Israel's new border, pending Trump approval

2026-03-19 - 21:44

They say that as a person ages, they grow more and more similar to their dog. The Iranians are growing more and more like their Axis partners. Like in Gaza, they hide beneath hospitals and move from target to target in ambulances. Like in Beirut, they are no longer trying to defeat anyone, only to wear them down. Like the Houthis, they launch a single missile every so often and boast with AI videos of widespread destruction in Tel Aviv. It is a self-deception that has succeeded. The Iranians are genuinely and sincerely convinced that there are hundreds dead, that Tel Aviv lies in ruins, and that Netanyahu is missing. It will take a few more café videos to convince them that Benjamin is still alive. The prime minister (or his avatar, if one is to believe the Iranians) believes that Trump needs many more achievements in this war than Israel does. Israel's war aims are regional: nuclear capabilities, missiles, terror proxies. America's war aims include severing the threat Iran waved around for decades and has now been pushed to use: closing the Strait of Hormuz and sending oil prices soaring. The Gulf states are pressing Trump to eliminate that threat once and for all. They do not trust a future regime not to extort the entire region and the world with the threat of shaking the energy market. And so Israel finds itself helping the United States achieve that goal. The rationale, beyond returning a favor for a favor, is clear: every joint action against Iran frames the Middle East as a story of fundamentalists versus moderates, not Jews versus Muslims. The broader implications of the event are only beginning to emerge. For example, Qatar's warnings to senior Hamas figures that the Palestinian issue is dropping off the agenda and that they must immediately choose which side to support. For example, the expanding IDF operation up to the Litani River. Is this a temporary, isolated event? Soldiers who went deeper into Lebanon this week should think again, and remember that IDF forces have now been on the summit of the Syrian Hermon since the end of 2024, with no expiration date. Trump, a man with no sentimentality for old borders, already shook the Middle East when he agreed in principle to recognize Israeli sovereignty over parts of Judea and Samaria in the framework of the Peace to Prosperity plan, and when he supported mass emigration from Gaza. The mass migration from southern Lebanon has already happened. The only question is whether he will give Israel merely de facto approval of its new northern border or de jure approval as well. Turkish knight declared In Ankara, a man suddenly woke up in the morning and discovered he is not quite as big as he thought. The year 2025 in the Middle East revolved around the question of whether Turkey was gradually becoming a strategic partner of the United States like Israel. Trump invested in Erdogan the way he invested in Netanyahu, brought him into civilian activity in Gaza, half-rebuked the Israeli prime minister in front of the cameras ("Erdogan is my friend, Bibi understands that"), and even announced that he would sell him F-35s, just like Israel. Well, other F-35s are now starring in the skies of the Middle East. Turkey's ruler thought Trump consulted him every step of the way, and yet a respectable regional war organized itself without him being in the loop. The man who presides over what is considered the most intimidating army in the Middle East discovered—along with the whole world—the capabilities and power of the Israeli Air Force and intelligence services, and the depth of cooperation with the U.S. military. He saw, and was astonished. The Turks' distress is immense. The best-case scenario for them was and remains a weak Iran that, on the one hand, continues to sell them gas dirt cheap; on the other hand, curbs Kurdish expansionist ambitions; and on the third hand, cannot serve as a rival for regional control or, God forbid, even cooperate with Israel. As if all that were not enough, they are very worried about the renewed romance between the United States and the Kurds, whom they detest, to the point of fantasies about conquering parts of Iran (imagine Israel waking up one morning to discover that Trump is in direct talks with the Hamas leadership so that they can invade Egypt with American weapons). Fortunately for him, the Kurds are still suspicious of the United States since they were sold out—though recently, to the Syrian regime. Now, as Erdogan follows the news about the situation, he also has to deal with higher energy prices while Turkey's inflation rises and interest rates are murderous. The Turkish solution, uncharacteristically, is to sing songs of peace. The Turkish dictator who convinced himself and his people that Israel was about to attack Ankara because of a biblical fantasy keeps overlooking Iranian launches into his territory, imagining they are rain. He is trying to initiate negotiations, so far in vain. This week, the United States asked to use its base in eastern Turkey for the war, a Trumpian way of testing who is with us and who is against us. Erdogan nearly swallowed his tongue. Sinwar's failure The "Axis of Evil" has always shared one goal for different reasons. The goal was simple: erase the State of Israel. For Iran and its proxies, Israel's existence was a bone in the throat of their grand vision of leading the Muslim world. The democratic Western state stuck between Jordan and Egypt simply did not fit. Who needs, after all, a role model of free elections, human, and women's rights? For Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and the Palestinian Authority, the reason for erasing Israel was different. They believed, and still believe, that this land belongs to them, and that Israel's existence physically obstructs the establishment of a Palestinian state from the river to the sea. For a long time, there was no clash between these motives because the goal was identical. Except that October 7 changed everything. Sinwar, as has been revealed several times, saw that his dream of establishing a Palestinian state in place of Israel was fading away. The peace agreement that was nearly signed with the Saudis was, for him, the final nail in the coffin, and he feared it deeply. If the strongest state in the Sunni world normalized relations with Israel, who would remember him and his murderous struggle? He tried to enlist the Axis states to his side—and shared his plans with the Iranians and with Hezbollah—but unlike him, they were in no hurry. The Iranians never cared about the Palestinians—they were the tool through which they tried to erase Israel; they did not care if, along the way, every last Palestinian was killed (as is well known, Muslims have no immunity to radioactive radiation). They agreed with Sinwar, and even coordinated plans with him, but asked that he wait a little longer—once they had the nuclear bomb, they said, the war would look completely different. After all, the question everyone has asked themselves since October 7 is what Sinwar thought to himself a minute before he sent the Nukhba force on its murder spree in Israel. Did he not know the response would be powerful? After Rising and Roaring Lion, the answer is clear. Sinwar never thought he could defeat the State of Israel. All he wanted was to put the Palestinian state back on the table. Tens of thousands of dead Palestinians were worth the plan to him. He knew the response would be severe, and that within a short time it would exhaust all of Israel's international credit. Then the Palestinians would once again become the classic victims. Unlike Nasrallah, who claimed that if he had known what Israel's response to the 2006 abduction would be, he would not have gone to war, Sinwar was prepared to sacrifice all of Gaza's civilians, and all of Gaza's infrastructure, in order to bring about Israel's diplomatic isolation and a swell of support for establishing a Palestinian state in which, he hoped, he could be the leader. He, too, did not particularly care about Iran. His plan almost succeeded. Until a few months ago, the world was crying out for a Palestinian state. Except there were things Sinwar did not foresee. He did not foresee, for example, that the United States would elect a president who is the farthest thing from politically correct. Trump is what is known in professional jargon as a "troll"—someone who destabilizes the system and challenges it from unexpected directions. He also did not appreciate the Israeli home front's response—from his point of view, fragmented Israeli society would not withstand the expected losses in Gaza. He did not live long enough to see Israel's willingness to absorb the losses in order to go all the way this time. And Sinwar also did not foresee the Iranian response—they preferred to wait for a shift in the global balance of power with the production of a bomb, and left Hamas almost alone. And most significant of all: he did not believe Israel would once again embrace offensiveness and go to war against its enemies—that it would strike Hezbollah with blows the world could not imagine in the form of the pagers, the walkie-talkies, and the elimination of senior figures; that it would launch a proactive attack against the Iranians and set Tehran ablaze; and that it would enlist at its side the strongest military power in the world.