Summary
Israel enters 2026 amid major regional upheaval and a dramatically assertive U.S. foreign policy led by President Trump.
Washington is pursuing an ambitious strategy to reshape the Middle East through forceful intervention, expanded peace frameworks, and a focus on regime change in Iran, viewed as the core destabilizing actor.
Israel has achieved significant military and strategic gains against Hamas, Hizbullah, Syria, and Iranian proxies, but key objectives, disarming Hamas, demilitarizing Gaza, and establishing stable governance, remain unmet.
Close U.S.–Israeli coordination is critical, yet Trump’s broader vision, including involving actors like Turkey and Qatar and prioritizing his own regional architecture, may clash with Israel’s red lines.
Israel faces a strategic trade-off: accommodating aspects of U.S. plans in Gaza in exchange for decisive American partnership against Iran, while preserving long-term freedom of action across multiple active fronts.
Israel enters 2026 confronting an unstable Middle East region and a world in turmoil. The global order is shifting, and U.S. President Donald Trump is taking center stage. Trump ordered the abduction of Venezuelan President Nicholás Maduro from his palace, following months of a determined and uncompromising campaign against fleets of drug-smuggling ships and efforts to persuade him to leave the country. The move sparked a global backlash. Trump has long since grown weary of ineffective diplomacy norms set by international organizations. He has not concealed his caustic criticism of Europe’s impotent self-defense. He has demanded that NATO members increase their defense budgets and cease relying on the United States as the continent’s primary financier and security provider.
The U.S. president has, in effect, revived the historic Monroe Doctrine, in which the United States fashions the Western Hemisphere as a U.S. sphere of influence, protecting America from foreign interference. Trump has condemned Mexico and Colombia over rampant corruption and their failure to address the widespread drug scourge fueling regional terror actors, predominantly Hizbullah, sanctioned by the Islamic republic. Trump has effectively threatened to intervene in these countries.
From there, Trump has pivoted to Greenland, threatening to seize it and annex it to the United States, as it did during the Second World War, when Denmark was under Nazi occupation, and Greenland was within its sphere of influence. U.S. troops had been stationed on Greenland to protect it from a possible Nazi takeover. At the same time, Trump has also maintained active involvement in other conflict arenas in the Eastern Hemisphere. Trump tends to see himself as the ultimate peacemaker, and has set his sights on the Nobel Peace Prize. After brokering peace between Cambodia and Thailand, involvement in the war in Ukraine, assistance to Christians in Nigeria, and mediating peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan, Israel now enters the picture. Trump’s goal is to implement his plan for the rehabilitation of the Gaza Strip, expanding the framework of the Abraham Accords by including Arab and Muslim states. In his vision, Syria and Lebanon should also join in due course, after appropriate conditions have been established.
Following Prime Minister Netanyahu’s December 2025 meeting with Trump at his Mar-a-Lago estate, and after the outbreak of widespread protests in Iran, it appears that Trump became convinced that Iran constitutes the primary obstacle blocking his regional and global vision. There are indications that Trump’s massive military buildup in the Middle East and his calls for “leadership change” in Iran suggest that regime change is a viable option and even a requirement for his vision.
However, regime change cannot be achieved solely through a military strike, even a significant one. Beyond establishing the correct timing for a decisive military blow, regime change requires a multidimensional combination of military, political, and psychological warfare, including widespread protests, an organized opposition, and several significant partners from within the regime, especially elements of the Iranian military.
It is reasonable to assess that Netanyahu persuaded Trump to partner in a shared mission to overthrow the Iranian regime. To ensure that Trump was “on the same page,” Netanyahu may have been willing to forgo some Israeli conditions regarding the Gaza Strip, thus enabling the president to announce “Phase Two” of his plan. Netanyahu may assume that ultimately the overthrow of the Iranian regime will lead to a dramatic weakening of Hamas and Hizbullah, which will lead Trump to conclude that Hamas must be disarmed and the Gaza Strip must be demilitarized, something only the IDF can accomplish.
Trump’s rapport with Netanyahu and his support for Israel represent a welcome and critically important strategic asset. However, Israel must understand the limits of this support when Israeli actions don’t align with Trump’s expectations or conflict with his vision for reshaping the Middle East. Trump views his regional architecture as essential to advancing U.S. security and economic interests, and as a necessary tool to compete against Russia and China.
The year 2025 was a turning point for regional geostrategy, following Israel’s “Operation Rising Lion.” A series of impressive Israeli achievements against Hizbullah, which in turn led to the fall of the Assad regime and allowed Israel to destroy most of the Syrian army’s formations as well as gain air superiority and an air corridor to Iran, changed the regional picture. The maneuver deep into Gaza City, an existential threat to Hamas’s survival, and the airstrike in Doha in September 2025 created the conditions for Trump’s 20-point plan and for the October 10, 2025, ceasefire. The plan was also backed by UN Security Council Resolution 2803, and its implementation would allow the realization of the Israeli government’s five war objectives.
Trump’s success in precipitating the return of all living Israeli hostages and 27 of the 28 dead, coupled with Israeli control over 53% of the Gaza Strip, is an important achievement for Israel. However, the campaign has not yet ended: Hamas has not been disarmed, the Gaza Strip has not been demilitarized, and an alternative governing authority has not yet been established. Hamas has routinely violated the ceasefire. The IDF, restrained and limited in initiating actions against Hamas’s force build-up, responds to violations by exacting a heavy price, to establish clear rules.
Iran is the most significant challenge facing Israel in 2026; it is the strategic center of gravity of the entire regional system, and its messianic terror regime must be dismantled. A second objective is confronting Hamas’s rearmament and consolidation in the Gaza Strip and Hizbullah’s Iran-backed rehabilitation efforts. Iran is working vigorously to restore and develop ballistic capabilities and drone arrays, while simultaneously intensifying cyber and terrorist attacks against Israeli and Jewish targets abroad. Hence lies the great importance of facilitating the necessary change in Iran, and for that, Israel needs meaningful cooperation with the United States.
Despite the intensification of civil protest in Iran and the threat to the regime’s survival, Israel cannot assume that the Iranian regime will refrain from pursuing offensive actions against it. Internal distress and instability may push senior figures in the Iranian regime to divert attention from domestic unrest toward a war with Israel, in the hope that Israeli and American responses will cause the Iranian people to rally around the flag, thereby restoring domestic calm.
In practice, Israel is still engaged in active warfare on five main fronts: Iran, the Gaza Strip, Judea and Samaria, Lebanon, and southern Syria. Israel must achieve decisive outcomes in the Gaza Strip and Lebanon. A coordinated move with the United States to overthrow the Iranian regime would become a very significant lever for defeating Hamas and Hizbullah.
Alternatively, even before regime change, defeating Hamas and Hizbullah would further weaken Iran, assisting in toppling the regime. The tactics will depend upon how ready America is for a decisive intervention in the form of a military strike against Iran. Israel must be prepared for either of the two possibilities.
Israel’s significant achievements since July 2024 have led to a substantial transformation of the regional system, cemented Israel’s status as a leading power, and improved conditions for expanding the Abraham Accords and for a profound transformation of the new regional architecture under U.S. backing and leadership. The weak points and obstacles to this change are Iran and the Gaza Strip. It is unlikely that the 20-point plan will be successfully implemented. President Trump’s insistence on beginning the plan’s implementation, establishing a stabilization force with Turkish participation—after Turkey was given representation on the Gaza Strip’s governing board, to which Trump attributes the ability to disarm Hamas and demilitarize the Strip—raises genuine concern in Israel.
Trump’s fondness for Turkish President Erdoğan and the importance he allots to Turkey and Qatar in the region could lead him to impose their participation on Israel in the stabilization force and the reconstruction process. While Trump is aware of Israel’s concerns, and while his relationship with Netanyahu carries weight, ultimately, Trump’s loyalty is to his vision, strategy, tactics, and perhaps business interests. Israel may therefore find itself on a collision course with Trump and the U.S. administration as it enters an election year, with all its constraints and implications.
Accordingly, Israel must first and foremost prioritize the necessary move to overthrow the Iranian regime under U.S. leadership, with close coordination and cooperation. In addition, Israel enables legitimacy, primarily American, for renewing the military campaign to dismantle Hamas and demilitarize the Gaza Strip, to create the right conditions for implementing Trump’s plan. At the initial stage, this means allowing Trump, even at the cost of certain concessions and the blurring of red lines, to proceed in his own way, on the assumption that he will later conclude that there is no alternative to the IDF. This path constitutes a strategic trade-off: “Iran for Gaza,” certain concessions in Gaza in return for certainty regarding a coordinated American-Israeli move to overthrow the Iranian regime.
One hopes that Trump will conclude that ultimately, the IDF’s dismantling of Hamas and demilitarization of the Gaza Strip constitute the most effective prerequisite for implementing his plan. The alternative, entrenching a reality in which the Gaza Strip remains divided between east and west along the “yellow line,” with Hamas remaining the effective sovereign in the territory it controls in the eastern Strip, without Israel being able to dismantle it or demilitarize the Strip, is a dangerous option for Israel. U.S. restraint imposed on Israel could become a perilous precedent regarding Hizbullah and could further constrain Israel’s freedom of action in Syria.
A similar effort is required of Israel regarding its presence and redeployment in Syria, subject to progress in negotiations with Syria and the possibility of reaching a new security agreement. President Trump is pressing for understandings between Israel and Syria and is unconcerned with the small—but from Israel’s perspective, critical—details. By contrast, regarding the disarmament of Hizbullah in Lebanon, the United States stands by Israel, supports its moves in Lebanon, and at times even appears to be urging it to complete the task, especially since the ultimatum Trump issued to the Lebanese president and government, set for December 31, 2025, has already expired.
This year is also expected to see the start of negotiations between Israel and the United States on a new memorandum of understanding regarding security assistance. Netanyahu has a strong grasp of the prevailing political winds in the U.S. Congress and among senior officials in the U.S. administration who are increasingly skeptical about continuing security assistance to Israel in its current format. He has already stated in an interview with The Economist that he intends to bring the current security assistance framework to an end within a decade. Israel can propose a new framework, based on research cooperation, development and production of advanced weapons systems, and convert part of the assistance into long-term loans.
Israel’s key challenge is reshuffling the mix of regional developments, risks, and opportunities with innovative conceptual initiatives regarding assistance. This must be done in a manner that ensures Israel the flexibility and freedom of action required to preserve its vital security interests across all arenas, neutralize the problematic influence of powerful rivals such as Turkey and Qatar, and maintain a high level of coordination and cooperation with the U.S. administration and unequivocal support for Israel.
These issues are not easy to resolve, given American interests and President Trump’s determination to shape a new regional architecture through the expansion of the Abraham Accords, to include Syria and Lebanon, cementing his status as a peacemaker. This is precisely the test of Israeli statecraft in the coming year.
