October 8, 2026

Three years after Operation Al-Aqsa Flood, Israeli analyst and writer Ari Shavit has published an article in Yedioth Ahronoth containing a warning that goes far beyond military losses:

Yahya Sinwar’s grand strategic plan continues to threaten Israel’s future.

What does Shavit say?

According to his analysis, Sinwar’s strategy was never limited to military confrontation. Instead, it targeted three fundamental pillars of Israel’s strength:

Separating Israel from the West: Undermining its image and its political and moral standing within Western societies, particularly the United States.

Driving Israel’s elite to emigrate: Transforming Israel from a country that attracts scientists, innovators, and technology entrepreneurs into an environment that pushes skilled professionals and capital owners to consider leaving.

Ending Israeli exceptionalism: Dismantling the perception of Israel as a stable extension of the West in the Middle East and forcing it to confront the region’s realities and conflicts on a permanent basis.

What is even more significant is that Shavit acknowledges that all three threats remain very real.

While discussing Israeli military victories in Khan Younis and Bint Jbeil, he admits that Israel has lost political ground in Washington and New York, and that its international isolation and the hostility it faces from large sections of global public opinion have reached levels that threaten to turn it into a pariah state.

And here lies the strategic paradox:

Israel can destroy cities, assassinate leaders, and declare military victories. But military firepower alone cannot restore eroding political legitimacy, guarantee that its elite will remain in the country, or rebuild its former image in the eyes of the world.

From this perspective, yes, Sinwar succeeded in a fundamental part of his strategic gamble.

Not all of his objectives have been achieved, and the cost has been anything but small. Palestinians in Gaza and Lebanese civilians in southern Lebanon have paid a catastrophic humanitarian price.

But the war has pushed Israel into a crisis extending far beyond Gaza and southern Lebanon, raising long-term questions about its relationship with the West, the future of its society, and its stability.

The Bottom Line:

Sinwar did not need Israel to lose every battle for it to suffer a strategic defeat.

It is enough for Israel’s overwhelming military power to become a political, diplomatic, and economic burden that is increasingly difficult to escape.

Israel assassinated Yahya Sinwar, but it could not assassinate the strategic consequences of the war he initiated.

And this is precisely what Ari Shavit fears: that Sinwar’s strategy will continue to undermine Israel’s future long after his death.