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It’s Not a Border with Lebanon — It’s a Front
Israeli firefighters work following rocket attacks from Lebanon, amid ongoing cross-border hostilities between Hezbollah and Israeli forces, near the border on its Israeli side, June 13, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Avi Ohayon
Israel’s traditional security concept consisted of a defensive strategy based on mainly offensive tactics. After the Yom Kippur War, the IDF was criticized for focusing too much on its offensive ethos and making poor defensive preparations. The October 7 attack naturally raised the issue of defense to the top of Israel’s list of priorities, but behind the obvious need to strengthen our defense lies an important discussion of principle. Before billions are poured into concrete molds to beef up the border obstacles, this discussion needs to be held consciously and methodically.
The key question is this: What is the main lesson we should learn from the October 7 attack?
The first possibility is that the main failure was in the defense concept. This begins with the wrong early warning assumption and continues with poorly designed defensive positions. If this is indeed the main lesson, the fix is relatively simple. Better defensive infrastructures should be built, the border should be better manned, and the dependence on warning should be reduced. A huge investment in rebuilding the border defense infrastructure will be required, as well as another huge investment in stationing large forces on the borders for years. This appears at first glance to be a direct, clear, and necessary lesson from October 7.
But there is a fly in the ointment. When we examine the development of Israel’s defense concept in recent decades, we find that this is precisely the lesson Israel has drawn again and again from its conflicts. After the withdrawal from Lebanon in 2000, we invested enormously in strengthening the northern border with a barrier, outposts, technologies, and new roads. We did it again after the Second Lebanon War, drawing operational lessons from the previous obstacle such as the need to pave more rear axes for movement hidden from the eyes of the enemy. But it soon became clear that behind the border fence, Hezbollah had become a real army. So once again, the IDF embarked a few years ago on a refortification plan for the northern border, known as the “Integrating Stone” project. Yet more billions were poured into refortifications. The decision to evacuate the northern settlements at the beginning of the Iron Swords War shows that even that enormous and expensive defense infrastructure did not provide enough protection, at least in the eyes of the decision makers.
The story of the Gaza border is no different. A modern and sophisticated defense system was established upon the Israeli withdrawal in 2005. Less than a decade later, during Operation Protective Edge in 2014, it became clear that the enemy had spent the interim digging over 30 axes of tunnels into our territory, bypassing the new and advanced defense system.
The IDF “learned its lesson” from this discovery and embarked on yet another vast new border project, this time including an underground barrier and a major renewal of the defense infrastructure on the ground. We all saw the failure of this project on October 7.
Strengthening border obstacles and reinforcing them with additional units is of course not a wrong step to take. The danger is that we will once again be satisfied with learning technical lessons and miss the more essential ones. The key lesson to be learned from October is the failure of the defensive strategy that allowed the terrorist armies to build up major strength on our borders without hindrance.
Israel’s flawed border strategy rested on two false assumptions. The first was that Hamas and Hezbollah could be tamed through withdrawals and understandings. The second was that they could be deterred by the threat of Israeli air power, since they had both assumed “state responsibility.” According to this logic, the organizations should have been reluctant to use their forces against us because of the price Israel would likely exact from the Gaza Strip and Lebanon.
By relying on these two false assumptions, Israel allowed the threat on its borders to build up without interruption. Every military expert knows that “the first line will be breached.” This means there is no chance of stopping a significant attack on a border line that has no depth. Under conditions in which an enemy is constantly present and ready, there is no chance for early warning. The defense forces will always be surprised.
As we know, the State of Israel lacks operational depth. The settlements mark the border line. That is why we implemented a defensive strategy for most of our history that entailed an offensive tactical approach. In other words, the other lesson to be learned is that a defensive deployment that is not supported by an offensive initiative in enemy territory will not be enough.
In the decades during which we adopted a strategy of defense and deterrence from the air, the border turned from an imaginary line drawn on maps into an actual barrier in military thinking, with very practical consequences. For example, when the IDF chose to establish new units, it established them mainly for defensive needs (border patrol units, for instance, and air defense battalions). The IDF now finds itself with no choice but to put some of those units into combat in Gaza.
In 2020, the Border Patrol Corps was established in the ground forces. Apparently, the IDF had adapted itself to the challenges of the hour. In practice, the new corps was established on the ruins of the Combat Intelligence Collection Corps, which was responsible for army reconnaissance. This happened at the exact moment when the IDF’s operating concept stated that “uncovering a stealthy enemy” within the framework of land warfare is the key to battlefield success. While the operating concept strove to restore military decisiveness and gave critical weight to combat intelligence collection, the IDF’s practical decisions ran in the opposite direction. The collapse of the line in Gaza and the destruction of the means of collection on the borders of Gaza and Lebanon – failures forced on Israel by the enemy within mere hours – indicates that the cancellation of combat collection retroactively harmed the defense mission as well. The establishment of the Border Defense Corps did not strengthen our defense. What happened to us?
This is what happened: The border turned from a political line into a military conceptual fixation. Gradually, military thought became enslaved to the division between “our territory” and “their territory.” Only intelligence and the Air Force are to operate in “their territory.” “Our territory” is where defense takes place, but as “our territory” is protected and safe, there is no point in making strict preparations there that meet basic tactical rules. “Maneuver” is the act in which ground forces cross the fence into enemy territory. The ground forces are to prepare for this, but the strategy is to avoid it.
But the simple truth is that “maneuvering” is not defined by enemy territory. Freeing Kibbutz Beeri and the Nahal Oz outpost from Hamas occupation required offensive battles – maneuvers that were no less and perhaps even more challenging than the occupation of Gaza. In general, “defense” turned out to be the more difficult tactical scenario, not the easier one. The reality is that even when defense is conducted in our territory as it is conducted today in the north, and not in a surprise scenario, threats to our forces are still significant. The Air Force’s air defense is not as effective at the front as it is on the home front. The front is more loaded with enemy threats and forces that need to be defended against. It is also constantly changing.
The distinction between “front” and “home front” is more suitable for military thinking than the political definitions of “our territory” and “their territory.” At the “front,” which is on both sides of the border, defensive and offensive battles take place. They are all a form of maneuver. At the front, there is a reality of tactical dynamism and great many threats. It requires not only intelligence but also combat reconnaissance and monitoring at the unit level. It requires not only the national air defense umbrella but its own tactical defense umbrella. The months of attrition in the north in the face of anti-tank missiles and UAV launches make this clear. The defensive battle is required not only to prevent enemy achievements but also to create the conditions for retaking the initiative and attack, which includes taking advantage of opportunities. The defense divisions have to know what is happening across the border and must be able to prevent evolving threats. That is why they were previously called “territorial divisions” and not “defense divisions.” This principle, by the way, is called “forward-depth.”
We must not be naive. An exercise in military thinking will not immediately change political strategy. It is possible that the reality after the current war will not yet allow the Northern Command to enjoy offensive and preventive freedom of action into Lebanese territory. If so, we will have to strive for this as a strategic result in the next round. But even if this is the case, it is still correct that we build the force in a way that suits reality, not in a way that repeats the mistakes of the past – spending billions to sanctify the border line with barriers that will eventually fail.
Instead of thinking “defense” versus “maneuvering,” “our territory” versus “their territory,” we must think “front” versus “rear.” The forces at the front are required to be capable of defensive and offensive battles in the most difficult conditions. The front should benefit from good intelligence and air support but should not be dependent on them, especially not in surprise scenarios. We learned that the hard way. Defense needs its own intelligence assessment, one that relies more on combat gathering. We have learned that such collection should rely on mobile capabilities and unmanned aircraft, because cameras mounted on masts do not meet the definition of tactical combat collection. They are too easy a target.
I am not the only person to make these arguments. IDF senior officials have previously recognized the danger of establishing a “defensive army” versus an “attack army” and the conceptual obstacle that the fence poses to our military thinking.
As always, in the future, there will be operational constraints and sectors that will have to be reduced to strengthen others. Sustainable defense cannot be based on an obstacle, light forces and assistance from Tel Aviv alone, nor on a premise of a constant large standing force. It should be built from the presence of significant reserve forces at the front. Training facilities close to the border will allow this without harming the IDF’s ability to prepare. The front should maintain independence in the areas of combat gathering, available fire support and tactical air defense. The border obstacle should be perceived not as the center but as a supporting factor.
On the way towards the restoration of Israel’s traditional defense strategy, defense through preventive and decisive attacks, it is also necessary to remove the misperception of the border. From now on, call it a front.
Brig. Gen. (res.) Eran Ortal recently retired from military service as commander of the Dado Center for Multidisciplinary Military Thinking. He is a well-known military thinker both in Israel and abroad. His works have been published in The Military Review, War on the Rocks, Small Wars Journal, at the Hoover Institution, at Stanford, and elsewhere. His book The Battle Before the War (MOD 2022, in Hebrew) dealt with the IDF’s need to change, innovate and renew a decisive war approach. A version of this article was originally published by The BESA Center.
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Jewish Synagogue, Holocaust Memorial Vandalized in Poland After Politician Denies Holocaust
An antisemitic slur spray-painted on the ruins of a former synagogue in Dukla, Poland. Photo: World Jewish Restitution Organization
Two Jewish sites in Dukla, Poland, were vandalized over the weekend mere days after Polish member of the European Parliament (MEP) Grzegorz Braun claimed gas chambers at the former Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp were fake and repeated an antisemitic blood libel in a live radio interview.
Vandals spray-painted the word “F–k” followed by a Star of David on the ruins of a former synagogue that was destroyed by the Nazis during the Holocaust, and a memorial commemorating Holocaust victims located at the entrance of the Jewish cemetery in Dukla was defaced with a swastika and the word “Palestine,” according to the World Jewish Restitution Organization (WJRO). The memorial honors Jews of Dukla and the surrounding areas who were murdered by Nazis during the Holocaust.
The two Jewish sites in Dukla are cared for by the Foundation for the Preservation of Jewish Heritage in Poland (FODZ), which was established in 2002 by the Union of Jewish Communities in Poland and the WJRO to protect and commemorate Poland’s Jewish heritage sites.
“These hateful acts are not only antisemitic, but they are also attempts to erase Jewish history and desecrate memory,” said WJRO President Gideon Taylor in a released statement on Tuesday. “Polish authorities must take swift and serious action to identify the perpetrators and ensure the protection of Jewish heritage sites in Dukla and across the country.”
“The vandalism of Jewish sites in Dukla—with swastikas and anti-Israel slurs—is not an isolated act,” insisted Jack Simony, director general of the Auschwitz Jewish Center Foundation (AJCF), in a statement to The Algemeiner. The nonprofit focuses on preserving the memory of the Jewish community in Oświęcim (Auschwitz) and maintains the Auschwitz Jewish Center, the last remaining synagogue in town.
“While we cannot say definitively that it [the vandalism] was sparked by Grzegorz Braun’s Holocaust denial, his rhetoric contributes to an atmosphere where hatred is emboldened and truth is under assault,” added Simony. “Braun’s lies are not harmless — they are dangerous. Holocaust denial fuels antisemitism and, too often, violence. This is why Holocaust education matters … because when we fail to confront lies, we invite their consequences. Memory must be defended, not only for the sake of the past, but for the safety of our future.”
On July 10, a ceremony was held commemorating the 84th anniversary of the 1941 Jedwabne massacre, when hundreds of Polish Jews were massacred – mostly by their neighbors – in the northeastern town in German-occupied Poland. The ceremony was attended by dignitaries and faith leaders including Poland’s Chief Rabbi Michael Schudrich and Israeli Deputy Ambassador Bosmat Baruch. Groups of anti-Israel and far-right activists — including MEP Braun and his supporters – tried to disrupt the event by holding banners with antisemitic slogans and blocking the vehicles of the attendees, according to Polish radio.
Hours later, during a live radio broadcast, Braun falsely claimed the Auschwitz gas chambers were “a lie” and the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum was promoting “pseudo-history.” He also claimed that Jewish “ritual murder is a fact.” Polish prosecutors launched an investigation into Braun’s comments, they announced that same day. Under Article 55 of the Act on the Institute of National Remembrance (IPN), Holocaust denial is a criminal offense in Poland.
The Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum issued a swift condemnation of Braun’s remarks and said it intents to pursue legal action. The Institute of National Remembrance — which is the largest research, educational and archival institution in Poland – also denounced Braun’s remarks, saying there is “well-documented” evidence supporting the existence of gas chambers. His comments were also condemned by the Embassy of Israel in Poland, Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski and the US Embassy in Warsaw, which said that his actions “distort history, desecrate memory, or spread antisemitism.” AJCF called on the European Parliament to consider disciplinary measures against Braun, including potential censure or expulsion.
Auschwitz Jewish Center Director Tomek Kuncewicz said Braun’s comments are “an act of violence against truth, against survivors, and against the legacy of our shared humanity.” AJCF Chairman Simon Bergson called the politician’s remarks “blatant and baseless lies,” while Simony described them as “a calculated act of antisemitic incitement” that “must be met with legal consequences and universal moral condemnation.”
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Coalition of 400 Jewish Orgs and Synagogues Urge Teachers Union to Reverse Decision Cutting Ties with ADL
Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt. Photo Credit: ADL.
Following a vote by the National Education Association (NEA) on July 6 to end its relationship with the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), 400 Jewish communal groups, education organizations, and religious institutions have come together to call for the influential teachers union to change course.
“We are writing to express our deep concerns about the growing level of antisemitic activity within teachers’ unions, particularly since the Hamas terrorist attacks in Israel on October 7, 2023,” the letter to NEA President Becky Pringle stated. “Passage of New Business Item (NBI) 39 at the National Education Association (NEA) Representative Assembly this past weekend, which shockingly calls for the boycott of the Anti-Defamation League, is just the latest example of open hostility toward Jewish educators, students and families coming from national and local teachers’ unions and their members.”
In addition to the ADL, signatories of the letter included American Jewish Committee (AJC), Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, Jewish Federations of North America, #EndJewHatred, American Jewish Congress, B’nai B’rith International, CAMERA (Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting & Analysis), Combat Antisemitism Movement, Democratic Majority for Israel, StandWithUs, Simon Wiesenthal Center, Zioness Movement, and Zionist Organization of America (ZOA).
The group told Pringle that “we have heard directly from NEA members who have shared their experiences ranging from explicit and implicit antisemitism within the union to a broader pattern of insensitivity toward legitimate concerns of Jewish members – including at the recently concluded Representative Assembly. We are also deeply troubled by a broader pattern of union activity over the past 20 months that has targeted or alienated Jewish members and the wider Jewish community.”
The letter to Pringle included an addendum providing examples of objectionable rhetoric. These named such incidents as the Oakland Education Association (OEA) putting out a statement calling for “an end to the occupation of Palestine” and the Massachusetts Teachers Association (MTA) accusing Israel of genocide.
The coalition of 400 organizations urged the NEA to “take immediate action” and suggested such steps as rejecting NBI 39, issuing a “strong condemnation” of antisemitism within the union, drafting a plan to counter ongoing antisemitism in affiliate chapters, and opposing “any effort to use an educator’s support for the existence of Israel as a means to attack their identity.”
ADL CEO and National Director Jonathan Greenblatt wrote on X that “Excluding @ADL’s educational resources from schools is not just an attack on our org, but on the entire Jewish community. We urge the @NEAToday Executive Committee to reverse this biased, fringe effort and reaffirm its commitment to supporting all Jewish students and educators.”
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Zohran Mamdani Won’t Condemn Calls for Violence Against Jews; Why Are Jewish Leaders Supporting Him?
Zohran Mamdani. Photo: Ron Adar / SOPA Images via Reuters Connect
In the wake of Zohran Mamdani’s surge in New York City politics, a disturbing trend has emerged: prominent Jewish leaders are being urged to join “Jews for Zohran,” a newly formed effort to legitimize a candidate whose record and rhetoric are alarmingly out of step with Jewish communal values.
In a city that’s home to the largest Jewish population outside of Israel — and where antisemitic incidents are on the rise — this is a profound mistake.
Mamdani has refused to explicitly condemn the slogan “Globalize the Intifada,” which has been widely understood as a call to violence against Jews. His defenders insist it’s a symbolic plea for Palestinian rights. But nuance offers little comfort when the phrase glorifies violent uprisings, and is routinely chanted alongside calls for Israel’s destruction.
Institutions such as the US Holocaust Memorial Museum and watchdogs like StopAntisemitism.org have made it clear: attempts to sanitize violent language must be firmly rejected.
Mamdani’s vocal support for the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement is equally troubling. BDS does not merely critique Israeli policy; it seeks to economically isolate and politically delegitimize the Jewish state. When a candidate stands against the most visible symbol of Jewish survival — Israel — while brushing off violent slogans as misunderstood metaphors, we must ask what message this sends to our communities.
The answer should be clear. Jewish New Yorkers were the targets of over half the city’s reported hate crimes last year. From Crown Heights to Midtown, visible Jews have been harassed, assaulted, and mocked. Mamdani was flagged by national antisemitism monitors in December for promoting material that mocked Hanukkah. This is not abstract. This is personal, present, and dangerous.
Yes, Mamdani has pledged to increase hate crime funding from $3 million to $26 million. But that’s not enough. The Jewish community — especially now — needs more than budgetary gestures. We require moral clarity, as Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel powerfully stated: “Morally speaking, there is no limit to the concern one must feel for the suffering of human beings, that indifference to evil is worse than evil itself….”
Moral clarity demands more than financial promises, it requires principled rejection of rhetoric that endangers Jews. Belonging isn’t forged by slogans; it’s proven through sustained empathy, shared responsibility, and unwavering commitment to safety.
Calls for Jewish leaders to publicly support Mamdani, including those made to officials like Brad Lander and Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY), aim to provide political cover for a candidate whose worldview clashes with core Jewish values. These aren’t harmless endorsements. They’re symbols. And symbols matter.
Endorsing Mamdani sends a troubling signal: that political convenience or progressive branding outweighs communal safety and historical memory. When Jewish leaders align with someone who flirts with the delegitimization of Jewish statehood and refuses to condemn slogans rooted in violence, they are telling our adversaries that our moral lines are negotiable.
New York’s Jewish community has long been a moral compass in American politics. What happens here echoes across the nation. If our leaders can be cajoled into supporting a candidate like Mamdani, what message does that send to Jews in swing districts, smaller cities, and across college campuses? It normalizes equivocation. It emboldens the fringe. It tells the next generation that Jewish dignity is up for debate.
This is about more than Mamdani. It’s about whether Jewish pride and Jewish safety remain non-negotiable pillars of our political participation. Some have argued that this is simply politics as usual — that strategic alliances are part of coalition-building. But the Jewish people know better than most that what begins as a small compromise can metastasize into a much greater danger.
Former Democratic Councilman Rory Lancman said it best: “If ever there was a time to put principle over party, this is it.” He’s right. And that’s why this moment requires Jewish leaders to speak not just as political actors, but as moral stewards.
Jewish leaders are free to engage with any candidate they choose. But engagement is not endorsement. One can listen, challenge, and debate without aligning oneself publicly with a candidate whose positions cross communal red lines. Outreach does not require complicity.
If Jewish political figures join “Jews for Zohran,” they risk helping mainstream dangerous ideologies. They risk fracturing communal unity even further at a time when Jewish communal unity is our best defense. They risk allowing today’s ambiguity to become tomorrow’s regret.
Jewish history teaches us the cost of silence, of appeasement, and of looking away. We cannot afford those mistakes again — not in this city, not in this era; history is beginning to repeat itself and we cannot allow that to happen.
To every Jewish leader now weighing their public stance: choose principle. Choose safety. Choose the kind of moral leadership our tradition demands; reject the logic of “Jews for Zohran.” The stakes are too high — and the message matters.
Samuel J. Abrams is a professor of politics at Sarah Lawrence College and a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.
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