Connect with us

RSS

Israel and Its Jihadist Adversaries Have Different Concepts of Time; Here’s Why That Matters

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei speaks during a meeting in Tehran, Iran, May 20, 2025. Photo: Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader/WANA (West Asia News Agency)/Handout via REUTERS

Whether the objective is war-winning, war-avoidance, or counter-terrorism, Israel should always assess its survival options “in time.

In essence, the Jewish State’s policy makers need to consciously distinguish their own preferred ideas of time from the ideas of its foes. Though Israel lives according to “clock time,” its jihadi adversaries (state and sub-state terror-groups) regard such ordinary chronology as “profane time.”

The differences could mean life or death for Israel.

For Israel’s jihadi enemies, “real time” is discoverable only within palpably ecstatic moments of “martyrdom.”

At first, all this will sound excruciatingly theoretic. Nonetheless, it remains crucial to Israel’s survival. Jihadi notions of “sacred time” actively encourage “martyrdom operations.” Until now, and for the foreseeable future, this suggests steadily escalating violence against Israel.

At some worst-case point, a state enemy of Israel (most plausibly Iran) could effectively become a jihadi terrorist writ large. If macrocosm followed microcosm, a suicide bomber would become a “suicide state.” For the Jewish State, no such force magnification should ever be considered bearable, especially where the state aggressor was already nuclear.

Never to be overlooked in these complex matters is that Israel is less than half the size of America’s Lake Michigan. Accordingly, Iran frequently describes Israel as a “one-bomb state” — and it believes that Israel is subject to easy and instantaneous “removal.”

Though generally unrecognized, Israel’s jihadi adversaries (a category that now includes reconfiguring terror groups in post-Assad Syria, Lebanon, Yemen, Iraq, Qatar and other places) define ultimate victory as “power over death.” For these recalcitrant foes, becoming a “martyr” or shahid necessarily represents “power over time.”

For Israel, such challenging matters contain dense and perplexing ironies. Though Jerusalem’s defense and security policies ought always to be science-based, these policies would still benefit from being seen through the ideological lens of its adversaries.

History will deserve some pride of place. Significantly, the notion of time as “subjective duration” or “felt time” has its origins in ancient Israel. By rejecting time as simple linear progression, the early Hebrews generally approached chronology as a qualitative experience.

In terms of prospective nuclear threats from Iran or other places, Israeli planners should consider chronology not only at obvious operational levels, but also at levels of individual enemy decision-makers. What do authoritative leaders in Tehran think about time in shaping their military nuclear plans? For Israel’s prime minister and capable scholars, there could be no more urgent question.

From its beginnings, the Jewish prophetic vision was an imperiled community living “in time.” With this formative vision, political geography or “space” was vitally important. For present-day Israel, the space-time relationship reveals several less-philosophical security lessons. Any considered territorial surrenders by Israel (Judea/Samaria or “West Bank”) would reduce the amount of “objective time” that Israel has to resist war and terrorism. Serious questions are now being raised about the wisdom of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s “disengagement” from Gaza back in 2005.

Certain past Israeli surrenders, if considered “synergistically,” provided “extra time” for Israel’s enemies to wait patiently for optimal attack opportunities. In the future, similar territorial concessions could produce more genuinely intolerable costs. These potentially existential costs would concern jihadi terrorism and/or Iranian nuclearization.

If it could be determined that Iran and/or jihadi terror groups accept a shortening time horizon in their search for a “final victory” over Israel, Jerusalem’s response to enemy aggressions would have to be swift. If it would seem that a presumed enemy time horizon was calculably lengthening, Israel’s expected response could become more or less incremental.

For national security decision-makers, this would mean greater reliance on the passive dynamics of military deterrence and military defense than on active strategies of nuclear war fighting.

In the final analysis, a worst case for Israel would be to confront an already-nuclear and seemingly irrational Iran. Such an adversary could reasonably be described as a “suicide bomber in macrocosm.”

What else should Israel know about time? “Martyrdom” is widely accepted by hard-core Islamists as the most honorable and heroic way to soar above mortal limits imposed by “profane time.” Looked at from a more dispassionate analytic perspective, this practice is accepted by jihadists and Iran as a gratifying way to sanitize barbarism and justify mass murder of “unbelievers.” Sometimes, as we should note after October 7, 2023, this is also a lascivious way to overcome “profane time.”

Israel faces one overarching question: How can such perplexing correlations of death and time be suitably countered?

Israeli policy-makers will need to recognize these dense problems of chronology as policy-relevant quandaries. They will also need to acknowledge that any still-plausible hopes for national security must be informed by reason. Jewish theory of law is unique in its synthesis of logic and belief. It offers a transcending order revealed by the “divine word” as interpreted by human reason.

In the commands of Ecclesiastes 32.23, 37.16, 13-14: “Let reason go before every enterprise and counsel before any action … And let the counsel of thine own heart stand … For a man’s mind is sometimes wont to tell him more than seven watchmen that sit above in a high tower …”

An immediate goal for Israel’s reason-backed policy planners should be a fuller understanding of the nation’s enemies concept of time. Though generally overlooked even by Jerusalem’s dedicated strategic thinkers, such an understanding would be indispensable to counter-terrorism and nuclear war avoidance. For the continuously-beleaguered Jewish State, all time will remain “unredeemable.”

Prof. Louis René Beres was educated at Princeton (Ph.D., 1971) and is the author of many books and scholarly articles dealing with international law, nuclear strategy, nuclear war, and terrorism. In Israel, Prof. Beres was Chair of Project Daniel (PM Sharon). His 12th and latest book is Surviving Amid Chaos: Israel’s Nuclear Strategy (Rowman & Littlefield, 2016; 2nd ed., 2018).

The post Israel and Its Jihadist Adversaries Have Different Concepts of Time; Here’s Why That Matters first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

Continue Reading

RSS

After False Dawns, Gazans Hope Trump Will Force End to Two-Year-Old War

Palestinians walk past a residential building destroyed in previous Israeli strikes, after Hamas agreed to release hostages and accept some other terms in a US plan to end the war, in Nuseirat, central Gaza Strip October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa

Exhausted Palestinians in Gaza clung to hopes on Saturday that US President Donald Trump would keep up pressure on Israel to end a two-year-old war that has killed tens of thousands and displaced the entire population of more than two million.

Hamas’ declaration that it was ready to hand over hostages and accept some terms of Trump’s plan to end the conflict while calling for more talks on several key issues was greeted with relief in the enclave, where most homes are now in ruins.

“It’s happy news, it saves those who are still alive,” said 32-year-old Saoud Qarneyta, reacting to Hamas’ response and Trump’s intervention. “This is enough. Houses have been damaged, everything has been damaged, what is left? Nothing.”

GAZAN RESIDENT HOPES ‘WE WILL BE DONE WITH WARS’

Ismail Zayda, 40, a father of three, displaced from a suburb in northern Gaza City where Israel launched a full-scale ground operation last month, said: “We want President Trump to keep pushing for an end to the war, if this chance is lost, it means that Gaza City will be destroyed by Israel and we might not survive.

“Enough, two years of bombardment, death and starvation. Enough,” he told Reuters on a social media chat.

“God willing this will be the last war. We will hopefully be done with the wars,” said 59-year-old Ali Ahmad, speaking in one of the tented camps where most Palestinians now live.

“We urge all sides not to backtrack. Every day of delay costs lives in Gaza, it is not just time wasted, lives get wasted too,” said Tamer Al-Burai, a Gaza City businessman displaced with members of his family in central Gaza Strip.

After two previous ceasefires — one near the start of the war and another earlier this year — lasted only a few weeks, he said; “I am very optimistic this time, maybe Trump’s seeking to be remembered as a man of peace, will bring us real peace this time.”

RESIDENT WORRIES THAT NETANYAHU WILL ‘SABOTAGE’ DEAL

Some voiced hopes of returning to their homes, but the Israeli military issued a fresh warning to Gazans on Saturday to stay out of Gaza City, describing it as a “dangerous combat zone.”

Gazans have faced previous false dawns during the past two years, when Trump and others declared at several points during on-off negotiations between Hamas, Israel and Arab and US mediators that a deal was close, only for war to rage on.

“Will it happen? Can we trust Trump? Maybe we trust Trump, but will Netanyahu abide this time? He has always sabotaged everything and continued the war. I hope he ends it now,” said Aya, 31, who was displaced with her family to Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip.

She added: “Maybe there is a chance the war ends at October 7, two years after it began.”

Continue Reading

RSS

Mass Rally in Rome on Fourth Day of Italy’s Pro-Palestinian Protests

A Pro-Palestinian demonstrator waves a Palestinian flag during a national protest for Gaza in Rome, Italy, October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Claudia Greco

Large crowds assembled in central Rome on Saturday for the fourth straight day of protests in Italy since Israel intercepted an international flotilla trying to deliver aid to Gaza, and detained its activists.

People holding banners and Palestinian flags, chanting “Free Palestine” and other slogans, filed past the Colosseum, taking part in a march that organizers hoped would attract at least 1 million people.

“I’m here with a lot of other friends because I think it is important for us all to mobilize individually,” Francesco Galtieri, a 65-year-old musician from Rome, said. “If we don’t all mobilize, then nothing will change.”

Since Israel started blocking the flotilla late on Wednesday, protests have sprung up across Europe and in other parts of the world, but in Italy they have been a daily occurrence, in multiple cities.

On Friday, unions called a general strike in support of the flotilla, with demonstrations across the country that attracted more than 2 million, according to organizers. The interior ministry estimated attendance at around 400,000.

Italy’s right-wing government has been critical of the protests, with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni suggesting that people would skip work for Gaza just as an excuse for a longer weekend break.

On Saturday, Meloni blamed protesters for insulting graffiti that appeared on a statue of the late Pope John Paul II outside Rome’s main train station, where Pro-Palestinian groups have been holding a protest picket.

“They say they are taking to the streets for peace, but then they insult the memory of a man who was a true defender and builder of peace. A shameful act committed by people blinded by ideology,” she said in a statement.

Israel launched its Gaza offensive after Hamas terrorists staged a cross border attack on October 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 people hostage.

Continue Reading

RSS

Hamas Says It Agrees to Release All Israeli Hostages Under Trump Gaza Plan

Smoke rises during an Israeli military operation in Gaza City, as seen from the central Gaza Strip, October 2, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas

Hamas said on Friday it had agreed to release all Israeli hostages, alive or dead, under the terms of US President Donald Trump’s Gaza proposal, and signaled readiness to immediately enter mediated negotiations to discuss the details.

Continue Reading

Copyright © 2017 - 2023 Jewish Post & News