Israel's military is overextended, its popularity in the U.S. sinking.
By MAX BOOT
Washington Post
May 25, 2026
“First of all let us rid ourselves of the foolish error that with the Army alone we can maintain the security of the State,” warned Israel’s first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, in 1951. “Security rests on a foreign policy of peace: a sincere intention to be at peace with our neighbors, and with all the nations.”
Israel’s current prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, once heeded his predecessor’s warning. Though Netanyahu was always a hawk, he was a cautious one. He undermined the Oslo Accords; he did not abandon them. In the past, when he waged wars, they were short ones, designed to “mow the grass,” not to eradicate the lawn. His most significant achievement was the 2020 Abraham Accords, establishing formal diplomatic relations with several Arab states, and he aspired to extend that rapprochement to Saudi Arabia.
All of that changed on Oct. 7, 2023, when a Hamas terrorist attack resulted in the worst single-day loss of Jewish lives since the Holocaust. Israelis were traumatized and radicalized to seek absolute security and total vengeance. Since then, Israel has undertaken military action in the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, Lebanon, Syria, Iran, Iraq and Yemen. Instead of seeking to deter and degrade Israel’s enemies, Netanyahu has talked of “obliterating” them. He has vowed to change “the face of the Middle East” and to “redraw” the map of the region.
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