Shai Feldman
October 7, 2025, marks two years since Hamas’ horrific attack on Israel’s southern communities that left 1,200 Israelis dead and some 251 Israelis taken hostage. This is an appropriate moment to explore what led to that event and especially how the evolution of Israel’s national security policy during the years prior to October 7 may have contributed to the horrific surprise that it suffered that day. No less important is an examination of the parameters and characteristics of the Gaza war that followed and whether a real opportunity exists to bring that terrible war to an end.
Israel, as is well known, does not have a formal process of articulating its defense strategy. It has no equivalents to the US Quadrennial Defense Review, the DOD’s Roles and Missions report, or the Annual Message of the Secretary of Defense to the US Congress. In the absence of such documents, Israeli strategy must be deduced from numerous, sometimes haphazard statements made by its leaders and senior defense officials, and more often from actions already taken.
As Israel’s first defense strategy was formulated during the country’s early years, it was largely informed by the experiences of Israeli leaders and members of its elite who survived the Second World War and the 1948 War of Independence. Not surprisingly, the basic assumption that guided these leaders was that their embryonic country was confronted by numerous adversaries who sought its destruction. Surrounded by hostile Sunni Arab states, Israel adopted a strategy to withstand these challenges by developing and maintaining a qualitative edge in as many facets of national defense as possible.
One corollary of this perspective was that the country’s numerical inferiority would mean the Israeli state would have to be proactive and avert threats before they materialized. Consequently, in the early 1950s, its defense forces pursued a highly aggressive “active deterrence” retaliation-centered posture against Palestinian terrorists (the Fedayeen) who infiltrated Israel from Egypt and Jordan. It also adopted “preventive wars” and “preemptive wars” as two offensive principles of its national defense strategy, launching such wars in 1956 and 1967, respectively.
Israel’s triumph in 1967 and its ability to withstand the serious challenges presented by Egypt’s conduct in the 1970 War of Attrition and its surprise launching of the 1973 October War, persuaded President Anwar Sadat that the conflict with Israel could not be resolved militarily. Thus, in November 1977, he launched his historic peace initiative, becoming the first Arab leader to travel to Jerusalem since independence. With the strongest and most populous Arab state removing itself any potential Arab coalition, many Israelis now concluded that they no longer faced existential threats. Indeed, some now went so far as to attempt more ambitious objectives.
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