Executive Summary
Enduring security relies on strength, vigilance, and unity. Geography alone cannot ensure safety; defense must combine military readiness, intelligence dominance, and social cohesion. A credible deterrent requires constant preparedness, rapid response, and the visible ability to act decisively. Diplomatic agreements can aid stability but cannot replace self-reliant defense. In an unpredictable region shaped by shifting alliances and new technologies, national resilience and proactive prevention are essential. True security comes from anticipating threats before they emerge and sustaining the moral and material strength needed to deter aggression and protect the nation’s survival.
The phrase “defensible borders” has been used in Israel for many years to explain why Israel could not accept the 1967 lines as defensible, mainly with regard to the border with Jordan before the Six-Day War (that is, the Green Line between the West Bank and the State of Israel) and the pre-1967 border with Syria at the foot of the Syrian Golan Heights.
Before delving into detailed border options and what makes them defensible, it is worth recalling Israel’s basic strategic reality, a reality that is unlikely to change despite the many shifts that have occurred and will occur in the Middle East:
- Israel remains a small country (Iran is roughly seventy times larger in area) with a population bearing a demographic weight of about 8 million Jews compared with roughly 400 million people in the Arab League countries. Israel will remain the sole Jewish state at the United Nations facing 21 Arab states and 57 Muslim-majority states.
- The broad asymmetry facing Israel means it cannot “bring Berlin” to the Middle East; it cannot remake the region into liberal democracies or significantly reduce hatred of Israel, no matter how many wars Israel wins (and probably not even through diplomatic agreements alone). Conversely, if Israel ever loses a war, even once, that could spell the end of the Jewish national state. Therefore, after every war, however successful, Israel must begin preparing for the next one.
The Middle East will not change dramatically in the foreseeable future. It is unlikely that many new open, democratic societies will emerge there. Islam in its various forms will remain a dominant force. Regional competition for leadership, mainly from Iran and Turkey, will continue to hinge on military strength and the willingness to project force across the region. The Gulf states will use their economic power to expand influence, but they will be cautious about direct confrontations with aggressive neighbors and may seek accommodation with them, even at the cost of closer ties with states hostile to Israel, including Iran.
Therefore, Israel must understand that it is compelled to prepare for “the next war” and to rely on its own strength, even during extended periods of quiet. The sword must remain sharp and ready at all times, even when sheathed. Building Israel’s economic, social, and diplomatic strength is vital for its future and must proceed in tandem with building military strength, carefully balancing these efforts. It is essential to stabilize and strengthen Israeli society so it can withstand serious threats posed by states that reject the very existence of the Jewish national state.
Only on the basis of these two foundational understandings about Israel’s condition can one discuss various reference scenarios, knowing that Israel’s survival is not guaranteed by diplomatic agreements (which it should pursue but without accepting constraints that weaken it), but rather by objective strength and how that strength is perceived by enemies and rivals. No one truly knows how to build “conventional deterrence,” so Israel must rely on real, demonstrable power projected outward rather than on the psychological assumption called “deterrence.” Because one cannot precisely know the enemy’s deterrence status, national-security decisions must not rest on assuming deterrence exists or can be reliably altered. Deterrence can be an incidental result of correct actions and strong blows against the enemy, but whether it has been achieved, and how the enemy subjectively perceives its situation relative to Israel, is unknowable.
The concept of defense grounded in Israel’s borders is thus a vital component of its future ability to pursue those aims: to enable the society to strengthen, the economy to grow, and to demonstrate Israel’s capacity to protect itself. After the recent war, one must add and stress that border defense must make certain that no real existential danger threatens the state or its residents, both those close to the border and those far from it. Therefore, border defense must take on renewed importance in the post-war security concept, which means clarifying the essential elements that constitute “defensible borders.”
Historically, the definition of defensible borders was largely geographic, that is, whether borders lie in terrain favorable or unfavorable for defense. For example, there were calls to move the Golan border eastward because the old Sykes–Picot-era line along the western slopes of the Golan, close to the Jordan Rift and the Sea of Galilee’s shore, was topographically indefensible. The memory of the IDF’s topographic disadvantage before the Six-Day War, the difficulty of defending a low, dominated border along the Golan, embedded itself in Israeli consciousness and led to the enduring desire for a higher, easterly defensive line.
In the West Bank (Judea and Samaria), in addition to topographic disadvantage along much of the Green Line, Israel had virtually no operational depth between the West Bank and the Mediterranean. For example, the Tulkarm–Netanya sector the country was extremely narrow, roughly 12 kilometers from the coast to the border fence, meaning a division-level offensive could reach the seacoast in under 24 hours. To create depth where none existed, Israel in practice (if not legally) moved the border away from its urban core. Yitzhak Rabin said in his last Knesset speech (October 1995) that the IDF would be deployed in any future agreement framework with the Palestinians “in the Jordan Valley in the broadest sense of the term” (my reading is that he meant up to the Allon Road, though he did not say so explicitly). He spoke not of sovereignty but of a practical reality that pushes the effective security border away from Israel’s heartland.
This logic appears in the Israel–Egypt peace treaty as well. The Sinai Peninsula separates Israel from the Suez and Egypt, and the treaty used limitations on Egyptian deployment and logistics to create an early-warning space and forward depth for Israel’s border, a buffer created by treaty limitations on Egypt’s forces across Sinai.
After the October 7 war, it is appropriate to reexamine the question of “defensible borders” to draw lessons from the conflict. Two general conclusions emerge that go beyond the Gaza envelope and should be adopted whenever Israel considers how to defend its borders.
First conclusion: How one prepares for defense and what forces are assigned matters, whether the border runs through terrain that is physically favorable or unfavorable. Defense is a military event with rules and principles like any other form of combat. Ignoring those principles greatly increases the chances of failure in a test, as happened in the communities around Gaza on the morning of October 7.
Second conclusion: Beyond correct force posture and adequate force along the borders, Israel should add substantial physical obstacles along the border to increase the cost of any attacking attempt. Those obstacles must be protected so they cannot be easily neutralized by a surprise attack. It is highly desirable that areas of buffer or barriers be established before the obstacles to hinder access to them and to the border both in routine times and in emergencies.
On October 7, the IDF failed to meet the accepted requirements for defensive preparedness and lacked adequate obstacles or buffers, not only opposite the Gaza Strip but also regarding Hizbullah in Lebanon. Therefore, the failure was, in effect, predetermined by poor defensive preparations, regardless of the underground barrier (which was tested in a different way since Hamas did not attempt to cross the border in tunnels that morning).
Third conclusion: Along Israel’s borders most areas include civilian communities on or very near the border (or near IDF positions). The October 7 experience requires integrating those communities into the defense concept and defense management, as was common in the years after the state’s founding. This concept was neglected over the years, as the October 7 morning made painfully clear, yet the communities still exist close to the border without adequate protection or proper integration into defense plans. Some communities were intentionally established near the border as part of the previous defensive doctrine; when that doctrine changed, necessary adjustments for the communities and their defense were not made.
Fourth conclusion: Israel must change its approach regarding the required combat power holding the defense lines. Because the October 7 attack occurred on a holiday, IDF forces were significantly reduced and “the IDF was in silence.” That has no place in a force prepared to defend against an enemy openly intent on destroying the State of Israel. The IDF must set minimum manning levels in every sector and maintain them 365 days a year, without leniency. It must ensure that the components in the area match defense needs, for example, increasing firepower for combat support by enlarging artillery, adding armed drones, immediately deployable UAVs, and integrating reconnaissance directly with ground forces (not centralized in Tel Aviv). Firepower is central to defense capability; thus, units that generate fire should be organic to or under the command of the regional division commander.
In general, one should not limit the definition of “defensible” to boundary placement alone. Defense is a professional challenge affected by factors beyond geography. Israel should change its approach in contact zones and treat them as combined spaces that include communities, outposts, fire assets, mobile military forces, and non-permanently inhabited agricultural lands. In light of the development of low-altitude warfare—drones, quadcopters, and personal aerial mobility seen on October 7—it will be appropriate to integrate local air-defense elements in these spaces that can operate independently without relying solely on the central air-defense elements run by the Air Force. Planning must include movement capabilities from these border areas into Israel and from Israel to these border areas to ensure tight coordination with the police, which remains responsible for the home front unless reallocated during wartime.
Regional divisions and corps should be built with a unified view of the military and civilian space because integrating these capabilities under a single command will ensure better execution of the defense mission. Border location in geographic terms matters and Israel should strive for borders that are easier to defend, but location is not the whole story; one must address defense elements wherever the border lies.
Given these principles, what should Israel prepare for in the future and how will the war affect future threats?
Although it is too early to conclude the long-term impacts of Operation “Iron Swords,” there are important observations we can already make.
Future Options and Scenarios
The key question is how the Middle East will look after the war across various theaters.
Assuming the IDF completes its missions over the coming year and Israel succeeds in reaching agreements or practical arrangements on the ground, Israel will face a different Middle East in which the principal active, central, and direct adversary is Iran, and friction on Israel’s immediate borders will be reduced.
Because of developments in Lebanon and Gaza, Iran cannot rely on proxies on Israel’s borders to wage a large, multi-front war while remaining apparently uninvolved. Iran will have to depend more on Houthi capabilities and perhaps Shiite militias in Iraq. Iran itself was badly hit by Israeli strikes during the “12-day war” and operation “Roaring Lion”/ “Epic Fury” and its nuclear program has been set back, as has some of its missile production capacity. Nevertheless, Iran remains a country with enormous destructive potential, a learning state that will challenge Israel again in military and other domains such as cyber, terrorism, espionage, and internal subversion.
The reduced immediate threat from Gaza will permit the IDF to maintain a less intense combat posture vis-à-vis large areas in Gaza. At the same time, a wide deterrence or engagement zone may extend across a vast arena from western Iraq to the Mediterranean, encompassing Syria and Lebanon together. This represents a major and positive shift compared with the threat that faced Israel before October 7.
Future threats will center on two aspects:
- The residual capabilities remaining with Hamas, even if dismantled as an organization, and the residual strike capabilities that Hizbullah retains despite the severe blow it suffered, along with both organizations’ efforts to rearm and overcome IDF countermeasures.
- Concerns regarding various Sunni countries stemming from their internal threats, meaning the possibility of drastic change in the regimes of states with which Israel currently has agreements or may have agreements in the future. Israel must learn to act to remove threats to those countries and within them, and to prepare both ideationally and operationally for regime changes that could affect Israel, a threat likely to grow over time.
Four countries merit focused intelligence and planning attention (in no particular order): Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Turkey. Israel must study them more deeply and prepare plans for scenarios in which regimes or their attitudes toward Israel change.
Jordan
Forces should focus mainly on preventing smuggling across the Jordanian border. As long as the current regime remains, a broader IDF deployment there would be a waste of resources, since Jordan is Israel’s longest land border. Jordan would become an enemy or permissive to terrorism only if its regime changes.
Egypt
Egypt has the largest Arab army, and its capabilities should not be underestimated. Once fighting in Gaza eases, diplomatic efforts should focus on reducing the deployment of Egyptian forces and large logistical systems in Sinai. Israel must strictly enforce the military annex to the peace treaty. The Sinai Peninsula, the land separating Israel from the Suez and Egypt, must not permit Egypt to prepare the means for an attack on Israel. This is not necessarily about Cairo’s intentions since there is likely no serious faction in Egypt today desiring war with Israel, partly because such a conflict could cause total economic collapse. Rather, this is about the military potential being built in Sinai. Israel should expand intelligence collection and research on Egypt and ensure that experienced professionals think operationally about potential Egyptian scenarios. At this stage, there is no need for major changes to the Israeli border posture vis-à-vis Egypt, but contingency plans must exist.
Syria
It is not yet clear what the new regime in Damascus will look like, whether jihadist elements within it will abandon an ideology hostile to Israel and attempt to reconstruct Syria as a state serving its population, or whether they will retain a hateful core and turn Syria into an active enemy. The danger increases if Syria becomes effectively a Turkish proxy as Turkey pursues neo-Ottoman aspirations. Turkish proxies or Turkish forces in Syria could deepen the risk of a direct and violent Israeli–Turkish confrontation.
A policy of caution and gravity is appropriate. Israel should maintain a broader IDF presence on the Golan while conducting real dialogue with the new regime in Damascus, which may still be fragmented and not fully in control of its territory. Israel should also consider its commitments to the Druze population, which remains an important separate matter. It is necessary to monitor Syrian developments closely; the situation there is highly fluid, and Israel may have to maintain a dual relationship with Syria—on one hand, pursuing talks about a better future, and on the other, preparing for friction including Israeli deployment and activity in parts of the Golan and preventing actions against Druze militants.
Lebanon
Lebanon is something of a success story following the war, but continued activity beyond the border is essential to consolidate and deepen the achievements. The replacement in Syria of an Alawite regime with one hostile to Iran and Hizbullah will make rearmament of Hizbullah more difficult. Hizbullah may have to devote resources to defending its own interests against a hostile Sunni neighbor. Together with the Lebanese government, there may be pressure to disarm the organization. In the new situation, Hizbullah’s threat to Israel may decline or take a new form (drones) and its weakness may increase. This could provide Israel with an opportunity to further degrade Hizbullah’s strength, either directly if circumstances allow or indirectly by exerting appropriate pressure on the Lebanese government.
Final Observations
One of the main lessons of the war concerns the root of Israel’s ability to defend its borders in future defensive battles: it is crucial to prevent the formation of a large threat close to the borders even in periods of quiet. Israel must adopt an active worldview that regards preemptive operations aimed at preventing the construction of a significant threat as an essential tool of defense. The importance lies not only in the border’s location and readiness along it but also in preventing the adversary’s ability to create a border threat in the first place.
To realize these goals, it is vital to build intelligence systems tailored to these requirements. The enemy across the border must be understood as a military threat even when the actor is a terrorist organization. Intelligence collection and analysis must be structured accordingly. In these matters, the responsibility must lie fully with the military, which should hold exclusive authority for border defense, for managing defensive combat, and for overall preparedness.
