An Israeli Order in the Middle East

A Chance to Defeat the Iranian Vision for the Region—and Improve on the American Vision

Amos Yadlin and Avner Golov

What is happening in the Middle East today is best understood as a struggle over a new regional order. Since the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, three competing visions for that order have emerged and then faltered: the Hamas vision, the Hezbollah-Iranian vision, and the American vision. Hamas sought to ignite a multifront war aimed at destroying Israel. Iran, along with its proxy Hezbollah, aimed for a war of attrition that would cause Israel to collapse and push the United States out of the region. The United States, which stood firmly behind Israel, hoped for regional stability built on new political possibilities for the Israelis and the Palestinians, normalization between Israel and Saudi Arabia, and a defense pact between Washington and Riyadh.

None of these visions, however, proved tractable: Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran misjudged the strength of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), Israeli society, and the U.S.-Israeli alliance. The United States overestimated its capacity to influence Israel’s approach to the war in Gaza and did not sufficiently contend with the regional threat posed by Iran.

The failure of these three visions creates an opening for a more realistic fourth one: an Israeli vision. Over the past three months, Israel has begun to exert its power to reshape the Middle East. It eliminated Hamas’s military capabilities and—shattering its own long-standing approach to deterrence—decapitated Hezbollah’s leadership and compelled the Lebanon-based group to accept cease-fire terms it had long resisted, leaving Hamas isolated and Iran without its most capable proxy. Israel has also carried out sophisticated strikes inside Iran. The opportunistic toppling of the Assad regime in Syria at the hands of rebel forces can be understood, in part, as an attempt to take advantage of Israel’s undermining of Iranian regional power. As a result, Iran has lost the land corridor stretching from its borders to Israel’s, a corridor that Iran had devoted significant resources to establishing over the past four decades.

These developments mark a dramatic shift: for nearly a year after the October 7 attack, Israel’s vision for the region’s future was unclear. It was defending itself and, by extension, fighting to preserve a status quo that would never be reestablished. Although its operations were aggressive, Israel refrained from disrupting the existing deterrence dynamics with Hezbollah and Iran. Moreover, it hesitated to impose a new order while it was viewed as an instigator internationally and while divisions weakened Israeli society domestically.

Israel is now reshaping the Middle East through military operations, but it would benefit from asserting itself politically, too. It has both the opportunity and the responsibility to steer the region’s trajectory toward a new, more peaceful and sustainable reality. Currently, Israel’s ability to force regional changes militarily outpaces its readiness to articulate and enact a cohesive strategic vision; its operational successes do not, as yet, have clear strategic ideas to go along with them. Israel should push for a political framework to match its battlefield successes. An Arab-Israeli coalition backed by the United States could repel threats from Shiite and Sunni radicals, provide the Palestinians with a realistic political future, safeguard Israel’s security interests, secure the return of the Israeli hostages still in Gaza, and prevent another attack on Israeli soil.

Israel must not seek to impose its vision of a new regional order alone. It needs buy-in from the United States, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt, and the United Arab Emirates, as well as Germany and the United Kingdom, even as U.S. foreign policy undergoes its own realignment under President-elect Donald Trump. The situation is delicate. But for the first time since the October 7 attack, Israel has the opportunity to seize the moment.

BEST-LAID PLANS

When Yahya Sinwar, the late Hamas leader, ordered an invasion of Israel on October 7, 2023, he did so with a calculated vision for the Middle East: immediately after Hamas’s attack, he anticipated a coordinated assault from all Iranian-backed militant groups in the region, which would in turn inspire Israeli Arabs and Palestinians in the West Bank to launch a new intifada. Sinwar’s plan relied on the participation of Hezbollah and other members of the Iranian-backed “axis of resistance” and even of Iran itself, ultimately leading to the complete military defeat of Israel.

But Sinwar severely misjudged regional dynamics. On October 8, although Hezbollah declared its support for Hamas and began shelling Israeli towns, its actions were limited. Shiite militias from Iraq and Syria launched rockets and drones to disrupt Israel’s advanced air defense systems, but these efforts posed no significant threat to them. The Houthis in Yemen joined the assault by targeting ships in the Red Sea and launching missiles at Israeli cities. The Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad facilitated Iranian arms transfers to Lebanon but notably stopped Iranian militias from attacking Israel from Syrian territory and did not involve the Syrian army in the conflict, despite facing pressure to do so from Iran. Hezbollah did not invade Israeli territory, focusing instead on distracting the IDF in the north to divert its attention from Gaza. Additionally, Sinwar’s hoped-for Palestinian uprising did not materialize, in part because of the IDF’s rapid and effective deployment to areas of the West Bank with Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad presences. Meanwhile, Israel applied intense force in Gaza, killing thousands of Hamas fighters and, eventually, Sinwar himself.

Israel’s decision to engage in a prolonged war initially emboldened Iran and Hezbollah. They saw the conflict as an opportunity to assert their regional hegemony. Unlike Hamas, whose goal was Israel’s outright destruction, Iran sought, more modestly, to improve its regional standing. By sustaining a multifront war of attrition against Israel, Tehran aimed to increase the pressure on Israeli society and amplify the costs of the war. With the United States focused on its strategic competition with China and the war in Ukraine, Iran anticipated that Washington would further withdraw from the region.

Sinwar severely misjudged regional dynamics.

The initial Israeli response to the Hezbollah-Iranian strategy appeared cautious. Israel evacuated northern communities to create a security buffer instead of invading Lebanon to directly counter Hezbollah’s missile attacks, effectively allowing Hezbollah to continue its strikes. Additionally, although the United States publicly backed Israel, Western governments largely failed to impose significant costs on the Iranian-backed axis of resistance. Their inability to stop the militant Houthis in Yemen from interfering with Red Sea maritime traffic emboldened the group to escalate its attacks on Israel. International pressure constrained Israel’s ability to decisively defeat Hamas and fueled Sinwar’s hope that Israel would not be able to sustain the fighting for long. These factors combined to create the perception among Iran and its allies that Israel might eventually find itself isolated, economically drained, and exhausted. This idea was reinforced when, in April, Iran launched an unprecedented missile and drone attack directly from its own territory against Israel. Iranian leaders celebrated Israel’s measured response—and the ongoing political turmoil inside Israel. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government pursued policies that prolonged the war, strained the economy, and intensified polarization, giving the upper hand to Israel’s enemies.

Meanwhile, the United States continued its pursuit of a Middle East strategy built on the Abraham Accords, which normalized relations between Israel and Bahrain, Morocco, and the United Arab Emirates. After October 7, Washington pressed Saudi Arabia to finalize a defense pact tied to normalization with Israel and reasserted its belief in a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The Biden administration sought to leverage the war to create a stronger pro-American coalition in the Middle East, shoring up Washington’s influence and creating a more integrated regional economic hub linking Europe and the Indo-Pacific in its competition with China.

But the U.S. plan failed to adequately address the threat from an emboldened Iran or assuage the concerns of the United States’ junior partners. Saudi Arabia declined to normalize ties with Israel as the war in Gaza persisted, particularly as Israel refused to commit to a two-state solution—a move that would be interpreted by Israel’s enemies in the region as a victory for Hamas. Netanyahu, for his part, chose to delay ending the war’s intense phase, waiting instead for the outcome of the U.S. presidential election in the hope of a Republican victory. Trump’s election, he believed, would lessen U.S. oversight over its campaign against Hamas. With the Democrats’ loss in November, the United States’ strategy in the Middle East has been thrown into doubt. Despite all of Washington’s power and leverage, the American vision for a new regional order, reasonable though it may have seemed, has proved similarly infeasible to those of Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran.

EMPTY THRONE?

In September, the prevailing winds in the Middle East began to shift. After 11 months in which the Israeli government set no objectives in the northern theater, the Israeli cabinet added the safe return of Israel’s northern residents to their homes as a formal war objective. The war had already begun to shift northward, provoked by Hezbollah’s late July rocket attack on a soccer field in the Golan Heights, which killed 12 children and injured over 40. In response, Israel assassinated Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah’s deputy, Fuad Shukr, and targeted Hezbollah’s command structure with a humiliating operation. Explosives planted in the organization’s pagers ignited simultaneously, killing and maiming scores of operatives. Then Israel launched a series of airstrikes that destroyed approximately 3,000 rockets and cruise missiles, and killed Hezbollah’s leadership, including Nasrallah. These acts restored some of the IDF’s lost prestige.

To retaliate, Iran launched a direct attack on Israel on October 1, firing 181 ballistic missiles. But this hail of munitions caused only limited damage to three Israeli sites: the Mossad compound in Glilot and two Israeli air force bases in the south. This time, Israel organized a larger response than it had in April, deploying 150 aircraft to strike 20 significant targets in Iran. The strikes showcased the asymmetry in the two countries’ military capabilities: Iran launched many missiles with limited results, but the IDF accurately hit high-value targets, including Iran’s S-300 antiaircraft systems and a nuclear weapons research facility in Parchin. The campaign demonstrated the vulnerability of Iran’s most valuable energy and nuclear sites, should the Iranian regime choose to escalate further. Since then, despite repeated threats, Iran has not launched another direct attack on Israel.

On November 24, Israel and Lebanon, with the approval of Iran and Hezbollah, signed a cease-fire agreement, which has largely held. That same day, Syrian rebels backed by Turkey initiated a military operation against the Assad regime. In less than two weeks, the rebels reached Damascus and declared a new government, with minimal resistance from Syrian, Russian, or Iranian forces or from Hezbollah. Instead of consolidating Iran’s hegemony, the war has dealt a significant blow to its regional standing.

The cease-fire in Lebanon and the unfolding situation in Syria have created a leadership vacuum in the Middle East. Israel’s military achievements present an opportunity to form a new coalition capable of reshaping the region’s future and to offer an alternate reality of peace, stability, and prosperity.

COALITION OF THE WILLING

Israel must build on its operational triumphs by clarifying and pursuing a coherent strategic vision of a moderate regional alliance between Israel and the Sunni Arab states, led by Saudi Arabia. It must address key security threats, foremost among them Iran, and present a unified front against Turkey’s and Qatar’s attempts to bolster the Muslim Brotherhood’s influence in the Arab world, a task made all the more urgent following the collapse of the Assad regime. Finally, the coalition must offer the Palestinians a political future while safeguarding Israel against future terrorist attacks.

Israel is now in a strong position to make real progress on bringing this outcome to fruition. But it cannot do so alone. It needs the United States to lead the complex effort and an Arab partnership to provide legitimacy in the Middle East and transform its vision into an effective regional force. The first step: Israel should convene a summit with the United States, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, and any actors aspiring to help reshape the Middle East, including Palestinian representatives, in a leading Middle Eastern capital such as Riyadh. Its objectives would include establishing a U.S.-Arab-Israeli alliance based on a shared regional vision; advancing the normalization process between Israel and Saudi Arabia (and, ideally, additional countries such as Oman and Indonesia); creating a new regional security framework; and establishing a road map for a Gaza free of Hamas through a deradicalization campaign. The plan should also aim to increase the Gulf states’ footprint in Syria to reduce the influence of Iran and the Muslim Brotherhood in the country.

The regional vision must also include a Palestinian component, following an agreement on a cease-fire in Gaza that facilitates the return of all Israeli hostages. The summit must establish a political future for the Palestinians distinct from past approaches taken by Arab states and the United States, which focused on a two-state solution. Instead, the alliance should emphasize a flexible, long-term transition in which the Palestinians demonstrate effective governance and actively work to eliminate the influence of the most radical factions from Palestinian society.

Israel has reasserted its ability to shape Middle Eastern politics and security.

Furthermore, Arab leaders must agree that Gaza’s reconstruction by the alliance will proceed only after the territory is fully demilitarized, at which point Israel must commit to withdrawing the IDF. Before then, the IDF must retain the ability to establish a security buffer zone within Gaza along the border with Israel to prevent any potential Hamas military buildups.

The United States should oversee a well-monitored transition to effective governance in Gaza by an Arab-led Palestinian committee that recognizes Israel as a Jewish state, eliminates terrorism, ceases payments to terrorists, and promotes deradicalization within Palestinian society as well as in international forums. It should also work with Egypt to devise a strategy for securing the Egyptian-Gazan border to prevent Hamas’s rearmament.

These Israeli conditions would align with U.S. and Arab interests, particularly those of the Gulf states, which seek an end to the war in Gaza and understand that a viable Palestinian state is currently unrealistic, but recognize the importance of providing the Palestinians with a political horizon to advance regional goals, such as countering Iran, combating the Muslim Brotherhood, and enhancing economic and technological cooperation with Israel. 

The summit should aim to accelerate the development of a permanent regional defense architecture. Dedicated task forces led by U.S. Central Command, the IDF, and the militaries of Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates would address air and missile defense, secure maritime navigation, counter terrorism from Shiite and Sunni extremists, and enhance intelligence sharing. Israel and the United States must work especially hard to align their strategies to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. It is increasingly crucial that credible deterrence be established, because the weakening of Iran’s proxy network makes nuclearization a more attractive option.

ON THE SAME PAGE

It is in the interests of both Israel and its regional partners that the incoming Trump administration remains committed to the Middle East and willing to use force to guarantee the security of its allies and deter shared adversaries. This commitment to defending the region may face opposition from factions within the administration that have advocated for reducing U.S. international involvement. Trump has signaled that the United States would not intervene in Syria and has indicated a desire to complete the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Syria at a time when Russia’s and Iran’s positions have weakened.

Hamas’s shock attack on October 7 appeared to prove that Israel had far less control over the trajectory of its region than it had imagined. And for almost a year, Israel’s ensuing war in Gaza suggested the same. Over the past three months, Israel has reasserted its ability to shape Middle Eastern politics and security. Without brave leadership, however, Israel’s opportunity could slip away. Aspirations of extreme members of Netanyahu’s coalition to annex parts of Gaza and the West Bank, impose military rule in Gaza, or pursue a polarizing domestic agenda that weakens democratic institutions will severely hinder this progress.

An Israeli government that advances the proposed vision will garner the support of the majority of its citizens and is more likely to strengthen Israel’s regional standing. Conversely, a government that does not curb its own extremist rhetoric and actions will only pave the way for an expanded regional conflict with no realistic end game—and play into the hands of the Iranian regime.

Sinwar and Iran’s leaders recognized the war’s potential to reorder the Middle East. Israel should settle for nothing less. But it must use its power swiftly and wisely. Only a vision for the region that addresses the threats posed by Iran, advances regional integration, and establishes a political horizon for the Palestinians, supported by a coordinated plan backed by the United States, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates, can leverage Israel’s military success against Iran to accomplish a more stable, peaceful, and prosperous Middle East and capitalize on the opportunities that will emerge in the war’s wake.