After two years of war, Israel has entered an election year in 2026, but security issues will not be paramount in upcoming elections. A new consensus across Israeli society has emerged on security that is being operationalized and implemented.
Israel’s Pre-October 7 Security Thinking
In September 2023, Israel’s strategic agenda recognized Iran as the primary state threat. Its nuclear capabilities were steadily progressing and its missile arsenal was constantly growing and improving. Its Lebanese Hizbullah proxy force had roughly 100,000 missiles and rockets and an army battle-hardened from a decade of fighting alongside the Asad regime in Syria.
Israel maintained a continuous campaign of airstrikes to prevent southern Syria from becoming like southern Lebanon, known in Israel as the “war between the wars.” Hamas threatened Israel’s main population centers with rocket fire, supported by weapons smuggling flowing underground through the border with Egypt. The Palestinian Authority was funding terrorists to kill Israelis.
In Israel, the prevailing security thinking was: focus on the primary, existential threat posed by Iran and follow its nuclear progress closely; prepare for the inevitable confrontation with Hizbullah while consolidating the anti-Iran coalition with the Gulf states; Hamas must be managed and contained. “Mowing the grass” was the metaphor, meaning Israel must degrade the rocket threat every few years, while advancing defensive measures like Iron Dome which allowed Israel to minimize damage and avoid getting dragged into a prolonged campaign which would distract it from the primary threat. The threat of a cross-border invasion from Gaza was assessed to be minimal, perhaps the penetration of one or two terror cells of ten fighters each into a single town in the Gaza border area. As part of managing Hamas, Israel should facilitate improved economic conditions in the Gaza Strip in order to incentivize Hamas to prolong the periods in between outbreaks of violence. Such was Israel on October 6, 2023.
The October 7 Effect
On the morning of October 7, 2023, a terror army of close to 4,000 fighters, along with an additional 2,000 Gazan civilians, invaded Israeli towns and kibbutzim along the border area. 1,200 Israelis were murdered, over 5,000 wounded and 250 taken hostage. Hizbullah began launching daily rocket attacks against towns along the northern border, alongside missile fire from Iranian proxies in Iraq and Yemen. 200,000 Israelis were internally displaced from the north and the south.
The resulting change in national security thinking can be summarized in three themes.
First, Israelis’ understanding of the nature of the conflict has changed. Today it is clear to the vast majority of Israelis that the root of the conflict is not territorial claim for two states but rather a rejection of the Zionist idea by its enemies. This is largely recognized as true for the leadership of the Palestinian Authority as well as Hamas. More Israelis than ever oppose withdrawing from the West Bank (Judea and Samaria). Such a move, they believe, would not result in peace, but rather would create a Hamas-controlled terror-state in areas adjacent to Israeli population centers.
Surveys of Israeli Jews place opposition to a Palestinian state anywhere from 68 to 81 percent. Another poll surveying all Israelis, including Israeli Arab citizens, found that this percentage grew from 69 percent before the war to 79 percent afterward.
In July 2024, the Knesset passed a resolution explicitly rejecting the establishment of a Palestinian state “on any piece of land west of the Jordan River.” It passed 68–9, supported by all governing coalition parties as well as right-wing and centrist opposition parties, while Arab parties voted against. The opposition Yesh Atid and Labor Parties (holding 24 and 4 seats, respectively) abstained. The text labeled a Palestinian state an “existential danger” that would perpetuate conflict, destabilize the region, and quickly become a Hamas-led terror base.
Second, Israelis believe in returning to a warfighting doctrine of preemption. Israel will no longer allow terror armies to be built up along its borders, relying only on deterrence and defensive measures to protect them. This understanding led to the official war aim of dismantling Hamas as a military and governing entity. It also underpins Israel’s action against Hizbullah, starting from October 2024, including the beeper operation and the assassination of Hasan Nasrallah, but also the demand that even in the context of a ceasefire, Israel will maintain control of strategic territory and proactively prevent Hezbollah’s rearmament.
This doctrine of preemption was also evident when Israel destroyed the Syrian army’s capabilities within days of Asad’s fall in December 2024 and expanded the buffer zone in southern Syria. The 12-Day operation against Iran’s nuclear and missile capabilities in June 2025, and the strike against Hamas’ leadership in Doha in September, demonstrated the lengths Israel will go in applying this doctrine.
This offense-minded stance has strong support outside the governing coalition as well. In November 2025, centrist opposition party leader, Benny Gantz released his proposal for a return to a “1948 mindset” and a new security doctrine, in which he calls for a shift from a conflict management approach to an initiative-taking approach and prevention of threats, including initiating a “broad campaign to remove all the significant threats posed by the Iranian regime” and “the establishment of buffer zones outside the border.”
Third, Israelis agree they must address the gap between the Israel Defense Force’s needs in wartime and its actual stockpiles of munitions and production capacity. In the first year and a half of the war, Israel faced great pressure from the Biden administration to settle for very partial gains in Gaza and to refrain from offensive action in the other arenas, with resupply withheld as leverage. This clarified that, at least regarding critical munitions that allow for day-to-day warfighting, Israel must be independent.
The non-partisan “Nagel Committee” report, released in January 2025, stressed self-sufficiency in munitions and other essential arms as a core pillar of its strategy overhaul. The committee, comprised of 12 experts and former senior officials from the heart of the defense establishment led by Jacob Nagel of the Technion, emphasized that Israel must “independently produce critical defense weapon systems so that we are not dependent on foreign suppliers.” Netanyahu, himself, of course, has stated this at numerous occasions over the past year as well.
A New Regional Order?
The previous regional balance of power has been upended, but none of the ideological camps have disappeared. The Iranian-led Shi’ite axis has been hit the hardest but it is not knocked out. Iran’s nuclear program has been pushed back by years, but nuclear technical knowledge still exists as well as possible remnants of enriched uranium. Likewise, its missile arsenal and manufacturing base have been reduced, but it maintains an estimated 1,000 functional missiles.
Hizbullah’s command structure has been hollowed out and its missile threat to Israel reduced by an order of magnitude. Its remaining arsenal is estimated at 10,000 short-range rockets, 1,000 medium-range missiles and several dozen precision-guided missiles. As a result, it has lost its dominant position in Lebanese politics. WIth the fall of Asad in Syria, its overland resupply routes from Iran have been imperiled. But it remains organized, replacement commanders have been appointed and it is constantly acting to rebuild its arsenals and its capability to threaten Israel once again.
Finally, Hamas has lost control of around half of the territory of Gaza, and lost many of its experienced fighters. However, it currently maintains control over most of the Gazan population and fields an organized militia with governing capabilities that ruthlessly executes any rivals. If Israel refrains from further action, Hamas will declare victory. Its strategy of mass hostage-taking as collateral to guarantee an ability to survive and fight another day will have been proven successful.
Israel in the coming year
Despite these very real and continued threats, after two years of war, the country is more secure than it has been in its nearly 80-year lifetime, having thwarted or foiled all immediate existential threats. Somewhat miraculously, Israel’s economy has continued to grow during the war and remains stable. Its military successes have brought global interest in purchasing Israeli defense-tech, resulting in billions of dollars of capital inflows into the economy. Explicit anti-Jewish sentiment abroad also has led to a new influx of Jewish immigration to Israel from Western countries.
These victories have come at a great price. 168 of the 258 hostages have been released alive but another 90 perished in captivity. In addition to the 1,200 Israelis killed in the first days, another 800 have been killed during the war and more than 60,000 wounded. Nearly everybody knows someone who died, and everybody knows people who were injured. The civilians displaced from the north and south have been allowed to return and rebuild, but rehabilitating these communities is an ongoing and tenuous project.
Domestically, Israel has begun an election year. Elections will be held when the four-year term of the government expires in October 2026 but possibly as early as the spring or summer. New parties are emerging with a new generation of leaders who don’t easily fit into the previous partisan categories.
The emerging consensus on security matters is clear: proactive on all fronts, no Hamas in Gaza, no Palestinian state. The central political debate in the upcoming campaign will not be about security affairs but rather about the issues of drafting the ultra-Orthodox Jews. The past two years, in which tens of thousands of reservists risked their lives and livelihoods to defend the country, have brought new urgency to the issue of including this community in the draft.
Growing impatience with the ultra-Orthodox population should not be confused with anti-Jewish sentiment. Quite the contrary, the understanding that the Jewish state is being attacked precisely for its Jewish identity has led many to reconsider their relationship with tradition and embrace greater parts of it. People across the country are prouder of their Jewish identity and more willing to emphasize it in fashion, speech and observance.
After 24 months of war, Israel has been wounded, but it has emerged victorious, more resilient, more united, and more determined than ever to ensure its own security in its ancient homeland.
