paints it as a short-term opportunity, a more realistic time-frame for applying Israeli sovereignty over the Jordan Valley is President Trump's tenure in the White House. No one can predict who will be sitting in the Oval Office on Jan. 20, 2021, but Israel has at least until the end of his first term and possibly four years beyond that.

The dark prophecies proclaimed by "liberal" and "progressive" groups in Israel as well as abroad vis-à-vis the possible annexation of the Jordan Valley are overstated, and they obscure the strategic significance of the Jordan Valley to the security of Israel. As Netanyahu said: "The Jordan Valley has supreme importance in the context of the security of the State of Israel. The Middle East is unstable and violent. The Jordan Valley is a strategic defensive belt for the state, and without it, the fundamentalist flood could reach into Israel as far as the Dan region."

As the great French writer, historian and philosopher Voltaire observed, "Opportunities are not to be neglected. They rarely visit us twice."

This article was first published by the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies.

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Iran is the outstanding example of this syndrome. A steady stream of news from that country, consisting primarily of leaks from unofficial sources, suggests that the disease is running rampant. The death toll in Iran is already terrible and if the virus is not contained, it will threaten the lives of hundreds of thousands more Iranians. The country may well be approaching the point of no return.

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The severity of the situation is an indictment of the ruling regime's incompetence. It critically failed to ready the country for a crisis of this kind, leaving medical personnel scrambling to cope with extreme shortages of even the most basic supplies necessary to fight the virus and protect themselves. The state-run daily Ressalat, reflecting the regime's orchestrated cover-up policy, wrote in early March that "the statistics [of medical personnel infected] are completely security-related and cannot be revealed."

This policy of obfuscation is not only a danger to Iranian medical professionals. As The New York Times wrote, the Iranian "authorities seem as worried about controlling information as they are about controlling the virus," while The Washington Post cautioned that "Iran's reaction to coronavirus has become a danger for the world."

Unofficial reports from Iran suggest that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and the Iranian Intelligence Ministry have been tasked with threatening families of victims into keeping silent in an effort to cover up the true number of fatalities. IRGC command has ordered its provincial divisions to be present at hospitals and medical centers to control reporting on the numbers of patients infected or killed by the virus. Families of coronavirus victims are pressured not to disclose the real cause of death, and an-almost hermetic censorship has been imposed on social networks and online media.

Looking back, it is now clear that the coronavirus outbreak in Iran started in the city of Qom in February. Calls to quarantine the city were strongly opposed by the mullahs and by Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, who not only would not allow the city's holy shrine to be closed but urged pilgrims to continue to visit it. One of Khamenei's aides was quoted on Feb. 22 as saying, "The enemy intends to show that Qom is insecure and take revenge, but it will never succeed." Another cleric said four days later, "We consider the holy shrine a 'house of cure' and it must remain open and people must resolutely visit the shrine."

On March 29, a group of 100 Iranian academics and political and social activists published a letter holding Khamenei chiefly responsible for the epidemic's becoming a national disaster. They claim that Khamenei is preventing citizens from receiving American or other humanitarian aid while ensuring that he and other regime officials have access to medical treatment.

The clerics in Iran are holding fast to their policy of denial or at least minimization of the coronavirus catastrophe, while encouraging the IRGC to proceed with its regional activities in support of Iran's aspirations in Iraq, Syria and Yemen. On April 1, U.S. President Donald Trump warned Iran against using its proxy forces to attack American troops in Iraq and hinted that the U.S. military is considering a direct strike on Iranian forces. He said his administration has "very good information" that Iran-backed militias are planning more assaults.

In parallel, it appears that the Iran-backed Houthi militia in Yemen has augmented its ballistic missile launches against Saudi strategic assets as well as Yemeni government targets during the crisis. The latest attack, which was directed at the Yemenite district of Saada, occurred on April 5.

An additional worrisome dimension has to do with Iran's activities in the nuclear domain. Unofficial Israeli sources have expressed concern that Iran is taking advantage of the coronavirus crisis to accelerate uranium enrichment under the radar. This is entirely possible, as IAEA inspectors are refraining from visiting Iranian nuclear sites and several have fled Iran entirely due to the high risk of contamination. Iran's continued violations of its commitments under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action nuclear pact have potentially dangerous ramifications, as the United States is of course fully aware.

Iran poses a triple threat that must be acknowledged and assessed by the international community: a catastrophic and possibly out-of-control outbreak of coronavirus, ongoing aggressive efforts led by IRGC-related proxies to interfere in and disrupt the region, and a prohibited acceleration of the national nuclear program.

The world is thus faced with a dilemma: the moral obligation to take a humanitarian approach to Iran versus a policy of squeezing the Iranian regime economically and psychologically to achieve strategic gains. Does the extremity of the crisis faced by Tehran present an opportunity for Washington?

On April 12, 1959, John F. Kennedy said, "The Chinese use two brush strokes to write the word 'crisis.' One brush stroke stands for danger; the other for opportunity. In a crisis, be aware of the danger – but recognize the opportunity." A similar saying attributed to the Italian Renaissance writer Niccolo Machiavelli recommends that we "never waste the opportunity offered by a good crisis."

Crisis and opportunity are two sides of a single coin. Should we focus on the crisis or look for the opportunity? Considering how long-lasting and potentially explosive the Iranian nuclear issue is, it seems sensible to consider the strategic dimension under the current extraordinary circumstances.

Provided that it is handled skillfully by the Trump administration, the coronavirus crisis could present a unique opportunity to reduce the Iranian nuclear threat. The plan should be twofold: an international campaign led by the United States to offer Iran the maximum humanitarian and medical assistance to contain the epidemic, and the acquiring of Iran's commitment to a new nuclear agreement that fills the gaps left by the JCPOA.

Though the United States is itself in the midst of fighting the virus, it can handle such an initiative, as it holds the winning cards. The outcome of such a far-reaching approach to Iran could be worthwhile in both the short and the long terms.

Timing is the name of the game, considering the scale of the catastrophe in Iran as well as the simmering domestic rage against the clerical regime. The walls are closing in on Khamenei and his entourage.

This article was first published by the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies.

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The new plan, entitled "Peace to Prosperity," describes itself as a vision "to empower the Palestinian people," and aims to unleash the Palestinian territories' economic potential and enhance their governance. It would create a $50 billion global investment fund to lift the Palestinian and neighboring Arab states' economies, including a $5 billion transportation corridor to connect the West Bank and Gaza.

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"Peace to Prosperity" is an ambitious title for an "out of the box" initiative designed to pave the way for a peaceful resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It aims to essentially remove the long-troublesome Palestinian refugee issue from the table and turn the "refugees" from liabilities into assets.

The Bahrain conference can also be viewed as a practical mechanism by which to deprive UNRWA of its role. The UN agency is considered by Washington to be a tool that perpetuates, rather than mitigates, the "refugee problem."

The US initiative intends to spend more than half the allotted $50 billion in the West Bank and Gaza Strip; the rest is to be split among Egypt, Lebanon, and Jordan. This could be interpreted as a message to those countries to resettle the Palestinian "refugees." (Syria is of course excluded. Egypt is included as a potential destination for the "refugees" living in the Gaza Strip.)

The Trump administration is pursuing the goal of changing the Palestinian experience from miserable "refugees" into a prosperous society. It is not surprising that this approach is not finding favor among decision-makers in the Palestinian Authority.

Kushner's concept has a historic precedent. On June 15, 1959, UN Secretary General Dag Hammarskjöld presented a resettlement initiative (UN General Assembly document no. A/4121). Hammarskjöld assumed there were means available for the absorption of the refugees into the economy of the Arab region, and asserted that the refugees would be beneficial to their host countries by providing the manpower necessary to those countries' development. He proposed that the program be financed by oil revenues and international funds up to $2 billion:

"In these circumstances, it is realistic to assume that the reintegration of the refugees in the Near East would have to run parallel to an increase in the national income at least proportional to the number reintegrated. … Viewed from an economic angle, the reintegration of the Palestine refugees into productive life, although it must be considered as a fairly long process, is perfectly within reach provided that the area can be developed through sufficient capital formation.

"The economic development which has been presented here as necessary to an integration of the refugees requires that we overcome various political difficulties which now hamper progress in the desirable direction. One of them is the Palestine problem in its various aspects; another one the problem of inter-Arab relationships; a third one the problem of an Arab economic co-operation so framed as to render possible the exploitation of the natural resources of the area to the full benefit of all the countries in the area."

The Hammarskjöld and Kushner plans are similar not only in their intentions but in the responses they elicited. In both cases, critics claimed the plans overlooked the national rights of the Palestinians and disadvantaged them by tackling regional economic development first. Putting economic cooperation with Israel ahead of political cooperation was deemed unacceptable, no matter what benefits might accrue to the Palestinian people.

In 1959, it was claimed that Arab acceptance of the UN secretary general's plan, with no guarantees, would have been tantamount to giving up their economic and political rights. The Arabs accused Hammarskjöld of exceeding his legal limits, and faulted him for ignoring the fact that the economic issues were the result of the political conflict. Addressing the economic question also separated the refugee problem from the conflict as a whole, which, so it was argued, was one of nationhood.

On August 17, 1959, the Arab League issued a statement asserting that it "affirms the rejection, by the Arab governments and their peoples, as well as the rejection by the Palestine Arabs, of resettlement in any form, as well as of any plan that aims, directly or indirectly, at the settlement of the refugees outside their country. The Arab states emphasize their adherence and the adherence of the Arab people of Palestine to [their] demand for repatriation."

Further, they firmly denounced the plan's logic, claiming that "the questions of economic development inherently pertain to the sovereignty of the Arab states, and … they have no relation whatever to the problem of the refugees and their future. The committee regrets that the secretary general [of the UN] has raised this problem and linked it to the question of the refugees."

There is nothing new under the sun; both initiatives were greeted by harsh demonstrations. On June 24, 2019, it was reported that "Palestinians burned portraits of President Donald Trump as they protested in both the Gaza Strip and the Israeli-occupied West Bank on Monday against US-led plans for a conference on their economy in Bahrain."

In 1959, while visiting the Middle East, Hammarskjöld was met by an angry mob of thousands of Arab refugees at a camp in Jordan and was forced to beat a hasty retreat. Upon his arrival, he was read a petition by Muhammad Said, a leader of the Muslim Brotherhood group in the camp, declaring that the refugees demanded repatriation and would accept no alternative. The petition threatened a "peace march" into Israel to recover the lands and homes left behind in 1948.

There is, however, an important difference: Saudi Arabia's moderate position on the Kushner initiative, which could suggest that the kingdom is behind it. In 1959, it was the Saudi ambassador to the United Nations (and future PLO chairman), Ahmad Shukeiry, who categorically rejected the Hammarskjöld plan for economic integration of the Arab refugees into the economies of the Middle East.

He called the idea of economic integration of the refugees "irrelevant and inadmissible." The Arab economy, he contended, "is the sole concern of the Arab states," and those states will "tolerate no interference in their affairs, economic, political or otherwise." He warned that unless Israel was forced at that year's session (1959) to accept complete repatriation of the refugees, 80,000,000 Arabs "from Casablanca to the Persian Gulf" were ready and eager to go to war with the Jewish State.

Reprinted with permission from JNS.org.

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Any political leadership must interact with its intelligence community to make strategic decisions. The intelligence input must be professional, independent, courageous and apolitical.

During a visit to CIA headquarters in Virginia on Jan. 4, 1994, U.S. President Bill Clinton observed: "Intelligence is a unique mission. Nobody knows that better than those of us who have the honor to serve in the Oval Office." President Harry S. Truman autographed the photo of himself that hangs in that building with these words:

"To the CIA, a necessity to the president of the United States, from one who knows. Every morning, the president begins the day asking what happened overnight. What do we know? How do we know it? Like my predecessors, I have to look to the intelligence community for those answers to those questions. I look to you to warn me and, through me, our nation of the threats, to spotlight the important trends in the world, to describe dynamics that could affect our interests around the world."

President George W. Bush, in his memoir, "Decision Points" (2010), explained that retaining Bill Clinton's CIA director George Tenet sent a message of continuity and showed that he considered the agency beyond the reach of politics.

In his book "Getting to Know the President" (2012), John L. Helgerson emphasized one of the toughest challenges facing the intelligence community, which is to stay out of politics. In his words: "Perhaps the most challenging of the political issues with which the Intelligence Community must grapple in establishing and sustaining its relationship with a new administration is how to support the president without being drawn into policymaking."

Henry Kissinger, probably the country's pre-eminent national security advisor, in his book "White House Years" praised Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) Richard Helms as "disciplined, meticulously fair and discreet." He said Helms performed his duties with an essential objectivity, and asserted that "he never forgot that his integrity guaranteed his effectiveness, that his best weapon with presidents was a reputation for reliability." Therefore, Kissinger concluded, "the CIA input was an important element of every policy deliberation."

The battle against ISIS during President Barack Obama's administration exposed the delicate nature of the interaction between decision-makers and the intelligence community. On Sept. 30, 2014, Obama said of the then Director of National Intelligence (DNI), "Our head of the intelligence community, Jim Clapper, has acknowledged that, I think, they underestimated what had been taking place in Syria … we [the U.S.] underestimated the Islamic State" and "put too much faith in the Iraqi army," whose soldiers turned tail rather than wage war against ISIS fighters invading from Syria.

Clapper said the intelligence community had monitored ISIS's rise and activities but acknowledged that "what we didn't do was predict the will to fight." He compared ISIS to the Viet Cong, and admitted that he and his subordinates had overestimated the fighting capabilities of the Iraqi armed forces.

This public airing of intelligence missteps could indicate a pre-coordinated understanding between Obama and Clapper in which the intelligence community would bear responsibility while the DNI (Clapper himself) would not be removed from office.

Obama implemented an easy means of confronting the problem of difficult decision-making by adopting the mantra, "When in doubt, blame the intelligence community." He infuriated intelligence officials by making them into scapegoats, and critics complained that he was trying to avoid his own responsibility. Representative Mike Rogers, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, was critical of Obama's remarks. "This was not an intelligence community failure," he said, "but a failure by policymakers to confront the threat."

ISIS was the subject of another American intelligence controversy: the CENTCOM scandal. According to a report released by a House Republican task force on Aug. 11, 2016, intelligence assessments approved by senior leaders at U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) from the middle of 2014 to the middle of 2015 consistently presented an overly optimistic representation of what was happening on the ground in the fight against the ISIS.

In May 2015, a whistleblower (a Defense Intelligence Agency analyst assigned to CENTCOM) filed a complaint about the manipulation of intelligence reports by CENTCOM leaders alleging that senior leaders "violated regulations, tradecraft standards, and professional ethics by modifying intelligence assessments to present an unduly positive outlook on CENTCOM efforts to train the ISF [Iraqi Security Forces] and combat ISIL." The complaint was backed by 50 CENTCOM employees.

The investigation revealed that leaders of CENTCOM and the J2 (CENTCOM's Joint Intelligence Center) regularly disseminated intelligence that was inconsistent with the judgments of many senior career CENTCOM analysts, and that "CENTCOM produced intelligence that was also significantly more optimistic than that of other parts of the Intelligence Community (IC) and typically more optimistic than actual events warranted."

The House report found that information from CENTCOM was included in Obama's briefings on the status of the fight against ISIS. When retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, the former director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, was asked about CENTCOM's faulty reports, he said: "The phrase I use is 'the politicization of the intelligence community.' That's here. And it's dangerous."

Although investigators have not found evidence that the Obama administration collaborated with CENTCOM and the J2 to produce misleadingly optimistic reports about the status of the fight against ISIS, it is unclear why the reports were skewed. Rep. Mike Pompeo, then a member of the House investigation, suggested that "the most senior leaders in Central Command and the J2 had a deep understanding of the political narrative the administration was putting forth. The culture was one where you were rewarded for embracing that political narrative. The president was out talking about the same fight, the success of defeating the jihadist threat. The messaging from the [National Security Council] and the White House was all in one direction. So there is no alternative explanation for why they would behave this way they did."

U.S. President Donald Trump's administration, from its first days, displayed a distrust of the intelligence community. The main reason was the "joint intelligence community" assessment of Russian intervention in the presidential campaign of 2016. The dramatic document, released on Jan 6, 2017, just before Trump's inauguration, stated:

[W]e assess [that] Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the U.S. presidential election. Russia's goals were to undermine public faith in the US democratic process, denigrate Secretary Clinton, and harm her electability and potential presidency. We further assess Putin and the Russian government developed a clear preference for president-elect Trump.

Later, on July 24, 2018, James Clapper revealed that it was Obama himself who had ordered the intelligence assessment that resulted in Robert Mueller's investigation into Trump. Clapper told CNN, "If it weren't for President Obama, we might not have done the intelligence community assessment that we did that set off a whole sequence of events which are still unfolding today, notably, special counsel Mueller's investigation. President Obama is responsible for that, and it was he who tasked us to do that intelligence community assessment in the first place. I think it's an important point when it comes to critiquing President Obama."

In this respect, attention should be drawn to an investigative article published by the prestigious monthly magazine, Le Monde diplomatique, in December 2017. In the piece, American columnist Aaron Mate concluded that "Donald Trump became president through his own conmanship. He didn't need Russian help with his election, and he may not have got it."

The bad blood between Trump and the intelligence community, which was expressed once again as recently as Jan. 30, 2019, when the president criticized intelligence assessments on Iran and North Korea, could be a symptom of decision-makers' preference for basing policy on raw intelligence rather than on assessments. Trump suspects that Obama's legacy continues to affect the intelligence analyses he receives. He might believe intelligence is used as a PR tool to counter his own ambitions in the international arena. The notion of the "deep state" could be affecting his strategic considerations. Trump's preference is to rely on the NSC, especially John Bolton, when dealing with international topics.

Trump's policy towards Iran's JCPOA, as well as his strategic perception concerning North Korea's nuclear and SSM arsenal, appears to have been executed in spite of the intelligence community's assessments, not because of them. To date, in both cases, Trump seems to be on the right side of the equation.

In White House Years, Kissinger was explicit about the fine line an intelligence director must walk between offering intelligence support and making policy recommendations. A comprehension of this tension could improve Trump's judgment regarding the purported shortcomings of U.S. intelligence assessments. On the other hand, the common understanding among intelligence services is that their strategic assessments should be the main pillars in the process of policymaking.

Former Israeli Military Intelligence Director Maj. General (res.) Shlomo Gazit has reflected on this matter. In an article published in 1987, he asserted, "the leader (civilian or military) has the right to ignore the intelligence assessment he was offered. It's a must to bear in mind that there are always several different considerations which are not related to the 'enemy's' aspect of the assessment, considerations the intelligence is not supposed to investigate whatsoever. Furthermore, it would be absolutely legitimate if the leader were to deliberately decide contrary to the intelligence assessment, provided he was fully aware and in complete comprehension of it."

Established practice suggests that leaders/decision-makers prefer to be briefed by intelligence chiefs in a "telegraphic" mode; that is, getting to the bottom line on every topic concerned. Kissinger admitted that "it had been made clear to him that president-elect [Nixon] had no intention of reading anything that had not first been perused and perhaps summarized by one of his senior staff."

Intelligence should never be politicized if an administration is to make honest and clean policy. Leadership is obliged to bear in mind that net assessments derive from the accumulation of raw data and a variety of possible courses of action. The intelligence community needs to stay independent, no matter what the political leaning of the incumbent leadership. It should not align itself in any internal political dispute in a way that could support specific policy objectives.

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