Israeli slogans like "We got them" and "we have restored deterrence" might sound good, but they actually ring hollow. Operation Breaking Dawn again proved that – in the greater equation of peace and quiet, money, and maintaining life as we know it – Israel is the one that has more to lose.

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This renders the latest Gaza campaign yet another military operation – one that repeated old patterns and one whose patterns are doomed to be repeated. This makes the question of why there are no broad discussions on the strategic alternatives Israel has vis-à-vis Gaza very pertinent.

The assumption seems to be that this reality of having one military campaign chase another in the Strip is the lesser of all evils because the actual alternative would be toppling Hamas' regime in Gaza and seizing control of it.

Between the revolving door of military campaigns and retaking the coastal enclave, however, lies a third option, which isn't based on managing the conflict, but rather on the nothing of a wider agreement that would change the social-economic climate in Gaza, gradually lift the maritime blockade, develop the economy and improve the lives of Gaza's residents.

Such a change requires Israel to redefine the Gaza Strip not only as an Israeli problem but as a regional issue, so as to mobilize the Arab world and its considerable financial and political resources and create a new order in the Strip.

While such past discussions focused on the "internationalization" of the coastal enclave, this is the time to focus on its "regionalization." In doing that, one must remember that the unstable reality in the Strip, driven by ideological terrorist elements, undermines the interest of the new regional partnership created courtesy of the Abraham Accords, which are based on the desire to achieve stability and economic prosperity. Moreover, the benefits of the Abraham Accords can be leveraged into aiding Gaza's reconstruction and development by raising funds from the Gulf.

The Abraham Accords are nothing short of a "strategic diamond" for Israel in the form of normalization across the Middle East, but this boon mainly serves Israel's purposes in relation to Iran. Much less thought is put into how the new reality in the Middle East can be turned into a lever with which to deal with the chronic instability in the Palestinian arena.

This model, which combines an economic move with external Arab leverage, is not completely foreign to Israel and it many ways, it is what anchors Qatar's involvement in what is happening in the Gaza Strip and the payment system Israeli has allowed Doha to form there.

It seems like this would be a good time to build on the Qatari model and push the Gaza Strip into the "new Middle East" using a strategic, multi-actor regional plan. This would entail securing resources on a monumental scale while gradually lifting the maritime blockade on the Strip.

This reality will not change the nature of the terrorist groups Gaza harbors, nor will it change the political reality there, but it has the potential to gradually create the type of socio-economic change that would erode the terrorist groups' appeal, and douse their fervor to destabilize the situation. Who knows – this might also make them rethink their perception of resistance from a military one to one that strives to make the Strip into a semi-state in ways that are more effective.

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The capture of the Palestinian terrorists who murdered three Israelis in Elad last week has relieved perhaps some of the frustration felt by the Israeli public. But amid the ongoing wave of terror and the difficulty in bringing it to an end, a dangerous trend in the analysis of events and the emerging media discourse could lead Israel to an unnecessary and unplanned military campaign against Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

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This line of punditry hangs the blame for the recent attacks on Hamas and points a finger at its leader, Yahya Sinwar, for being responsible for the security escalation. The proximity between Sinwar's public declarations encouraging terrorism and the murders of Israeli citizens in Elad by terrorists from Samaria provided the proof for those who needed it of the involvement of Hamas in the Gaza Strip in instigating terrorism from Judea and Samaria. From here, we can conclude that there will be no choice but to rid ourselves of the Hamas leader to cut short the wave of Palestinian terrorism.

However, this discourse connecting Hamas in the Gaza strip to the wave of terrorism is not based on facts and concrete evidence. And it seems to be the side effect of Israeli frustration in view of the difficulty in dousing the flames lit during the month of Ramadan. The police force is stretched to the limits of its capabilities, yet, nevertheless, terrorist attacks such as the one carried out in Elad have slipped through its net. The Shin bit is struggling to deal with this new profile of terrorists, despite its technological capabilities that do not appear to provide a response to terrorists coming through gaps in the separation fence.

The IDF is doing the best it can to plug these gaps and flush out the nests of terror in Palestinian areas in Samaria but in the absence of precise intelligence has not been able to create a hermetic security seal. in the absence of precise intelligence.  Israel has been embarrassed and Hamas and Sinwar seem to be the ultimate solution. They can be easily identified, targeted, and hit; there is a guilty party and it has a name.

But while it is easy to subscribe to this thesis, its simplicity shouts out. There is no direct operative connection between Hamas and the wave of terror emanating from Judea and Samaria, even if Hamas is riding on its crest to strengthen its image as a resistance movement in a reality in which it is up to its neck in work to rehabilitate the Strip following May's Operation Guardian of the Walls, and is not interested in a direct conflict with Israel.

The wave of terrorism lacks any political affiliation, and precisely because of this Israel is struggling to repress it. Its perpetrators are not per se members of Hamas or Islamic Jihad and there is no concrete infrastructure to hit in Judea and Samaria. Thus the effort by the pundits to head south to Gaza which is so near, yet so far, to find the head of the snake. From this perspective, Israel can indeed hit Hamas, but one can assume that the terrorist attacks which do not need any direction from Gaza will continue from Judea and Samaria.

The big problem is that the temptation to identify Hamas and Sinwar as the key to achieving security calm could transpire to be a big mistake. It will exact a price that Israel's citizens and even the military echelon are not necessarily interested in – another campaign in the Gaza Strip. The paradox is that at the moment Hamas too withes to avoid another round of conflict. Even though the rival players do not wish to engage in a direct clash, they may find themselves doing so for the wrong reasons.

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The war in Ukraine is being waged by way of two paradigms: on the one hand, the realistic-modernist paradigm, which Russia represents; and on the other hand, the postmodern and symbolic paradigm represented by the West.

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The concept of victory as defined by Russia is based on elements of blood, iron, and territory. As such, it focuses on classic warfare involving tanks, infantry, and the occupation of Ukrainian nerve centers with aim of toppling the government as preconditions for Moscow's desired strategic change in Eastern Europe.

Contrary to the Russians, the West's concept of victory is based mainly on symbolic elements, which turn the war into a representation of the struggle between the forces of light – pursuing liberty and liberalism – and the forces of darkness – synonymous with centralism and political oppression.

As far as the West is concerned, the outcome of war is not measured in physical and absolute terms, but in relative ones that tend to be shaped in direct correlation to the image of the aggressor and the victim. This is why according to the West's definition of victory, the Jewish president of Ukraine has become a symbol representing the idea of resistance.

Under current war conditions, it seems that the concept of resistance, which connects to a world of liberal views, post-colonial discourse, and the values of freedom with a dash of historical touches from World War II, has never been so popular.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, an actor-turned-statesman fills the role assigned to him by the West well, even if the ending to this play has already been written. Zelenskyy is no stranger to new media and he has lent himself to it and to the idea of creating images that large publics in the West (and also in Israel) find addictive, as they want to see how the idea of freedom is translated into resolutely resisting an invading force and civilian sacrifice.

Yet in a vicious paraphrase of Voltaire, the West loves to see the blood of others shed on the altar of his ideals. The effort to search for heroes and an image of victory based on symbolism fails to obscure the bleak reality on the ground in Ukraine – on the shelled streets of Kyiv, Kharkiv, Odessa, Kherson, and other cities.

This is a reality that is far removed from the world of symbols – the same world that caused the two leaders who are managing the crisis for the West to go wrong: US President Joe Biden, who has completely misunderstood Russia's determination to maintain its national interests; and Zelenskyy, who was misled by the West's false pledge of support and failed to see the true balance of power.

This is why he and the US missed the opportunity to make the most of the narrow window of opportunity before Russian forces breached Ukraine's border to reach a reasonable compromise with the Kremlin.

The deadly combination of Biden and the West's arrogance and Zelenskyy's strategic blindness left Ukraine with a lot of sympathy as the bearer of the flag of beautiful symbols of resistance, but alone against an opponent who plays the realistic rules of the game.

The war will end when Russia decides it is time. It will be decided not only because the balance of power is in favor of Russia but also because, unlike Zelenskyy who embodies spirit, image and symbols, Putin will possess territory and show results.

Zelenskyy may go down in history as the herald of Ukrainian resistance. It stands to reason that if the Russians remove him from power he will live a comfortable life in the West; maybe write a book or two, and go on speaking tours, lecturing on wars, resistance, and freedom.

He will be able to quietly tell himself that the whole world is a stage, but for Ukraine and its citizens, that is not the case.

Ukraine is being destroyed by real war, not one of imagery. Human suffering is real, as is the damage to its infrastructure, and the country will invest years to emerge from the ruins – not the well-manicured symbols-based world understood by the West.

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The international arena is changing. Anyone who needs convincing proof of this should take a good look at what is currently happening in Ukraine and the effects that the tension there is producing.

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Ukraine is undoubtedly the victim not only of Russian aggression but also of a weak international system, and especially of a Western world which has devoted itself to a strategy of procrastination and soft diplomacy when dealing with rebellious elements in the international system, especially when the latter strive to challenge existing reality.

The West's tactics when dealing with international politics stem from the desire to sustain its comfortable existence. The premise put forward when US President Barack Obama took office, by which shifts in international politics have turned the world into a dangerous, frantic, unstable and uncontrollable place, has become an ironclad principle of US and European foreign policy, rendering it cautions and lean.

This policy, which seeks to reduce friction, carefully manage risks and sanctify stability, does so even if it involves rewarding rogue international elements. Soft diplomacy is now the name of the game – but those who speak softly no longer carry big sticks, and this policy has become increasingly irrelevant vis-à-vis determined forces.

Russia is not the only active element in the current crisis and Ukraine is unlikely to be Wester diplomacy's only victim.

Even the vaguest of pundits has been finding it hard these days not to juxtapose Ukraine and Israel, as it is far too clear that Russia is emerging as the "Iran" of Eastern Europe, while Ukraine becomes none other than Israel.

This is not a mirror-image situation, not in terms of Russia and Iran's power nor in the circumstances of Ukraine and Israel. however, one has to look beyond the details - at the principle. And at that level, it is the exact same story.

Like Russia, Iran is determined to realize its strategic plans in the Middle East and become a regional power. It is determined, aggressive and it does not shy away from paying economic prices that in the West are very "significant" but in Moscow and Tehran, which represent less hedonistic cultures, are not as significant.

Like Russia, which is taking steps to redefine the strategic sphere in Europe, Iran is taking steps in this direction with regard to the Middle East. The current negotiations between the West and Iran mimic the negotiations between the West and Russia - at Ukraine's expense.

In this context, it is important to understand that all the steps taken by Russian President Vladimir Putin mean to serve these very negotiations, but for him, applying pressure and threatening war is a routine negotiating tactic.

Remember – this is not about war rather about butting heads with US President Joe Biden, French President Emmanuel Macron, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz – the same people heading the nuclear talks with Iran and are just as conciliatory toward the ayatollahs as they are toward the Kremlin.

In Iran's case, Israel will be made to pay the price for the West's weakness. In Russia's case, it will be Ukraine.

The West may seem sympathetic to Israel at this point but at the end of the day, Israel will be left to fend for itself – something that naturally has far-reaching implications.

The warning of sorts by a Ukrainian diplomat that Israel should be wary of staying neutral, in the way off "Ukraine today, tomorrow – Israel" cannot be dismissed.

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Israel's strategic solitude could cost it dearly, especially on the day after a military move in Iran – if it escalates into a prolonged war of attrition, which Israel could find very difficult to withstand. This is bad news to Israeli strategy, as despite marking significant achievements such as the Abraham Accords, it suffers from significant drawbacks.

Nevertheless, one can take comfort in the fact that Europe and the United States will most likely not criticize Israel when it comes to the Israeli-Palestinian peace process and the two-state solution – for the exact same reason – weakness.

No one, not even President Biden can force Israel to focus on the Palestinian issue – certainly not given how insignificant it is vis-à-vis the threat of a nuclear Iran.

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The latest series of terrorist attacks in Judea and Samaria and east Jerusalem are connected neither to Hamas nor the Islamic Jihad. The perpetrators are not members of either of these terrorist organizations, but rather young Palestinians who carry out disorganized and even primitive attacks.

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No exceptional events took place on the Temple Mount, in Judea and Samaria, the Gaza Strip, or Sheikh Jarrah, and therefore, it is clear that the security situation stems from in-depth processes taking place within the Arab-Palestinian society, which Israel does not necessarily have the tools to tackle.

The fact that a number of terrorist attacks occur at the same time as the internal violence within the Palestinian Authority – for example in Jenin, where in recent weeks security services have been conducting an operation to regain control – provides clues to these processes. The two have one thing in common: the Palestinian social periphery.

This is the factor that challenges what can be called the economic-political "method" that Israel and the PA both promoted. It relied on the utilitarian model that sought to promote the standard of life of Palestinians and through it, moderate its national-political activism, and that has been responsible for the relative security stability of the last decade and a half.

There have now been signs that the Palestinian periphery is challenging this method. These are young people who want terrorism, criminals, and marginalized people who do not agree with the political-economic order and want to disrupt it by carrying out terror attacks in Israel and causing internal anarchy within the PA.

The really bad news is that this trend does not only characterize the PA and Judea and Samaria but any place in Israel where the Arab periphery is rearing its head.

The anarchy in the Negev by the Bedouins, as well as in Arab communities in the north and the ongoing chaos in cities are part of the same phenomenon of the Arab-Palestinian periphery.

Our tendency to define events – "crime rate in the Arab sector," "anarchy in the south," "Palestinian terrorism" – misses the big picture. All these reflect the same process.

This is a gradual uprising of the Arab-Palestinian periphery against the utilitarian-economic model that has characterized recent years, and as such it threatens to undermine the foundations of security and civil stability.

None of this means that we are approaching a third intifada or another conflict, but we do face a major challenge in trying to deal with the process.

Israel is taking various steps to tackle each problem individually, but one must admit, its control over social processes is quite limited, and that was made clear in every single previous Palestinian uprising. Perhaps we should prepare for the worst right now, for the intifada of the Arab-Palestinian periphery.

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Using Israel Security Agency surveillance technology as part of contact tracing in the fight against the coronavirus pandemic met with public reservations from day one.

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Violation of civil rights, trampling on democracy, and invasion of privacy were only some of the arguments that characterized the discourse against the move, the sole purpose of which was to curb the infection rate and thus save lives.

In Israel, it seems, some circles hold the imaginary notion of individual freedom above the tangible notion of life itself.

Over the years, the Shin Bet has become hesitant with respect to operating inside Israel. The agency prefers to focus on countering Palestinian and Arab terrorism, as it has been doing since 1967, and its captains have come to perceive operating in the civilian Israeli sphere as a kind of anomaly.

This is certainly understandable, as the ISA seeks to operate in a familiar sphere, which in this case is counterterrorism. In this aspect, there is something of an unwritten agreement between Shin Bet officials and the liberals in Israeli society, Still, it is doubtful either had understood that the global pandemic is an extraordinary set of circumstances that requires bending principles and redefining the rules of the game for the goal of maintaining national resilience.

Said resilience is measured not only in clear parameters of defense and security but also in broader terms of dealing with phenomena that could threaten the Israeli collective.

Initial reports of reservations by various elements from the Shin Bet being involved in COVID-19 contact tracing show how reluctant the agency is to break the rules regarding the classic parameters of its operations.

Since the initial controversy, however, things have changed. There is a new Shin Bet director at the helm and the Omicron variant is upon us, raising the possibility of again using ISA technology in the service of contact tracing and quarantine enforcement and again, hypocrisy has reared its head.

It is difficult to understand the unnecessary commotion and indignation by those who let the streetlight effect blind them to phenomena that embody a much graver violation of individual rights.

Take tech giants such as Facebook and Google, for example, which obtain personal information on users' preferences, habits, and opinions through their mobile devices. They are able to decipher our individual algorithms far more effectively than any Shin Bet analyst.

Why do we allow these multinational companies to intrude on our privacy without giving a second thought to the fact that they drive us into the abyss of consumer culture and hedonism, but are we so concerned about our privacy when it comes to the state using tools that are supposed to ensure our very existence?

Could it be that these self-professed liberals have their own hedonistic interests to promote, or perhaps this is a group stuck in the 20th century and fails to understand that today, some threats to liberties are now posed not only by the state apparatus that, in the case of the coronavirus pandemic, is on our side?

George Orwell's 1984 is not really here; but it seems that the power of criticism that has grown from liberalism has become, like the coronavirus, into a kind of free radical that works against the body and common sense.

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Let us lay our cards on the table: Israel is unable to launch a campaign in Iran to take out the country's nuclear program. This option exists primarily in TV studios. Of course, it is also present in the diplomatic discourse of senior defense officials, who claim - against the backdrop of the renewal of nuclear talks in Vienna – that Israel has freedom of operation and the military option at its disposal.

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This stated and official position is almost a given. It is part of the diplomatic game. Israel cannot signal flaccidity and defeatism to the outside world. Given the Israeli position that a nuclear Iran is a strategic threat, Jerusalem must demonstrate determination and decisiveness.

Not only is an open war with Iran operationally too much for regional powers to take on but it is doubtful stability- and economic prosperity-seeking Israel would be able to deal with the outcome of such a war and the need to contend the day after with a never-ending "trickle" of long-range missiles and drones on its cities in particular. Israeli citizens would likely show the same ability to deal with the situation as they did with coronavirus restrictions.

To this, we must add a highly uncomfortable strategic picture. Although it is the only country that could succeed in the mission, the progressive United States will not do the dirty work of taking out Iran's nuclear facilities for Israel. The way things look now, US President Joe Biden's administration is the worst US administration to date as far as Israel is concerned, even when compared to that of former US President Barack Obama.

As with its hasty withdrawal from Afghanistan, the American revulsion from the idea of getting involved in the Middle East and its efforts to disengage from the space lead it directly toward a new nuclear deal with Tehran. This is an agreement that will not only make Iran a nuclear threshold state but will free it from the sanctions regime Biden's predecessor Donald Trump maintained, something that will certainly make Iran a regional power in every respect.

Under these circumstances, Israel may be making a last-ditch effort to prevent such a scenario, and more precisely, squeeze as much as it can out of the diminishing time it has left. But it is precisely because of the scarcity of options and the certain direction Iran is headed, which has the international system growing accustomed to a reality in which Iran is a nuclear threshold state, that demands a new approach to Israel's general strategy on the issue.

A nuclear threshold Iran is not a particularly pleasant idea, but the threat it will pose extends beyond the possibility the ayatollah regime will actively and directly use its nuclear weapons against Israel. This is an extreme scenario, and given that under such circumstances, Israel would adopt its own nuclear deterrence, is highly unlikely to happen.

The more realistic threat presented by a nuclear threshold Iran concerns the possibility it will expand its regional freedom of operations and mainly, the utilization of the umbrella provided by pro-Iran players that undermine stability in our neighborhood, such as Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Situated directly on Israel's border, both these players threaten its security on a regular basis and through conventional missiles like missiles in particular.

Iran's transformation into a nuclear threshold state will not only chew away at Israeli deterrence and increase the willingness of those same organizations to challenge it on a regular basis, but it will also make Israeli efforts to contend with the undermining of the security situation ten times harder.

The sands in the Israeli hourglass are running out as the country faces two kinds of threats. The first is the time that remains until Iran becomes a nuclear threshold state, and the second is the time that remains until members of the region's activist camp directly threatening Israel are able to enjoy Iran's strategic umbrella.

As Israel confronts this two-pronged challenge without the effective tools to deal with the Iranian nuclear threat, it is certainly equipped with the tools to contend with the second threat, which will determine the security situation in the Middle East the day after the bomb.

Dismantling this threat, or at least portions of it is a type of strategy that until now has yet to be taken seriously in Israel. The dilemma, then, is not constrained only to the question of the possibility of an attack on Iran, but rather the choice between a direct confrontation with Iran and neutralizing direct threats to Israel that could prove to be a more acute problem once Iran has crossed the Rubicon.

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The death of Border Policeman Barel Hadaria Shmueli after he was seriously wounded by shots fired by a Hamas member on the Gaza Strip border is not merely the reflection of a tactical error by the IDF, but of a perverted strategy. Israel, like the US in the Iran context, longs to work things out with Hamas. And like the Americans', this too is a wish that hides a mistaken reading of Hamas under Gaza leader Yahya Sinwar that echoes the Israeli failure to understand Yasser Arafat's Fatah or PLO.

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In 1991, Israel adopted the view of reaching a "political agreement." The assumption, which turned out to be incorrect, was that adopting the consensus of "territory for peace" would completely erode the Palestinian belligerence.

The collapse of the "Oslo process" due to the Second Intifada, which erupted after Arafat rejected Israel's generous offer for a permanent peace deal and backed violence against Israel, illustrated that the Palestinian national movement never saw the conflict in the classic terms of a political agreement to be reached through a compromise on territory, but rather as a long-term battle to ultimately defeat Zionism.

Nearly 30 years after the peace process fell apart, Israel is still insisting on repeating the exact same mistake, this time with the Islamist resistance movement in the Gaza Strip – Hamas. This time, the prospect of a political agreement will be replaced by the prospect of a long-term economic "arrangement" that is based on adjusting the idea of security in exchange for territory into a concept of security in exchange for an economy and the partial release of the "blockade" on Gaza.

In recent years, this outlook has become a bedrock of Israel's policy on the Gaza Strip. It dovetails with Israel's disinclination to wage a military operation in Gaza. Israel has clung to it so closely that it has tended to blindly view Hamas' continued terrorism as "rogue" acts that do not represent the organization's official line, the birth pangs that go along with the movement coming on line with a long-term "arrangement" (hudna, or truce) that supposedly includes a willingness to thoroughly contain terrorist acts.

Even the latest round of hostilities with Hamas in May did not do anything to change Israel's view. The opposite. It anchored the assumption that after the fighting, it was time for a long-term arrangement. There was no understanding that like with Arafat's PLO-Fatah, which in the name of the eternal principle of the conflict was never willing to end it and mixed violence with any dialogue, Hamas sees its own strategy in terms of a reality that combines negotiations an terrorism. This is the strategy of "both" (an agreement and resistance) that characterizes Iran (which wants talks with the US and also nuclear weapons), and is the opposite of the Israeli strategy, which is based on an "either-or" model – conflict, or a deal.

The lesson history can teach us lies not only in the fact that there is no real difference between the secular PLO-Fatah and the Islamist Hamas, but also the insight that Israel tens to repeat the mistake of projecting western thinking onto its opponents, not to mention the fact that political victimization is not a matter of fate.

Once we are past the delusion of a long-term political agreement or arrangement, it will be possible to wake up from the idea of an economic arrangement, or at least recognize the act that such an arrangement does not necessarily guarantee a reality of quiet on the security front.

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The death of Border Police officer Barel Hadaria Shmueli at the hands of a Hamas terrorist on the Gaza border does not only reflect a tactical error made by the defense forces but a broader erroneous policy.

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Israel is looking to come to an arrangement with Hamas, not unlike the United States with Iran. And similarly to Washington, our government is also chasing a dream, at the core of which is the faulty understanding of Yasser Arafat and his Palestine Liberation Organization and Palestine Liberation Front.

In 1991, the Israeli government adopted an approach of diplomatic arrangement. The assumption – which turned out to be wrong – was that giving up Israeli territory to the Palestinians would placate their hostilities.

The catastrophic failure of the Oslo process following the Second Intifada – after Arafat rejected Israel's generous offer of a permanent agreement and backed the anti-Israel violence – showed that the Palestinian national movement never viewed its conflict with Israel in classical terms of political agreements based on territorial compromises, but as a long-term campaign to wipe Zionism off the face of the earth.

Almost 30 years later, Jerusalem insists on making the exact same error, only this time with regard to Hamas. Instead of a diplomatic agreement, this time it is an economic one, and instead of territory in return for peace, it is economy, funds, and partial lifting of "the Gaza siege" in return for security.

Such an outlook has become the cornerstone of Israeli policy in recent years. It boded well with the government's lack of desire to begin a military campaign in Gaza.

It has gotten so bad that lawmakers have begun blindly viewing terror acts committed by Hamas as "rebelliousness" that does not represent the organization's main goal.

Not even the recent 11-day war in Gaza changed the government's mind. On the contrary, it solidified the assumption that the fighting has created an opportunity for coming to an agreement, without realizing that just like Arafat and the PLO that never wanted to reach a compromise with Israel, neither does Hamas.

History teaches us that not only are Hamas and the PLO fundamentally the same but that diplomatic sacrifices by Israel will not guarantee peace for the Jewish state.

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The peace deals between Israel and Morocco, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Sudan are sparking a discussion of what these countries expect to get in return for normalizing with Israel: American recognition of Moroccan sovereignty in western Sahara; stealth fighter jets for the Gulf states; the removal of Sudan from the US list of state sponsors of terrorism. To make them appears less important, the Abraham Accords are being portrayed as merely expedient, which supposedly removes the idea of "peace," and certainly does not fall in line with diplomatic relations based on shared values and true unconditional partnership.

This is a naïve view of international politics and diplomatic agreements. The current period is marked by cold, calculating realism, which to a large extent has supplanted the aspiration to create a world based on common values. But peace treaties have always come with realpolitick baggage and a meeting of interests. This is true for the Middle East, as well.

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The peace treaty between Israel and Egypt remains one signed by leaders, rather than one between the two peoples, and Cairo has enjoyed real benefits from it, such as American economic aid and advanced weaponry. The same is true for the peace agreement between Israel and Jordan, and even more so for the various agreements signed with the Palestinians, which had much less to do with brotherly love than strategy, even though the latter turned out to be overestimated. Europe's romantic diplomatic fantasy about glittering treaties with shared values and willingness to make peace forever at their core was never a mold for peace treaties between Israel and its neighbors, even if they tried to market them as such.

But from the utilitarianism rolled into the Abraham Accords arises deep insight about the status of Israel, which is becoming a nation to be reckoned with in every sense. Israel has always proven itself in the defense sector and has even become to be seen as a strong player in the region. But powerful nations aren't measured by their military prowess alone, but also by their ability to synchronize other strengths – economic, technological, and scientific. In the past few decades Israel has become that kind of regional power, a country that has areas of strength outside the field of defense and security.

Israel is managing the security issues posed by Hamas in the Gaza Strip, Hezbollah in Lebanon and Iran in Syria as a kind of ongoing security activity, without them comprising an actual threat, while also investing heavily in other sectors by which its power is measured. In the last generation, Israel has become a state on the forefront on technological advancement, a state and enjoys strategic depth and its own energy sources.

All these give Israel added value in the eyes of the countries around it. Given this, once can understand Sudan's move, which was the result of recognizing Israel's advantages in agriculture and technology. Morocco acknowledged Israel's diplomatic weight in Washington; and the Gulf states have spotted its economic strong points. From that perspective, it would be better to parse the Abraham Accords' utilitarianism not as a weak point, but as a litmus test that shows how far Israel has come in transforming from a regional and global problem to a magnet.

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