The New Middle East and the Challenges to Israel

Excerpt

Behold, the Guardian of Israel will neither slumber nor sleep. — PSALM 121:4

The last live hostages are out of Gaza. Hamas is battered and bloodied. Indeed, all of Israel’s regional foes are worse off than they were two years ago. President Donald Trump has declared the Middle East to be at peace. But the guardians of Israel know that’s not true. There is still some fighting left, both out in the open and in the shadows. It is important now for Israel to lock in the gains from these grueling two years of war. 

There has never been a war quite like the one Israel has just fought (and may still be fighting). The war played out on seven kinetic fronts—eight if you count Israel’s September 9 strike on Qatar—with additional battles in cyberspace, the mainstream media, social media, college campuses, courtrooms, the United Nations, and beyond. Growing political isolation was among the most painful aspects of this war for Israel’s traumatized 10 million residents. The world’s only Jewish state was singled out as the Jew of nations. The hate spewed forth, even as the Israelis fought for their lives against the Islamic Republic of Iran and its well-armed proxies. 

Jonathan Schanzer is executive director of Foundation for Defense of Democracies and contributing editor to Commentary.