Decision Making in Israeli Foreign Policy: An Unplanned Process
The October 1973 war has brought many changes to Israeli society. The losses in lives, material, and international support have led to a major economic crisis and a heightened sense of isolation and threat. Most significantly, these losses have severely shaken the confidence of the people in the future of the society itself, in its ability to survive over the long run. This loss of confidence has been manifested in many ways (a series of crippling labor disputes, open conflicts over settlement in the occupied territories, a more bitter and divisive style of political debate both within the ruling Labor alignment and between the alignment and the Likud opposition), but especially in a precipitous decline in the stature and prestige of the top government leadership, arrested to some extent by the recent successes of the Entebbe raid and the open frontier with southern Lebanon. It is not simply that the leadership is blamed for the mistakes which led to the reverses of the war (although that is part of it). Rather, there is a sense that the war revealed some fundamental weaknesses in the structure, functioning, and value orientation of the society, perceived by some before the war, which could not be ignored after it. The result of this changed perception has been an intense reexamination of many aspects of the society, including its goals and the way in which its decisions are made. These have been subjects of debate in the press, over television and radio, in the academic world, and within the government