Yossi Alpher is an independent security analyst. He is the former director of the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv University, a former senior official with the Mossad, and a former IDF intelligence officer. Views and positions expressed here are those of the writer, and do not necessarily represent APN's views and policy positions.

Q. “Bibi, you’ve got no strategy,” President Biden allegedly told PM Netanyahu. Does Israel really have no strategy in this war? Is ‘no strategy’ really a serious problem? Is it an obstacle to US-Israel military cooperation?

A. Let’s look first at the question whether and to what extent the Netanyahu government is managing the war based on a clearly recognizable strategy. Part of the muddle and uncertainty regarding this issue (and informing Biden’s statement cited above) may be explained--albeit not justified--by virtue of the fact that in Israel’s eyes this war is truly existential.

That means that Israel’s enemies do not merely covet this or that parcel of land or seek to right this or that wrong. They want to destroy the country and kill or expel its Jewish inhabitants. As militant Islamists, this goal is part of their credo. Israel, in contrast, has no such designs on enemy lands and population. (There is of course an exception: Israel’s own national-religious extremists. But even they generally focus only on Palestinian lands, not Lebanon or Iran or Yemen.)

This is also an important distinction between Israel’s Islamist enemies, nearly all Shiite Muslims, and the Sunni Muslim and Arab worlds in general that are broadly at peace with Israel. Unfortunately, the distinction tends to get lost in coverage and analysis of the war, which often boils down to a typical media wartime narrative of two territorial enemies bent on defeating one another. As if Israel were fighting a coalition of sovereign Arab states like in days of old, and not a ‘resistance’ coalition based on extremist Islam.

Here the point is that the existential threat somehow enables Israel to try to manage a ‘war of survival’ without a strategic objective. It has generated wartime national unity and patriotism against an easily recognizable enemy even as, to our dismay, much of the world turns against us and anti-Semitism surges. Indeed, in the eyes of the hapless Netanyahu government, events and ideology apparently even justify an existential need to sacrifice the Israeli hostages held by Hamas.

None of which, of course, exonerates Israel from its lack of a clear strategy for besting its Islamist enemies.

Q. This is both sad and ironic . . .

A. There is a huge irony here. Prior to October 7, 2023, Netanyahu thought he had a working strategy of buying off Hamas (“economic peace”) and deterring Hezbollah. He made no secret of this. It failed completely. This is one more reason why Netanyahu’s government is broadly avoiding delineating a strategy beyond the amorphous and unachievable ‘total victory’. Not only has he not defined what that means: eliminating every vestige of Hamas? Yahya Sinwar signing a document of capitulation? But the government has not even stipulated a post-‘total victory’ vision for the Strip.  

Indeed, this is also why Netanyahu tolerates the loose talk by a wide variety of interested parties regarding ‘solutions’ like resettling the Strip, or bringing in a pliant Arab occupying force, or persuading Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar to meekly go into exile. Where there is no official strategy to compete with, talk is cheap.

Q. Israel is fighting Islamist enemies on seven fronts. Nowhere does it have a clear strategic wartime goal.

A. Israel’s government has in any case moved its strategic focus to Hezbollah in Lebanon. There, notably, it has defined a more modest strategic goal: creating conditions that enable tens of thousands of Israelis to return to their homes near the border with Lebanon.

That means, according to IDF sources, essentially pushing Hezbollah out of southern Lebanon in favor of the Lebanese Army and/or UNIFIL, the UN force that ostensibly patrols Lebanon’s south and the border but has clearly failed in its mission. It means dismantling what remains of Hezbollah, controlling the Israel-Lebanon border, and exercising a right to intervene when necessary.

Why aren’t these objectives, which broadly correspond with international law, rendered part of an official strategy? They might constitute a more achievable goal than ‘total victory’ if either the Lebanese Army or UNIFIL appeared capable of taking and holding control over southern Lebanon. That objective was mandated years ago by the UN Security Council. Perhaps if Iran could be persuaded to cease openly supporting Hezbollah . . .

Q. Is that Israel’s strategic objective vis-à-vis Iran?

A. That, and ceasing its military support for Hamas and its use of Syrian territory to deliver ordnance to Hezbollah in Lebanon would appear to satisfy Israel strategically within the context of this war. Meanwhile the fighting has moved from the arena of proxies, e.g. the Yemeni Houthis, Hamas, Hezbollah, militias in Iraq, to a direct confrontation between Israel and Iran, with an Israeli blow anticipated as I write.

This is where the US comes in. Israel has thus far apparently coordinated its direct war against Iran with Washington. No strategic objectives are cited, other than stopping Iran’s meddling in other countries and the long-term goal of preventing Iran from becoming a military nuclear state.

As I write, the US is moving THAAD anti-missile systems to Israel--a precedent. That means the coming counter-attack on Iran will be, in effect, an Israel-US operation. It gives Washington a degree of control over Israel’s response against Iran.

Q. Does the US currently have easily recognizable strategic objectives in the Middle East?

A. The uncertainty of US elections on Nov. 5 is a highly complicating factor, however short-lived. It generally dictates extreme caution in Washington regarding any sort of strategic surprise that could affect Biden administration calculations and Kamala Harris’s electoral fortunes. But that is not so simple where Israel is concerned.

On the one hand, Netanyahu is considered by the Biden administration an unreliable partner or open antagonist for anything: peace, regional democracy, a two-state solution. He is the ‘Republican senator from Jerusalem’ who is hoping and maneuvering for a Trump victory. On the other hand, the US is Israel’s military ally and chief arms supplier. It is pledged to back Israel against its Islamist enemies--who are America’s enemies, too. The US supports Israel’s right to defend itself against militant Islam. The US and Israel also support expanding the 2019 Abraham Accords with an Israeli-Saudi deal.

But Washington supports a two-state solution involving the PLO and centered on the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The Netanyahu government, backed during wartime by most Israelis, does not, and comprises political elements that openly advocate for annexation of all or part of these territories. Besides, as Biden has indicated, Netanyahu does not present the US with clear strategic plans and priorities.

Q. These are clearly not compatible approaches . . .

A. The strategic tension between Washington and Jerusalem gets worse--or is about to. Three distinct bilateral political-strategic time-frames await us.

First, until November 5, the Biden administration and presidential candidate Kamala Harris have to exercise caution to avoid any impression of brutal pressure on Israel that could lose the Democrats votes. Netanyahu, on the other hand, ostensibly has a relatively free hand in deciding how to deal militarily with Iran without antagonizing the US and its Arab allies. Now that Netanyahu has expanded his ruling coalition with the addition of four more rightist members of Knesset from Gideon Saar’s New Hope party, political stability in Israel seems fairly certain until elections mandated for 2026.

All this, on the part of both parties, without an obvious strategy regarding Iran. Yet two Iranian missile attacks on Israel since April appear to show that Jerusalem strongly needs both US armaments and a major US defense contribution to defend itself against Iran. Hence, despite the impression of Netanyahu’s freedom of maneuver prior to Nov. 5, he actually has to coordinate with Washington. That is the message of the THAAD batteries, as well as a reported US request last week that the Israel Air Force cease attacking targets in Beirut.

Q. And between Nov. 5 and January 20?

A. If Harris wins, conceivably a new minor element of friction and potential tension could be added, with the composition of Congress adding another element of uncertainty. Indeed Harris, if backed by a Democrat-ruled Congress, could prove tougher than Biden in dealing with anti-democratic measures in Israel and oppressive measures against the Palestinians. Meanwhile growing Israeli economic woes, due to the war and Netanyahu government mismanagement, could make US financial pressures particularly effective.

Q. And if Trump wins?

A. Bibi will begin celebrating and taking uncoordinated initiatives from Nov. 5 on. This includes the Israeli domestic level, where he could invoke the kind of anti-democratic ‘reforms’ that weakened Israel and thereby encouraged Hamas’s October 2023 aggression in the first place.

As for Trump’s Middle East strategy, his behavior is so erratic and anti-strategic that it is impossible even to anticipate. Bibi should be warned about what he wishes for.

Q. Hold on. This is a one-sided discussion. What is Iran’s strategy? Hezbollah’s? Hamas’s?

A. The Iran-led Axis of Resistance is pledged to wear Israel down, no matter how long it takes, until it disappears. Fighting Israel on seven fronts is considered a step in that direction. The Axis still hopes to open additional active fronts against Israel from Jordan and Syria, while Iran itself suffices mainly with long-distance cheerleading and financing unless provoked by Israel.

Meanwhile, Hamas and Hezbollah seek to engage and pin down Israel’s occupying forces, and in Lebanon draw them deeper and deeper into enemy territory, for as long as possible. This will clearly be easier in the Gaza Strip where Israel has no recognizable strategy and no partners pledged to help, and where some Israelis covet territory. Meanwhile, from just-published captured Hamas documents we can learn just how thorough and comprehensive Sinwar’s strategic thinking is--even when ultimately he fails completely to understand what makes Israel tick.

In Lebanon, on the other hand, to the extent the international community steps us--the US, France, a reformed and redeployed UNIFIL--Israel has potential partners. The problem is that the Lebanese government and Lebanese civil society are dysfunctional. After all, that is why Hezbollah took root in the country in the first place. The question, then, is whether and to what extent Israel has really learned the lessons of its bitter previous experience occupying southern Lebanon.

Q. Bottom line?

A. If only there were one. . .