Autarky is not strategy. It is an admission
Benjamin Netanyahu now speaks of “autarky” as though self-reliance were a doctrine of national renewal. It is not. It is a confession. It signals a government that expects sanctions, embargoes and blocked supply lines, and is preparing Israelis to live poorer and less secure lives.
Israel cannot “go it alone” in the modern armaments marketplace. It can design tanks and interceptors; it cannot at tolerable cost build fleets of fighter aircraft, submarines, or the exotic alloys, fibres and semiconductors that feed them. Autarky means fewer munitions or fewer hospitals. It means the IDF shrinks or civilian life does. To call this “self-reliance” is to launder weakness as virtue.
More troubling than the economics is what the autarky speech implies. The prime minister declines the one act that would arrest Israel’s slide into isolation: a genuinely independent investigation into the war’s conduct and rhetoric. Under the principle of complementarity, a state that credibly investigates itself bars the International Criminal Court from intervening. If Netanyahu believed Israel’s hands were clean, he would rush to do so. Instead he delays, offers to commission toothless reviews, and now proclaims impending isolation as though it were inevitable rather than self-inflicted.
This makes his autarky speech more than economic fatalism. It is evidence that he does not believe his government—or he himself—would survive the scrutiny of an honest inquiry. He signals to Israelis that isolation is unavoidable precisely because accountability would be ruinous. In effect, he is steering the country toward economic and diplomatic quarantine to spare its leaders legal jeopardy.
Yet the one sure path out of the mess is a full, truly independent investigation—an inquiry with subpoena power, public hearings, and a mandate to examine not only decisions but also rhetoric. Not only the prime minister but every minister and official who helped shape policy, even those who publicly mused about nuclear strikes or “razing Gaza” to drive its people out. Did such statements influence operational choices? Did they breach international law? Or can Israel be exonerated? Only a credible investigation can answer. Without it, Israel is left to be judged abroad—and punished abroad.
A real inquiry would do more than cleanse the record at home. It would equip Israel’s supporters abroad with facts rather than slogans. It would demonstrate to skeptical allies that Israel still wages war under the discipline of law, still punishes those who breach that discipline, and still understands that democracy requires accountability even in war. The wave of condemnation in foreign capitals that matter could be reversed. Legitimacy could be rebuilt.
Netanyahu’s rhetoric is a warning disguised as bravado. It tells Israelis to prepare for sanctions, embargoes and boycotts—the predictable price of impunity. Autarky is not national self-reliance. It is national self-sabotage. It will not defeat Hamas. It will not shield Israelis from The Hague. It will erode the prosperity and innovation that have been Israel’s true strategic depth. In truth, it risks the very existence of the state. Would an autarkic Israel have survived the past two years—an all-out war in Gaza, the northern front on alert, Iran’s proxies firing across three borders—without the airframes, munitions, intelligence and spare parts supplied by allies? It is far from certain. A country that cuts itself off to protect its leaders may discover it has cut itself off from survival itself.
Israel’s soldiers risk their lives for the nation. Its leaders must risk political careers and, if warranted, accept legal accountability—or, if the facts exonerate them, emerge vindicated. That is not weakness; it is the strength that preserves a state. The alternative is to continue down the autarkic path—shrinking, isolated, resentful—and call it “survival” until the word becomes a lie.
Israel stands at a crossroads. Justice or isolation. Renewal or retreat. Its prime minister rehearses excuses for retreat. The country must choose something better.
