The Turning Point

This article is written out of a sense of pain and grief. After long months of yet another round of war, soldiers and civilians wounded in the north and elsewhere in the country, and families who will never return to normal life - we are left in deficit. In recent months our forces have given more than could be asked of them. With heroism, blood, sweat, and tears, they were called to the flag once again to save us from the threat of Iranian missiles. But the government of Israel failed — a historic failure — and brought us defeat instead of relief. For this reason we must recalculate our course. The heroism of our soldiers will not be in vain.

President of the State of Israel Isaac Herzog's visit to the north of the country on March 23, 2026. Photo: Haim Tzach, GPO.

The Disillusionment of October 7th

A few days ago, a framework agreement was signed between the United States and Iran. This agreement, it seems, will allow the ayatollahs' regime to gradually rebuild its regional network — ballistic missiles, Hezbollah, the Houthis, Hamas, and militias in Iraq. It is a moment that reminds us just how much of a dead end Israel's security doctrine has reached.

Since October 7th we should have learned one central lesson: it is impossible to keep containing terrorism and merely managing the conflict. But the lesson we actually applied was a different one. Instead of stabilizing our situation, we moved from containment to attrition — to an endless war over territory that drains our economy and our society of substance.

We failed to internalize that seizing territory no longer serves our security. We do not have enough soldiers to hold every front simultaneously, and world public opinion — including in the United States — is no longer willing to pay the moral price of destroying entire civilian areas. A leaked report about the IDF Chief of Staff's warning that the military risks "collapsing into itself" is a flashing warning sign. Under these conditions, Israel cannot continue to occupy more territory.

The Israeli left has already gone through a painful process of shedding its illusions. The peace camp learned that not every withdrawal necessarily leads to reconciliation. The right has not yet gone through a parallel process. It has not internalized the central lesson of the war that followed October 7th: that occupying territory and harming a civilian population are not only a moral wrong — they are also a security failure. We are now seeing the results of this denial on the ground.

March 2023, signing of a customs agreement with the United Arab Emirates. Photo: Amos Ben Gershom, GPO. 

Rounds of Agreements

The Iranian power that threatens us operates on several fronts at once: the nuclear program, its grip on the Strait of Hormuz, the ballistic missile array, and the terrorist organizations it funds. There is no way to defeat this entire system in a single blow — whoever tries will only exhaust themselves. Victory in this war of attrition will belong to the side that knows how to conserve energy over time, not to the side that tries to resolve everything through a quick, total victory. For this reason, we must formulate a new security policy: "rounds of agreements."

The first principle is to choose the best partners available to us, even if they are far from ideal. The Lebanese government and the Palestinian Authority are highly problematic. But they are far preferable to the extremist actors competing with them for control on the ground — Hamas, Hezbollah, and their partners. We must choose the better available option, rather than continue searching for a perfect solution that does not exist. We must declare our intention to strengthen the Lebanese government and the Palestinian Authority by every means available.

The second principle: we must withdraw to narrow security strips adjacent to the international border in Gaza and Lebanon, and evacuate the illegal outposts recently built in the West Bank. This will free up forces, let us rebuild the IDF's offensive reserves, prepare us for the next threats, and help us build international legitimacy.

The third principle: from this new position of strength on the international border, we will be able to raid terrorist strongholds — Hamas, Hezbollah, and others — in targeted operations, and return to the border once the campaign concludes. If it becomes necessary to confront Hezbollah, we will be able to reach Beirut as well. Withdrawing forces between rounds is not a concession — it is the way to preserve strength over time.

The fourth principle, and the most important one: at the end of each raid we must strive to establish a better agreement with the moderate actors. In this way we will slowly bring in moderate forces to replace the extremists on the ground. This is not a one-time withdrawal, nor a one-time decisive resolution, but an ongoing process of raid, stabilization, and agreement, repeated again and again.

This model has already proven itself. At the end of the 2024 campaign we struck Hezbollah hard and signed an agreement that preserved our freedom of action and strengthened the Lebanese government. The outcome was significant: the Assad regime fell, and Hezbollah refrained from intervening in the Israeli-Iranian war in June 2025. But in Gaza the opposite happened — we refused to involve the Palestinian Authority in reconstruction, the agreements we tried to establish collapsed, and we dragged ourselves into a long and costly war of attrition. The contrast between the two fronts illustrates exactly the difference between a model that works and a model that fails.

Beyond the Palestinian and Lebanese arenas, we have an arena that is no less urgent: the Strait of Hormuz and the Gulf states. As long as the global economy is chained to this strait, Iran has leverage that does not depend on Hamas or Hezbollah. We must urgently sign a normalization agreement with Saudi Arabia and strengthen ties with the Gulf states — not merely as a diplomatic gesture, but as a strategic step. It will enable the construction of a land corridor that bypasses the Strait of Hormuz, freeing the global economy from Iran's grip. At the same time, we must strengthen the Gulf states' air defense systems against Iran, and every time Iran rebuilds its nuclear program or its ballistic missile array, we will have to take action. But we must not be mistaken: these steps will not happen in a vacuum. They will require us to rethink our policy on the Palestinian issue, since there can be no deep regional normalization without a Palestinian political horizon. Without that, our rounds of confrontation with Iran have no purpose. This is the necessary price — and there is no escaping paying it. We owe this to our children.

IDF forces operate in south Lebanon, Operation Roaring Lion 2026. Photo: IDF Spokesperson's Unit, via Wikipedia. 

“Not by might, nor by power” (Zechariah 4:6)

Our real problem is not only military — it is cultural. In Israeli society we have become addicted to military struggle and have neglected regional diplomacy. For many decades we were told this was the only way. But despite historic military victories, we are losing the broader struggle. The reason for this is an emotional bias in our thinking: we expect diplomacy to be perfect — and if the result is not a "new Middle East," we reject it outright. But when it comes to a failed or partial military operation, we never ask ourselves, "Was it worth the price?!"

The truth is that neither diplomacy nor military force, each on its own, will bring us the best outcome. Only the combination of the two — raid, stabilization, agreement, and round after round again — can extract us from the most severe crisis in our history.

The situation is difficult, perhaps the most difficult we have known. But we can overcome it — not through force alone, nor through naive trust, but through patience, discipline, and a willingness to build the security that will save us, round after round. We must unite behind this mission. It is in our hands.

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