Skip to main content

Was 2025 a Good Year for Israeli Security? Why 2026 May Be Far Worse



( This analysis is based primarily on the strategic assessment and outlook of Israeli security analyst and former Mossad officer Yossi Alpher, expanded with recent data, regional developments and independent synthesis.)


At first glance, Israel’s security narrative for 2025 almost writes itself: decisive military pressure against Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran. Hostages returned from Gaza. Iran’s nuclear program set back. Borders that once seemed on the brink of explosion holding a cautious calm.

Set aside internal realities—and yes, by many superficial measures, 2025 looked like a year of suppressed threats and battlefield successes.

But when the smoke clears, the key question is not what was destroyed, but what was built. And the answer is: very little that actually strengthens Israel’s long-term security.

The Myth of Victory: Superficial Stability, Not Strategic Success

To be clear: Israel’s military maintained its edge. Hamas was battered. Iran’s nuclear ambitions were disrupted. Hezbollah was deterred for now.

But none of these outcomes amount to lasting peace — or even sustainable deterrence.

  • Hamas survives: It remains a political and military force and is reestablishing control over large swaths of Gaza, especially under Trump’s ill-defined postwar map.
  • No Palestinian alternative: Israel has blocked every credible Palestinian leadership development, locking in Hamas by default.
  • Iran and Hezbollah rebuild: The so-called victories of 2025 are fragile and reversible.

This is not a triumph. It’s a lull. A dangerous one.

The Hidden Crisis Within: The Collapse of Israel’s Military Backbone

All the military gains of 2025 are undermined by a deepening manpower and morale crisis within the Israel Defense Forces — the very institution that must hold the line in 2026.

Career Officer Exodus: A National Security Red Flag

Recent data reveals a historic collapse in the IDF’s core human capital:

  • Around 600 career military personnel — including senior officers and professional non-commissioned officers — have submitted requests for early retirement, citing burnout, poor conditions, and a lack of legislative support for promised benefits.
  • Competitive promotion pools have shrunk sharply: where once ~800 candidates competed for 400 lieutenant colonel slots, now only about 500 do — meaning anyone willing to stay is promoted, not just the best.
  • Surveys show a significant drop in career officers planning to stay in service — only 42% expressed willingness to remain, down sharply from earlier figures.

This is not a statistical glitch or isolated trend. It is a systemic breakdown of professional military commitment, the lifeblood of a modern defense force.

Why It Matters

  • Career officers are not just commanders — they are the mentors, trainers, planners, and institutional memory of the IDF.
  • The depletion of experienced leaders forces rapid, superficial promotions that weaken readiness and sacrifice competence for completion of rosters.
  • The loss of trust — between soldiers, leadership, and the state — corrodes morale just when it is needed most.

An army without its best does not deter; it deteriorates.

A Society at War With Itself

Israel’s internal condition in 2025 further corrodes its security:

  • Politicized security institutions: Senior positions in Shin Bet and Mossad have gone to loyalists rather than professionals, weakening institutional credibility.
  • Settler militias in the West Bank are increasingly acting with open encouragement from political leadership, undermining law and order while provoking new cycles of violence.
  • Erosion of social cohesion: More Israelis — especially secular and liberal ones — are leaving or contemplating departure, weakening societal resilience.

Israeli security is no longer just about borders and gun barrels — it’s about the cohesion of an entire society. On this measure, 2025 delivered losses far more profound than any battlefield win.

2026 Security Prospects: A Year of Rising Danger

As 2026 approaches, the structural fault lines in Israeli security widen:

Gaza: Chaos, Not Peace

President Trump’s Phase 2 plan calls for an international presence and reconstruction — but neither Israel nor Hamas enthusiastically supports it. Netanyahu’s historical record of undermining the second phase of agreements warns that Phase 2 may be a self-sabotaged illusion. International investment, foreign forces, and conditional governance will not substitute for genuine political solutions.

Expect Gaza in 2026 to remain volatile, unstable, and ultimately unresolved.

The West Bank: Escalation Brewing

As pressure mounts over Gaza schemes, right-wing elements within Israel’s government will likely accelerate settlement expansion and “Judaization” projects. This will fuel Palestinian resistance, spark more attacks, and widen friction with Jordan — raising the specter of a new multi-front crisis.

If another shock akin to October 7 is to occur, the West Bank is a likely flashpoint.

The North: The Only Tentative Hope

On the northern front, there is some cautious ground for optimism. Direct talks with Lebanon and Syria have started, backed by active U.S. engagement. Progress will be slow, uneven, and fraught — but incremental movement toward more stable borders is possible.

This may be the one area in 2026 where Israel’s security is not deteriorating.

Global Fallout: Isolation and Anger

Internationally, 2026 may bring more of the same:

  • Increased global criticism and antisemitism, partly fueled by Israel’s conduct in Gaza.
  • Trump’s volatile alliance, offering support but demanding policy compliance.
  • European disengagement and growing diplomatic isolation.

Friends in authoritarian capitals may offer transactional ties, but these are not stable foundations for genuine security or legitimacy.

Violence Will Persist

Israeli policy still assumes that killing militant leaders reduces terrorism — an assumption consistently disproven by decades of global experience. Islamist extremists, meanwhile, continue to believe that killing Jews advances their aims — ensuring that violence, terror attacks, and retaliatory cycles remain part of 2026’s reality.

The Bottom Line: What Will Determine 2026

Israel’s security prospects for 2026 hinge on two variables:

  1. President Trump’s unpredictable policies, and
  2. Israel’s elections and governance choices.

If political leadership prioritizes ideology over competence, avoids internal reckoning, and doubles down on division rather than reconciliation, then 2026 will be far worse than 2025.

Victory isn’t defined by what was destroyed in 2025 — but by whether Israel builds anything stronger, wiser, and more unified going forward.

Because an army without its leaders, a society without cohesion, and a security policy without reflection is not secure at all.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Never Attack a Revolution—Unless It’s Gaza

  By Malik Mukhtar There is a peculiar confidence that comes with being wrong for decades and still being invited back to explain the world. Yossi Alpher—former Mossad official, veteran intelligence analyst, and institutional voice of Israeli “realism”—offers us precisely that confidence in his January 12, 2026 reflections on Iran. His message, distilled, is simple: things are complicated, revolutions are unpredictable, and humility is required . This is sound advice. It just arrives from the wrong mouth, at the wrong time, over the wrong bodies. Because while Alpher warns us—correctly—not to “attack a revolution, ” Israel has spent the last two years doing something far more obscene : attacking a trapped civilian population with no revolution , no army , no air force, no escape —and calling it self-defense . Intelligence: A Sacred Failure, Repeated Faithfully Alpher recalls, with admirable candor, the catastrophic ignorance of Western and Israeli intelligence during...
Post a Comment
Read more

Gaza Beyond the Alibi of Hamas: Genocide as Method, Silence as Accomplice.( From Chris Hedges report )

We are the most informed generation in human history—and perhaps the least disturbed by what we know. From the first missiles that struck Gaza’s residential blocks to the slow starvation that followed, everything was visible. Every destroyed home. Every burned hospital. Every child pulled from rubble. And yet, the global emotional temperature barely rose. In an age of total visibility, feeling itself has become scarce. Watching has replaced witnessing. Knowing has replaced responsibility. This moral numbness is not accidental. It is cultivated . And at the center of this cultivation stands a single word, endlessly repeated, ritually invoked, and strategically deployed: Hamas . Hamas has functioned not as an explanation, but as an alibi. The Choice Was Announcedk From Day One From the earliest days of Israel’s assault, the policy was articulated with chilling clarity: Gaza’s population would be given two options— stay and starve, or leave . This was not the language of counte...
Post a Comment
Read more

Ras ‘Ein al-‘Auja: How Ethnic Cleansing Happens Without a Declaration

Ethnic cleansing rarely announces itself with sirens or official decrees. More often, it arrives quietly—through sleepless nights, smashed water tanks, stolen sheep, armed men grazing livestock on stolen land, and the slow realization that survival itself has become impossible. On 8 January 2026 , Israel completed what it had been methodically engineering for months: the forcible transfer of 26 Palestinian families from the shepherding community of Ras ‘Ein al-‘Auja in the southern Jordan Valley. That is 124 people , including 59 children , pushed from homes their families had lived in for decades—not by a single evacuation order, but by sustained terror. This is not a humanitarian crisis caused by “clashes.” It is not a byproduct of war. It is a deliberate policy outcome . Violence as Policy, Militias as Instruments Ras ‘Ein al-‘Auja lies about ten kilometers north of Jericho. It is the last remaining shepherding community in the southern Jordan Valley , and the largest sti...
Post a Comment
Read more

Ana Kasparian: The Voice That Won’t Be Silent — A Call for Truth in an Age of Power

  Ana Kasparian is one of the most recognized and outspoken voices in contemporary political media. As a co-host of The Young Turks — a trailblazing online news and commentary program — she has spent nearly two decades dissecting U.S. politics, media, power, and foreign policy with unapologetic clarity and fierce conviction. She is not just a commentator — she is a truth-seeker who challenges power at every turn , refusing to soften her words for comfort. Schooled in journalism and political science, Ana’s commentary continues to mobilize millions, especially younger generations who feel unheard in mainstream discourse. A Voice Against the Status Quo Ana’s rhetoric can be bold, controversial, and deeply passionate — because she refuses to accept narratives that obscure the underlying truth about power and influence. On American democracy and foreign policy, she strikes at the heart of what many hesitate to articulate: “ We don’t actually live in a true democracy here in t...
Post a Comment
Read more

Dr. Randa Abdel Fattah. De-Invited by Association: When Grief Becomes a Pretext and Palestinian Identity a Liability

How Dr. Randa Abdel-Fattah Was Silenced in the Name of “Sensitivity” In a remarkable feat of moral gymnastics, Australia’s literary establishment has once again demonstrated how grief can be weaponised, principles suspended, and Palestinian identity rendered dangerously “inappropriate ” —all in the name of cultural sensitivity. Dr. Randa Abdel-Fattah , a respected author, academic, and public intellectual, was quietly de-invited from Adelaide Writers’ Week following the Bondi Junction massacre. Not because she had any connection—real, implied, or imagined—to the atrocity. Not because she endorsed violence. Not because she violated any law or ethical standard. But because, apparently, the mere presence of a Palestinian Muslim woman who speaks about justice is now considered culturally unsafe during national mourning . One wonders: unsafe for whom? The Logic of the Absurd Festival organisers were careful—almost impressively so—to state that Dr. Abdel-Fattah had nothing to do wi...
Post a Comment
Read more