ANALYSIS: Israel Is Cracking from Within — and No One Wants to See It

The Settlers: A Front No One Saw Coming

There is something obscene about what is happening in the West Bank while the world looks the other way. Attacks by Jewish settlers against Palestinian civilians are not a new phenomenon. But their recent escalation has created an additional front that the IDF had not anticipated. Soldiers are being diverted from operational missions to manage—or attempt to manage—violence perpetrated by their own fellow citizens.

Zamir put it bluntly: forces are being “diverted to another front in the midst of an escalation.” The settlers are not a peripheral problem. They have become an operational black hole that is sucking up resources intended for other theaters. An army already stretched to the breaking point finds itself torn between protecting its borders and containing its own extremists.

The Army Between a Rock and a Hard Place

Imagine for a moment the impossible position of a brigade commander in the West Bank. On one side are armed settlers, protected by ministers in the government—Bezalel Smotrich, Itamar Ben Gvir—who view any military intervention against the settlers as national treason. On the other, international legal obligations, Palestinian civilians whose protection falls under the law of occupation, and a chief of staff sounding the alarm.

This commander must make a choice. Every day. And every choice he makes upsets someone who has the power to ruin his career.

When Yair Lapid Says the Words Netanyahu Refuses to Hear

The Israeli opposition is not known for holding back. But the language used in recent days marks a turning point. “Security disaster” is not a typical opposition phrase—it is a diagnosis that, in times of war, borders on an accusation of endangering the nation.

Yair Lapid, Benny Gantz, and the former generals turned politicians—all are coming to the same conclusion: Israel has embarked on a war whose objectives are constantly shifting without the necessary resources to support them. It began with the goal of destroying Hamas. Then it expanded to include Hezbollah. Then Iran. Then the West Bank. Each escalation was presented as necessary. None was accompanied by a proportional increase in resources.

The gulf between objectives and resources

This is the oldest rule of military strategy, the one Clausewitz formulated two centuries ago: never wage a war without the means to see it through to the end. Israel has been violating this rule for months. And the Chief of Staff has just said so publicly—or at least as publicly as one can speak in a cabinet meeting whose leaks are immediately reported by Haaretz.

The question is no longer whether Israel can win on all fronts. The question is how long the illusion of total victory can last before the structures collapse.

U.S. Support That Varies Widely

Donald Trump has promised Israel unconditional support. But in Trumpian vocabulary, “unconditional” means “as long as it serves my interests.” The U.S. administration is simultaneously pushing Israel toward a confrontation with Iran and toward negotiations whose contours remain unclear. The U.S. peace plan—denied, then confirmed, then denied again—resembles a strategic fog in which even the most seasoned analysts lose their way.

And Israel is beginning to lose influence over U.S. decisions regarding Iran—a reversal that Haaretz documents with clinical precision. When your main ally single-handedly decides the timeline for the confrontation with your main enemy, you are no longer a strategic partner—you are a tool.

The Trap of Dependence

Netanyahu has staked his political survival on the Washington-Jerusalem axis. Every Israeli military decision over the past eighteen months has been calibrated based on what Trump would accept, encourage, or ignore. This calculation comes at a cost: when the ally changes his mind—and Trump changes his mind as easily as others change their shirts—Israel finds itself engaged in operations whose diplomatic cover can evaporate overnight.

And yet, Netanyahu continues to play this game. Because the alternative—admitting that the strategy is unsustainable—would mean the end of his coalition and, most likely, the end of his political career.

Body and Mind at Breaking Point

We talk about strategy, geopolitics, and parliamentary coalitions. But behind every debate, there’s a 34-year-old reservist who missed the birth of his second child because he was stationed on the Lebanese border. There’s a mother who runs her business alone because her husband has left for his fifth mobilization period. There is a medical student whose studies have been on hold for a year and a half.

These people are not abstractions. They are the pillars of Israeli society. And they are cracking under the strain. The Chief of Staff said it: “The reservists won’t hold out.” Not “may not hold out.” Won’t hold out.

When the Social Contract Cracks

Military service in Israel is not just a legal obligation. It is a founding pact. Everyone serves, everyone shares the burden, everyone is part of the national project. This pact is broken. When 13% of the male population of draft age is exempted for religious reasons while the rest is worn down on four fronts, the nation’s foundation crumbles.

The protests by families of reservists are not the whims of anti-militarist leftists. They are cries of alarm coming from the very heart of Zionist society—from people who believe in the state, who serve the state, and who see that the state is abusing their loyalty.

Eighteen months and still no clear victory

What does it mean to “win” in Gaza? The question, raised in the very first weeks of the offensive, remains unanswered eighteen months later. Hamas has not been eradicated. Not all the hostages have been released. The civilian population of Gaza has suffered destruction on a scale that historians will take decades to document. And the Israeli army continues to operate in a territory where every building destroyed spawns ten new fighters.

The very definition of victory has shifted so many times that it has become unrecognizable. First, destroy Hamas. Then, dismantle its military capabilities. Then, create a “buffer zone.” Then, control the Philadelphia Corridor. Each objective achieved reveals another, like a Russian nesting doll of endless war.

The Invisible Cost of Prolonged Occupation

Every additional week in Gaza costs Israel lives, money, international legitimacy, and—perhaps most seriously—strategic coherence. The forces deployed in Gaza are forces that are missing in the north. The budgets absorbed by Gaza are budgets that are lacking for missile defense against Iran. The political attention consumed by Gaza is attention that is lacking to manage the reservist crisis.

Everything is connected. And everything is deteriorating simultaneously.

Hezbollah Has Not Disappeared

The elimination of Hezbollah leaders was presented as a major strategic success. And to a certain extent, it was. But confusing decapitation with destruction is a mistake that Israeli intelligence agencies know all too well—having made it time and again. Hezbollah is weakened. It is not dead. And a weakened Hezbollah that remains armed with precision-guided missiles continues to pose an existential threat to northern Israel.

The Lebanese border requires a permanent military presence. Reservists. More reservists. Always the same reservists—the very ones the Chief of Staff says won’t hold out.

The Iranian factor in the background

Behind Hezbollah stands Iran. Behind every rocket fired from Lebanon lies a supply chain that runs through Tehran. Israel knows this. Iran knows it. And both know that the other knows. This shared awareness creates a latent escalation that could tip over at any moment—especially when an unpredictable U.S. president decides to change the rules of the game in the middle of the match.

When Every Tactical Victory Contributes to Strategic Defeat

Israel wins battles. Regularly. Effectively. Its special forces are among the best in the world. Its intelligence services have demonstrated a capacity for surgical strikes that commands respect even from its adversaries. But winning battles and winning a war are two radically different things.

Every successful operation in Gaza reinforces a sense of tactical invincibility. And this sense of invincibility is precisely what prevents strategic debate from taking place. Why question the overall strategy when yesterday’s operation was a success? Why listen to the chief of staff when drone footage shows targets destroyed with precision?

Because the precision of a strike does not make up for the lack of an exit strategy.

History has a name for this

The Americans in Vietnam. The Soviets in Afghanistan. The Americans in Iraq. Each time, the most advanced military power of its era became bogged down in an asymmetric conflict that it was winning on the ground but losing in the long run. Each time, the warning signs were raised too late—or raised in time and ignored.

Lieutenant General Zamir is sounding the alarm now. The question is whether anyone at the Beit Aghion residence intends to listen.

The Art of Turning Every Crisis into a Strategy for Survival

Benjamin Netanyahu is a political prodigy. No contemporary democratic leader has demonstrated such an ability to survive crises that would have destroyed any other leader. Corruption trials, massive protests, the failure of October 7, internal divisions—in his hands, every disaster becomes a reason to stay in power. Leaving now would be irresponsible. Changing captains in the middle of a storm would be suicidal. Only he can steer the ship.

The argument works. It has always worked. Until the moment it no longer does.

The Calculation That No Longer Adds Up

The current coalition rests on a balance as sophisticated as it is fragile: the ultra-Orthodox provide the seats, the settlers provide the ideology, and Netanyahu provides the experience. But when the chief of staff says that the reservists won’t hold out without conscription of the ultra-Orthodox, the balance becomes a binary choice. Either we conscript the Haredim and the coalition falls apart, or we don’t conscript them and the army collapses.

There is no third option. And Netanyahu knows it.

Two Israels That No Longer Speak to Each Other

There is the Israel that fights and the Israel that prays. The Israel that buries its soldiers and the Israel that protests so that its sons will never have to wear a uniform. This divide is nothing new. But the war has turned it into a chasm. When a reservist learns that a young ultra-Orthodox man his own age is studying peacefully in a yeshiva while he is risking his life in Gaza for the fifth time, something breaks that will not be easily mended.

Societies do not die because of their external enemies. They die because of their internal contradictions. Rome did not fall under the blows of the barbarians—it collapsed from within before the barbarians even breached its gates.

The National Fabric Put to the Test

Israel has always drawn its strength from a sense of unity in the face of threat. The famous “ein brera”—“no choice”—which justifies every sacrifice, every mobilization, every individual renunciation in the name of the collective. But “ein brera” only works if everyone participates. When 13% of the population is exempt, “no choice” becomes “no choice for some.” And that distinction poisons everything.

The Internal Debate That the International Media Ignores

International coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is all too often reduced to a binary confrontation: pro-Israel versus pro-Palestine. This framework completely obscures the internal Israeli debate—a debate marked by a level of intensity and candor that few democracies at war could tolerate. The fact that a chief of staff can publicly state that the army is headed for collapse without being fired within the hour is, in itself, a sign of remarkable democratic vitality.

But this democratic vitality is in danger. The voices raising the alarm are increasingly marginalized by a security-driven narrative that treats any dissent as treason.

The Israeli press, the last line of defense

Haaretz publishes Zamir’s warnings. Yedioth Ahronoth documents the exhaustion of reservists. Channel 12 airs testimonies from families. This free press is the last space where reality can still be described unfiltered. And that is precisely why certain members of Netanyahu’s coalition want to silence it.

When a country at war begins to attack its own whistleblowers, the most serious alarm is not the one sounded by the chief of staff. It is the one that no one hears anymore.

The Specter of Direct Confrontation

Everything at stake in Gaza, Lebanon, the West Bank, and within Netanyahu’s coalition—all of it is overshadowed by a single issue: Iran. Iran’s nuclear program is moving forward. U.S.-Iranian negotiations are stalling. And Israel is gradually losing its ability to influence the timeline of the confrontation.

Haaretz documents this with chilling precision: the window for Israeli influence over U.S. decisions regarding Iran is closing. Trump has his own calculations—calculations in which Israel is just one variable among many, not the central one.

The scenario no one wants to write

What happens if Iran reaches the nuclear threshold while Israel is bogged down on four fronts with exhausted reservists and a coalition paralyzed by the issue of conscription? This scenario is no longer a think tank hypothesis. It is a trajectory already in motion. And the Chief of Staff knows this—which is why he’s sounding ten alarm bells, not three.

And yet, the Israeli political debate remains focused on Gaza, on the hostages, on the elections—on the urgent rather than the essential.

Time is working against Israel

In any prolonged asymmetric conflict, time is the weapon of the weaker side. Hamas does not need to win. It needs to endure. Hezbollah does not need to defeat the IDF. It needs to survive. Iran does not need to strike. It needs to let time do its work while Israel wears itself down.

Every month that passes without a resolution erodes Israel’s capabilities—military, economic, diplomatic, and psychological. Reservists are aging. Budgets are dwindling. International isolation is deepening. Collective fatigue is setting in. And meanwhile, Israel’s adversaries need only wait.

The war economy that no one publicly quantifies

The economic cost of this multi-front war is colossal. Tourism is in free fall. Foreign investment is declining. The tech sector is disrupted by the mobilization of reservists—the very engineers and developers who drive Israel’s economic miracle and who now spend months in uniform rather than in code rooms. The “Start-Up Nation” cannot simultaneously be a permanent “War Nation.”

History’s verdict is being written right now

Israel is not losing a war. Israel is discovering that it cannot win all wars at once—especially when the society waging them is itself at war with itself.

Lieutenant General Zamir had the courage to name what politicians refuse to admit. The reservists won’t hold out. The army needs reinforcements. Universal conscription is no longer an ideological choice—it is a necessity for national survival. And the coalition that is blocking this conscription for electoral reasons bears a historic responsibility for which it will one day have to answer.

The Choice That Can No Longer Be Postponed

There comes a moment in the history of every nation at war when political calculations must yield to strategic reality. Israel is at that moment. The question is no longer whether universal conscription will happen—it will happen, because the alternative is the collapse described by Zamir. The question is how many more reservists will have to crack, how many more families will have to be torn apart, how many more fronts will have to erupt before this inevitable choice is finally made.

Ten alarm signals have been sounded in the night sky over Jerusalem. The eleventh will be the sound of a structure giving way.

Signed, Jacques PJ Provost