Overcoming Israel’s Humanistic Disease: A Path to Great-Power Status

As the unipolar world erodes and American hegemony is increasingly challenged by a rising China, states are reassessing not only external threats but also internal constraints that limit strategic effectiveness. In a multipolar system, power is defined not merely by military reach or economic scale, but by a state’s capacity for strategic coherence, decisive action, and long-term national endurance. Regional powers such as Israel, aspiring to consolidate their position and move toward great-power status, are therefore compelled to confront their internal weaknesses.

Each major power today faces a distinct internal condition.

The United States struggles with what may be described as Prosperity Disease. Decades of wealth, comfort, and social security have reduced societal readiness for sacrifice, national mobilization, and sustained strategic effort.

China, after a prolonged period of peace, exhibits Peace Disease. Its population, particularly the younger generation, has limited combat experience and an increasing orientation toward personal stability, economic pragmatism, and individual well-being at the expense of ideological discipline and national purpose.

Israel, conducting precision operations at distances of up to 2,500 kilometers comparable to those of global powers, faces internal challenges that weaken its deterrence, counterterrorism effectiveness, and overall strategic resolve. Beyond the battlefield, significant parts of Israel’s elite, including the Supreme Court, the Attorney General’s office, the prosecution, retired generals, academics, and the media, operate under the assumption that enemies whose core doctrine is the destruction of the Jewish people can be reformed. Courts and legal advisers frequently demand improved conditions for terrorists, access to the country’s best medical care, and sentence reductions after apologies, only for many of these individuals to carry out new attacks. These institutional and societal norms raise a stark strategic question: how can Israel achieve great-power status while systematically limiting its own ability to confront irreconcilable enemies?

To capture this uniquely Israeli condition, this article introduces a new analytical concept — Humanistic Disease. Placed in comparative perspective alongside Prosperity Disease in the United States and Peace Disease in China, this concept explains how universalist moral imperatives, institutionalized within legal and elite structures, systematically override considerations of national security and strategic survival. The argument advanced here is that without explicitly recognizing and confronting this condition, Israel cannot translate its military, technological, and operational advantages into lasting great-power status within a multipolar international system.

Definition of Humanistic Disease

Humanistic Disease (HD) is a structural normative-ideological phenomenon in which the absolutization of humanistic principles and the belief in the transformability of human nature are systematically placed above the imperatives of national security, strategic effectiveness, and the existential survival of the state.

HD does not deny the significance of morality, humanism, or human rights per se. The issue lies in its institutionalized absolutization, whereby moral constraints become a strategic threat to the nation.

It primarily manifests through the juridification and moralization of security decisions. Legal and ethical considerations systematically override strategic calculations, constraining the state’s ability to act on the mandate granted by the people. These constraints affect the conduct of war, targeting decisions, and the neutralization of terrorists, directly endangering soldiers and reducing national power.

This creates asymmetric moral constraints: the state voluntarily limits its actions, while non-state actors, such as terrorist organizations, operate entirely outside international law. Over time, this erodes national power, undermines deterrence, and renders effective security unattainable.

In Israel, democratic traditions, respect for international norms, and human rights, including the Geneva Conventions, shape these principles. Yet courts and legal institutions often use them to limit government and Knesset decisions, weakening deterrence and strategic flexibility.

The concept of HD provides a framework to analyze how internal moral-legal constraints reduce national power, weaken deterrence, and limit Israel’s strategic freedom. It shows how institutionalized humanism affects the state’s ability to act effectively and constrains its ambitions to expand influence and achieve a high status in the international system.

Comparative Analysis of Strategic Diseases: The United States and China

Prosperity Disease in the USA
Decades of wealth, comfort, and social security have reduced societal readiness for sacrifice, national mobilization, and sustained strategic effort. The public increasingly relies on professional military forces while remaining largely passive, fostering strategic complacency. Excessive confidence in technological superiority and operational competence can lead to underestimation of risks and long-term consequences, creating a vulnerability despite material advantages. Prosperity Disease thus weakens strategic endurance, leaving the nation less prepared for protracted conflicts or costly sacrifices.

Peace Disease in China
China’s long period of peace and focus on economic development has produced a generation with little combat experience. Rising individualism, the “lying flat” movement, and social priorities oriented toward stability over national duty reduce willingness to engage in collective strategic efforts. These trends have prompted Chinese leaders to recognize Peace Disease as a threat to the readiness of the People’s Liberation Army. The military risks losing both operational experience and combat orientation, while society prioritizes personal well-being over preparation for real conflict.

The comparison shows that every country faces internal limitations that constrain long-term strategic strength. For Israel, Humanistic Disease represents a unique domestic challenge that similarly shapes its ability to project power and secure great-power status within a multipolar system.

Implications for Israel

Israel is a regional power with ambitions of achieving great-power status and extensive experience in both conventional and asymmetric warfare. Its resilient economy, with a GDP per capita of around USD 60,000 in 2025, ranks among the first tier globally.

The main challenge to Israel’s path toward great-power status is not social apathy or Peace Disease, but institutionalized humanism, which systematically constrains the state’s strategic actions against existential threats. Recognizing Humanistic Disease as a uniquely Israeli form of internal dysfunction helps explain why decisive victories and strategic potential are often limited.

This phenomenon is most evident in judicial practice and policies regarding serious crimes and terrorism. Humanitarian principles and strict adherence to international norms are often applied at the expense of national security. Terrorists receive high-quality medical care and lenient detention conditions, enabling them to recover and continue attacks, while the state’s ability to act decisively is constrained.

A striking example of this dysfunction is the treatment of terrorists. From the perspective of national security, justice, and morality, denying medical assistance to active terrorists is fully justified. Nevertheless, organizations such as Hamas, Hezbollah, and Islamic Jihad flagrantly violate international law while receiving advanced medical care. In 2008, Yahya Sinwar underwent surgery for a brain tumor while imprisoned in Israel. Following his release in 2011, he became a Hamas leader and orchestrated the mass murder of Jews on October 7, 2023. This case clearly illustrates the strategic cost of prioritizing humanitarian principles over national defense: terrorists recover, return to action, and continue to threaten the state.

Humanistic Disease undermines Israel’s deterrence, reduces operational effectiveness, and limits freedom of action. Overcoming this internal dysfunction is essential for national survival, strengthening strategic power, and achieving Israel’s great-power ambitions in a multipolar world.

Strategies for Overcoming Humanistic Disease

Israel must recognize that excessive judicial interference and the near-absolute power of the Supreme Court can paralyze the strategic will of the state, undermining democracy and national security. A particularly cynical consequence is prioritizing humanistic protection for terrorists, often at the expense of victims’ rights and public trust.