"Israel" has entered a period of strategic collapse unmatched in its history, the Israeli website Zman Yisrael, the Hebrew-language sister website of the Times of Israel, has warned, arguing that the security doctrine pursued by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has left the entity isolated and diminished on the world stage.
"There has been no failure in Israeli history comparable in scale, and perhaps also in its consequences, to the perfect storm now engulfing the security doctrine pursued for years by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu," Zman Yisrael wrote.
It highlighted the distinction between this moment and past military setbacks, writing that "this is not about shocking failures such as the surprise of the 1973 Yom Kippur War or Hamas' October 7 attack." Those failures, it said, "were harsh, painful, and costly, but they resulted from a series of misjudgments in the hours leading up to the outbreak of war." It added that "those mistakes enabled the enemy, once the war began, to catch the Israeli army off guard and inflict heavy casualties on it."
Netanyahu's approach, the outlet argued, is fundamentally different. It described this as a doctrine pursued with little meaningful opposition since Netanyahu returned to the premiership in 2009, one that gained momentum after October 7 and culminated in the joint US-Israeli war on Iran.
According to Zman Yisrael, Netanyahu's approach rests on two main pillars: stubborn opposition to any political settlement with the Palestinians, and an obsession with the Iranian nuclear threat.
It stressed that "opposition to any settlement has been a defining feature of Netanyahu's politics," adding that "throughout his years in power, he did everything possible to thwart any opportunity for an agreement that could end the conflict, or at least reduce its intensity."
This refusal, the outlet said, "alongside the deepening of the occupation, has produced clear results," namely, "the continued erosion of support for Israel, its transformation into a pariah state in public opinion and among governments in democratic countries, the burning of bridges with its traditional bases of support in the United States, and the growing international isolation of the Zionist project."
The outlet linked this isolation directly to "Israel's" conduct since October 7, writing that "the mass killing in Gaza, the systematic destruction, the mistreatment of refugees, and the unrestrained statements have made the prime minister a person subject to an arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court in The Hague," while "turning Israel into a state whose image is associated with the most repugnant countries in the world."
It warned that "revulsion and isolation carry a strategic cost, one we are beginning to feel now."
Zman Yisrael said the second pillar of Netanyahu's doctrine is his fixation on Iran's nuclear program, "which he has described as the mission of his life," noting that his handling of the issue diverges sharply from that of his predecessors.
It said Rabin "understood the scale of the challenge, and his conviction that international support was needed to confront it was a key reason behind his efforts to reach a settlement with the Palestinians." Barak, Sharon, and Olmert "understood this as well," the outlet said, and "worked covertly to obstruct the project."
Netanyahu, however, "took the opposite path," according to the outlet. "He placed himself at the forefront of the confrontation and turned Israel into the standard-bearer of the campaign against the nuclear project," plunging "into a new and far more ambitious round of war, in cooperation with one of the most erratic presidents in US history."
That gamble, it concluded, "has failed, and its results are now plain to see."
Zman Yisrael described the current crisis as "the culmination of Israel's security doctrine under Netanyahu," not an isolated event.
It said Netanyahu's "opposition to progress in negotiations with the Palestinians prevented the building of a broad international and regional coalition to confront the Iranian threat, which is the real danger to our existence, not the establishment of a demilitarized Palestinian state alongside Israel."
It also stressed that "close cooperation with the Donald Trump administration did not merely result in a humiliating failure in the attempt to bring down the regime" and "has left us facing an Iran that may emerge stronger than ever, while Israel has become dependent on a leader who sees no problem with Iran possessing a threatening missile arsenal."
Zman Yisrael claimed that "all of this was foreseeable," arguing that "the alternative strategy for dealing with Iran was to secure international support to prevent it from acquiring a bomb, including through the use of military force," and that "these alternatives could have been realized had Israel moved toward a settlement with the Palestinians."
Instead, it said, "Netanyahu rejected that path and brought a strategic disaster upon Israel," leaving "one clear conclusion: it is time to examine the alternative."