Posted by Frenchie
October 7th 2023 is commonly described as the Starting Point of the regional domino effect which followed. This chronology of events is misleading. It describes the catalyst of an explosion as the cause, in order to hide what was really at stake for many years prior: the long term planning of the rupture of the surrounding of Israel by a resistance network over the previous 20 years. Three years later, this network is supposedly dismantled, the political objective has not been reached and the power which allowed this operation to proceed has been weakened substantially.
A VISEGRIP WHICH WAS NOT A METAPHOR
The term used by Tel Aviv to describe their position between 2006 and 2023 was : The ring of Fire.
Hezbollah to the North, Pro Iranian militias in Syria and Iraq, Palestinian Islamic Jihad in the southwest, Houthis to the south. The formula could be understood as rhetorical, but it was not, it existed and could be measured in one place: the port of Eilat.
Eilat is the only Israeli open route to the Red Sea, It lost 90% of its traffic in November 2023 when Ansar Allah, started targeting the maritime traffic tied to Israel. [1] Its revenues crashed from 212 million Shekels in 2023 to 40 million in 2024. Stops to its piers fell from 134 to 64, to 6 for the 1st part of 2025. An emergency government subsidy of 15 million Shekels was granted by the Israeli government under the "National Strategic Need". It was too little too late. The City government of Eilat froze the accounts of the Port for fiscal debt and the Port was forced to close in July of 2025.[2]
A State which is confronted by the lost of its southern maritime route, is not facing a symbolical threat, but rather the severing of a limb. The director of the port of Eilat had put it very clearly as early as 2024. In a conflict to the North, with missiles able to reach the ports of Haifa and Ashdod, Eilat would become the only access to the country, otherwise under siege. Within that ring of fire, the system survived by having one part, covering for the others, whenever they failed.
When Bab el Mamdeb was effectively closed to all traffic tied to Israel, the direct consequence was the full closing of this port. For a very long time the Hormuz strait fell in another category: while it had been threatened on several occasions, it had never been closed. This all changed starting on February 28th, 2026. Since the start of the conflict with Iran, the traffic has fallen from 140 ship per day to a dozen or so, even falling to 6 during weekends.
Lloyd's intelligence list counted only 77 ships in transit through the strait between February 28th and mid March. The large majority of which, being from the "ghost fleet" operating outside of the insurance and control network. [3] The June negotiated conditional re-opening lasted only a few days. What is in fact closing the strait to traffic is not a real physical blockade. { The US central command insisting that the navigation was never closed} In fact it was the cancelation of all insurance coverage against risks of war starting on March 5th.
This is exactly what had killed Eilat. Two different strangling passages, one same mechanism. The difference between a fact and a fait accompli. What remains between a strategic thought, and a projection. In simple terms Ormuz moved from one to the other. To this, one must add another vulnerability of a different nature, often underestimated by western analysis: the peace treaties with Egypt (1979) and Jordan (1984) had been reached with two State apparatus, rather than with their two civil societies. Their validities is based on the survival of these two regimes, while their public opinions remain largely against any normalization with Israel.
De facto, Israel cannot count on pacified borders to its South and to its East. Instead it has administered borders which do not provide the same level of security and stability, specially since the Gaza genocide.
A Fear based on its origin not on the present conjecture
The Israeli obsession with being surrounded, did not start in 2006. In fact it can be traced to its own foundation in 1948. The peripheral doctrine formulated under Ben Gurion, precisely consisted in bypassing the immediate Arab hostility, through as series of alliances on the outskirts of the non Arab countries in the region. Specifically with secular Turkey, imperial Iran, the Ethiopian Kingdom of Haile Selaissie, the Kurdish minorities and the Maronites. [4] This was a geostrategic answer to a geographic problem: a small territory, without strategic depth, surrounded by hostile neighboring States.
The 1979 Iranian revolution upended the central pawn of this strategic network. From the status of peripheral ally, Iran morphed into the organizer of a policy of containment of Israeli expansionist policies, and of an axis of resistance patiently put together over a period of forty years. Exactly what the Ben Gurion's peripheral strategy had tried to avoid.
The singularity of this reconstruction was that it was not build on State apparatus, but rather on infra-State organizations. It relied on armed groups within weak or failed states. A much less costly solution for Teheran, and a much more difficult challenge for Israel than the classical State vs State conflicts.
This is precisely what explains the failure of the Israeli doctrine of the "mowing of the lawn"; limited and periodical military operations, targeted to weaken the opposition, without looking for negotiated political solutions. As seen in Gaza in 2008, 2012, 2014, 2021, in Lebanon in 2006 and Syria from 2011 till 2024. All of them with a negative net results.
Each cycle leading to a re-enforcement of their adversaries, as Benjamin Netanyahu admitted in 2024, when he renounced to the eradication of Hamas because of his lack of legitimacy at home and on the international scene, and a total invasion of Lebanon.[5] This is a very important admission, because it identifies legitimacy rather than military capacity as the limiting factor. Everything else is derived from that admission.
The exit strategy, avoiding the problem by going around the issues.
The Israeli solution to encirclement has never been uniquely military. First and foremost, it was a project of regional redrawing. This project is old, known and documented. Its most precise formulation goes back to a document: A clean break, a new strategy for securing the realm. Redacted in 1996 by a group of American neocons, for the benefit of the recently elected Benyamin Netanyahu. [6] The text recommended the abandonment of the Oslo Treaty, the overthrow of the Iraqi regime, as well as the weakening of Syria and Iran, as the necessary conditions for a redrawing of the regional balance for the benefit of Israel.
This would be followed 10 years later by the famous quote of Condoleezza Rice about the "painful birthing of a new Middle East" during the most brutal phase of the invasion of Lebanon in 2006 .[7] The idea of a redrawing of the regional map through military might had nothing to do with a retrospective rhetoric. Its new 2020s version, substituted the economy for war, without changing its goals.
With the Accords of Abraham in 2020, the notion that the normalization with the Arab States could be decoupled from the Palestinian question moved forward. The IMEC project corridor announced during the September 3rd 2023 G20 meeting in New Delhi, would create the infrastructure going from India, to the Persian Gulf, Jordan, Israel and the EU. In doing so, bypassing the Iranian influence and the Suez Canal.
On September 22nd 2023, two weeks before the attack of Hamas on Israel, Netanyahu during his speech before the General Assembly of the UN, brandished two maps [8] He announced an historical imminent peace with Saudi Arabia. He also declared that the Palestinians will not have any right of veto on the relations between Arab States and Israel. He then went on to describe a new corridor of prosperity linking Asia, the Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Israel and the EU. On his map of the New Middle East, the West Bank and Gaza are clearly inside the borders of Israel.[9]
This speech is the cornerstone of any serious analysis for that period. It clearly establish that the Israeli Regional redrawing project had already been assumed, developed and shared publicly well before October 7. It also clearly establish that this project definitely sidelined Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran as a stated goal.
The Paradox: the political approach which strengthened the enemy
In March 2019, during a meeting of a Likud parliamentary group, Benyamin Netanyahu defended the money transfers from Qatar to Gaza, through Israel, by arguing that whomever oppose the creation of a Palestinian State, must support the financing of Hamas, because any opposition between the Palestinian authority in the west bank and the Hamas would make the existence of a Palestinian State impossible. [10] The amount of financial support is sizeable. Close to $ 1.5 billion of Qatar's cash was funneled to Hamas with Israel knowledge and help, between 2012 and 2021.[11]
The former Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman testified that Netanyahu had send the head of the Mossad to Doha to request that the payment continued. [12] This approach was the source of three simultaneous side-effect.
* It consolidated the financial strength of Hamas, which would later lead the attack of October 7th
* It created an Israeli dependance on Doha, only reliable go between with the Hamas, which revealed itself as a structural dependance during the negotiations for the release of hostages.
* It created at the heart of the Israeli State apparatus an area of opacity which was revealed during the so called "Qatargate" investigation at the beginning of 2025. Two close advisers of the Prime Minister: Yonatan Urich and Eli Feldstein were arrested on March 31st 2025, under suspicion of having been paid to promote the interests of Qatar, while being employed in the Cabinet of the Prime Minister. Netanyahu was audited on the same day about his attempt to fire the head of Shin bet, who was leading the investigation. (a firing canceled by the Supreme Court) [13]
This affair is worth following for what it is, and not for what one might like to prove. It does not necessarily demonstrate an operational collusion during the preparation of the attack. Yet it demonstrates something more pedestrian and far more dangerous: The porosity of a decision center which is open to the influence of a foreign power financing your own opponent, and the executive privilege used to stifle the inquiry.
What is still left, is the willful blindness of the government. The Israeli spy agencies were fully aware of a Hamas document named "Walls of Jericho" for more than a year before the attack. This document described in minute details the whole operation, but was judged more ambitious than the capacity of Hamas. [14] In early July 2023, an analyst of Unit 8200, notified in writing the intense training undertaken by Hamas, which mirrored exactly the details highlighted in "Walls of Jericho". A Colonel responsible for the division overseeing Gaza dismissed the report, as pure fantasy. His advice: wait patiently. The analyst insisted, by arguing in several emails (consulted in details by the NYT) that this was a real war plan, not only a raid on a single village, and reminded the Colonel that in Southern Israel 50 years earlier, there was also a pure fantasy, that turned out to be real. The reference to 1973 was real but despite a growing number of reports from the surveillance towers during the three months prior to the attack, the hierarchy dismissed the concerns, with the doctrinal certitude that a Hamas economically interested, was a Hamas neutralized.
For some, this had not raised to the level of conspiracy but instead it was the fruit of an error of analysis. According to them, it is precisely because it was an error of analysis, that it became possible. This excuse is conveniently covering the hierarchy, but it might not automatically cover the top decision makers as it was discovered in September 2026. On September 8th, 2026, Haaretz based on the inquiry of Shlomi Eldar and Ruth Ulval, published a forty five minute conversation between Mohamed ben Zayed (MBZ) and Netanyahu at the end of September 2023, ten days before the October 7th attack. The President of the UAE warned Bibi that Sinwar was preparing a grand scale operation, which would lead to a blood bath, in order to destabilize the Region and compromise the Abraham accords.
The chain of events has been carefully reconstructed. Sinwar was getting very frustrated by Netanyahu's delaying tactics about the indirect negotiations regarding a potential ceasefire and exchange of prisoners. He passed along through intermediaries a warning about a possible "Zilzal" a earthquake : the intermediary had warned an adviser to Ben Zayed, who directly alerted his president. Netanyahu dismissed the advise and argued that Gaza was under control, and that any action would come from the West Bank instead. Bibi did not warn the Minister of defense or the Head of the Armed Forces, nor did he alert the head of the intelligence agencies.(Shin Bet and Mossad) This was confirmed by both Herzi Halevi and Ronen Bar. Almost at the same time the Egyptian Minister of counter Intelligence, Abbas Kamel, sent a similar warning to the Israeli Prime Minister. [15]
This narrative has been contested and it must be presented along with what is being contested. The cabinet of the Prime Minister calls this an absolute lie, and denies that any such conversation had taken place. Adding that any such information would have gone through the regular intelligence channels. A strong denial which contradict itself from the inside. Netanyahu has threatened the Newspaper and one of its writers to sue them in court for defamation. The Likud has demanded that a legal inquiry be opened against the two journalists. Abu Dhabi has since sidelined the story without further comments. All these revelations appear just several weeks before an election, where the main subject of contention is the behavior of Netanyahu during that crisis. This must raise concerns on both sides. The electoral calendar gives a mobile for both the publication and the denial. [16]
At this point in time, this dossier does not establish what some would like to infer. A warning that was ignored is not an executed plan. It does not demonstrate that the "walls of Jericho" or the warnings of Nahal Oz constituted a will by anyone to allow the attack to proceed. Yet, it demonstrates that the failing is not only institutional. The Concepzia does explain how an administration misjudged a document. It does not explain how the Head of the Government, personally warned by a foreign Head of State, did not warned his own key services. The shifting of responsibility from a structural one to that of a person is the true development of the affair. It actually sheds light on what the investigative Section IX qualifies as: the three years of obstinate refusal to allow for the constitution of a State Board of Inquiry. We shall need a little longer for the truth to be revealed.
The fabrication of legitimacy
If legitimacy was a limiting factor of what happened prior to October 7th, what happened in the weeks following the event, falls into a production of Strategic planning. This production operated at two different levels. On the domestic level, it suspended the development of a political crisis threatening the government, that was nine months in the making. On the foreign level, it allowed for almost all western foreign ministries to align themselves with the Israeli narrative and the subsequent reactions to the attack. Three documented observations allow us to measure their inner workings. They do not point in the same directions.
*The first observation is about the number of victims, which contradicted a popular affirmation. On the 10th of November 2023, Israel revised downward the numbers from 1400 to 1200 dead, after it realized it had included the bodies of Hamas combatants among the victims. [17] Later an independent accounting realized by AFP came up in February of 2024 with a final number of 1163 dead. [18] The numbers were actually revised to a lower figure by the government which had the most to gain from inflating the data. This is not where a manipulation took place, any effort to push this forward would be a waste of time and credibility.
*The second is about the exactions themselves. Here the discrepancies are sizeable and notable. Many allegations which were widely circulated in the weeks following the assault, were never proven. The accusation that forty babies had been decapitated, which was relayed by the office of the President of the USA, before being discretely abandoned, being the most striking example of a total manipulation. The inquiry by the New York Times about the systematic character of sexual assaults, was denied strongly by documents and opposition coming in great part from its own editing board; specially regarding its own methods and the choice of its sources. The public report released in March of 2024 by the UN special representative Pramila Patten, concluded that while several elements could lead to the possibility of sexual abuse; she could not conclude that it was coordinated, ordered or systematic. [19] The discrepancy is considerable, and it was established only after the original allegations had the political effect we know. A correction never has the same impact that a first accusation: it is a structural asymmetry of the media environment. You do not need to support one side or the other to observe that it beneficiated one side.
*The third is more egregious, and it took over 9 months before the issue was raised. In July 2024, Haaretz published an inquiry based on documents and testimonies from soldiers and officers of the IDF, regarding the fact that the so called "Hannibal" directive - a protocol officially canceled in 2016, authorizing any means necessary to stop the capture of a soldier, including at the cost of his/her life- was put into effect by superior officers of the Gaza division. [20] It was activated at the border post of Erez, at the military base of Re'im which is the site of the Gaza divisional Headquarter, and the forward operating base of Nahal Oz. The order from the southern command was without any ambiguity: no vehicle would be allowed to cross back into Gaza. Sources within that same command testified they were fully aware that said vehicles were more likely than not to carry civilians and IDF members captured by Hamas. At 21h30 a new directive was issued, ordering the complete closing of the whole border zone with the help of tanks. Military personnel were authorized to open fire without restriction on who or what ever would attempt to approach the border. At the residence of Pessi Cohen, located at Kibbutz Be'eri, fourteen hostages were held when the army launched their assault. thirteen were killed.
The independent international inquiry commission of the UN, confirmed the use of the directive at several locations, and it concluded that in the very few cases they were authorized to probe that 14 people had been killed. [21] It was the only number released by an official body and does not amount to a full account. The number of Israeli killed by "friendly" fire is not known and most likely will never be known. No autopsy of bodies were ever undertaken. The registries upon which the accounting of victims is based ( Israeli social security statistic. cross referenced with the figures of the Army, Police and Shin Bet) do not allow to distinguish between the victims of Hamas from the victims of "friendly fire" during the retaking of localities and bases with the help of tank shells and rockets in urban areas. [22]. In the few cases where the Army investigated, it met the same kind of obstacles. In the case of the Pessi Cohen residence, the IDF concluded that most of the hostages had been killed by their captors, while admitting that it was impossible to prove since the bodies had been severely burned., and none of the evidences had been kept.
One must only recall this total lack of any forthcoming evidence, rather than any artificial number. Another issue that must be observed, because it has been resurfacing over and over again is the issue of the Apache helicopters, who would have targeted participants of the Nova music festival. The allegation is based on the single testimony of a policeman. The subsequent investigation by the police ended covering only the activities of the police force and did not cover any air activity. [23]
What few evidences that leaked to the public, never less established the disturbing fact that the IDF killed civilian and military hostages of its own camp. Neither the IDF nor its own Government , or any commission released this information to the public. Instead it was a newspaper nine months after the facts that did it. Therefore Israel is not faced by an accounting issue but rather by a structural one. These are the same issues that during the following three years led to the refusal to establish a State Investigative Commission. In any case, all these elements were used to justify the Government's narrative that allowed for all the subsequent excesses since, the infamous date of October 7th.
The window: three years of accelerated execution.
The following sequence to October 7, displays a decisive characteristic: its own speed is without any common measure with the period of preparation necessary, had it been improvised. On September 17 2024, several thousands of beepers held as communication by Hezbollah cadre simultaneously exploded in Lebanon , followed by several hundred walkie talkies the next day. This operation necessitated the creation of screen business companies, and the hijack of several supply chains over several years. Following the elimination of a large part of the chain of command of Hezbollah, an air raid on the underground headquarter of Sayed Hassan Nasrallah killed the Hezbollah leader 10 days later, as well as many remaining members of his chain of command. These operations revealed the level of infiltration achieved by Israeli intelligence. A penetration that cannot be achieved at that level within 10 months.
On December 8, 2024 the Syrian regime of Bashar El Assad collapsed in 12 days, after it had resisted during 13 years, under an offensive led by Hayat Tarir al Shar (former Al Quaeda/Isis terrorist) supported by Turkey. Officially Israel was not involved, but it was certainly the main beneficiary of the operation, as the fall of Damas ends the continuity of the territorial link between Iran and Lebanon.
A precision: from 2013 to 2018 Israel had given armed and financial support to half a dozen Sunni opposition groups in southern Syria, also drying up the supply road.
Between 2013 and 2018, Israel armed and financed at least a dozen Syrian Islamist factions, in the southern Syrian area of Qunetra/Deraa. Vehicles, assault weapons, machine guns, mortar, ammunition, monthly stipends for each fighter, even medical help. The United Nations forces in charge of observing the pull back of combatants sent their observations in reports dating back to 2013. While the outgoing IDF chief of staff recognized the facts in 2019 contradicting the official version during 6 years that the help was strictly humanitarian. [24]
By the same token, it was clearly established that neither the Al Nosra Front nor its successor Hayat Tharir al Sham conducted any type of military intervention against Israel or its military forces. This was also true when IDF was controlling The Qunetra outpost in 2014. This obvious non belligerence status between the claimed enemies, was denied by Israel advocates who argued that this did not prove a tacit alliance.
Following all these claims, during the Syrian blitzkrieg of 2024, the Israeli Air Force conducted hundred of sorties against Syrian armed forces strong points for the benefit of Hayat Tharir al Sham. Since then, it was followed by the Israeli occupation of the buffer zone, and Mount Hermon which dominates the whole region, as well as negotiations between the two parties without American involvement, and an understanding of the sharing of Intelligence. Finally, a meeting was held in Jordan during the summer of 2026 between the Syrian Minister of Foreign Affairs and a Israeli delegation led by the Head of the Mossad. Some observers claimed that it was meant to remind the new Syrian strongman of who was in charge in the region.
Regarding Iran, after the so called 12 days war in June of 2025, which had targeted military leaders and scientists, without reaching the top layers of the Iranian system, the operation of February 28, 2026 crossed a new line. Planned jointly by the Mossad and the CIA, executed by the Israeli Air Force with the full support of the USA, during the Holy Month of Ramadan, and with the declared objective of regime change, it destroyed the personal residence of the Supreme Guide, killing him and 75 other people, including several members of his family.[25] Also targeted and killed, over 40 key members of the Iranian government, people like: Mohammad Pakpour, commander of the Revolutionary Guards, the minister of defense Azir NasirsZadeh, Ali Shamkhani Secretary for the Supreme Council for National Defense, and Mohammad Shirazi head of the military office of the Supreme Guide. [26] Basically the "Ring of Fire" was broken in about 30 months. The question being: for how long?
The cost to the United States: partial regional victory, global over extension.
This is exactly where the conflict ends being regional. The US involvement at the behest of Israel was portrayed as a demonstration of strength. In terms of depth, it has mostly been a demonstration of a lack of material supply, which was revealed to the whole world.
The Size of the issue is known, because the Pentagon had to testify in front of the Congress. The Center for Strategic and International Studies, estimated that the stock of Patriot missiles had fallen from around 2300 before the war, to 827, while those of the THAAD system had gone from 452 to 278. [27] Reuters reported in August 2026, that the quasi-totality of the ATTACMS and other long range precision missiles had been consumed during that short period of combat with Iran [28] The emergency request for funding for the rest of 2026 by the Pentagon is numbered at $ 67 billions, with $ 18.2 billions exclusively for the replacement of Patriot, THAAD and Tomahawk missiles [29]
The problem is industrial, not budgetary. The return to pre-war inventories will not be reached until 2029 for the patriot and THAAD systems, and 2030 for the Tomahawks. [30] The Achille's heal of these systems is that they were not designed to be produced "en masse". Historically Lockheed Martin production of THAAD was around 96 per annum. The June 2026 newly signed contract of $38 billions over 7 years to quadruple their output, will need several years of development before reaching that capacity of production. [31] To this, you must add the lack of sustainability of using missiles of several $ millions to down weapons that cost only $ tens of thousands.
The most visible short term consequence was the redeployment of THAAD and Patriot systems from South Korea to Israel, at a time when North Korea ballistic arsenal continues to grow substantially. [32]. A military power who strip one theater for the benefit of another is not in expansion. It is a power that makes choices under constraint. This has been observed in plain site by everyone.
This particular observation was made in Beijing as well. A January 2026 report from the Heritage Foundation estimated that the high end intercepting missiles : SM-3, SM-6, PAC-3, MSE, THADD would be totally depleted after several days of intense fighting with the PLA. Some of them would be totally out after two or three salvos. Further the aggregated stocks of vertical take-off missiles (estimated currently at 17 thousands) would not be sufficient to replenish the fleet if needed. [33] The consequential strategic argument is that of a window. The period of three to four years necessary to resupply the stocks of the US armed forces. More precisely it is when the maximum gap between Chinese offensive arsenal and the American defensive stocks will be at its maximum. [34] This understanding of the problem is currently accessible in the US strategic literature, which also means that others have reached the same conclusion.
While the third cost is more difficult to establish than that of the stocks, it still can be established with American statistics. The regional public opinion crash of the United States image was measured in almost in real time. By pure luck, the group Arab Opinion ( a survey company) was doing a research in Tunisia during the three weeks prior and one week following October 7th. Favorable opinions of the United States went from 40% to 10% in less than a month. Following studies would confirm the trend in other countries. 23 points loss in Jordan, 19 in Mauritania, 15 in Lebanon, 7 in Iraq. [35] What makes this trend different from a temporary upset, is the fact that the gap has not closed since.
Further studies taken in eight different countries between August and November 2025 indicate a durable displacement: China, Russia and Iran now have a better image in the majority of the countries surveyed. The widest gap is precisely on the particular subject Washington took for granted. Asked about the respect of international laws, 25% of Egyptians cite the United States while 58% chose China. Regarding regional security, US policies are preferred by 6% of Egyptians, 9% of Jordanians, 22% of Iraqis. [36]
The last question that cannot be answered, because it is perceived in the whole region in the same way, by everyone. The United States policies are considered being based on Israeli interests, to the point of subordination of their own interest. This leads to three issues being confused, and they are not of the same order.
The perception can be measured precisely, while it is massive: 86% of Egyptians and Jordanians, 84% in Palestinian territories, 78% of Lebanon, 69% in Tunisia consider that the United States has taken the side of the Israelis against the Palestinians. The material alignment with Israel is easily observed and does not let any room for interpretation: financing, delivery of ammunition, repeated used of veto power in the Security Council, and joint planification by Mossad and the CIA of the February 28 2026 operation
The subordination, on the contrary is the only one of the three that can be denied. What happened during the summer of 2026 appear to contradict this theory. At least in part. The Memorandum of understanding between the US and Teheran during the month of June, was taken despite and against the strong opposition of the Tel Aviv government. On July 16th, the Vice President of the United States publicly accused the Israeli government to finance a campaign of influence against the negotiations. This accusation is without precedent coming from a seating vice president, and Netanyahu had to come and justify himself in DC at the end of July. [37] A power executing a diktat, usually does not endorse an agreement that his supposed subordinator opposes, neither does it denounce a campaign of influence against its decision, in its own country.
Despite its appearances, things can be a lot more complex that they look at first. What these incidents revealed is less spectacular but a lot more embarrassing: Not a subordination, but rather a partial capture of the agenda, which is opposed all the way inside the highest ranks of the Executive Power, which the administration cannot get out of, without significant damage to its own structure. The formulation is less satisfactory than a diktat, but it is more accurate in its description, even when embarrassing
It does not diminish the Strategic Cost of the theory, just because it does not rely on the exactitude of the facts, but rather on the distribution of the theory. It really does not matter to prove if the policies of the US are dictated by Israel or simply captured by its lobbies. It will not alter whatever the 86% of Egyptians believe, and in consequence what their government will conclude from it. Openly working with the US has now become a high risk for the leaders of these countries, whatever we may think about them. These regimes still have to take in consideration the mood of their respective country. The countries of the Gulf in particular warned against the strike against Iran, to no avail. In return they were the targets of counter-strikes from Iran. Several of them are now considering taking back their investments in the USA. Here perception is a strategic reality, and should be the reason why a country which has used so much to gain legitimacy should not gloss over such issue.
This has now become an inside issue. The cost is indeed high. For the first time since it started polling on this issue in 2001, the Gallup poll found that the sympathies of a majority of Americans is no longer in favor of Israel. In April of 2026, Pew Research found that 6 Americans out of 10 have a negative view of Israel. The share of people with extremely negative views of Israel has triple since 2022. Today, 57% of Republicans under the age of 50 belong to that group.[38] The legitimacy of Israel was engaged in 2023, it was damaged heavily during its Gaza campaign, and it is now heavily contested in the country of its guarantor.
The irony of this massive support by DC for Israel, has not created a better safety for the Jewish State. The anti-missile shield worked fairly well at the start, but at an unfavorable cost and at a impossible rate of replacement. Further it was not able to do anything against the following threat: the closing of the Bab el Mandeb strait, which led to the death of a Port without the launch of a single missile. The closing of Ormuz, despite 30 months of air superiority has not allowed for it to be lifted. The US has been unable to reopen any of the two strangle points. Israeli military censorship which is applied solely on the impact of the strikes, according to a classical operational tactic, has contributed greatly to the muddling of the public perception of this specific vulnerability, without establishing the real human cost which is substantially different that the official figures.
What this sequence established, and what it did not.
A theory is being widely circulated in the region, as well as on Social Media, arguing that the planning of October 7,2023 was done by Israel and sent to Hamas through intelligence agencies, in order to create the political climate to allow for the sequence of events we have described earlier. The end of this expose could strengthen this theory.
The first issue with the theories of the frame-up and that of the strategic opportunism is, that they both ended up predicting the same events. While they certainly can be observed as being equivalent. The end of this sequence does not allow to decide between the two. A chain of event which ends up taking place, certainly proves that its main beneficiary was ready, but not that it triggered it. Similarly the preparation is clearly established: Beepers, infiltration of the Hezbollah, long term targeting of the Supreme Leader. A military apparatus which plans over a 20 years period, for contingencies, is not doing anything else than its duty. The September 2023 warning from the Emirates does not alter in anyway this structure: Interested political inertia and a complicity lead again to a similar conclusion. It ends up moving the cursor by one degree, from the voluntary blindness of the apparatus to that of the inertia of the top levels of government; without crossing the line between the lack of action and the manipulation.
The second problem of course is the cost. It applies to two actors. The October 7, 2023 destroyed the Israeli policy of deterrence, it cost the IDF Chief of Staff his job, destroyed the reputation of Israeli intelligence networks, and imposed operational restrictions for a two years period because of the hostages issues.
As far as the US godfather, this period ends with a heavily challenging problem of military inventory, for a upcoming period of at least 4 years, which raises the question of its own capability of deterrence in the Pacific region. A situation which is publicly discussed , on top of a damaged reputation inside the region, which now is at its lowest level ever recorded. The Gulf States allied to the US, are now re-evaluating the political cost of an open collaboration. Meanwhile at home the President's own electorate is examining the relationship that made that whole situation possible in the first place. If this was the cost of an agreed plan, then someone gravely under-estimated the actual cost and the out of control side of its nature. The repartition of this cost is clearly not balanced, and has moved over to theaters than no one had expected.
Finally the third problem is one of Logic. The old adage that "nothing happens in a vacuum" is not empirical at all, rather it is an axiom. If nothing ever happens by chance, then not one incident witnessed will ever be able to contradict said theory, making it impossible to prove. One formula would still be able to preserve the intuitive argument, without overlooking its analysis: The encircling prongs were real, its breaking had been planned in details for a very long period, October 7th gave legitimacy at home and internationally to the execution of these plans. The necessary legitimacy was later supported, and in some cases completely fabricated. It was the limiting factor that Netanyahu had himself clearly identified. The attack might not have created the crime itself, but it certainly removed any constraint which made it impossible until then.
Military success, Political defeat
The evaluation of the results is where the analysis must resist any fascination of operational performance. The model applied to Iran relied essentially on a specific idea: the simultaneous decapitation of military, religious and political high ranking elites would lead into the collapse of the regime, or its strategic capitulation. This hypothesis never came to fruition. A temporary council of directors was put in place the next day. Sayed Mojtabab Khameni succeeded his father immediately. [39] The institution survived as they had planned, and is still holding almost 7 months later. What happened since then falls into a different category. Some already argue that while the government did not crash, its decomposition will be slow.
The new Supreme Leader they note has not appeared in public for more than 6 months. The inflation on all essential everyday articles has reached 100%, allegations of infighting have grown stronger, at the occasion of the memorandum of Agreements with the United States, a fact denounced by the experts of the National Assembly which condemned what they termed as rumors of capitulation back in August. [40]
According to these allegations, the regime is weakened, poorer and divided, but still standing. It also lost many of its regional relays. Many of its leaders were replaced swiftly and their defense capacity has only been lightly damaged. Specially in the Strait of Hormuz which has remained closed since February 28. A country where most of its high ranking officials, 40 in all, were killed in a single wave of attacks, is still able to exist and retaliate for next to 7 months. Stopping the flow of oil of one fifth of the world supply. Neither the Israeli Air superiority, nor the US Naval presence have been able to change the situation. This is exactly where you can measure the gap between military success and political defeat. The decapitation of the key government actors of Iran was supposed to address this issue, but it has obviously failed.
As for Israel, the results are not less negative on the political area. Exactly three years after October 7, not a single State Commission of Inquiry has been established. Netanyahu first argument that this was a war situation , was followed by an attack on the legitimacy of the Supreme Court to appoint a president for this illusory Commission, before passing in extremis on July6, 2026 a law establishing a commission whose 6 members would be chosen by the Knesset. This vote was boycotted by the opposition arguing that this new institution would produce answers prepared by the exact people supposed to be questioned in the first place. [41] An independent civil commission published in May 2026, its own conclusions, highlighting the grave dysfunctions of the coalition's leadership, as well as those of the opposition during the decade leading to the attack. [42]
The families of the victims united inside the Group "Council of October" released a report titled "failure 2026", declaring unanimously that the problem had not been resolved. [43] A State that claims to have won the most complete regional war in its history, while revealing itself incapable to investigate its own founding catastrophe cannot claim it has restored security. Instead it just exchanged its own exterior vulnerability, for an interior crisis of legitimacy.
References:
[1] Hurt by the Houthi blockade, debt ridden Eilat port seeks relief to help staying afloat Sharon Wrobel. The Time of Israel, July 17 2025
[2]chiffre de recette, d'escales, de la saisie municipale, repris de la couverture de presse israelienne Juillet 2025
[3] Kepler numbers reported by Reuters, September 2026
[4] The peripheral doctrine and its implementation 1979 Treacherous Alliance the secret dealing of Israel, Iran and the United States Trita Parsi, Yale University Press
[5] Exclusive: "Netanyahu at War" Eric Cortellessa Time Magazine August 8, 2024
[6] A clean break: A new strategy for securing the Realm. Institude for advance strategic and political studies. 1996 with Richard Perle
[7] " Special briefing on travel to the Middle East and Europe" Condoleeza Rice, Department of State, July 21, 2006
[8] "Benjamin Netanyahu address to the United Nations General Assembly" Prime Minister Office, September 26, 2023
[9] "Israel- Saudi Arabia. Netanyahu propose normalization with map erasing Palestine" Middle East Eye, September 22 2023
[10] "Netanyahu: Money to Hamas part of the Strategy to keep Palestinian divided" Lahav Harkov, Jerusalem Post, March 12, 2019
[11] Netanyahu, the road to October 7.the moral downfall of Israel. Adam Raz, Pardez Editions, 2024
[12] The Times of Israel. Avigdor Lieberman testimony. February 22, 2020
[13] QatarGate, all what you must know about the scandal that rocks Netanyahu Danny Moudalall, l'Orient-Le jour, April 2, 2025. The Times of Israel July 6,2026
[14] The walls of Jericho:" Israel knew of Hamas's attack plan, more than a year ago" Ronan Bergman, Adam Goldman, the New York Times November 30, 2023
[15] Revealed: Netanyahu received explicit warning, days before October 7. Shlomi Eldarand, Ruth Yuval, Haaretz September 8,2026
[16] Cabinet of Israel Prime Minister, September 8 2026
[17] The Times of Israel, November 11 2023: Israel revised downward the number of dead for October 7
[18] Israel: the number of dead for October revised to 1163. AFP February 11, 2024
[19] Official Report: Official visit of the Office of the SRRG-SVC to Israel and the Occupied West Bank 29 January-14 February 2024v
[20] "Israel ordered Hannibal directive on October 7 to prevent Hamas to take soldiers captive" Yaniv Kubovich, Haaretz
