“A Low Probability of War” – Israeli Intelligence and the Yom Kippur War
An analysis of the intelligence failure that preceded the 1973 Yom Kippur War. The analysis will be based on guided reading of authentic intelligence documents from early October 1973 and an examination of the way these were analyzed by the Intelligence Division, as well as a guided joint viewing of excerpts from the film “Silence of the Sirens.”
Intelligence and Morality – The Israel Security Agency as a Case Study
An analysis of the moral dilemmas that accompany various types of intelligence work, focusing on the operations of the Israel Security Agency (ISA or Shabak) and the process it has undergone over the 72 years since the establishment of Israel. From a murky organization whose very existence was not mentioned in public, through formative episodes such as the “Bus 300” incident and the Izat Nafsu affair, and through to the regulation of the organization’s activities in the ISA Law, including supervisory and control mechanisms, over the past two decades. The lecture will include a guided joint viewing of excerpts from the documentary film “The Gatekeepers.”
Anticipating the Unknown: Is it Possible to Predict Events Such as the Arab Spring?
“Social intelligence” – the monitoring of profound processes in society and prediction of their political ramifications – is one of the most complex spheres of intelligence research and evaluation. This lecture will present the unique characteristics of this field, focusing on three formative events Israeli intelligence found it difficult to predict: The outbreak of the First Intifada in the Territories (1987); the Hamas victory in the elections to the Palestinian Legislative Council (2006); and the Arab Spring (from 2010).
Eyal Pascovich, PhD.
Strategic Intelligence
Israel
English, Hebrew
PhD, Department for Middle Eastern History, Bar Ilan University (thesis on "The Social-Civilian Activity of Hamas and Hezbollah). Currently lectures at Haifa University and Bar Ilan University. Served as an officer in the IDF - military intelligence and the Israeli Counter Terrorism Bureau, as well as an advisor to the Israeli Prime Minister's Office. Main areas of expertise: Islamic fundamentalism; Lebanese Hezbollah, Palestinian Hamas and the Palestinian Authority; terrorism financing and social-civilian infrastructures of Islamic and terrorist organizations; military Intelligence and the Israeli Intelligence apparatus; Israeli national security policy.