Original English Translation of the 2015 Gadi Eisenkot IDF Strategy
The 2015 IDF Strategy of Lt. Gen. Gadi Eisenkot (hereafter ED, short for Eisenkot Document), made available in English for the first time here, by the Journal of Palestine Studies (JPS). Published in August 2015, the ED consists of thirty-three pages (in the original Hebrew) and is a shorter and unclassified version of a more comprehensive attempt to produce a five-year IDF plan known as “Gideon.” Unlike SOD, which was never made public and dealt with operational issues and combat techniques, the ED is intended as a strategic document that encompasses a broad spectrum of grand strategy analysis, prediction, and recommendation, as measured against a complex matrix of operational, tactical, and logistical measures. It may be worth remembering that Israel has never previously formalized its strategic doctrine in a comprehensive and detailedmanner, even though its leaders and military theoreticians since David Ben-Gurion have emphasized a varied set of principles and precepts that have assumed the character of an agreed, if tacit, doctrinal corpus. The ED represents a significant departure insofar as it is the first time that the IDF has published an official account of its fundamental driving principles.
Ahmad Samih Khalidi is a writer on Middle East political and strategic affairs. He is coeditor of Majallat al-Dirasat al-Filastiniyya, the Arabic-language sister publication to JPS, and a senior associate member of St. Antony’s College, Oxford.