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Israel should stop using the war model to fight terrorism and adopt a defensive model focusing on prevention, crisis management, and reconstruction, argues Ami Pedahzur, an Israeli expert on terrorism, in his new book, "The Israeli Secret Services and the Struggle Against Terrorism".

"Though it never declared war on terror or even developed a coherent doctrine for coping with the challenge, both policymakers and the heads of the security establishment have perceived terrorism as an act of war and have thus continuously applied the war model as the major route of response," Pedahzur writes.

While the threat of terrorism has increased, he writes, Israel's successes in reducing the threat are due not to the war model, but the few times in which the defensive model was applied.

"Terrorism should thus not be considered an act of war but a psychological tactic used by paramilitary groups," Pedahzur writes. "Furthermore, terrorism can rarely be considered a threat to the state's national security. In most cases, its main effect is a sense of insecurity within the civilian population."

Outside of the use of weapons of mass destruction, he writes, terrorism can only become a national threat when the armed forces put it at the top of their priority list, forcing other threats to the back burner, as Pedahzur believes Israel has done.

"The outcome, as proven in the Israeli case, is that despite the innovative spirit and the fierce competition among the various forces, most initiatives lead to either short-term successes or outright failures," he writes.

Pedahzur received his Ph.D. in political science from Haifa University, where he also taught until 2004. Now a senior fellow at the Robert S. Strauss Center for International Security and Law at the University of Texas at Austin, Pedahzur also teaches in the university's departments of government and Middle Eastern studies.

Pedahzur writes that the three-stage plan to fight terrorism begins with prevention. Preventive intelligence is the key to this stage, he writes, to determine the level of the threat, its seriousness, and the best methods of defense.

"These include the physical protection of targets, the allocation of resources for technological solutions, and the employment of a sufficient number of guards at strategic places," Pedahzur writes. "It is also important to deploy trained rescue forces if the risk seems immediate."

Crisis management, the second stage, must include setting and enacting procedures that will enable the emergency personnel to receive all the relevant information as quickly as possible after an attack.

"This is important in preventing too many or too few rescue forces from being sent in, as well as in ensuring that the forces can enter and leave the attack site unobstructed, whether by clearing urban traffic arteries or by the use of roadblocks," Pedahzur writes. "When an attack occurs, temporary headquarters should be set up at the site to synchronize the entrances and departures of the emergency forces and to coordinate activities inside the area."

To ensure this, Pedahzur recommends the populace is informed on how to respond to such a situation, since private citizens are usually the first to possess information needed to respond to the attack. Everyone involved should have clear, defined roles in each hypothetical, he adds.

The reconstruction stage, he writes, must include a dynamic plan for treating the victims and their immediate families both physically and psychologically -- the latter being just as important to the overall goal of defeating terrorism, but often overlooked.

"No less important is putting businesses back on track as quickly as possible," he writes. "This could be achieved by offering them various incentives such as tax relief. Most important, it is the duty of policymakers to mitigate the psychological effects of terrorist attacks immediately, using every media outlet, and thus to undermine the very goal of the terrorists."

Pedahzur also suggests that Israel -- or any country looking to fight terrorism -- adopt the American model of setting up a Department of Homeland Security-style clearing house for all terrorism-related information and policymaking.

The advantage of this, he writes, is that instead of instigating turf wars between agencies, the headquarters will examine information and then mete out assignments and intelligence to its proper agency.

"The establishment of such a headquarters will not require any far-reaching organizational reforms or a massive investment of resources," he writes. "At the same time, it will enable daily coordination among the various bodies and a rapid deployment of the necessary resources when a terrorist threat is detected by one of the intelligence organizations."

It will need a full-time advisor running the headquarters, and that person must have the expertise required to fully and accurately interpret intelligence reports and be ready to lead the reaction to any event, Pedahzur writes.

Pedahzur writes that while the global threat posed by terror networks multiplies the threat, it also serves as a rare opportunity for Israel to interact with nations normally loathe to cooperate with the Jewish state, but who are in need of Israel's expertise on this issue.

He adds that Israel, too, can benefit from this mutual cooperation, because rich countries have the funds to invest in new technology that Israel is best equipped to master. This could create partnerships that would be much more effective at fighting terrorism than each nation -- including Israel -- would be alone.

"Even though many countries are not interested in formal or even informal friendly ties with Israel, the importance of intelligence cooperation sidelines such issues," Pedahzur writes. "Israel still enjoys significant prestige, mainly in the human-intelligence field."

"The Israeli Secret Services and the Struggle Against Terrorism" is available from online booksellers.