What do we want? It’s time to have a conversation
6:29 AM. The beginning of the 21st Century’s first pogrom. One that would jeopardize Israel’s social contract and mark the opening of a new era of Middle Eastern history. The Jewish State, reestablished in the wake of one of the most catastrophic national traumatisms in our history, could not afford to adhere to historical precedent; its very credibility as a safe haven from such horrors was on the line.
In the nearly three years since, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his éminences grises have revolutionised the State’s national security outlook. Israel would no longer respond to aggression- it would preempt it. Such initiative has reshaped- or at the very least has shown the potential to reshape- the Middle East in ways not seen since the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and the implementation of the Sykes-Picot agreement delineating the region’s new States and their borders.
But as the reborn Jewish State continues to emerge as the Near East’s preeminent power in spite of the current deadlock in Iran, it will have to reckon with the outcomes of its attempted dismantling of what had been the region’s most feared powerbroker, just as how Britain and France were compelled to manage the Ottoman hegemon’s collapse. Answering the question of what those outcomes should look like, how they should be pursued, and whether Israel should be seeking them in the first place, will be an unavoidable conversation as Israeli power increases and members of civil society contend with the ramifications of such developments on their own lives. Despite their complexity, responsible powers owe it to themselves to answer these inquiries.
To be sure, we still seek to reach a Modus Vivendi with our neighbours. Rather, October 7th made clear that Israel has a responsibility to actively shape its local environment, as the threats emanating from it have proved even more potent and resilient over time. Indeed, as so tragically highlighted by the massacres, Israel must not content itself with attempting to force its way into the regional landscape by repelling immediate threats, but that it must strive to establish an entirely revamped strategic architecture in which the ability to repel emerging threats is guaranteed through a more active form of deterrence; what former National Security Advisor to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon Prof. Dan Schueftan has termed “Violent Maintenance.”
In fact, it can be argued that such an outlook has begun to bear its fruits as proven by Iran’s- and its beleaguered proxies’- recent unwillingness to test Israeli redlines whilst it brazenly defies US President Donald Trump’s repeated threats of “annihilation.” For over two decades following the collapse of Ba’athist Iraq, circumstances had given Tehran ample space to impose an “unacceptable equation” upon Israel, which almost proved devastating at the outset of the October 7th Wars as it levied the prospect of a multi-pronged offensive reminiscent of 1948.
By contrast, Israelis today can observe ballistic missile fire rain down upon neighbouring Jordan whilst not having to descend to nearby Miklats just as the IDF can explicitly defy IRGC warnings by clearing vital infrastructure such as Lebanese Hezbollah’s sprawling tunnel network beneath the Ali al-Taher ridge. October 7th then marked the refounding of Israel’s understanding of its security. The longer-term questions that this essay seeks to address though revolve around how it intends to employ this newfound understanding.
Because whilst the establishment of a more effective form of deterrence remains an essential objective, one must ask whether it is Israel’s sole interest in a regional landscape defined by the fallout of October 7th. Deterrence must instead be conceived of as a necessary means to achieve a larger end: to reach a more favourable Modus Vivendi than the one that has been on offer to Jerusalem up to now. The prospect of lukewarm integration at the price of insecurity has proven unsustainable. Israel will have to utilise its newfound military preeminence to shape strategic outcomes.
Precisely, it is the pursuit of outcomes in and of itself which can be the means of integration into what could resemble an informal balancing act amongst local powerbrokers. In this scenario, integration will be achieved by the full-fledged participation in natural processes of strategic competition amongst actors which will be compelled to acknowledge the Jewish State’s indispensable role in regional affairs. Through this prism, the attempted overthrow of the Islamic Republic should not merely be understood as the crowning effort of two and a half years of war against an existential threat. Rather, it should also be considered an effort by Jerusalem to reaffirm the status that it has sought to acquire since late 2023 amidst Ankara’s and Riyadh’s January attempts at signalling their own willingness to shape outcomes. Demonstrated by Syrian President al-Sharaa’s rapid advance on his country’s Kurdish Forces and Saudi strikes on Emirati-backed separatists in Yemen. The Mecca Pact signed in August, preceded by the Saudi-Pakistani mutual defence pact sealed in the days following the IAF’s strike in Qatar, despite being the partial product of a fear of post-October 7th Israel, also highlights how the broader region is coming to perceive Israel as an equal interlocutor. Feared, but acknowledged.
Moreover, such a policy outlook ensures that self-interested State actors will come to develop mutually beneficial relationships as they will find common overlap with Jerusalem in specific areas of potential cooperation. Certainly, current coordination with Abu Dhabi is not only the outgrowth of UAE President Mohammed Bin Zayed’s protracted efforts at Westernisation and economic diversification, but the result of Emirati decisionmakers’ honest appraisal of how best to ensure their vital interests in a Persian Gulf defined by conventional threats from Iran and an emerging political rivalry with Saudi Arabia. As each engages itself in parallel attempts at achieving a more open and dynamic vision of Sunni Islam both at home and abroad. Jerusalem’s recognition of Somaliland follows Abu Dhabi’s attempts at bolstering non-State actors across the Red Sea and Horn of Africa region. Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia’s efforts to maintain the regional Status Quo Ante by continuously urging for deescalation across various fronts while supporting preexisting internationally-recognised governments and entities puts it at odds with an Israel that has a responsibility to reverse an order which proved unable to ensure security.
Hence, greater integration with the Emirates is achieved by the pursuit of mutual interests spanning the wider region. And it is only natural that at times, interests will diverge as opportunities to better relationships with other such states, including Saudi Arabia, will emerge. Recent reporting suggesting Riyadh’s request for Israeli intelligence support with regards to the Houthis exemplifies this. And its wariness of the Muslim Brotherhood will also set it apart from its formal ally in Ankara, creating opportunities for further bilateral cooperation. In sum, awesome deterrence must be maintained not only as a means to ensure the viability of the Jewish State’s borders and communities, but as a key tool to help erect a new order fit for a post-October 7th reality.
Indeed, the reaffirmation of Israeli deterrence has already midwifed the emergence of a new order defined by traditional competitive processes, not too dissimilar from post-Napoleonic Europe’s Concert of Nations in which competition was permitted but upon which constraining mechanisms were imposed. Whilst the Castlereaghs and Metternichs of the Middle East have yet to reveal themselves, the sealing of defence pacts seems to have set in motion the erection of an architecture whereby deterrence, and therefore balance, is achieved over larger geographies. When looking at the Mecca Pact from this perspective, Israeli decisionmakers should not perceive the framework as a threat, but as an acknowledgement of the existence of a new landscape more sensitive to Jerusalem’s concerns, carved out by the unilateral dismantling of the Status Quo Ante in which Iranian influence had been left unchecked.
And besides the fact that that particular agreement is probably not worth the paper it is written on, this new system whereby competitors are actively contained has also seen Israel ink partnerships in the Eastern Mediterranean and forge closer bonds with the UAE, strategic partners such as the Druze in Syria and Somaliland along the Gulf of Aden, as well as external actors including India. The Concert of Nations’ Congressional structure collapsed after a mere seven years, but its principles, including the preservation of the balance of power, endured and can be applied to a contemporary Middle East in which visceral animosity is substituted by the lesser dangers of natural competition absent of existential threats.
Granted, competition is animated by the desire to ensure security, and existential threats remain, most importantly from a battered but still capable Iran. But the post-Iranian order that seems to be taking hold can serve as an outlet for the fulfilment of mutual objectives that until October 7th remained unfeasible. The bolstering of key actors’ security, and most critically Israel’s, can pave the way to a new dialogue over the future of the region guaranteed by an effective deterrence posture. Such a dialogue over the coming years and decades could manifest itself in the form of diplomatic initiatives, Clausewitzian wars whose political objectives would remain narrowly defined, or anything in between. Nevertheless, these ambitions hinge on a successful settlement of the Iran War, and the assurance that inflammatory rhetoric stemming from Ankara most notably remains a domestic political tactic to appease the AKP’s Anatolian base and does not spill over into its foreign policy.
In light of this risk, Israel’s August strike on Syria’s Al-Duhur airfield (and 2025 strike on T4) was a necessary step to restore the terms of any informal strategic dialogue of the type laid out here. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s neo-Ottoman ambitions are real, but those can be tamed if he comes to understand- or be made to understand- that he will have to engage with Israel as another regional power whose concerns must be taken into account. Unlike what Simon Sebag Montefiore argues in a recent piece for The Free Press, a US mediator is not necessarily needed to prevent war. The threat of it could be enough. Additionally, deterrence should be maintained all whilst attempting to improve one’s bargaining position vis-à-vis competitors. Rapprochement with Greece and Cyprus and the potential empowerment of Iraq’s and Iran’s Kurds can allow for greater concessions to be extracted from Turkey as deterrence is concentrated along its borders, reducing its potential scope of action. Such pressure tactics are not contradictory to dialogue, but are merely another diplomatic instrument to be employed judiciously.
The eventual terms that would be found would have to ensure a sustainable architecture that addresses Israel’s security concerns, whilst providing a fix set of powerful actors with a certain amount of space to achieve some of their ambitions abroad. Maintaining a balance amongst 19th Century Europe-like great powers will require avoiding the nurturing of antagonisms that plagued the European system. Unified Germany’s rise undermined the preexisting balance because it impeded upon established powers’ sense of security. Others’ ambitions then, as long as they remain palatable, will have to be accomodated in order to assuage their anxieties. Bilateral negotiations with Turkey were a positive development in the implementation of such a vision, as they served to carve out de facto spheres of influence in Northern and Southern Syria. And when their ambitions heightened threat perception, the force of arms reminded interlocutors that deterrence remained the basis upon which negotiations can take place. Defining which ambitions classify as “palatable” will have to be the objective of future talks.
The October 7th Wars have given rise to a new order where State interests take precedence over religious or ideological dogmas. And as expounded here, the Jewish State has played the critical role in the emergence of that Westphalian order. Indeed, this revamped landscape itself is the product of Israel’s attempt to better ensure its security following a catastrophe which proved that abiding to the previous rules would amount to suicide. All this leaves former protagonists in Tehran and Washington behind. Iran’s closest proxies are in tatters (the Houthis being partners), its willingness to go after Israel has been neutered, and Vali Nasr and Narges Bajoghli in Foreign Affairs describe how a technocratic officer class will focus on constructing a new social contract and bolster home defences. Its closure of the Straits has only underscored the general need to sideline it and its potential collapse would only bolster Jerusalem’s posture.
Meanwhile, Montefiore has noted that all fear an American retreat, but the inevitability of its pivot away has heightened the need for regional actors to fill the vacuum that it will leave in its stead. Israel can partly fill that void but will have to contend with souring US opinion and the hostility of future policy, which increase the need for an independent arms industry upon which deterrence can rest. The Jewish State will have to adopt Spartan resilience over the coming decades as an embittered Europe for example will pressure Jerusalem in order to appease its societies’ burgeoning antisemitic elements supported by Brotherhood forces. But those Laconic qualities will also enable Israel to look East and achieve integration based off mutual interests. Despite having been initiated by the worst failure in Israeli history, the series of resounding strategic successes that ensued must be employed by any future governmental coalition to forge a postbellum Status Quo whose rules of engagement prohibit the emergence of any such threats. The foundations of this order rest on the battlefield, but the competitive balance that we must seek will be achieved at the table. Even if that table has missiles for legs.
