December 27, 2025
As 2025 draws to a close, a discernible realignment is taking place—one that cannot be reduced to rhetoric, mood, or momentary political friction—because Israel is no longer operating primarily as an ally whose security posture depends on the predictability of external guarantees, nor as a state whose strategic horizon is shaped by the electoral cycles of others, but rather as a regional actor translating sustained pressure into tangible capacity at a moment when global systems are fragmenting, alliances are becoming increasingly conditional, and long-standing assumptions about Western continuity are being quietly revised through policy, procurement, and institutional behavior.
Across energy, defense, technology, and diplomacy, Israel has spent the past year doing what many states under prolonged stress fail to do—reducing vulnerability while increasing indispensability—so that in an international environment now shaped by transactional politics and domestic-first calculations, particularly in Washington, Israel is positioning itself less as a recipient of protection and more as a supplier of capability, a distinction that is steadily reshaping the bargaining map of 2026.
The move toward an explicitly “America First” posture has altered the operating assumptions for every U.S. partner, because even within traditionally supportive political circles, alliance commitments are now discussed in terms of cost, return, and domestic prioritization, a shift that matters not because it is offensive, but because it is structural, changing the terms under which relationships are maintained and the speed at which policy can be traded for convenience. Israel has read this environment accurately and responded not with defensiveness or rhetorical escalation, but with long-horizon decisions designed to reduce exposure to political volatility beyond its control, including a ten-year plan associated with Prime Minister Netanyahu to invest approximately 350 billion shekels in domestic arms capacity, reflecting lessons learned under wartime conditions when supply chains fracture, assumptions collapse, and states that cannot produce under pressure become dependent precisely when dependency becomes strategically dangerous.
The approval of Israel’s largest export agreement to date—supplying Egypt with roughly 130 billion cubic meters of natural gas through 2040—has been widely described as an economic milestone, but the more accurate interpretation is that long-horizon energy corridors function as sovereignty instruments, because they bind states into shared infrastructure, shared timelines, and shared exposure, stabilizing relationships not through sentiment but through necessity. By anchoring Egypt into multi-decade dependency on Israeli supply, Israel has secured more than revenue, creating strategic insulation, regional leverage, and a financing base for national capability at a time when global energy markets remain volatile and politically charged, meaning that the agreement is less about gas alone than about predictability in an increasingly unpredictable world.
Beyond the headline agreements, Israel has quietly deepened its strategic footprint across the Mediterranean through expanding coordination with Greece and Malta, extending cooperation into maritime security, port access, energy routing, and regulatory interoperability, a development that is not symbolic when one considers that Greece and Malta sit at the intersection of European shipping lanes, energy corridors, and governance frameworks that increasingly determine who moves, who trades, and under what terms. Embedding Israel within these nodes positions it not merely as an external supplier to Europe, but as a participant inside the architecture that governs movement, trade, and security across the Mediterranean basin at a moment when Europe is actively hedging its exposure to American political volatility and seeking redundancy under pressure.
Germany’s expanding defense relationship with Israel marks a deeper transition than procurement alone, because what began as acquisition increasingly resembles reliance on Israeli layered-defense experience, battlefield-tested systems, and operational doctrine refined under real conditions rather than theoretical planning, an evolution driven by Europe’s recognition that its security environment has shifted faster than its institutions can adapt. This relationship is best understood as strategic necessity rather than ideological alignment, because Israel is supplying survivability—systems and concepts forged under sustained threat—and in doing so quietly rebalances the relationship from one of Israel receiving support to one in which Israel provides capacity that Europe increasingly requires.
Even outside defense, Israel’s technological advantage remains fundamentally practical rather than performative, as illustrated by the recent attention given to Tel Aviv-based systems that use sensor networks and artificial intelligence to autonomously manage traffic flows, an example that may appear mundane but reflects the same resilience logic shaping modern state capacity: distributed sensing, rapid decision loops, and systems built to function under pressure rather than under ideal conditions. In a world where logistics, mobility, emergency response, and infrastructure uptime increasingly define state stability, such systems scale into strategic advantage, because functional capability in ordinary domains becomes decisive when stress becomes ordinary.
Turkey’s posture toward Gaza and Syria follows a familiar pattern in which regional instability is treated as leverage, with Ankara seeking to position itself as a gatekeeper over outcomes, frameworks, and postwar narratives, while Israel has made clear that it rejects the premise that its security or sovereignty will be mediated through another regional actor’s ambitions. What matters here is not rhetoric but boundary-setting, because attempts to impose Turkish oversight or “boss” status—whether through stabilization language or diplomatic framing—are being met with an Israeli posture that communicates limits rather than accommodation.
The conflict President Trump labeled the “12-day war” did not resolve the Iranian question so much as suspend it, because Iran’s historical pattern has never been immediate confrontation followed by retreat, but adaptation followed by reconstruction. Israel’s security establishment has long understood that Iran’s strength lies not only in its visible assets but in its capacity to regenerate capability quietly, to shift tactics, and to return faster than external actors expect, which is why Israel’s assessment of Iran’s recovery rate does not necessarily align with Washington’s political appetite for renewed confrontation or its preference for sequencing over prevention. This divergence explains why Prime Minister Netanyahu’s forthcoming meeting with President Trump at Mar-a-Lago should be read not as ceremonial or performative, but as an encounter between timelines, with Israel pressing for prevention logic while Washington weighs escalation within domestic political limits.
It is precisely at this point that long-held assumptions in Washington are likely to be tested. The Israel that arrives in Florida is not the Israel of earlier bargaining cycles, reliant on external guidance or hierarchical direction, but a state that has expanded strategic autonomy, deepened regional energy and security corridors, and demonstrated an ability to absorb sustained pressure without losing operational coherence. This shift may be particularly uncomfortable for American leaders whose prior engagement with Israel reflected a managerial posture rather than one of equal partnership.
During a previous visit to Israel, U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance publicly criticized a Knesset vote related to Judea and Samaria, dismissing a decision taken by Israel’s elected legislature as a “very stupid political stunt,” language that, regardless of one’s policy position, revealed an assumption that Israel’s internal democratic decisions were subject to external commentary, approval, or correction from Washington. That moment mattered because it exposed how Israel was being perceived—not as a sovereign actor exercising democratic authority under threat, but as a subordinate expected to conform to American preferences—an assumption that no longer matches the reality of Israel’s present position.
Since then, Israel has fought, absorbed, and prevailed through prolonged conflict, expanded domestic defense production, deepened strategic ties across Europe and the Mediterranean, and demonstrated an ability to act decisively without waiting for permission, altering the posture of the relationship regardless of tone or diplomatic language. For American leaders already shaping political futures beyond the current term, the implication is strategic rather than theological: Israel is no longer a file to be managed or a problem to be moderated, but a sovereign actor whose strength, resilience, and independence are now structural facts.
Europe, for its part, enters 2026 unsettled, and with Russia to the east, instability to the south, and a more conditional United States across the Atlantic, European governments are moving from moral language to procurement and capability, which is why Israel’s defense and security exports now function as more than commerce, reshaping relationships more profoundly than diplomatic vocabulary ever could.
Israel thus enters 2026 holding together a combination of pillars rarely consolidated simultaneously: long-horizon energy leverage embedded in regional interdependence; defense export power as Europe purchases survival rather than symbolism; operational technologies designed to function under pressure; and a deliberate national push toward self-reliance that reflects war-learned lessons about supply and dependency.
Above all of these developments stands a principle older than modern systems and more durable than modern alliances: “I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse” (Genesis 12:3), a covenant that has outlived empires and ideologies and that continues to stand in a time of rising antisemitism, institutional erosion, and global disorder, when Israel’s increasing strength is best understood not as coincidence or sentiment, but as convergence between preparation, necessity, and promise.
2026 will not be a quiet year, but Israel will enter it with the capacity to stand.
