JERUSALEM, Oct. 19 -- Nine days before Israel's October 27 election, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu put his security record into a three-page document and asked voters to read it as strategy. Two opposition leaders read it as slogans.

The paper, titled "Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Security Doctrine," went up Sunday on the Israeli government's website, prepared with help from the National Security Council, according to Anadolu Agency. Its ten principles put preemptive strikes ahead of containment and call for buffer zones along Israel's borders when deemed necessary.

It does not say where those zones would sit or which neighbouring territory they would touch, and Anadolu noted that it offers no detailed operational plan for co...