We did not make a mistake when we took a risk and decided to strike Iran in an effort to bring down the regime. We also did not make a mistake in trying to enlist the United States and push it toward such a joint move. The most significant mistake we made, and the one we are not talking about, is that we convinced ourselves there could be gains without costs.
Yes, Netanyahu is not stupid. But he is not a magician either.
For years, we embraced the idea that through some extraordinary combination of long-standing friendship, flawless strategic vision and the love of Zion held by one leader or another, we could maximize our gains, turn from allies into true friends, and become a country that is both a significant power and beloved by all the relevant actors.
That was an illusion.
We fell for the geopolitical equivalent of “click here and you can earn thousands of shekels a month with no risk and no commitment.”
In other words, we tried to believe we had overcome the most basic law of economics: any increase in the possibility of significant gain comes with increased risk. Trying to increase the reward without increasing the risk is simply a failure to recognize reality. That, in practice, is what Netanyahu did, and what we failed to internalize.
For better and worse reasons, Netanyahu took the relatively solid stock of bipartisan support in the United States, even if it occasionally slapped us in the face, and turned it into a single, risky stock of one-party support.
A stock? Donald Trump’s support is more like crypto. That is the level of volatility.
This was Netanyahu’s most significant move on the international stage. Since the start of the war, it has produced quite a few possibilities and advantages for Israel. But Israeli public discourse is incapable of handling complexity and seeing both sides of the coin.
Still, the writing was on the wall. The bet on Trump was a dramatic gamble. Like crypto, it can rise very quickly, and crash just as fast. Then rise again, and crash again.
The future of the Jewish state must not depend on the whim of one person, whether he is more capricious or less.
Which brings us, again and again, back to reality, and to what really matters. As Machiavelli wrote, what ultimately keeps states alive is the fact that they have a significant group of people willing to fight for them.
Not foreign presidents who happen to like us. Not mercenary armies. Not unreliable crutches.
In the end, what will determine the fate of the State of Israel is whether it has enough people willing to contribute to it and fight for it.
And that very asset is the one we treat as self-evident.