IISS vs INSS: David vs Goliath – Part I
Over the last few weeks, I have tried to convey the huge imbalance in the resources available to IISS and our ideological adversaries—and have appealed for support in trying to redress this imbalance. To assist IISS in this, you can donate by clicking HERE.
This month, the disparity was on stark display.
INSS: Well-heeled & influential
One of IISS’s most influential ideological rivals is INSS (the Institute for National Security Studies). Associated with, but legally independent from, Tel Aviv University (TAU), INSS is one of most affluent think-tanks in Israel. Located in an impressive multi-story building on prime real estate adjacent to, and owned by TAU, which reportedly granted it rent free for 25 years, INSS was established with a multi-million dollar endowment.
Moreover, the value of the quarter-century rent exemption alone is estimated at NIS 23 million (about $6.5 million) according to one former TAU president, who also claimed that TAU covered miscellaneous running expenses for INSS to the tune of NIS 500,000 (or about $140,000) annually.
In addition, INSS raises several million dollars a year to advance its ongoing activities.
The vast resources at its disposal afford INSS extensive reach to propagate its agenda.
INSS: Promoting post-dated capitulation
Thus, earlier this month, INSS sent a delegation to New York and Washington to present its plan for”A Strategic Framework for the Israeli-Palestinian Arena” at prestigious venues and to influential audiences.
This week, INSS held its high profile annual conference, convening prominent public figures and internationally renowned experts from around the globe, including the President of Israel, the Chief Justice, the outgoing IDF Chief-of-Staff and Police Commissioner, senior politicians and well-known pundits from prestigious think-thanks. Clearly, an event of this kind requires huge funding—orders of magnitude beyond anything at the disposal of IISS.
But for INSS, it was an effective and conspicuous platform for advancing its”Strategic Framework for the Israeli-Palestinian Arena”
Sadly, this plan is both pernicious and preposterous, comprising, in effect, a post-dated signature of capitulation to virtually all the Palestinians’ demands, if only they would morph—or temporarily feign morphing—into something they have not been in the last 100 years…and show little sign of doing so in any foreseeable future.
INSS: Advocating a giant South Lebanon on fringes of Greater Tel Aviv
INSS’s plan entails the delusional and dangerous idea that Israel should renounce all sovereign claims to any territory beyond the present security barrier, but should keep the IDF indefinitely deployed therein—until some, as yet unidentified Palestinian interlocutor somehow appears to conclude a satisfactory peace deal.
Moreover, not only does the INSS plan propose strangling all Jewish communities beyond the security barrier, but by endorsing open-ended IDF deployment in territory, to which Israel lays
no sovereign claim, it is essentially reproducing the same untenable conditions that prevailed in South Lebanon until 2000—and will inevitably produce the same outcome: Unilateral withdrawal, under duress, without any agreement and abandonment of the territory to extremist groups.
To be continued…
For a more detailed critique of the INSS’s plan –see for example here and here.
Please help IISS expose the dangerous delusion INSS is attempting to advance
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