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In-Depth Issues:
U.S. CENTCOM Commander Tells IDF: "We Achieved the Unimaginable"
( Jerusalem Post)
U.S. CENTCOM commander Adm. Brad Cooper told senior IDF commanders on Monday:
"We achieved the unimaginable together. Our joint achievement is historic."
"You are a nation of warriors, and the people sitting here are the leaders of those warriors. I am proud to serve shoulder to shoulder with you. We have a high and enduring commitment to you."
Iran's Conflicting Demands Leave Deal Out of Reach - Danny Zaken ( Israel Hayom)
Contacts between Iran and the U.S. are not developing into an agreement or even a memorandum of understanding at this stage, three diplomatic sources involved in the negotiations tell Israel Hayom.
Sources say the Oman-Iran agreement does not meet the fundamental demand of the U.S. and Gulf states for completely unrestricted passage through the Strait of Hormuz. The restrictions under discussion are also contrary to international law.
IDF Report Details Daily Hamas Violations of Trump's Gaza Plan - Shirit Avitan Cohen ( Israel Hayom)
The IDF prepares a daily report detailing all Hamas violations of President Trump's 20-point Gaza Plan. Israel sends the report to Washington to demonstrate the gap between Hamas's public commitment to the agreement and its actions on the ground.
The main violations include Hamas's failure to disarm, continued smuggling of weapons and materials used to manufacture weapons; rebuilding underground military infrastructure; continued exercise of authority in Gaza through checkpoints and armed police forces; preparing attacks against IDF troops; planting explosive devices; recruitment, equipping and training; and intelligence gathering and surveillance.
In 24 hours from Aug. 8 to Aug. 9, the IDF documented 14 ceasefire violations, 11 of which were classified as a "developing threat to IDF forces." Two incidents involved the transfer of weapons, along with one incident in which an explosive device was planted near the Yellow Line.
Iranian Attacks Against U.S. Military Bases in the Middle East - Seth G. Jones ( Wall Street Journal)
The U.S. isn't sufficiently prepared to defend its overseas bases, critical infrastructure and personnel.
Since Feb. 28, 2026, Iran has conducted more than 2,000 air, missile and drone strikes across the Middle East, damaging at least 20 sites in eight countries used by the U.S. military.
Iran has so far caused $13 billion to the U.S. alone in equipment losses and facility damage, including
42 U.S. military aircraft damaged or destroyed, several of which were parked on air bases.
In Qatar, the U.S. Combined Air Operations Center has sustained severe damage. In Bahrain, Iran hit the headquarters of U.S. Naval Forces Central Command, radar, satellite communications dishes and warehouses.
Hizbullah Summer Camps for Junior Jihadis - David Schenker ( New York Post)
In Lebanon, summer camps run by Iran-backed Hizbullah are preparing children for holy war.
Its Imam al-Mahdi Scout camps indoctrinate Shiite youth and offer paramilitary training to older members.
Scores of former Mahdi Scouts have joined Hizbullah's ranks. The scouts pledge to advance the teachings of Iran's supreme leader.
Primarily underwritten by Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the group now boasts 75,000 registered male and female scouts. Early on, campers are taught the values of "resistance" and "sacrifice."
Just as Beirut has declared Hizbullah's weapons illegal, it must ban the Mahdi Scouts to start dismantling the aspiring-martyr pipeline.
The writer is a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
See also The Classroom of the Resistance: How Hizbullah Built Its Most Powerful Weapon - Col. (ret.) Dr. Jacques Neriah ( Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs)
Want Peace with Israel? Lift the Siege - Dr. Fiamma Nirenstein ( JNS)
One accusation repeated again and again is that Israel is aggressive. But the opposite is true. Israel is denied a peace it has pursued since its establishment in 1948.
The truth is that Israel is surrounded by an explicit desire to erase it, and remaining constantly on guard is what it must do to survive.
On Friday, a defense pact was signed among Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan, champions of Sunni Islam.
It may appear that they want to defend themselves against Shi'ite Iran, but no. Pakistan's defense minister, Khawaja Asif, said: "In the context of Israel, all Muslim countries must unite," describing Israel as "a threat to the entire Muslim world" and calling for a "united military front" against it.
Turkish President Erdogan has made hatred of Israel - and the ambition to take control of Jerusalem - a banner of his politics.
The writer, a senior researcher at the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs, served as vice president of the Committee on Foreign Affairs in the Italian Chamber of Deputies.
Expert: Israel Unlikely to Compromise Security for Peace Deals after Oct. 7 - Danielle Greyman-Kennard ( Jerusalem Post)
Israel is unlikely to make security concessions as part of any new peace agreement with regional countries, Prof. Eytan Gilboa, an expert on diplomacy at Bar-Ilan University, told the Jerusalem Post on Monday.
After Oct. 7, "the trauma is so significant and will last for so long that I don't think signing peace agreements in the future that require substantial security compromises would be possible."
Supporting Israel Isn't Charity - It's America's Best Weapon - Earle Mack ( The Hill)
America needs a tough, capable ally right now - not a fair-weather friend that ghosts us the moment things get hard. Israel is that ally.
No nation on Earth matches its military muscle, intelligence reach, technological edge, combat experience and sheer will to fight.
Israel matters. It built its military, intelligence and tech edge because its survival demanded it. And unlike some allies, it still has the guts to use it.
Nobody else brings what Israel brings - a battle-tested partner that makes America safer.
This alliance isn't charity, it's national security. America must stand with Israel and deny Iran its win.
The writer is a former U.S. ambassador to Finland.
The Haters Come for Boy George over Israel. I Know What It Feels Like. - John Ondrasik ( Washington Post)
Boy George, the flamboyant British singer, recently released a song entitled "We Will Dance Again." He said he wanted to support his Jewish friends still reeling from the atrocities committed by Hamas at the Nova music festival in Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
Reactions were immediate and overwhelmingly furious.
In December 2023, I wrote and released a song entitled "OK (We Are Not OK)." It was meant to address a broken world where the grotesque Oct. 7 massacre could be celebrated on college campuses.
The song name-checked Harvard, where a student group issued a statement calling Israel "entirely responsible" for Hamas's orgy of murder, rape and hostage-taking.
And I spoke out publicly about the eruption of moral relativism and clear antisemitism that followed the attack.
I know personally the vitriol and death threats now coming for Boy George. I know that few artists of stature will come to his defense. And that he will have to hire more security for his concerts.
What makes Boy George so enraging to the haters is that he, like me, is not Jewish. That fact sends a signal: This is not a religious battle but a moral one. One of good versus evil, without relativity or equivocation.
The writer, a singer-songwriter, performs as Five for Fighting.
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News Resources - North America, Europe, and Asia:
- Trump: U.S. to Demand Compensation from Iran for Damages and Deaths
President Trump wrote Monday on Truth Social:
"I see that Representatives of the Islamic Republic of Iran are asking for compensation for the damage done to them during the last five-month Military Conflict (started because, THEY WILL NOT HAVE A NUCLEAR WEAPON), even though it was never mentioned in any of our negotiations or meetings!"
"But it is an interesting idea because now I am likewise demanding compensation from Iran, for all of the people that they have killed and gravely wounded with their roadside bombs and many conflicts, for which they are famous, as led initially by General Soleimani, including the families of those killed on the USS Cole, and thousands of others killed in combat."
"Additionally, compensation should be paid to the families of the hundreds of thousands of innocent protestors that Iran has killed over the last 50 years, not to mention the 52,000 that have been killed in the last five months. I have instructed my representatives to put this firmly into any, and all, future negotiations. Also, with respect to the Iran negotiations, Iran should be responsible for the damages and death caused to the people of Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, and Gaza!" (Truth Social)
See also Trump Says U.S. Has Mine Swept Entire Strait of Hormuz
President Trump said Monday the U.S. had "100%" control of the Strait of Hormuz. "A little bit complex because they [Iran] will, on occasion, drop a mine, and we find the mines. You know, we've mine swept the entire strait." (DPA)
- IAEA to Remove Nuclear Material from Syria - Barak Ravid
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) will soon remove nuclear material stored at a clandestine site in Syria after the U.S. reached understandings with Syria and Israel. After Israel bombed Syria's clandestine Al-Kibar reactor in 2007, several research and development and storage sites remained and were mostly inactive.
One facility Israel has been closely monitoring over the last two years is "Site 99," where the Assad regime had stored yellowcake, a powder from uranium ore that can later be further processed and eventually enriched. Residue and "leftovers" from the al-Kibar site were also stored there.
While the material at the site can't be used for a nuclear weapon, it can be used for a "dirty bomb" - a conventional explosive device that disperses radioactive material to contaminate an area. Israeli officials said the IDF bombed the entrances to the site shortly after the fall of the Assad regime to prevent access to it.
For more than a year, Israel and the U.S. have been discussing the best way to deal with "Site 99," a U.S. official said. Israel made clear that it wouldn't tolerate nuclear material remaining at the site. (Axios)
News Resources - Israel and the Mideast:
- Netanyahu: The IDF Will Not Carry Out Any Withdrawal in Gaza until Hamas Is Disarmed
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told the Israeli Cabinet on Sunday:
"Israel does not accept the 15-point document [presented by the Gaza Board of Peace]. The IDF will not carry out any withdrawal until Hamas is disarmed."
"And when I say the disarming of Hamas, it means heavy weaponry, lighter weaponry, all weaponry. And we are talking about genuine disarmament, not fictitious disarmament. Right now, we are talking with the Americans about this issue. They have ideas, some of which are acceptable to us and some of which are unacceptable....Furthermore, the IDF will continue to thwart threats against our forces and our citizens."
"The existence of Israel and the security of all Israeli citizens are not up for negotiation....Unlike all those who lecture us, we do what needs to be done for Israel's security, and we can and know how to stand our ground, even against our best friends when necessary." (Prime Minister's Office)
- Israel Tells U.S. It Will Keep Targeting Oct. 7 Terrorists as Gaza Disarmament Stalls - Lazar Berman
Israel informed the White House recently that it would be willing to halt the targeted killings of Palestinian terrorists in Gaza, but would exclude those who took part in the Oct. 7, 2023, attack, Israel's Channel 13 reported Monday.
(Times of Israel)
See also Israel's Hunt for Oct. 7 Terrorists - Emanuel Fabian
Of the 5,000 Palestinians who planned or participated in the Oct. 7 attack and its aftermath, including those who helped hold hostages, 2,800 have been confirmed by the military to have been killed. Another 300 have been captured by Israel and await judgment by special military tribunals. In the past few months, the IDF and Israel Security Agency have stepped up the campaign against the Oct. 7 terrorists. (Times of Israel)
Global Commentary and Think-Tank Analysis:
Iran
- Iran's Economic Breaking Point - Oded Ailam
With Iran's GDP projected to contract by 5.4% and inflation approaching 80%, the Iranian economy is undergoing a collapse. Iran sits atop an ocean of oil and gas, yet its citizens struggle to secure basic calories. Lifting the economic pressure and sanctions will not produce a breakthrough on the nuclear issue. On the contrary, it will funnel billions of dollars directly into the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
Washington and the West are now missing a rare and historic opportunity to bring down the regime.
The real way to subdue the regime requires a combined strategy: economic strangulation and an information campaign, coupled with quiet but overwhelming civil unrest through widespread labor strikes. With an aggressive information campaign showing Iranian citizens exactly where their money is going, not to them, but to illicit assets hidden in Europe and militias in Yemen and Lebanon, internal combustion becomes inevitable.
A civilian general strike neutralizes the principal advantages of Iran's security apparatus - the use of violent force. Unlike overt street demonstrations, there is no one to shoot. When protest moves from crowded streets into closed homes, the tactical advantage provided by guns and batons evaporates.
The writer, former head of the Counterterrorism Division in the Mossad, is a researcher at the Jerusalem Center. (Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs)
- U.S. Blockade Keeps the Economic Pressure on Iran - Editorial
Iran has launched at least 22 strikes in the past two weeks, getting away with firing 52 drones and 12 missiles. Yet the price of oil has stayed around $80, in part due to the 8 million barrels a day that U.S. officials say is being sneaked out of the Strait of Hormuz. If that oil - plus the rest exported via pipelines that avoid the Strait - can be sustained or increased, the U.S. has the economic upper hand.
The U.S. blockade is costing Iran's regime $435 million a day in lost economic activity. Inflation and unemployment are soaring while Iran's industrial base remains devastated and the currency collapses further.
The better option, then, would be to continue the pressure of the blockade and sanctions, rather than sign a deal that hands over control of the Strait and gives economic relief up front, while knowing that Iran will violate its commitments. (Wall Street Journal)
- How Crypto Forensics Is Dismantling the IRGC - Ella Rosenberg
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has increasingly pivoted toward cryptocurrency to sustain their operations. While initially perceived by illicit actors as a financial haven shielded from sovereign governments, this move has inadvertently handed global law enforcement agencies a powerful intelligence-gathering and disruption tool.
Blockchain technology is inherently a transparent and publicly accessible digital ledger. Blockchain records transactions in perpetuity, cryptographically preserving the network's financial history for investigators equipped with the appropriate analytical tools. This has given rise to the specialized field of crypto forensics that enables law enforcement agencies to penetrate the veil of digital wallets, map complex financial networks, and dismantle the economic infrastructure supporting organizations such as the IRGC.
In September 2025, Israel's National Bureau for Counter Terror Financing (NBCTF) ordered the seizure of 187 cryptocurrency wallets linked to the IRGC after blockchain analysis indicated that the addresses had received $1.5 billion worth of Tether (USDT), a dollar-pegged stablecoin. In July 2026, an additional Israeli operation sanctioned 37 digital wallets.
On June 2, 2026, the U.S. Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) imposed sanctions on four major Iranian cryptocurrency exchanges - Nobitex, Bitpin, Ramzinex, and Wallex - for their roles in facilitating sanctions evasion and terrorist financing. The action followed on-chain analysis indicating that IRGC-associated addresses accounted for more than 50% of the total value received by Iran's $7.78 billion cryptocurrency ecosystem in late 2025.
The writer is an Iran and financial terrorism expert and a senior research fellow at the Jerusalem Center. (Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs)
Gaza
- Israel Rejects Gaza Plan that Would Leave Hamas in Power - Dr. Dan Diker
Dr. Dan Diker, President of the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs (JCFA), said the proposed 15-point Gaza plan is "a complete distortion of the original 20-point plan" agreed upon by Israel and the U.S.
He warned that the new framework would "allow Hamas to remain in power and to store its weapons in storehouses, which it will have the keys to," effectively preserving Hamas as both a governing and terrorist force in Gaza.
He described the proposal as "another pathway to the next massacre" and rejected the assumption that Hamas can remain part of Gaza's political system. Diker said any viable postwar arrangement must ensure Gaza is demilitarized and deradicalized. "There is no tolerance for Hamas at all, not as a government and not as a terror organization," he said. (GB News-UK)
- On Democracies and Death Cults - Dan Perry
A terrible mutation afflicts American politics. A pathological hostility toward Israel has become a driver of political identity and debate. The genocide accusation is increasingly treated as settled truth; opposition to Zionism as evidence of virtue; and even Hamas and "armed resistance" can be romanticized or excused. Israel is being cast as such a singular evil that opposing it can seem almost a prerequisite for occupying the moral high ground.
Douglas Murray's recent book, On Democracies and Death Cults, confronts precisely this mutation.
He argues that Hamas is a death cult, that Israel is confronting an enemy unlike any conventional military adversary, and that much of the West has become morally incapable of distinguishing between a liberal democracy and an organization that celebrates the murder of civilians.
His central proposition ought to be among the least controversial statements in modern politics: Hamas is evil. The fact that an accomplished writer felt compelled to devote an entire book to persuading educated Western readers of that proposition - and that this is controversial - says volumes about what our society has mutated into.
Hamas's objective is not a negotiated peace or a two-state solution. It has repeatedly opposed such outcomes because it does not seek coexistence with Israel but Israel's destruction. Hamas's own stated aims are impossible to misunderstand.
Murray also describes in excruciatingly graphic detail the evidence he collected of the murders on Oct. 7, in the rural communities invaded by Hamas and at the Nova music festivals - girls shot in the head as they begged for mercy, boys' heads bashed in with hammers, grenades lobbed at people cowering. It is unbearable and leaves no doubt about the evil at work.
The writer is the former London-based Europe-Africa editor and Cairo-based Middle East editor for the Associated Press. (Forward)
Hizbullah
- Lebanon Lacks the Will and the Power to Confront Hizbullah - Jonathan Spyer
There is a contradiction at the heart of Western policy toward Lebanon. The forces in the country that are willing to negotiate with Israel don't have the power to influence those who are at war with it. The Iran-backed forces responsible for the violence openly reject the talks and make clear that they will not consider themselves obligated by any agreements reached. This contradiction shows no signs of being resolved any time soon.
There is little optimism on the Israeli side that the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) performance this time will differ from past experience. Two UN Security Council resolutions, 1559 from 2004 and 1701, which ended the war of 2006, already called for the disarmament of all non-state military groups in Lebanon. Past Lebanese governments accepted these resolutions. Yet Iran's proxy Hizbullah continued to prosecute its long war against Israel from Lebanese soil, without suffering serious hindrance from the forces of the state.
The current government uses sharper tones in its criticisms of Hizbullah. But the Lebanese state lacks
both the will and the capacity to force the non-state element to obey. Moreover, the LAF is believed to consist of 50% Shia among its rank and file and 30% in its officer corps.
So the U.S.-brokered Israel-Lebanon diplomatic process rests on a series of fictions. Israel is aware of these fictions and is not in a position to endlessly indulge this illusion, given its responsibility for the residents of Israel's border communities.
The writer is director of research at the Middle East Forum. (Jewish Chronicle-UK)
- Inside the War on Hizbullah's Finances - Euan Ward
When Israel launched its latest war against Hizbullah in March, the first targets were banks. Israeli jets leveled more than a dozen branches of Hizbullah's Al-Qard al-Hassan bank in Lebanon. More airstrikes followed on exchange shops that Iran used to funnel money to Hizbullah, and on gas stations that generated revenue for the group.
Lebanon's government, under pressure from the Trump administration, worked to choke off the routes that the group used to receive and move money, such as Beirut's international airport. Washington also pressed the Lebanese central bank to tighten controls over the country's cash economy, which Hizbullah had long exploited. Now, Hizbullah is grappling with its most severe economic strain in years.
Hizbullah's chief spokesman, Youssef al-Zein, told the New York Times in May that the group had halted the compensation payments it had pledged to supporters as it struggles to meet the needs of hundreds of thousands of people displaced by the war. (New York Times)
Israeli Security
- A Mid-War Assessment - Benny Morris
The Islamist war on the Jewish state, which began with the Palestinian Hamas assault from Gaza on Oct. 7, 2023, is still with us, with no end in sight. That assault was followed the next day by rocketing by Lebanese Hizbullah, and the Yemeni Houthi rebels and assorted Islamist militias in Iraq joined in a few weeks later. On April 13-14, 2024,
the Islamic Republic of Iran directly attacked Israel with ballistic missiles and suicide drones, initiating a frontal confrontation with the Jewish state.
Since then, bouts of intensive fighting have been interspersed with ceasefires, with the halts in warfare invariably imposed on Israel by U.S. President Trump and acceded to by the Islamist belligerents happy to enjoy breathers.
The present stalemate leaves Iran controlling passage through the Strait of Hormuz and Iran's proxies - Hamas, Hizbullah, Iraqi militias and the Houthis - recovering and still in the fight. Iran's periodic rocketing and droning of America's regional Sunni allies - Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Jordan - and U.S. military bases in these countries have severely undermined American power and prestige and have underwritten Iran's current hegemony in the Gulf. Trump is palpably reluctant to resume the war with Iran, and the Iranians are exploiting this weakness to the hilt.
As Israelis see it, the war is far from over, and most assume that the Islamists, once ready, will resume their war-making against the Jewish state and a very revenge-minded Iran will press ahead with its nuclear program. Iran's Islamist leaders have consistently declared that their goal is Israel's destruction.
Israeli observers expect Iran to move as quickly as possible to acquire nuclear weapons in the hope that these will shield it from future American and Israeli attack (and provide it with the means to flatten Israel). But while Iranian intentions are crystal clear, its capacity to rapidly progress toward nuclear weaponry is unknown after its major nuclear enrichment facilities were devastated in 2025-26.
The writer is professor emeritus of Middle Eastern history at Ben-Gurion University. (Substack)
Arab World
- The Arab-Islamic Formula for "Peace": Ignore Hamas, Blame Israel - Khaled Abu Toameh
Foreign ministers of Arab and Islamic countries gathered in Jordan on Aug. 5-6 to issue yet another series of condemnations of Israel. They included the UAE, Indonesia, Pakistan, Turkey, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt.
Reading their statements, one could easily conclude that there is only one party responsible for violence, instability, and suffering in the Middle East: Israel.
Hamas? Barely relevant. Palestinian terrorism and incitement against Israel? Not on the agenda. The need to dismantle Hamas and other Palestinian terrorist groups? Evidently not a priority. What about Iran, the principal sponsor of Islamist terrorist organizations throughout the Middle East? What about Hizbullah and the Houthis in Yemen?
This selective outrage is dangerous. By concentrating their attacks on Israel while largely ignoring Iran and Islamist terrorist groups such as Hamas, Hizbullah, and the Houthis, Arab and Islamic governments are reinforcing the extremists' narrative that Israel, rather than jihadist terrorism and Iranian interference, is the principal source of instability in the Middle East.
Turkey, Qatar and Pakistan are members of Trump's Gaza Board of Peace. If they want to play a constructive role, they should start by telling Hamas publicly: "The game is over. Hand over your weapons, dismantle your military and security apparatuses, and relinquish control of Gaza." Instead, their statements send Hamas exactly the opposite message: that Israel, and not the terrorist group that initiated the Oct. 7 war, remains the principal culprit.
Arab and Islamic governments also repeated their support for the establishment of an "independent, sovereign Palestinian state" and described a "two-state solution" as the only path toward peace. Do the Arabs and Muslims - or the Europeans - really believe that creating a Palestinian state would automatically produce peace? Who would prevent Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad from taking over such a state? Who would prevent Iran or Turkey from supplying Palestinian proxies with weapons, money and training?
Peace will not come from ignoring Hamas, demonizing Israel and Jews, or repeating slogans about a "two-state solution" as though Oct. 7 had never happened. It will come only when the international community - including Arab and Islamic countries - makes it clear that armed jihadist organizations cannot be allowed to control Palestinian territory, possess private armies, or determine the future of Israelis and Palestinians through terrorism. (Gatestone Institute)
Antisemitism
- Antisemitism Is Not a Jewish Problem to Solve Alone - Katie Posey
I'm a Christian researching antisemitism. I presented survey research on theology, digital media, and antisemitism among young Christian men at a recent Contemporary Antisemitism Conference in Haifa. What led me to this?
Maybe it was when I was 15 and was cast as Anne Frank's mother, Edith Frank, in our high school play. Something didn't reverse when the stage lights went dark and we turned in our costumes. These people, except for Otto Frank, were murdered. I kept thinking about all the people across Europe who knew what was happening and said nothing.
My Christian parents instilled in me a love and honor for Israel and the Jewish people from an early age. During my first month-long visit in 2013, Israel captured my heart in a way other lands have not. When I tell people I research antisemitism and develop Holocaust programming, the first question is: Are you Jewish?
No, I say. And then I watch them try to work out why a Christian would spend her life on this. It shouldn't take being Jewish to care.
Antisemitism is not a Jewish problem to solve alone. People across the seven largest Jewish communities report hiding their identity in public and questioning whether they have a future in their home countries.
Foundational figures of the Christian faith spread anti-Jewish rhetoric for centuries. Both the Protestant and Catholic churches throughout Europe were largely silent during the Holocaust. The weight of that is part of what motivates me to study and research in this field.
To my fellow Christians: the Jewish people are our spiritual family. Jesus is Jewish. His disciples were Jewish. The early church was Jewish. When we turn away from the suffering of Jewish people, we are turning away from something that lives at the very root of our own faith. We can choose differently now. We can wrap our hearts around our Jewish neighbors.
The writer is a postgraduate fellow at the London Centre for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism. (Times of Israel)
Observations:
- The true measure of success is not simply what was destroyed on the battlefield, but whether military action altered the adversary's capacity to pursue its overarching strategy. The proper measure of Israel's campaign is not whether it achieved a decisive victory over Iran. From Israel's perspective, the central question is whether its military campaigns have disrupted Iran's long-term strategy of threatening and ultimately seeking to eliminate the Jewish state. Viewed through that lens, the campaigns of June 2025 and March 2026 will ultimately be measured by whether Iran can reconstruct the strategic architecture on which its regional ambitions have long depended.
- Over more than two decades, Iran invested enormous political, financial, and military resources into the construction of an extensive regional military network surrounding Israel, what Israeli analysts termed the "Ring of Fire." Together with the enormous rocket and missile arsenals accumulated by Hizbullah and other proxies, Iran sought to create a volume and intensity of fire capable of overwhelming Israel's air and missile defense systems.
At the same time, Iran's nuclear program was intended primarily to generate strategic immunity.
- Following the dramatic defeats of Hamas and then Hizbullah and the loss of its Syrian ally, according to Israeli intelligence assessments, Iran responded by accelerating efforts to create a nuclear weapons arsenal and a significant expansion of its long-range missile production. The Israeli campaign of June 2025 was therefore a direct response to Iran's new efforts.
- The success or failure of these operations cannot be measured by whether they produced regime change or permanently eliminated every aspect of Iran's military capability. Those outcomes were neither essential nor necessarily achievable. The more realistic strategic objective was to deny Iran the integrated military architecture required to pursue its long-term strategy against Israel. Rebuilding the strategy it pursued over the previous two decades has become considerably more difficult and costly.
- Israel's security architects have always known that its political conflict with the nations that surround it will not end in its completely defeating them. Israel's victory lies in its survival and prosperity. The measure of Israel's strategic success in each round of fighting is whether the threat has increased or been reduced, at least temporarily.
By that measure, the current war, unleashed by the Hamas offensive, has been successful so far. Israel's strategic situation has improved immensely since the day before the Hamas Oct. 7 offensive.
Dr. Eado Hecht is a researcher at the BESA Center, where Prof. Eitan Shamir is director.
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