Israeli security doctrine is undergoing a transformation that goes beyond a reassessment of military instruments. It encompasses the role of force, the geographical scope of security, and the relationship between security and national identity. The transformation became apparent in practice after 7 October 2023, before some of its underlying principles were explicitly articulated in Netanyahu’s 2026 document.

The emphasis in Israeli security thinking is shifting from managing threats and deterring adversaries towards preventing potential threats from materialising. This shift expands the scope of offensive initiative and preventive operations, while deterrence and early warning remain core instruments of national security.

Forward defence reconfigures the relationship between territorial boundaries and military power. Threat assessments provide a rationale for extending the security perimeter beyond internationally recognised borders, potentially turning buffer zones into enduring points of friction and escalation.

Comparing Hayman’s analysis, Netanyahu’s document and publications by the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) reveals disagreements within Israeli strategic thinking about the sources of security and the limits of military force. These are particularly evident in the tensions between military superiority and political settlement, and between offensive initiative and regional stability.

The Palestinian question is central to the transformation of Israeli security doctrine. The diminished recognition of Palestinian national distinctiveness, together with settlement expansion, reinforces an approach based on territorial control and population management while narrowing the prospects for a political settlement grounded in rights and sovereignty.

Treating Arab state weakness as a strategic opportunity creates a profound security paradox. Regional fragmentation may offer short-term military advantages, but it can also produce more fragile security environments, increase the likelihood of repeated intervention and undermine the prospects for stable security arrangements.

Incorporating settlements, heritage and Jewish identity into national security principles gives these elements significance beyond their symbolic and political roles. It draws national identity more closely into decisions about the state’s military and geographical priorities.

Israel’s pursuit of greater autonomy in arms production and technology raises questions about resource constraints and long-term sustainability. Increasing defence expenditure and expanding domestic capabilities require substantial human and financial investment, even as Israel remains dependent on alliances and international networks.

Changes in Israeli security policy have direct implications for Jordan, Palestine, Syria and Lebanon. They affect the future of the West Bank, the role of buffer zones and respect for regional sovereignty, and could widen the gap between formal political agreements and security practices on the ground.

The central dilemma is that military superiority may cease to serve primarily as a means of securing the state and instead drive an increasingly difficult-to-contain process of strategic expansion. The wider the area Israel seeks to control in the name of security, the greater the commitments, threats and conflicts it must manage.

Introduction

During protracted wars, security doctrines can change before states formally acknowledge the transformation. Military decisions accumulate, the range of acceptable uses of force expands, and measures initially adopted as exceptions become established security practices. When these changes redefine the relationships between war and peace, borders and sovereignty, and national identity and sources of power, the issue extends beyond military strategy. It concerns the character of the state itself and the role it seeks to assume in its regional environment.

This question provides a starting point for examining the paper published on 12 October 2026 by retired Major General Tamir Hayman, Director of Israel’s Institute for National Security Studies (INSS), titled “The ‘New’ National Security Concept: Conceptualization and Questions for Discussion.” Hayman seeks to identify the principles that appear to have guided Israeli security practice since 7 October 2023. He argues that Israel’s conception of national security is changing, with its underlying principles emerging through practice before Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu articulated his own vision on 18 October 2026.

Netanyahu’s office released “The National Security Concept of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu” on 18 October 2026, nine days before the Knesset elections scheduled for 27 October. The document adds an important dimension to the debate by stating principles against which Hayman’s interpretation of Israeli security practice can be compared. Read together, the texts converge in their emphasis on preventing threats, offensive initiative and enhanced defensive capabilities. They differ, however, in their purpose, status and the conclusions that can reasonably be drawn from them.

Hayman’s paper is significant both because of his institutional position—he headed Israel’s Military Intelligence Directorate (Aman) from 2018 to 2021—and because of the debate it has prompted within Israeli strategic thought. It examines the role of military force, the limits of Israel’s security perimeter and the future of its relations with Palestinians, Arab states and the United States. The analysis ultimately raises a more fundamental question: What kind of state does Israel seek to become after 7 October?

The Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) assumed its present form in 2006. Its origins lie in the Center for Strategic Studies, established at Tel Aviv University in 1978 after the October 1973 war, which had exposed serious failures in intelligence assessments and the assumptions of Israel’s security establishment. The centre subsequently became the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies before taking its present name. Today, the INSS is an independent, policy-oriented research institution combining academic inquiry with military, intelligence and diplomatic expertise to inform debate and decision-making on Israeli national security.

The history of the institute is pertinent to the current debate. Its predecessor emerged amid a crisis of security thinking following the 1973 war; today, the institute is grappling with similar questions after the failures of 7 October 2023. Both episodes have placed intelligence assumptions, military doctrine and political decision-making under scrutiny. The present debate, however, also concerns the identity of the state and the limits of war as a means of providing security.

Hayman’s intervention also needs to be read against the evolution of debate within the INSS. In March 2025, the institute published guidelines on national security doctrine and policy for 2025–2026, to which Hayman contributed. The document advocated combining military strength with regional and international partnerships, maintaining recognised borders and reinforcing the state’s Jewish and democratic character. In August 2026, Ofer Shelah, head of the institute’s National Security Policy Program, criticised the logic of the emerging security strategy and warned that prolonged warfare could entail substantial economic, military and political costs.

Against this background, Hayman seeks to identify and critically examine the transformation already visible in security practice. Taken together, these publications show substantive disagreements within Israel’s national security research community over the sources of security, the limits of military force and the relationship between military superiority and political stability.

From threat management to preventing threats from emerging

Hayman infers ten principles from current Israeli practice. They include prioritising Jewish identity over democratic considerations; treating peace as a temporary instrument; viewing Arab state weakness as potentially advantageous; normalising prolonged warfare and offensive initiative; expanding forward defence and settlement activity; and seeking greater strategic and industrial autonomy from the United States.

Hayman stresses that these principles constitute a subjective theoretical reconstruction, deliberately overstated to expose the logic of current security policies and stimulate debate. His reconstructed doctrine must therefore be distinguished from his criticism of its implications and from policies that can be independently examined and verified.

In our assessment, the most consequential shift is from managing threats to seeking to prevent their emergence. Traditional Israeli security thinking emphasised deterrence, early warning and decisive military victory, while allowing preventive and pre-emptive operations in particular circumstances. The framework reconstructed by Hayman extends the possible scope of intervention to capabilities that might become future threats and assigns sustained priority to offensive initiative, rather than waiting for a threat to develop or seeking to contain it.

The implications concern not only the scale of force but also when it is used and under what conditions. Deterrence seeks to shape an adversary’s calculations and discourage particular actions. A preventive approach, by contrast, broadens the possible use of force against emerging capabilities and gives greater weight to assessments of future threats in military decision-making.

Without clear criteria for identifying threats and assessing whether they have materialised, this expanded approach could lead to operations against capabilities that do not yet present an imminent danger. As the definition of a threat comes to encompass future potential, the temporal boundaries of military action become less distinct and the likelihood of repeated operations increases. Destroying an existing capability may be followed by efforts to prevent its reconstitution, potentially initiating another round of military action.

The criteria for evaluating security success also change. Under an approach centred on deterrence and stability, success is assessed by the ability to reduce the likelihood of war and prolong periods of calm. When eliminating potential threats becomes an enduring objective, successive operational achievements may coexist with the persistence or expansion of conflict. This raises a fundamental question about the relationship between military superiority and political outcomes: does destroying adversaries’ capabilities create a more stable regional order, or produce new forms of threat that prompt further intervention?

Netanyahu’s document expresses this shift more directly. It gives priority to preventing threats and undertaking offensive action over containment and defence, including preventive strikes against emerging threats. Yet it retains deterrence and early warning as core principles. The change therefore concerns the relative priority assigned to different instruments and the greater emphasis on offensive initiative, rather than the abandonment of the traditional framework.

From defending borders to expanding the security perimeter

A second shift concerns the geography of security. Hayman examines “forward defence”: establishing security zones beyond state borders, moving confrontation into an adversary’s territory and incorporating military deployments, settlement activity and civilian communities into defensive planning. The areas he discusses include Gaza, southern Lebanon, Syrian territory and the West Bank.

The principal danger is that the security perimeter becomes a flexible area defined by threat assessments and operational needs. Military assessments then shape the extent of deployment and the areas Israel seeks to control or occupy militarily. Security is thus conceived through an expanding perimeter extending beyond internationally recognised borders.

This approach contains a strategic contradiction. As Israel expands the areas it considers essential to its security, the territory it must protect grows, as do potential points of friction with local populations, armed actors and neighbouring states. These tensions can generate further security demands, which may in turn be cited to justify additional deployments. If institutionalised, forward defence could become a recurring cycle in which territorial expansion undertaken to mitigate threats generates new sources of friction and escalation.

The dilemma becomes sharper when civilian communities and settlement activity are incorporated into defence planning. Civilian presence in conflict zones creates continuing protection obligations and blurs the boundary between military functions and political or demographic objectives. The debate consequently shifts from defending borders to determining which territories are incorporated into Israel’s political and security sphere.

Netanyahu’s document reflects this approach in its principle of defence, which combines repelling an invasion at the border with establishing buffer zones “when necessary”. By explicitly including buffer-zone deployments among the instruments of defence, the text raises questions about their geographical limits, duration and conditions for termination. Assessing this conception of security therefore also requires asking who determines when such deployments are necessary and by what criteria that necessity is judged to have ended.

The Palestinian question and Arab states in Israel’s security outlook

One of the most sensitive principles in Hayman’s reconstruction concerns the political foundations of the Palestinian question. He describes an outlook that denies the distinct historical and political character of the Palestinian national movement, treating the Palestinian question instead as part of a continuing Arab conflict with Israel. Within this outlook, an independent Palestinian state is considered incompatible with Israel’s security, while settlement expansion and limited Palestinian self-government are advanced as alternatives for managing the existing situation.

The significance of this formulation lies in how it defines the conflict itself. When Palestinians are depicted as part of a continuing Arab antagonism and their distinct national identity is marginalised, political settlement loses its place as a possible means of ending the conflict. When the Palestinian question is recognised as a national and political issue, by contrast, rights, sovereignty, borders and settlement remain part of the strategic debate, despite profound disagreement over their meaning and implementation.

An important distinction is required: Hayman presents this as one possible principle of an emerging doctrine and subjects it to critical scrutiny. The wider analytical concern is that incorporating the denial of Palestinian national identity into a security conception makes territorial control and population management potential substitutes for political settlement. This could prolong conflict over sovereignty, rights and legitimacy.

Hayman also reconstructs a consequential view of Arab states as weak or artificial entities lacking cohesive national foundations, whose fragmentation or continued weakness might serve Israel’s strategic interests. Such reasoning would redefine relations with neighbouring states around the perceived advantages of their weakness rather than the benefits of their stability.

This reasoning assumes that fragmented political entities and divided societies allow Israel greater military and political freedom of action than states with cohesive institutions capable of taking sovereign decisions. Yet fragile environments commonly generate smuggling networks, armed groups and competing centres of power, while governments have less capacity to enforce security arrangements or honour political commitments.

A strategic paradox follows: a neighbouring state’s weakness may yield short-term tactical advantages but undermine the prospects for stable security arrangements. A state that cannot exercise effective control over its territory may be unable to secure its borders, regulate armed actors or implement agreements, making external military intervention more frequent and costly.

If a preference for weak Arab states became an enduring security principle, it could therefore generate the very conditions used to justify continuing intervention. It would also conflict with the emphasis placed by parts of Israel’s strategic establishment on cooperation with stable Arab states and the development of regional security and economic partnerships.

A related asymmetry emerges in the treatment of Palestinian political and national rights. Their limited place in Netanyahu’s stated principles contrasts with the inclusion of settlement activity among the elements associated with national identity and cohesion. This juxtaposition underscores the significance assigned to territory within Israel’s security conception, while providing less guidance on Palestinian sovereignty and rights. The contrast is especially apparent when Netanyahu’s document is read alongside the INSS’s 2025 framework, which gave greater attention to political and geographical separation between Israelis and Palestinians.

The INSS’s 2025 document assigns a different place to the Palestinian question within Israeli security calculations. Although sceptical about achieving a final settlement in the near term, it advocates steps towards political, geographical and demographic separation between Israelis and Palestinians. It warns that settlement expansion deep into Palestinian territory could create a one-state reality with implications for Israel’s Jewish and democratic character. It also links Israel’s security to recognised borders, existing peace agreements and regional partnerships.

Netanyahu’s document, by contrast, emphasises military initiative and buffer zones while placing settlement activity among the foundations of national identity and cohesion. It offers no comparably detailed political framework for the Palestinian question. The distinction concerns competing conceptions of security and sovereignty: the INSS framework assigns political and geographical separation a role in achieving longer-term security, while Netanyahu’s document prioritises military superiority and threat prevention without specifying how these instruments relate to a future political settlement.

National identity and the limits of power

The relationship between security doctrine and national identity is central to Hayman’s argument. He distinguishes three interrelated levels: national identity, which defines the state’s nature and values; the national security concept, which translates that identity into relatively stable strategic principles; and security policy, through which governments implement those principles according to their political and ideological priorities.

On this basis, Hayman argues that a fundamental change in the national security concept may indicate a wider transformation in Israeli national identity. This possibility is especially evident in the principles he reconstructs when Jewish identity is given priority over democratic equality and war is treated as a condition intrinsic to the state’s continued existence rather than an exception.

This framework clarifies the relationship between security and domestic politics. A security doctrine shapes the threats for which a state prepares and influences the allocation of resources, the position of the military establishment, executive authority and relations between the state and its citizens. When mobilisation becomes continuous, security concerns assume a more prominent role in public debate, civilian institutions and economic priorities.

The distinction between a traditional and an emerging doctrine nevertheless requires historical qualification. Israeli practice has long included preventive and pre-emptive force, military intervention beyond its borders, and occupation and settlement policies, including during the 1982 Lebanon war and subsequent operations. Important elements of the doctrine Hayman discusses therefore have established precedents in Israel’s strategic history.

We therefore interpret the current change primarily in terms of the greater centrality of these instruments, the widening scope of their application and the political and ideological justifications accompanying them. Earlier practices provided precedents for force and territorial control; the significance of the current period lies in the possibility that some of those practices are being elevated into governing principles of national security.

Distinguishing continuity from change prevents the current debate from being reduced to the consequences of 7 October alone. It places the shock of 2023, and the justifications it generated for expanded uses of force, within the longer development of Israeli security policy.

The link between identity and security also appears in Netanyahu’s principle concerning the “spirit of the people”, which brings together Jewish nationhood, democratic government, readiness to fight, settlement and heritage. Their inclusion raises questions about how these commitments are prioritised when they conflict. The passage does not, however, explicitly establish the subordination of democracy to Jewish identity. Nor does its reference to settlement specify the geographical scope of the activity it endorses, although it assigns settlement a role beyond immediate military considerations.

National identity thus becomes a source of security priorities, bringing land, settlement and heritage into considerations that extend beyond culture and symbolism. Where territorial control is treated as a component of national security, the objectives of identity formation and military policy may become increasingly intertwined.

Strategic autonomy and resource constraints

Hayman also examines proposals to reduce reliance on the United States and expand Israel’s industrial, military and technological autonomy. In his reconstruction, the underlying assumption is that dependence on great powers can restrict Israel’s freedom of military action, while domestic capabilities provide greater scope to maintain military superiority.

Ofer Shelah’s August 2026 study examines the economic and social implications of this approach through a critique of what he terms the strategy of “Greater Sparta”. He warns that prolonged warfare, expanding security zones and greater reliance on domestic arms production may impose costs that Israel’s economy and society struggle to sustain. He points to pressures on reserve forces, economic activity and social cohesion, drawing on estimates that suggest a tension between sustained increases in defence spending and economic growth.

Netanyahu’s document, in contrast, identifies higher defence expenditure, stronger domestic defence production and technological autonomy as necessary to preserve superiority and prevent threats. The disagreement concerns the relationship between resources and security objectives. Netanyahu presents greater capabilities as a prerequisite for security; Shelah questions whether the economy and society can sustain them. The pursuit of maximum military power could therefore erode the economic and human resources on which that power depends.

A further paradox concerns Israel’s relationship with external partners. Wider military and territorial commitments increase its need for resources and partnerships, even as the emerging conception of security seeks to reduce external dependence. If confrontations become protracted, this tension could deepen the gap between strategic objectives and the resources available to achieve them.

This disagreement is also visible in the treatment of alliances. The INSS’s 2025 framework regarded Israel’s special strategic relationship with the United States as a major strategic asset. It connected national security to participation in the global economy, international support and cooperation with Arab states. Netanyahu’s document gives greater emphasis to domestic arms production and advanced technologies while continuing to recognise the importance of regional and international alliances.

The central difference lies in the degree of external dependence considered acceptable and the capabilities thought necessary to develop domestically. Yet reduced dependence on imported armaments requires investment and industrial and technological capacity that rely in turn on international networks of finance, knowledge and trade. Greater military autonomy may consequently entail new forms of economic and technological interdependence rather than complete self-sufficiency.

Netanyahu’s document: From strategic concept to political declaration

Beyond these areas of convergence, Netanyahu’s document presents a political account of the war’s outcomes, crediting Israel with averting nuclear annihilation and dismantling Iranian encirclement. These claims help justify revising the national security concept by presenting the government’s claimed military achievements as the basis for new principles. Their rhetorical and political function within the document must be distinguished from the separate questions of factual accuracy and the durability of the outcomes asserted.

The definition of victory is particularly revealing. Netanyahu’s document associates victory with breaking an adversary’s strength and confidence in its ability to pose a significant threat. It describes the desired result in terms of the adversary’s capabilities and will but says comparatively little about the political arrangements that should follow hostilities. This returns us to Hayman’s central question: under what conditions can military achievements become a political settlement that reduces the likelihood of renewed war?

The document also adds a “struggle over consciousness” to the instruments of national security, alongside artificial intelligence and efforts to counter anti-Zionism and antisemitism internationally. This extends the field of confrontation to perceptions, legitimacy and Israel’s international image. Bringing anti-Zionism and antisemitism together under one heading nevertheless raises a distinct analytical question, because criticism of a political project and hostility towards Jews refer to different phenomena. Assessment of this provision requires attention to how these categories are applied to criticism of Israeli policies.

From declared principles to institutionalised doctrine

Hayman’s contribution is to expose the tension between military security and the broader foundations of national security. He demonstrates that decisions about military force rest on political and ideological assumptions and that changes in military practice can reflect changes in how the state understands itself and its regional role.

Netanyahu’s document provides an explicit political statement against which Hayman’s reconstruction can be assessed. It does not, however, establish the extent to which the declared principles have been institutionally adopted. A durable change in national security doctrine would need to be examined through military planning, resource allocation and decision-making, with a distinction maintained between announced policy priorities and binding operational rules.

This distinction matters when objectives compete for limited resources or conflict in practice. Sustained readiness, expanded domestic production and technological superiority require considerable financial and human resources. Greater military freedom of action may also place pressure on alliances that the document seeks to reinforce. The principles themselves do not specify a clear hierarchy of priorities or a method for resolving these trade-offs.

A further limitation in Hayman’s framing is its predominant focus on the risks that an emerging doctrine poses to Israel’s democracy, economy, external relations and long-term future. Its implications for Palestinians and Arab states receive attention, but would benefit from fuller analysis through the lenses of sovereignty, rights and regional stability. From a regional perspective, the question concerns not only the costs to Israel but also the consequences for societies affected by the areas of control and intervention contemplated in the doctrine.

Two related but distinct questions follow: to what extent could the doctrine increase security for Israel, and to what extent might it produce insecurity for neighbouring states and societies? Measures that reduce an immediate threat may simultaneously have longer-term territorial and political consequences that weaken regional stability. Evaluating those consequences requires moving beyond operational effectiveness to assess sustained strategic effects.

Implications for Jordan and the wider region

A security outlook that denies the distinct national character of the Palestinian question and treats it as part of a continuing Arab–Israeli conflict extends the political and regional dimensions of confrontation. Continued control over Palestinian territories and rejection of an independent Palestinian state may place relations with Arab states under additional strain, particularly amid settlement expansion and declining prospects for political resolution.

Jordan is especially affected because its national security, political stability and demographic considerations are closely connected to the Palestinian question and the future of the West Bank. Related concerns extend to Egypt and to the ability of existing regional relationships to withstand a widening gap between formal political agreements and security practices on the ground.

In Syria and Lebanon, the problem is particularly acute because security challenges intersect with sovereignty, the state’s monopoly on the use of force and institutional reconstruction. Long-term Israeli military presence or unilateral security arrangements could complicate attempts to create stable conditions along their borders. The consequences could be more severe where external intervention intersects with domestic rivalries and multiple local and regional actors.

Reading Hayman alongside Netanyahu makes it possible to identify issues for monitoring: the duration and extent of buffer zones; settlement activity and changes to territorial realities; the treatment of Palestinian rights in proposed arrangements; and the limits of reciprocal alliance commitments. Such monitoring should assess the implications of policies for sovereignty and stability without assuming that Netanyahu’s text sets out a specific military plan against Jordan.

Jordan’s circumstances bring three dimensions together: security along its western border; the political and demographic implications of the Palestinian question; and the regional arrangements underpinning Jordanian–Israeli relations. If Israeli security considerations increasingly justify expanding control or redefining defensive zones, pressure could grow across all three dimensions, particularly if prospects for a West Bank settlement deteriorate further. Assessing these risks requires separating the document’s explicit provisions, reasonable inferences from existing practices and possible future scenarios.

Military power and political purpose

Taken together, Hayman’s paper and Netanyahu’s document raise a question extending beyond Israel’s military doctrine: what kind of regional order might emerge if this trajectory continues? If entrenched, an approach emphasising preventive warfare, forward defence and settlement activity could expand the geographical and political space deemed necessary for Israeli security. Borders could become more dependent on relative power, while security arrangements increasingly serve to reshape regional relations.

We argue that the principal strategic shift is from seeking security within a given regional environment towards continuously reshaping that environment according to Israel’s security requirements. This changes the relationship between means and ends. Military operations risk becoming an ongoing activity justified by successive assessments of renewed threats rather than instruments directed towards clearly defined political objectives.

Reading the two documents together enables critical examination of the assumptions reconstructed by Hayman alongside the principles explicitly declared by Netanyahu. Both emphasise initiative and prevention, but their treatment of national identity, Palestinians and Arab states must be distinguished according to whether a claim is an analytical inference or an official formulation. This distinction is essential to an Arab assessment of the implications for Palestinian rights, state sovereignty and regional stability, as well as the costs borne by Israel itself.

Military superiority may enable a state to destroy immediate threats, yet the emergence of new threats raises the question of the political purpose served by repeated force. This is the dilemma of the emerging doctrine: the greater the territory and range of activities Israel seeks to control in the name of security, the more commitments and conflicts it may generate. Military superiority could thereby become a driver of strategic expansion whose limits and costs prove increasingly difficult to contain.

References

Hayman, Tamir. “The ‘New’ National Security Concept: Conceptualization and Questions for Discussion.” Special Publication. Institute for National Security Studies (INSS), October 12, 2026. https://www.inss.org.il/publication/new-concept/.

Hayman, Tamir, Boaz Rakocz, and Anat Kurz, eds. The State of Israel’s National Security: Doctrine and Policy Guidelines for 2025–2026. Institute for National Security Studies (INSS), March 2, 2025. https://www.inss.org.il/publication/policy-2025/.

Institute for National Security Studies (INSS). “History.” Accessed October 20, 2026. https://www.inss.org.il/history/.

Israel. Office of the State Comptroller and Ombudsman. The Absence of a National Security Concept and Its Impact on Key Processes at the Political Level and in the IDF. Special Report, November 11, 2025. https://library.mevaker.gov.il/sites/DigitalLibrary/Pages/Reports/9155-1.aspx.

Israel. Prime Minister’s Office. תפיסת הביטחון בנימין נתניהו ראש הממשלה [National Security Concept of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu]. Jerusalem, October 2026. Published October 18, 2026. https://www.gov.il/he/pages/event-security181026.

Shelah, Ofer. “‘The New Security Strategy’—Flawed Logic and a Threat to National Security.” INSS Insight, no. 2180. Institute for National Security Studies (INSS), August 18, 2026. https://www.inss.org.il/publication/new-security-concept/.