How Israel completely transformed the balance of power in the Middle East

Sydney Morning Herald

18 hours ago

For Israel's critics, the attack was the inevitable consequence of the country's blockade of Gaza, occupation of the West Bank, and failure to resolve the Palestinian conflict through diplomatic concessions. Many Israelis have drawn the opposite conclusion: They believe that the October attack – the deadliest in Israeli history – stemmed from Israel's failure to pre-emptively and decisively defeat its enemies.
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'In the 20 years before October 7, we allowed threats to develop beyond our borders, trusting that our intelligence would give us prior warnings of any attack,' said Major General Amos Yadlin, a former head of Israeli military intelligence.
'The trauma of October 7 completely changed that mindset and made us willing to take risks that we didn't take in the past,' Yadlin said. 'We will no longer wait to be attacked, and we will not wait to be surprised.'
The approach echoes Israel's strategic outlook in the early decades of its existence, when it often acted more swiftly and decisively to remove threats on its borders, Yadlin said. The clearest example was in June 1967, when Israel pre-emptively attacked Egypt after the Egyptian military moved troops toward the Israeli border.
'As Egypt massed troops on our southern border, we did not wait to be surprised,' Yadlin said. 'Now, we are reviving that doctrine.'
Israel's new approach is the culmination of months of reevaluation, during which the military's confidence - crushed by the failures of October 7 – was gradually restored.
While Israel's approach to Hamas was immediately wrathful, the country was initially wary of taking on Hezbollah and Iran. Netanyahu called off a pre-emptive attack on Hezbollah in the first week of the war in 2023, amid fears that Israel would struggle to maintain a multifront war against the Iran-led alliance.
For nearly a year, Israel fought only a low-level border conflict with Hezbollah. Despite increasing clashes with Iran in 2024, Israel limited its strikes on Iran to avoid an all-out conflict.
Israel's approach began to change in September, when a sequence of unexpected moves allowed Israel to decimate much of Hezbollah's senior leadership.
That increased Israel's confidence and prompted its leaders to order a more decisive assault on the group. Troops invaded southern Lebanon and the air force killed Hezbollah's secretary-general, Hassan Nasrallah.
Israel then severely weakened Iran's air defence systems and successfully repelled massive barrages of Iranian missiles, giving Israel greater confidence in its offensive and defensive abilities. More than a year after October 7, Israeli leaders finally concluded that they had a rare window of opportunity to mount a decisive blow against Iran's nuclear program.
Though Israel's new approach has undercut Iran's regional influence, it has done little to resolve Israel's oldest and most intractable problem: the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
In Gaza, Israel's retaliation has led to widespread destruction and bloodshed, reinstating a fearsome sense of Israeli might and reducing Hamas' threat for a generation.
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But the conflict has provided no clear long-term trajectory for either Gaza or the wider Palestinian question. Netanyahu has consistently ignored opportunities to end the war, balking at the idea of either leaving Hamas' remnants in charge or allowing other Palestinian groups to take over.
'Instead, we are left with only bad options,' said Tzipi Livni, a former Israeli foreign minister. 'Either occupation or chaos, rather than a diplomatic process involving moderate regional and Palestinian stakeholders that could change the reality on the ground for both Palestinians and Israelis.'
A similarly aimless dynamic could yet emerge in Iran, analysts said, if the Israeli leadership fails to clearly define its goals there and set an exit strategy.
For now, Israeli officials hope the United States will join the attack and help Israel destroy Iran's nuclear enrichment facilities. If the US stays away, and if Iran refuses to stop the enrichment by choice, it is unclear whether Israel's forceful new doctrine will achieve the kind of game-changing outcomes that many Israelis desire.
'One wonders whether effective military performance is matched by a sober political vision,' said Nimrod Novik, a former senior Israeli official and a fellow at Israel Policy Forum, a research group in New York. 'Or, like in Gaza, we are left without an endgame. Time will tell.'