that, Peri was appointed deputy director of the ISA and in April 1988
director of the ISA. He held the post until 1 March 1995 when he re-
tired from the service. As director, Peri had the task of rehabilitating
the organization following the blow it had suffered as a result of the
Bus 300 Affair.
After retiring from the ISA, Peri was appointed president and CEO
of Celcom, the Israeli mobile phone company, where he remained un-
til the end of 2002. On 24 February 2003 he was appointed chairman
of the board of the Israeli Mizrahi Bank. Concurrently he became a
board member and chairman or director of other Israeli public organ-
izations.PERIPHERY DOCTRINE.From the day of its establishment, Israel
adopted a doctrine whereby it sought to counter its isolation by form-
ing alliances with more remote, non-Arab neighbors—including
Ethiopia, Iran, Sudan, Turkey, and to some degree even Morocco in
the Maghreb—as well as non-Muslim minorities such as the Ma-
ronite Christians in Lebanon and the Kurds in Iraq.
Israel’s relations with the Lebanese Maronites date back to 1920
with the first Treaty of Cooperation between the Zionist Organiza-
tion and Maronite representatives. In the 1930s the Maronite
Church became actively involved in reinforcing relations with the
Jewish community in Palestine in an attempt to form an alliance
against Islam. Fear of loss of ethnic and religious identity in a
“vast sea of Muslims” led to the concept of a natural alliance be-
tween ethnic and religious minorities. The Maronites remained in
contact with Israel throughout the 1948 War of Independence; with
the new power of Israeli statehood, plans for a Maronite revolt in
conjunction with an Israeli invasion of Lebanon were mooted sev-
eral times from 1948 to 1950. In the end, Israel decided against
such action and instead confined itself to supporting the Maronite
Kataib party financially for the 1951 parliamentary elections. In
1956 Israeli prime minister David Ben-Gurion appended to his
Sinai campaignthe still unexecuted invasion of Lebanon to es-
tablish the Maronites in power and make Lebanon a Christian
state. In 1958, during the first Lebanese civil war, Israel responded
to the Maronites’ appeal for help by providing arms via the borderPERIPHERY DOCTRINE• 22906-102 (03) H-P.qxd 3/24/06 7:25 AM Page 229