ability of the Maronite Christians in Lebanon to create a new order
there. MI was the only Israeli intelligence organization to recognize
this weakness, and it recommended that the policy makers refrain
from embroiling Israel militarily in Lebanon (see NEVOT, NAHUM).
The Israeli intelligence community did not successfully assess the Is-
raeli complications in Lebanon after Peace for Galilee.
MI did not predict the Palestinian uprising in the Occupied Terri-
tories, known as the First Intifada, which started in December 1987.
At that time no organization in the Israeli intelligence community
was responsible for evaluating what was taking place in the territo-
ries. MI’s responsibility was to provide early warning against any
war initiated by neighboring countries (see MAGNA CARTA 2).
The Israeli intelligence community did not predict the end of the
Cold War and its indirect implications for Israel, despite the existence
of a desk in MI devoted to international powers. This kind of assess-
ment was not regarded as part of its purview.
At the end of the 1980s MI failed to identify the buildup of Iraq’s
nuclear capacity, and in 1990 it gave no early warning of the Iraqi in-
vasion of Kuwait in August 1990. Israeli intelligence calculated that
Iraq would require a few years after its war with Iran to rebuild and
reorganize its army before it could launch another war in the region.
Accordingly it did not envisage Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait. At the re-
quest of the United States, in the ensuing Desert Storm operation, Is-
rael decided to refrain from any response to Iraq after suffering Scud
missile attacks on its civilian population. Therefore, no one in the Is-
raeli intelligence community predicted a crisis between Israel and the
United States after that operation. But relations between President
George H. W. Bush and Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamirwere char-
acterized by a series of misunderstandings between the two men per-
sonally, which left both feeling that they had been misled. The Bush
administration exerted pressure on Israel with respect to the Israeli
settlements in the West Bank.
The Israeli intelligence community did not predict the turning
point among the Palestinians when a new policy was adopted by
the Palestine National Council. The policy proposed a solution to the
Arab-Israeli conflict on the basis of UN Resolution 181, which
called for dividing the land of Israel between the two nations. Israeli
intelligence did not forecast the Oslo Accords in 1993 between Is-18 • ASSESSMENT FAILURES06-102 (02) A-G.qxd 3/24/06 7:23 AM Page 18