The rhetoric of the Zionist political leadership has become increasingly laden with boasts about the supposedly unparalleled military power that has enabled it to commit some of the most notorious crimes of the era. The genocide in Gaza, widespread destruction in Lebanon, and intensive strikes on Syria, Iran, Iraq, and Yemen top the list.
Yet such obstinacy cannot obscure a reality that has become increasingly difficult to ignore: since October 7, 2023, ‘Israel’ has entered one of the darkest phases of the history of its illegitimate existence. Hundreds of Palestinian fighters from the besieged Gaza Strip breached Israeli security defenses and entered several nearby Israeli settlements, exposing serious vulnerabilities in the entity’s security apparatus.
Since that day, which marked an unprecedented security and political shock for Israelis, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has faced mounting calls for an investigation into the failures that preceded the attack. Critics accuse him of seeking to shield himself from political accountability and prevent the emergence of findings that could undermine the widely promoted image of Israeli security and military superiority.
For the Israeli prime minister, prolonging the wars across multiple fronts has become a means of sustaining his political coalition and preserving US support. From this perspective, continued military confrontation serves not only strategic objectives but also the interests of hard-line political factions whose uncompromising positions favor continued escalation and whose rhetoric threatens adversaries across the region.
No serious observer can simply dismiss Israel’s military superiority. Its forces have achieved significant battlefield advances, carried out assassinations, inflicted massive destruction, demonstrated technological capabilities, and reinforced the image of military power through political messaging and media coverage.
However, an assessment of the broader strategic picture must also account for Israel’s numerous setbacks and unresolved objectives:
1. The strategic failure to prevent and effectively respond to Operation Al-Aqsa Flood, which exposed major weaknesses in ‘Israel’s’ intelligence, security, and military preparedness.
2. The failure to eliminate Hezbollah’s military capabilities or achieve all its military objectives in southern Lebanon.
3. The inability to establish a stable, friendly political order in Syria that fully serves Israeli strategic interests.
4. Rising regional tensions involving Syria and other regional powers, including Turkey and Pakistan, complicating ‘Israel’s’ broader strategic calculations.
5. Setbacks to the US-sponsored normalization agenda, which sought to expand diplomatic relations between ‘Israel’ and Arab regimes.
6. The emergence of Yemen’s Ansarullah movement as a significant regional adversary, adding another front to ‘Israel’s’ security challenges.
7. The failure to neutralize Iran’s military capabilities, particularly its missile arsenal, which continues to pose a serious challenge to Israel’s security calculations.
Observers should, therefore, avoid rushing to the opposite conclusion that ‘Israel’ is inherently weak or militarily fragile. Rather, the central argument is that Israel’s leadership has struggled to translate its battlefield gains, achieved amid a substantial disparity in military power, into lasting geopolitical advantages that advance its strategic ambitions.
The upcoming Israeli Knesset elections may further expose the political costs of this approach and intensify demands for accountability over the failures of October 7. The controversy surrounding an official investigation into those events remains a major domestic political issue, with questions of responsibility and the structure of any inquiry still contested. illustrates the continuing political dispute over how the events should be investigated.
Perhaps Netanyahu’s recent address to the United Nations General Assembly offers another illustration of the gap between ‘Israel’s’ projection of strength and the international criticism it faces. His government’s approach to the war and its regional consequences has drawn widespread condemnation, while the use of exploding pagers against Hezbollah became another defining episode in the confrontation, prompting intense criticism for the military, political, and humanitarian implications of such operations.
Ultimately, military superiority alone does not guarantee strategic success. The central question is whether ‘Israel’ can convert its battlefield achievements into a stable regional order that serves its long-term interests—or whether continued confrontation will deepen its diplomatic isolation, leave its principal geopolitical objectives unfulfilled, and oppositely lead it to imminent back off in South Lebanon and other regions.
Source: Al-Manar English Website