Benzi Sanders @BenzionSanders

What you often hear from Israelis or even American Jews is: "You don't live in Israel. You don't understand Israeli security concerns." Fair enough. But I've spent my career working on national security. So let's put morality and idealism aside for a moment and ask a simple question: Is Israel's current strategy actually making it safer? The answer is clearly: no. And frankly it hasn’t been for 20 years arguably even much longer. Israel has repeatedly demonstrated extraordinary military superiority over Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran. Yet after each conflict, it finds itself confronting many of the same threats often in a worse strategic position than before. That's not because the IDF isn't capable. It's because military success alone is not a strategy. Israel's greatest strategic achievements came when military victories created opportunities for diplomacy. Between 1948-1973 the IDF excelled at fighting conventional state-on-state wars and those victories eventually translated into peace with Egypt and Jordan fundamentally transforming Israel's security. Military power mattered, but it was used to achieve a political end state. Today's conflicts are different. Asymmetric wars can't be won through military force alone. The United States learned that in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan. Israel has experienced it in Lebanon and Gaza. Killing terrorists matters. Replacing them with legitimate political and security alternatives matters even more. And when your strategy results in killing thousands of civilians that doesn’t help you on the battlefield and it turns the world against you. That was one of the biggest strategic failures after October 7. The United States consistently urged Israel to pair military operations with a plan to empower a credible Palestinian alternative to Hamas. Instead, politics prevailed over strategy. Hamas was weakened militarily, but no viable replacement was built. The same pattern is visible in Lebanon. Israel achieved remarkable tactical success in Lebanon in 2024, but two years later rather than turning that into a strategy where it works with a new Lebanese government more willing to take on Hezbollah and with the Lebanese Armed Forces, it is instead drawing itself into a new occupation, like the previous 20 year occupation that ended in failure. And with Iran. Israel demonstrated remarkable capacity to dominate Iranian airspace, take out thousands of missiles heading its way, and kill Iranian leadership. But where is it now that the war is ended. Isolated, while the United States negotiates a deal that Israelis don’t like and that is far weaker than the Iran nuclear agreement negotiated by President Obama in 2015 that Israel fought so hard to undo. None of this means Israel should abandon military strength. Israel should maintain the strongest military in the Middle East. It is useful for deterrence, leverage, and if you do need to fight to defend yourself. But military power cannot be a substitute for strategy. The alternative isn't naïve. It means building credible Palestinian institutions that can replace Hamas (There is a 20 point plan on the table to try to do that), supporting and strengthening the Palestinian Authority while pushing for reform, working with Arab partners, strengthening the Lebanese state against Hezbollah, and pursuing the strongest realistic agreement that constrains Iran while maintaining military deterrence. Ultimately, all of that takes you to what at J Street we call the 23 state solution – Israel at peace with all of its neighbors including the new state of Palestine. Many Israelis will understandably point to Oslo or the Gaza disengagement and say “we have no partner. We have no choice.” Those failures should inform future policy, but the answer isn’t to pursue an approach that Israel has for 25 years and led to the disaster of October 7 and the horrific wars that followed which have come at great cost to Israelis, have isolated Israel internationally, and are turning Americans against the Israeli government and undermining Israel’s most important alliance. Take the withdrawal from Gaza, which was largely unilateral and uncoordinated. Israel did little to build a viable alternative to Hamas – and Netanyahu, once elected, actively strengthened it. The apt analogy is President Obama’s decision to withdraw from Iraq. When that decision helped lead to the rise of ISIS, Obama did not conclude that the only solution was a permanent American reoccupation and a return to 2003. That strategy had already failed. Instead, the United States developed a different strategy – one that relied on local partners, sustainable political arrangements, and much more limited use of U.S. forces. Israel should draw the same lesson. The failure of disengagement does not prove that perpetual occupation is the only option. The 20-point plan, if fully executed with active cooperation from the Israeli government, offers a viable alternative to building a replacement for Hamas. From a purely security perspective, the conclusion is straightforward: what Israel is doing today is not making it safer. Military power remains indispensable, but only if it serves a broader political strategy. Israel has repeatedly shown it can win battles. The challenge now is building a strategy that can turn military power into a more stable peace.

@YehudaShaul @threadreaderapp unroll

Dear @gidonsaar With all due respect, having lived in apartheid South Africa & then served under Nelson Mandela in our first democratic Parliament, both Mandela & Archbishop Desmond Tutu, not only described Israel as an apartheid state but suggested it is a more brutal form of apartheid than they experienced in SA. Having visited Israel & the OPTs numerous times, I share their view. Israel was apartheid SA’s closest ally. Just as apartheid was ended in SA so too will it end in Israel/Palestine

Gideon Sa'ar | גדעון סער @gidonsaar

2 weeks ago

Madam, With all due respect, even in your remarks here you refrain from denying or condemning what has been attributed to you and published publicly. That speaks for itself. To the best of my knowledge, the statements attributed to you regarding “apartheid” do not reflect the

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Who the hell are the Positional Defense forces rampaging around the West Bank, imposing a law of their own making? –Are you from the army? –We're above the army. –You're above the army? Watch the promo for tomorrow's exposé on @kann_news @Liberwomen @roni_singer @kann

It is apartheid. There is not even the slightest doubt about it. In the West Bank, there are quite literally two legal systems: one for Israeli settlers and another for Palestinians. The former enjoy rights and freedoms, the latter live under military dictatorship.

Gideon Sa'ar | גדעון סער @gidonsaar

2 weeks ago

Ms. @kajakallas, the EU High Rep. for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, has for some time now been acting obsessively and with blatant unfairness toward the State of Israel. Recently, it was published that during her visit to Mexico, she compared Israel to the racist

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UK sanctions against "Artzenu" have led to credit card companies blocking the group's donations processing. In response it is now crowd funding on Israeli platform Peach, which processes credit card donations through the same companies. Strange that they consider this a bypass.

נעשה בלי AI

התמונה הזו היא של תינוק בן 7 חודשים שנורה בחברון על ידי חייל צה"ל. הוא לא שרד. תינוק בן 7 חודשים נהרג מאש צה"ל. ההורים שלו נפצעו קשה. זו המציאות שאנחנו אחראים לה. זה מה שאנחנו עושים. חייבים להביט למציאות הזו בעיניים. חייבים לסיים את הכיבוש.

8591979 זה המספר רכב של הטויוטה הזו. יש לה אפילו טסט לשנה. ככה פשוט עבור רשויות החוק לאתר את הטרוריסטים היהודים שמחזיקים בו. לו זו רק היתה ההנחיה של הדרג המדיני.

דורון קדוש | Doron Kadosh @Doron_Kadosh

3 weeks ago

יהודים נכנסים לחווארה, יוני 2026

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האבא הזה בגילי פחות או יותר. התינוק שלו היה בן 7 חודשים. תפס אותי שהוא אמר: "אם בכלל יש עוד מצפון ועוד חוק ועוד מוסר למישהו, שהחייל שירה יישא באחריות למעשיו." הוא יודע את האמת. אבל הוא יודע שזה לא יקרה. הוא יודע שאין מצפון ואין חוק ואין מוסר יותר.

מחבלים יהודים פושטים על הכפר הפלסטיני חווארה בגדה המערבית

דורון קדוש | Doron Kadosh @Doron_Kadosh

3 weeks ago

יהודים נכנסים לחווארה, יוני 2026

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יו״ר הדמוקרטים @YairGolan1 בוועידת המפלגה בתל אביב קורא לבנט, לפיד ואייזנקוט לצרף את המפלגות הערביות לקואליציה: ״אסור לנו לפחד משותפות יהודית ערבית בממשלה הבאה״.

@Noam_NYC @taniahary @Gisha_Access I realize you haven't actually thought this thru. Isrl maintained chokehold on goods/people w/ this logic since 2007 - 16 years ahead of 10/7/2023. Let's see: 4 wars + 10/7, 2 more years of war. Show me evidence that it helped "disarm Hamas" or keep Israelis safe. Slogans.

Ben Gvir inadvertently did journalism a service. Without his public broadcasting of the abuse, flotilla detainees' testimonies would have been met with denial and a smear campaign against them and reporters who carried their accounts.

Yes, the Ben-Gvir video is disgraceful. But that's not the issue. The (obvious) issue is that if that's how nonviolent European protesters are treated in public, any person with a brain can imagine how Palestinians are treated behind closed doors. *That* is the real scandal.

“There is no victory without Nakba” When I was in university a decade ago a the right-wing movement @IMTIzionism handed out pamphlets explaining how the Nakba really happened. Today they embrace the ethnic cleansing of 1948 and demand it be replicated today.

Okay , I am in the story , let us go to court even in Israel . You will find hundreds of cases . I am ready to testify and bring many many victims with me .

Israel Foreign Ministry @IsraelMFA

2 months ago

Following the publication by Nicholas Kristof in The New York Times of one of the most hideous and distorted lies ever published against the State of Israel in the modern press, which also received the backing of the newspaper, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Foreign

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Today, I joined a protective presence activity with @omdimbeyachad in Jerusalem’s Old City. While some celebrate an imagined “unity” that only deepens division, and causing people to lock themselves inside their homes out of fear. I know fear personally. I lost my mom on Oct 7.

A Jewish man prepares his ATM machine ahead of the thousands of Flag Day participants who will march through the Muslim Quarter, wrapping it in cardboard and writing the words, “This belongs to a Jew. Do not damage. Thanks.”

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אני רואה את זה ומרגיש שאני צופה בשחזור של הסיפורים של סבא שלי על הפרהוד והפרעות שלפניו. איך נערים ופורעים היו עוברים בשכונות יהודיות ומשתוללים. הוא תמיד היה מספר שהאלימים היו מעטים, קיצוניים, אבל את מי שהוא באמת זכר זה מי שהסתכל ולא עשה כלום. נורא מה שהפכנו

Yosef Yisrael @yosefyisrael25

2 months ago

העגלה המלאה

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