Rumble
Israel adopts a superpower mindset for the Middle East and upgrades its war doctrine. Israel will apply its updated defense doctrine with its regional superpower status, to preventively downgrade enemy capabilities and preempting enemy threats.
The Israel-Iran 12 Day War last month was both stunning and a gamechanger for the Middle East!
In the 50+ years since the 1973 Yom Kippur War, it may be the modern state of Israel’s greatest achievement yet, as it exposed the overwhelming might of Israel’s military along with the weakness of Iran and the depth of Iran’s collapse as both a regime and a project.
What had been promoted for years as a major regional power crumbled in just twelve days. It left behind a disillusioned populace, and buried Iranian illusions of grandeur under a barrage of military, economic, and political realities.
Forty or so years of Oslo-style “peace arrangements”, in which the West cajoled and pressured Israel into territorial withdrawals and restraint against emerging enemy threats, has proven to be an utter failure.
“Containment” policy – which prioritized diplomacy over decisive military triumphs against jihadist adversaries – has failed.
These approaches blew up in Israel’s face, with terror and invasion from the West Bank and Gaza, and Syria and Lebanon, and with the march of Iran’s nuclear bomb program to near completion.
Over the past 20 months, Israel has moved to a better balance between diplomacy and the use of force to scuttle enemy threats. It has shifted to thinking like a superpower; to becoming a force that acts proactively to assert both dominance along its borders and strategic action against threats farther away.
Thus, we can expect that Israel will continue to make surprising strikes against enemy assets and strongholds from Gaza to Tehran. It needs to keep its enemies off base with beeper blasts and bunker-busting airstrikes.
Israel is no longer worried about being feared – and yes, even militarily dominant – not loved. Jerusalem knows that its neighbors will only seek reconciliation with it when it is strong.
Thus, Israel can no longer accept policies that emphasize “restraint,” because this allows the enemy to develop new attack capabilities under the cover of diplomatic breathing time; what some Western officials mistakenly call periods of “stability.”
In this new era, Israel intends to project its strength to neutralize adversaries, and to lead the region – to gather a coalition of truly peace-seeking nations. Israel intends to “stabilize” the region, but not through failed diplomatic templates with formulas that ooze weakness.
All this is based on Israel’s realistic understanding of the region. Israel and their leaders understand that the set of rules by which the worst actors in the Middle East operate are apocalyptic and genocidal – not accommodational or transactional.
So, for example, Israelis understand that beyond whatever security accords might be possible with the new regime in Syria – headed by the Sunni jihadist named Ahmed Al-Sharaa – and the Aoun government in Lebanon, the IDF itself must and will continue to regularly interdict threats to Israel over the borders with these countries.
Israel will not sit back for a decade or two, merely gathering intelligence on emerging threats until they reach monstrous proportions, as it unfortunately did versus Hezbollah for three decades, and Hamas for two.
Nor does it seem that Israel will wait for American mediators to calm the situation or rely on UN peacekeepers to protect and secure their borders, nor refrain from hitting Sharaa’s assets because Europe is again investing in Syria.
The same goes for Judea and Samaria. Nobody is under the illusion that any Palestinian “authority” can or will counteract the build-up of Iranian backed Islamic terrorist armies in these areas – which directly threaten Jerusalem and central Israel.
Only the IDF can and will; thus, the full-scale Israeli military operations in places like Jenin, Tulkarm, and Nablus to resolutely rout out such threats will continue. This is likely to be a permanent feature of Israeli policy.
Reforming the Palestinian Authority (PA)?
By the way, Israel has no confidence whatsoever in the ability of the EU or the US to substantially reform the Palestinian Authority to make it a “democratic, transparent, efficient, and sustainable governance system,” as per EU goals.
THIRTY YEARS and billions of dollars and euros later, the return on Western investment in Palestinian independence is abysmal. There is no democracy, no rule of law, no transparency, no sustainability, no investment in economic stability, and no peace education in the PA.
There is only nepotism and corruption, “pay-for-slay” handouts (meaning the incentivizing and rewarding of terrorism against Israel), violent propagandizing against Israel (including support for Hamas’s October 7 invasion and massacres), and diplomatic assault on Israel in every possible international forum.
Not one single new hospital in the West Bank has been built with those EU and American funds – only one sewage treatment plant. Not a single refugee has been resettled. They’ve had over 30 years to do more. You get the picture.
As for Western (especially US) security assistance to the PA, well, over $1 billion in US training and equipment for PA security forces – including over $40 million in US funds for 2025 – has produced abysmal results. PA security personnel have repeatedly participated in or facilitated terror attacks against Israeli civilians and IDF soldiers, including PA policemen Mahmoud Abed and Malek Salem who last week murdered Shalev Zvuluny at a Gush Etzion shopping center. PA security personnel account for 12% of all Palestinian terrorists held by Israel.
Nonsensical for France, Saudi Arabia to Resuscitate Delusions of Palestinian Statehood
This explains why it is so nonsensical of France, Saudi Arabia, and others to be attempting to resuscitate delusions of Palestinian statehood, specifically now. This is a recipe for more disappointment and escalated conflict – and of course, for the isolation of Israel.
Alas, that may be the entire point of the French/Saudi exercise – to weaken Israel, to prevent it from growing too strong, too overbearing in its ambitions, too “aggressive” in its military actions, too “dominant” in resetting the regional strategic situation. Too successful in defending itself, including the prevention of Palestinian statehood.
September, U.N. Two-State Meeting
The UN will host a ministerial meeting on September 26th to discuss concrete measures for implementing the two-state solution, with a focus on ending hostilities, respecting international law, and addressing the humanitarian situation in Gaza.
According to President Emmanuel Macron of France, Israel must not be allowed to win so much – especially after its game-changing, successful strike on Iran’s nuclear bomb program. Instead, Israel needs to be constrained, hemmed-in, humbled, and dictated to. “No discussion” he pompously said this week regarding “the need to urgently recognize” Palestinian statehood. It “must” happen, Macron declared – over the protests, and if necessary, over the dead bodies of Israelis.
THE SITUATION regarding Gaza is similar. Israel intends to end the military threat from the Hamas-run Strip and to secure the Negev for renewed Israeli civilian prosperity.
This means that beyond whatever temporary accords might be necessary to obtain the release of a few more Israeli hostages held by Hamas, there are no long-term accommodations with that terror movement, which must be rooted out from Gaza.
Certainly, there must not be any reconstruction of Gaza – given back 20 years ago next month with dashed high hopes – without complete demilitarization of whoever replaces Hamas.
Do not expect Israel to rely on Egypt or any Arab other state, never mind UN forces, to bring security or stability to Gaza.
For years, Cairo turned a blind eye to the massive smuggling of weapons from the Egyptian-controlled Sinai Peninsula into Gaza, and of course it did nothing to stop Hamas from staging a coup against the Fatah-controlled PA and making Gaza into a Muslim Brotherhood mini-state. Nor will Israel accept a Palestinian government in Gaza that is but a flimsy cover for de facto Hamas rule.
Israel’s superpower mindset also applies, of course, to Iran. The Islamic Republic must be prevented from rebuilding its nuclear bomb and ballistic missile programs and be deterred from rebuilding its network of proxy armies across the Middle East.
Any attempt at say another P5+1 accord with the ayatollahs, will again force Jerusalem to act against Tehran. Israel will apply its updated defense doctrine, its regional superpower prism, of preventively downgrading enemy capabilities and preempting enemy threats.
In short, Israel intends to maintain its upper hand. Israelis understand the long-term nature of the battles ahead. They gird themselves for these battles with a new superpower mindset, intending to be a proactive regional power – the only true Western ally – reshaping the Middle East for the better.
To old-guard feeble diplomacy, whose hatred toward Israel stinks to high heavens, I say: too bad. Get used to a revamped Mideast anchored by a very strong Israel.
