It is easy to say this is the price a people pays for living in its own land, but behind the big words stand young people who gave up their future so that we could be here. From Nave Lax in Be’eri, to Ella Abukasis in Sderot, to Saadia Deri and my nephew Yair Avitan in Gaza, we must look directly at the heroes who built our national home.
Despite the IDF presence in southern Lebanon, Israel is avoiding strikes even when a threat is identified. Hezbollah continues to rebuild undisturbed, while restrictions imposed by Washington are narrowing Israel’s room for maneuver. If things remain as they are, the situation could become even worse than it was on the eve of Operation Roaring Lion.
From the president’s barrage of posts to Israel’s retreat in Lebanon, Israel is becoming an American protectorate that is failing to translate military achievements into strategic victory. In Jerusalem, officials understand that Iran and Hezbollah have survived, and that any decisive outcome on the nuclear issue is now farther away than ever.
From Israel’s perspective, the debate must not be reduced to reopening the Strait of Hormuz. The real question is whether any deal will, over time, damage Iran’s ability to break out to a nuclear weapon.
it may be worth considering whether sustained external pressure could weaken Iran’s central authority. Such a process might embolden ethnic and religious minorities to challenge the regime, potentially leading to fragmentation akin to the Libyan case. In such a scenario, Iran could lose its capacity to function as a coherent strategic actor, thereby reducing the scale of the threat it poses.
As Iran and Hezbollah exploit Lebanon’s hollow sovereignty, Israel must reject diplomatic illusions and secure its northern border through sustained territorial control south of the Litani River.
The new security zone in Lebanon is fueling a dispute between those who see it as a temporary phase and those who support a permanent presence. Brig. Gen. (res.) Effi Eitam says "the military presence is essential," while former National Security Council head Meir Ben-Shabbat stresses the need "not to give up sustained offensive activity."
After October 7, Israel must abandon containment and build wider security buffers against Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis and Iran’s long-declared campaign for its destruction.
The second, less-discussed lesson of the catastrophe: An independent Jewish state is the cure for the disease of exile; only in our own land are we not dependent Jews living under others’ protection, but a free people defending itself and the future of its sons and daughters
When other countries stop military shipments to Israel, Czech arms export to Israel grows. The weekend revolutionaries in the West, chanting for liberation from a safe distance of four thousand miles, are exactly what Hamas, Hezbollah, and their masters in Iran view: useful idiots.
