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In-Depth Issues:
Israel Prepares for Possible Iranian Attack - Lilach Shoval ( Israel Hayom)
In the Israeli Air Force, both the air defense array and units responsible for offensive operations are working nonstop to strengthen Israel's defenses and prepare response options should Iran launch missiles at Israel following a U.S. strike.
With each passing day, Israel is becoming better prepared to intercept missiles thanks to reserve call-ups, improved deployment of systems, and additional steps that cannot be detailed.
Why Israel Opposed a U.S. Strike on Iran - Yossi Yehoshua ( Ynet News)
Israel's opposition to a U.S. military strike on Iran at this stage is not rooted in concerns over interceptor shortages or fears of its air defense systems collapsing.
Operational lessons learned from the previous round of fighting in June 2025 included enabling the IDF to manage future rounds of conflict using fewer, more precise and more efficient interceptors, alongside significantly improved offensive capabilities.
Major efforts have been made to expand the target bank, improve penetration and precision capabilities, and shorten the time between intelligence gathering, decision-making, and execution.
Israeli officials argued that the U.S. strike plan proposed last week could inflict heavy damage, disrupt military infrastructure, and temporarily destabilize the regime, but it would not lead to regime change.
President Trump's decision not to proceed with military action at that time was viewed in Jerusalem as the right choice - one that avoided launching a broad campaign without a clear strategic horizon or a likely political outcome.
Nevertheless, Washington is building up its regional forces, sending the USS Abraham Lincoln toward the Persian Gulf, deploying cargo aircraft to Diego Garcia, reinforcing allied air defense systems, and increasing multi-domain intelligence collection.
World Economic Forum Disinvites Iran after Bloody Crackdown on Protests - Ferdinand Knapp ( Politico-EU)
The World Economic Forum said Monday that Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi will not attend this year's summit in Davos, Switzerland, on Jan.19-23.
"The tragic loss of lives of civilians in Iran over the past few weeks means that it is not right for the Iranian government to be represented at Davos this year," the NGO said.
Four NATO States to Buy Israeli Tank Protection Systems - Hagai Amit ( Ha'aretz)
Israel's Rafael Advanced Defense Systems said Monday it will sell Trophy active protection systems for tanks to four NATO countries: the Czech Republic, Netherlands, Croatia and Lithuania, for $385 million.
The system includes electronic warfare measures that can disrupt direct attacks by preventing enemy radar from identifying the tank. It also deploys hard-kill interceptors to neutralize incoming threats.
It will be installed on Leopard 2 tanks manufactured by the German-French defense group KNDS.
The system has already been installed on U.S. Army Abrams tanks and is in service on German Army Leopard 2 tanks.
Three New F-35 Jets Arrive in Israel - Yonah Jeremy Bob ( Jerusalem Post)
Three new F-35i aircraft have landed in Israel, increasing their number to 48 out of 50 already purchased.
In 2023, Israel signed a deal for 25 additional F-35s, to eventually raise the number of aircraft to 75.
See also Israeli Ambassador Signs F-35 Jet in Tribute to Fallen Son - Reuven Rosenfeld ( VINnews)
Israel's Ambassador to the U.S., Yechiel Leiter, visited Lockheed Martin's F-35 production facility in Fort Worth, Texas, and signed one of the advanced fighter jets destined for the Israeli Air Force, dedicating it to the memory of his son, who was killed in combat during the war in Gaza.
Leiter noted that the expertise and operational experience shared between Israel and the U.S. strengthened both nations' defense capabilities.
The ambassador wrote on the jet: "In memory of my firstborn son, an Israeli hero....'I will carry you on eagle's wings and bring you to me'" ( Exodus 19:4).
Maj. (res.) Moshe Yedidya Leiter, 39, a medical student, father of six and platoon commander, was killed by the explosion of a booby-trapped tunnel shaft in Beit Hanoun on Nov. 10, 2023.
U.S. Military Selects Israeli HERO-90 Loitering Munition for Infantry Forces - Dan Arkin ( Israel Defense)
The U.S. military has selected the HERO-90 loitering munition system developed by the Israeli company UVision to give soldiers on the ground the ability to strike armored and fortified targets with precision.
This allows a single soldier to be capable of neutralizing heavily armored threats without relying on external artillery or air support.
UVision's strategic partner, the American company Mistral, announced the system's selection in the procurement competition.
The technological superiority of the HERO-90 is evident in its integration of electro-optical and infrared sensors with AI-based processing capabilities.
This technology allows for autonomous target detection and tracking while ensuring human oversight in firing decisions.
Undercover Journalist Reveals Pervasive Antisemitism among French Activists - Robert Sarner ( Times of Israel)
French journalist Nora Bussigny's book Les Nouveaux Antisemites ( The New Antisemites) exposes virulent Jew-hatred endemic to many activist organizations in the country.
Bussigny, who is not Jewish, infiltrated many groups as part of a lengthy undercover investigation using a false identity.
"I saw with my own eyes to what degree Islamists, far-left so-called 'progressive' militants and feminist, LGBT and ecological activists are closely linked in their shared hatred of Jews and Israel," Bussigny told the Times of Israel.
"During an entire year, I participated, with full discretion, in demonstrations, meetings, online discussions. I investigated university campuses. I applauded next to hysterical crowds glorifying terrorism."
While she says "Many bookstores in France have boycotted my book," it has been widely acclaimed in the media and is on bestseller lists in France.
UN Experts Who Routinely Attack Israel Ignore Iran's Repression and Support for Terrorism - Shachar Kleiman ( Israel Hayom)
A UN Watch report examined the conduct of 54 special rapporteurs for the UN Human Rights Council.
Despite a surge in executions by the Iranian regime, intensified persecution of minorities, and violent repression of women, most of the experts whose mandates cover these issues did not publish a single condemnation of Tehran's actions.
Experts responsible for freedom of expression and the right to life issued dozens of condemnations against Western countries and Israel, yet refrained from a single statement against mass executions and the repression of journalists in Iran.
The report calls on democratic countries to demand that the UN to stop funding these mechanisms and reform the appointment of experts.
1,000 Immigrant Doctors Joined Israel's Healthcare System in Two Years ( Ynet News)
Data from the Ministry of Aliyah and Integration shows that 541 physicians moved to Israel in 2025 and since 2024, more than 1,000 physicians have made aliyah and entered the workforce.
Hundreds of additional doctors are expected to make aliyah in 2026.
Minister Ofir Sofer said the "physicians who have made aliyah over the past two years, during a time of war, express confidence in the State of Israel and its healthcare system and choose to build their future here."
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News Resources - North America, Europe, and Asia:
- Report: 1,500 Islamic State Members Escaped from Prison following Syrian Attacks on Kurds
1,500 Islamic State members escaped from Syria's Shaddadi prison on Monday, the Kurdish website Rudaw reported. Earlier, Syrian government forces and Kurdish fighters clashed around two prisons housing ISIS members in Syria's northeast. Many of the detained extremists are believed to have carried out atrocities after ISIS declared a caliphate in 2014 over large parts of Syria and Iraq. (MSN)
See also Security Vacuum Fears Mount over ISIS Prisons following SDF Withdrawal
The withdrawal of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) from Deir ez-Zor and Raqqa governorates on Sunday has precipitated a critical security crisis regarding custody of thousands of imprisoned Islamic State members. For years, the SDF, operating with direct support from the International Coalition forces, has managed these high-security facilities. (Kurdistan24)
See also U.S.-Led Coalition Takes Over Security of ISIS Prisons in Syria
U.S.-led Coalition forces assumed responsibility for securing prisons and detention facilities holding members of ISIS, a Syrian source said. (Shafaq News-Iraq)
See also SDF Says Syrian-Linked Forces Beheaded Kurdish Fighters in ISIS Style (Rudaw-Kurdistan)
- Hamas Leaders Prepare for "Safe Exit" from Gaza
Three Hamas sources told Asharq Al-Awsat that several prominent political and military leaders who survived the war are preparing for a "safe exit" from Gaza under the second phase of the ceasefire agreement. One source said the departure would be voluntary and carried out with full coordination with the Hamas leadership abroad. Another source noted that other leaders, particularly military figures, categorically reject leaving Gaza under any circumstances. (Asharq Al-Awsat-UK)
News Resources - Israel and the Mideast:
- Netanyahu: There Won't Be Turkish or Qatari Soldiers in Gaza - Keshet Neev
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told the Knesset on Monday that no Turkish or Qatari soldiers would be present in Gaza. He added that Israel is still awaiting the return of slain hostage Ran Gvili's remains, as stipulated in the first stage of the ceasefire agreement.
The second stage of the agreement "means one simple thing: Hamas will be disarmed, and Gaza will be demilitarized," he said. (Jerusalem Post)
See also Israeli Security Sources: The Inclusion of Turkey and Qatar in Gaza's Governance Instills Hope in Hamas
Israel's defense establishment believes that Hamas is increasingly motivated to rebuild and recover, encouraged in part by President Trump's plan for Gaza, Hebrew media reported Sunday. The assessment, reportedly delivered in closed-door briefings to Israel's political echelon, came after the U.S. announced the start of phase two of the Trump plan for ending the Gaza war.
Security sources said Hamas is hoping to model Gaza after Lebanon, where Hizbullah wields significant power. A November 2024 ceasefire agreement between Israel and Lebanon mandated that Hizbullah be disarmed, but the group insists it will not do so.
Hamas, like Hizbullah, is expected to stall for time and delay giving up its weapons. According to officials quoted by Israel's Channel 12, Hamas "will do everything it can to drag out the process and exhaust all parties, while reconstruction on the ground begins in practice."
Hamas's thinking has been shaped in no small part by Washington's decision to include both Turkey and Qatar in the post-war management of Gaza, the security sources said. "The inclusion of Turkey and Qatar in the Executive Board instills in [Hamas] long-term hope and short-term courage." Their inclusion on the Executive Board could eventually "undermine the IDF's achievements in the war," the security sources warned. (Times of Israel)
- Israel Decides Not to Open Rafah Crossing between Gaza and Egypt - Itamar Eichner
Israel's Security Cabinet decided Sunday not to open the Rafah Crossing at this time, despite a request from the U.S. At the same time, a senior Israeli official said that including Turkish and Qatari representatives on the Gaza Executive Board - the council that would oversee Gaza's reconstruction - was not part of the original understanding between Israel and the U.S. (Ynet News)
- IDF Targets Hizbullah Tunnels, Rocket Launch Sites in Lebanon - Emanuel Fabian
Israeli strikes in southern Lebanon on Monday targeted Hizbullah rocket-launch sites, tunnel shafts used to store weapons, and training camps used to plan and carry out attacks against Israel, the IDF said.
(Times of Israel)
- IDF: Attacks by West Bank Palestinians Dropped Sharply in 2025 - Yonah Jeremy Bob
The IDF said Monday that terror attacks and the number of Israelis killed by West Bank Palestinians declined sharply in 2025. There were 504 Palestinian attacks in 2024 which killed 41 Israelis, while in 2025 there were 57 attacks leading to 20 Israeli deaths. Rock-throwing and firebomb attacks fell from 1,230 in 2024 to 1,015 in 2025.
240 Palestinians were killed by IDF fire in 2025, down from 500 in 2024. 96% of those killed were terrorists.
(Jerusalem Post)
Global Commentary and Think-Tank Analysis:
Iran
- Hit Iran in Its Shadow Bank Accounts - Michael Doran
The U.S. ought to seize the billions of dollars Iran's rulers have hidden offshore. Freezing these assets could have an effect comparable to a military attack - at a fraction of the risk. The U.S. Treasury knows where Iran's money is, but successive administrations have hesitated to act for fear of damaging relations with a valued ally - the United Arab Emirates.
To evade U.S. sanctions, Iran has built an elaborate shadow banking system - a network of shell companies and financial intermediaries that allows the regime to move money at scale. This system allows Tehran to sell oil illicitly to China and launder the proceeds to procure export-controlled technology for its military and nuclear programs.
Last October, the U.S. Treasury Department stated that "companies based in the UAE (99% of which were located in the Emirate of Dubai) transacted the highest volume of [Iran's] potential shadow banking funds." This system keeps the Iranian regime alive with Dubai serving as its economic lung.
What's required is a strategy that freezes Iranian assets already in hand and forces the banks involved - especially in Dubai - to choose between compliance and punishment. Any financial institution that facilitates Iranian transactions should face immediate and substantial fines.
The writer is a senior fellow and Director of the Center for Peace and Security in the Middle East at the Hudson Institute. (Wall Street Journal)
- Iranian Protester Tells of an Uprising Violently Suppressed - David S. Cloud
The Iranian businessman was chanting antigovernment slogans along with hundreds of other protesters on the streets of northern Tehran on Jan. 8 when police opened fire. A man a few feet away crumpled to the ground, bleeding profusely. He bent to help the wounded man, but fled as more bullets slammed into the retreating crowd at a packed intersection. It was the start of a multiday crackdown that human-rights activists say killed at least 3,000 people.
The next day he took to the streets again. "The sound of gunfire came from everywhere," he said. "It was like a battlefield." On Jan. 10, fewer people ventured out that evening and he stayed home as well. "It was quiet. It was as if we had just realized what had happened to us and how many people had been killed."
Then, on Jan. 14, Trump stood down after coming to the brink of ordering strikes, when his advisers told him the U.S. didn't have the forces in the region to significantly damage the regime. Analysts, say the current round of protests is all but over after the violence. Iranian judicial officials said they would deal firmly with those they said were behind the unrest. (Wall Street Journal)
- If Iran's Regime Stays in Power, Trump's Gaza Peace Plan Will Not Succeed - Khaled Abu Toameh
The end of the current regime in Iran is the fastest, best and, unfortunately, the only way to eradicate Hamas. Without Iran's support, Hamas would not have been able to transform Gaza into a large base for Jihad (holy war) against Israel. Without Iran's support, the terror group would not have been able to overthrow the Palestinian Authority in 2007 and seize full control of Gaza.
Without Iran's political, financial, and military aid, Hamas would not have been able to carry out its Oct. 7 attack on Israel. Without Iran's support, there also would be no proxies such as the Houthis, Hizbullah, and Venezuela.
The Iranian regime is not, of course, the only party that has been propping up Hamas for the past three decades. Qatar and Turkey - followers, like Hamas, of the Muslim Brotherhood - are longtime supporters of Hamas, reinforcing it with money and diplomatic backing. According to Israeli officials, Qatar and Turkey are now "working to extract Hamas from the requirement to disarm."
If the mullahs' regime stays in power, the chances of removing Hamas and demilitarizing Gaza for any length of time will be zero. If Hamas remains standing, Hizbullah, the Houthis and other Iran-backed Islamist terror groups will also continue to rearm, regroup and plan for more bloodshed in the region. But if and when the Iranian regime is gone, Iran's proxies will be significantly weakened.
(Gatestone Institute)
- Iran's Harsh Suppression of Protests Deepens Hatred toward the Regime - Amichai Stein
Dr. Raz Zimmt, Director of the Iran Program at the Institute for National Security Studies, said, "At first glance, it looks like there is a very wide deployment of security forces, mass arrests, and citizens who are quite afraid to leave their homes. While the suppression might contribute to fear in the immediate term, it deepens the hostility and hatred toward the regime....The potential for friction is growing, and this level of suppression cannot be maintained indefinitely."
Zimmt also noted that a U.S. air attack on the Islamic Republic may not lead to the regime's collapse. Rather, it could lead to a transition of leadership that does not truly dismantle the system. "It's possible that whoever comes next will not be pro-Israel either, but they might feel that in order to survive, they must be pragmatic." (Jerusalem Post)
- Is Iran Ready to End Its External Interventions? - Abdulrahman al-Rashed
The Iranian regime is facing an existential crisis for the first time since its founding. The regime stubbornly adopted the nuclear project despite the clear impossibility of being allowed to possess it. Today, it is paying the price and finds itself standing at the finish line, stripped naked, without nuclear deterrence.
The regime also persistently adopted projects of external change and the export of chaos, declaring them official state policy. We are now witnessing the collapse of most of the external revolutionary project.
Very little time remains for the regime to take courageous decisions. It can spare itself destruction by retreating from its hostile policies toward countries in the region, dismantling the military institutions that were built to create chaos and threaten neighbors, and refraining from imposing its will on the peoples of the region. Ending the nuclear program and external activity are capable of sparing Iran foreign intervention.
The writer is the chairman of Al Arabiya's editorial board and former editor-in-chief of Asharq al-Awsat. (Al Arabiya)
The Gaza War
- Gaza's "Phase Two" Peace Trusts Hamas - Editorial
"We've talked to a number of Hamas people, and we're hearing throughout the Arab world that people don't want to be at war anymore," a senior U.S. official told reporters on Wednesday. This is a case of what Israelis call the "Oct. 6 mind-set" - the pattern of thought common before the Hamas massacre on Oct. 7 exposed it as dangerous naivete. If Hamas simply wanted "a better economic future for their families," it wouldn't have sent death squads to slaughter 1,200 Israeli men, women and children.
The U.S. officials spoke only of taking Hamas's "heavy weaponry," leaving out what would happen to the AK-47s on which Hamas's power and ability to murder dissenting Gazans rests. The U.S. is engaging and coordinating with Hamas on all matters of Gaza's current and future governance, which legitimizes the terrorists.
What happened to the point in Mr. Trump's plan that said "Hamas and other factions agree to not have any role in the governance of Gaza, directly, indirectly, or in any form"?
Perhaps Hamas will hand over some weapons, but the Israelis expect to have to do the job themselves once U.S. officials realize no one else will. The smart move would be for the Board of Peace to impose a deadline on Hamas to disarm and let Jerusalem enforce it. (Wall Street Journal)
Israel and the West
- Why Israel Is Seen Everywhere and Everything Else Is Forgotten - Samuel J. Hyde
Israel occupies an outsized and morally charged place in the media's imagination, particularly in the West. There is a systemic, disproportionate fascination, bordering on obsession, with covering Israel as though it were the gravitational center of world affairs. With this saturation coverage, Israel becomes not just another country among many but a kind of moral index - a stage upon which the world's conscience is imagined to be tested and revealed.
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict occupies a peculiar and disproportionate place in the West's political imagination, unmatched by conflicts that are deadlier or more brutal. So it becomes over-seen, over-examined, intensely dissected, and uniquely moralized.
Israel's wars are routinely framed as the "Israeli-Palestinian conflict," as though the entire story were a localized struggle between two neighboring peoples, one strong and one weak, one powerful and one victimized. This framing is tidy, emotionally resonant, and yet profoundly misleading.
Most of Israel's wars have not been fought against Palestinians but against Egyptians and Jordanians, Syrians and Lebanese, Iraqis and, increasingly, Iranians. The rockets fired at Israel during the war did not come only from Gaza. They came from Lebanon, Yemen, Iraq, and from Iran itself. A vast and intricate regional struggle is reduced to Israelis vs. Palestinians. Israel is cast as the dominant actor, the controlling force, and ultimately the villain. The wider forces shaping the conflict vanish altogether.
This is how media distortion always works - by shrinking and enlarging the facts selectively. A small story is made to seem enormous. The result is a morality play in which a villainous country called Israel comes to embody the worst sins of the modern age. Israel ceases to be a state acting within a volatile region and becomes instead a metaphor for everything the imagination fears about power and injustice. If the coverage of Israel feels uniquely charged, moralized, and obsessive, it is because it is.
The writer is a fellow at the Jewish People Policy Institute. (Substack)
- The UN Condemns Israel Obsessively while Averting Its Gaze from Mass Repression in Iran - Jake Wallis Simons
Anybody who knows anything about the UN understands that it has been saturated in Israelophobia for decades.
Remember how Antonio Guterres, the secretary-general, claimed that the Oct. 7 attacks "did not happen in a vacuum"?
Remember how the war in Gaza produced the increasing weaponization of the mechanisms of the UN against the Jewish state, culminating in the fabrication of charges of famine, even though the only pictures of supposedly starving Gazans turned out to be people with serious health disorders? Remember the libelous endorsement of the false charge of genocide?
But despite all the examples cited above, and the reams of other evidence besides, the UN has continued to enjoy a sterling reputation in the eyes of the man in the street, which is why it has been such an effective weapon against Israel.
Sometimes, however, a sudden change of light makes you see things more clearly. On Thursday, Iranian dissident Masih Alinejad, who had been targeted three times for assassination by the regime, was invited by the U.S. to address the UN Security Council. The brave Alinejad was scathing. "The secretary-general has not spoken publicly against the massacre," she said. During her testimony, she broke down when reading the names of the protesters who had been killed.
The UN's indulgence of the worst regime in the world, which is the other side of the coin to their obsessive condemnation of the freest nation in the Middle East, has been exposed for all to see. (Jewish Chronicle-UK)
- To My Fellow British Muslims: Listen to the Survivors of the Hamas Oct. 7 Attacks - Fiyaz Mughal
Since Oct. 7, I have been struck by how little space there has been within British Muslim public discourse for grappling seriously with the horror unleashed by Hamas on that day. During a visit to Israel, I was with a survivor of the Nova music festival. After listening to his account, I needed several hours to process the trauma he had recalled - trauma that clearly still lives within him.
Shaun Lemel, 24, and his friends managed to get into a vehicle to escape. As they did so, Hamas fighters poured in from all sides, killing anyone within their line of sight. They survived by chance. At one junction they turned left rather than right, unknowingly avoiding a kibbutz that would suffer catastrophic losses. More than 4,000 Hamas gunmen crossed into southern Israel that morning, attacking homes, families, and communities.
The impact of Oct. 7 is felt everywhere in Israel. The country has fundamentally changed - more vigilant, more resolute, and more willing to act decisively against perceived threats. This collective shift is not born of ideology, but of shock and a deep desire that Israel will never again be caught out militarily.
What makes us human is our ability to care about suffering wherever it occurs. Listening to Israeli victims of Oct. 7, acknowledging their trauma, and allowing ourselves to feel their pain is not betrayal. It is moral integrity. If this message reaches even one British Muslim and invites reflection, then it has served a purpose. Jews, Muslims, and Christians were attacked by the barbarity of Hamas. To bear witness to that truth is not political. It is human. (Jewish Chronicle-UK)
International Law
- Can Israel Apply Israeli Law in Judea and Samaria? - Prof. Eugene Kontorovich
There is a simple, clear rule in international law to determine the borders of new countries. A new country automatically inherits the borders of the last top-level administrative unit in that area. In other words, the pre-independence boundaries carry over to the new state.
"Annexation" has a very precise meaning in international law: the incorporation by one state of the territory of another state. The actions Israeli politicians have contemplated to apply Israeli civil law in areas that have been under nominal military administration would not constitute annexation.
First, the area of the "West Bank," a term coined by the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan to refer to the lands it occupied after Israel's 1948 War of Independence, did not belong to any foreign state when it came under Israeli control in 1967, since Jordan was never sovereign in the territory.
Second, Israel itself has a sovereign claim to the territory, which it calls "Judea and Samaria" - a term used for more than 2,000 years, not only in the Bible but also by Roman historians, and by secular authorities including the UN up through the middle of the 20th century. Needless to say, a state cannot annex its own territory.
When Israel gained independence, its preceding geopolitical entity was Mandatory Palestine, which included the West Bank. Under the application of standard rules of international law, the borders of the new state at independence would be the borders of the mandatory territory it succeeded.
When Israel retook this territory in 1967, it was not occupying territory from Jordan, but rather ending Jordanian occupation of a portion of Mandatory Palestine, the territory reserved by the League of Nations for a Jewish homeland under the British Mandate.
Today, 700,000 Jewish Israelis live in Judea and Samaria where they are governed by an odd patchwork of military regulations. President Trump's 2020 peace plan contemplated Israel extending its civil law to roughly half of Judea and Samaria, where the Jewish population is concentrated. Neither international law nor Western principles of democracy stand in the way of Israel finally applying its own civil law to its own citizens in those areas.
The writer is a professor at the George Mason University Law School and director of its Center on the Middle East and International Law. (Tablet)
Observations:
- Israel's intelligence was the most advanced in the world. But in the week before Oct. 7, 2023, it forgot to look at the Gaza bakery, which suddenly was asked to prepare hundreds of pita breads, or the barber shop in Jabalia that, on Oct. 4, was suddenly flooded with dozens of Nukhba operatives getting haircuts to look sharp before joining their 72 virgins.
- "We struck them hard and they are deterred," former director of the Israel Security Agency, Nadav Argaman, declared in May 2021. "They want an economy, not a war," the political leadership told us. Then came the "Al-Aqsa Flood" on Oct. 7.
- The catastrophic error that led to this disaster was Israel's excessively rational lens, rooted in Western logic - the belief that people act to maximize personal and family welfare. That is how Israel's value system works. The intelligence community and the political leadership refused to truly understand the jihadist fanaticism that had taken over Gaza.
- Israel's intelligence instinctively searches for logic. But an enemy willing to sacrifice everything for a murderous ideology does not operate according to Western logic. Israel must adopt a permanent assumption: the enemy will always surprise you. He will always have a new trick - something you have not yet imagined.
- True national resilience requires capability denial: Do not wait to understand how an enemy plans to use a capability - destroy it simply because it exists. Assume the possibility of blindness: The military and society must be prepared for the morning when the screens go dark.
- National resilience must never rest on intelligence as its sole backbone. True resilience is the ability to absorb a blow you did not anticipate and respond with force - because you prepared for the worst-case scenario, not the "reasonable" one. National resilience is not the ability to predict the future. It is the ability to survive it even when you did not predict it.
The writer, former head of the Counterterrorism Division in the Mossad, is a researcher at the Jerusalem Center.
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