Israel isn’t just responding to threats – it’s reshaping the Mideast

Discussions about Israel’s role in the Middle East still revolve around threats and responses. Yet recent developments suggest that Israel isn’t only reacting to events, but is increasingly shaping the conditions in which they occur.

This involves both direct interventions that affect the security and cohesion of neighbouring states — as seen in its policies on Syria and Iran — and the cultivation of regional relationships that sustain ongoing tension.

Understanding how these two dynamics interact is key to making sense of the region’s current trajectory. They’re distinct but interconnected. Together, they expand Israel’s room to maneuver and redefine its regional position.

What’s emerging is a more assertive approach to regional order in the Middle East, combining the use of force, selective military interventions, security partnerships and the management of surrounding political conditions.

Weak, fragmented states

This approach is most visible in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria and now Iran. Military operations increasingly extend beyond immediate tactical goals, contributing to the erosion of governance capacity, infrastructure and territorial cohesion.

The objective is not only deterrence, but the creation of political environments where state authority remains weak, fragmented and unable to consolidate.

This logic is not always tied to imminent threats. It reflects a broader preference for environments in which adversaries — actual or potential — remain divided and constrained.

These developments are happening in a changing international environment, particularly Israel’s current relationship with the United States, which grants greater operational autonomy and lowers the political costs of unilateral action.

Regional fragmentation

A second part of this strategy works at the regional level by maintaining divisions and tensions. This is especially visible in the Eastern Mediterranean.

Israel’s deepening partnerships with Greece and the Republic of Cyprus are evolving into an alliance: an integrated security framework based on shared technologies, intelligence co-operation, joint exercises and converging strategic interests.

Greece’s acquisition of Israeli defense systems — in areas such as air defense, surveillance and drone warfare — makes it easier for their forces to work together, and connects Israel more closely to the region’s security system.

This relationship doesn’t just reflect shared interests; it actively shapes the strategic environment. Israeli officials have increasingly portrayed Turkey as a future challenger, suggesting it will become a major concern following the Iran war.

That means Israeli co-operation with Greece and Cyprus encourages them to adopt a more assertive stance in disputes with Turkey over maritime boundaries, energy exploration and airspace.

From one perspective, this is standard defence co-operation among aligned partners. From Turkey’s perspective, however, it looks like a wider effort by potentially hostile neighbours to surround it.

But these partnerships don’t need open conflict to work. Israel’s goal isn’t necessarily to fight Turkey, but to position itself in a region where tensions remain constant.

Examples from further afield

This regional approach supports the internal dynamics described earlier. Weakening states limits adversaries from within, while regional divisions limit them from the outside by preventing stable alliances.

A comparable pattern can be observed in the Horn of Africa. Israel’s recognition of Somaliland as an independent state introduces a new political entity in a strategically sensitive area near the Bab el-Mandeb Strait.

The waterway separates the Arabian Peninsula from Africa and leads to the Red Sea and the Suez Canal.

This move overlaps with Turkish influence in Somalia, where the Turks have built close ties and taken on a major role in providing military and naval security.

But Somaliland is a breakaway region, not an internationally recognized state. Israel’s recognition risks creating new tensions along the Somali coast, complicating the maritime space Turkey is helping to secure.

As in the eastern Mediterranean, the aim isn’t direct confrontation, but insertion into a complex regional landscape that adds new forces to the mix, diversifies alignments and complicates the consolidation of rival influence.

Israel’s new security doctrine?

Israel’s security doctrine has deep historical roots, including traditions that emphasize force, strategic autonomy and coercive capacity over negotiated order.

Under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, these ideas have been further developed, radicalized and put into action.

This is making the international environment inherently unstable and persistently hostile. Peace is not a durable end state, but a temporary and reversible condition. As a result, power — including the use of force — is treated not as a means to an end, but as the primary and only guarantee of survival.

By weakening states and keeping the Middle East and the eastern Mediterranean region divided, Israel is creating a situation where neither countries nor alliances can fully stabilize. With this approach, the Israeli advantage comes from managing or manipulating ongoing tensions — not resolving them.

Spyros A. Sofos is assistant professor in global humanities, Simon Fraser University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.