Israel's Preparedness for High Consequence Terrorism

Since its creation in 1948, Israel has had to contend with the constant threat of terrorism. To meet this challenge, Israel has created and maintained an elaborate counterterrorism system. Much of the Israeli effort has focused on developing defensive measures designed to prevent attacks on the civilian population and minimize casualties. Israel has developed this strategy for two reasons. First, most Palestinian terrorist attacks, as well as a smaller yet significant number of attacks by Lebanese groups, have been random attacks against civilians. Second, all Israeli governments have been highly sensitive to civilian casualties.

In this paper, the term "high-consequence terrorism" refers to terrorist attacks that result in high numbers of casualties. To maximize casualties, terrorists may use large amounts of conventional explosives (e.g., car bombs); apply unique methods, such as crashing a hijacked airliner into a city neighborhood; or employ weapons of mass destruction (WMD), specifically chemical and biological agents. The focus of this paper is preparedness against WMD attacks.

The paper consists of four main sections. The first section is a review of Israel's experience with terrorism. It examines the form and scope of the problem and the countermeasures Israel has adopted to deal with this persistent threat. The second section describes Israel's effort to prevent high-consequence conventional attacks. The third section examines Israel's preparedness for WMD attacks. This section describes the organization, responsibilities, and procedures related to the management of a WMD attack. The fourth section considers the debate in Israel concerning investment in preparations against a WMD attack. The paper ends with some observations on preparations.