Shalom all,

For almost three years, Israel has been fighting a war – or, more accurately, a series of interconnected wars – across multiple fronts. The country has demonstrated repeatedly that it can mobilize, absorb enormous pressure, sustain military operations and strike at threats far beyond its immediate borders. But military capacity is not the same thing as strategy.

The question increasingly confronting Israel is what happens when the fighting stops – when the intensity of fighting eventually declines. What political and security architecture will be left behind? That question has now entered the election campaign in a particularly direct way, through the emergence of Ofer Winter.

From the battlefield to the ballot box: Winter is not an outsider parachuting into Israeli politics. He is a retired IDF Brigadier General and former commander of the elitie Givati Brigade, a highly visible figure within Israel’s religious-nationalist camp. On August 25th, he formally launched Amcha Yisrael – “People of Israel”, a new right-wing party ahead of the October 27 Knesset election. His timing is significant.

Even before formally launching the party, Winter had been arguing that Israel’s three years of war had produced major military achievements, but had failed to deliver a decisive result. His proposed alternative was a shift from what he describes as reactive “rounds” and containment toward initiative, decisiveness and victory. That message is remarkably well suited to the political mood of the moment.

Winter is essentially arguing that Israelis will not accept a return to the political assumptions (“conceptzia”=political/military perspective and misunderstanding) that existed before October 7th. His party combines a hawkish security doctrine with an appeal to national cohesion. At the launch, he called for a tougher approach to Israel’s enemies, advocated what he calls voluntary emigration from Gaza, demanded broader Haredi participation in military service, and presented a slate that deliberately crossed some of Israel’s conventional political boundaries. 

His candidates are taken from diverse backgrounds and include, among others: Arab-Israeli public-diplomacy activist Yoseph Haddad, former Jerusalem deputy mayor Fleur Hassan-Nahoum, reservists, bereaved relatives, as well as representatives of communities affected by October 7th and figures from professional and civil society backgrounds. That combination is not accidental.

Winter is not presenting himself simply as another figure on the far right. His pitch is more ambitious: Israel can become more uncompromising toward its enemies while becoming less divided internally. That is potentially a powerful political proposition. It is also what makes the party more interesting than its initial number of Knesset seats might suggest.

Winter’s challenge to Netanyahu comes from inside the security camp: For years, Benjamin Netanyahu’s strongest political argument has been that Israel’s security requires experienced leadership – and that changing governments amid a prolonged regional conflict entails unacceptable risk.

Winter complicates that argument because he comes from the military establishment himself.

His implicit question is not whether Israel should be tougher. It is whether Israel can achieve better results with a different political leadership and a different security doctrine. That distinction matters.

Winter’s criticism is directed not only at the opposition. It is also directed at the governing system that, in his view, has failed to convert military power into decisive strategic outcomes.

Prime Minister Netanyahu reacted almost immediately to Winter’s entry, warning that the proliferation of small nationalist parties could fragment the right-wing vote and prevent the right from forming a government. The concern is hardly theoretical. Polls published since Winter’s launch have produced radically different pictures of his strength. One Haaretz poll put the new party below the electoral threshold, while an i24NEWS survey gave it eight seats. Another Times of Israel poll put it at six, while a Maariv survey reported five. 

That volatility itself is significant. It means that nobody yet knows whether Amcha Yisrael is a serious emerging political force or an unusually successful launch that will fade as voters make their final calculations. But Winter has already accomplished something politically important: he has introduced a demand for change from within the nationalist-security camp rather than from Israel’s traditional opposition.

The Netanyahu paradox:  And then came the twist. On Thursday, August 27, Winter announced that if Amcha Yisrael enters the next Knesset, it will recommend Benjamin Netanyahu – and only Benjamin Netanyahu – for prime minister. “We are in the right-wing camp,” Winter said. “The leader of the right-wing camp is Netanyahu, and we will only recommend him.” 

At first glance, this appears to resolve Netanyahu’s problem.  If Winter is not trying to replace Netanyahu, why should Likud voters be afraid of him? But the announcement may actually create a more interesting political equation. Winter is attempting to say: We support Netanyahu for prime minister – but we do not work for Netanyahu. He simultaneously insists that his party will remain independent and that it will not “dance to anyone’s tune.” 

He is demanding Haredi enlistment “with or without” the Haredi political establishment and continues to advocate a substantially different approach to Gaza and national security. That is a very different proposition from joining Likud. The distinction could become central to Winter’s campaign. A right-wing voter dissatisfied with Netanyahu’s government can now tell himself that voting for Winter does not necessarily mean voting to replace Netanyahu. At the same time, that voter can use Winter’s party to register dissatisfaction with the existing government’s handling of security, Haredi enlistment, Gaza and the broader political system.

In other words, Winter is trying to make his party a pressure mechanism inside the right-wing camp.

That may prove more consequential than simply declaring himself Netanyahu’s opponent.

The Jerusalem Post has similarly noted the possibility that Winter could attract voters dissatisfied with the current right-wing government while also drawing support from voters who had considered or supported parties associated with Gadi Eisenkot and Avigdor Liberman. 

The Eisenkot confrontation is revealing. The emerging confrontation with former IDF chief of staff Gadi Eisenkot adds another dimension. Eisenkot was asked whether Winter could serve as defense minister in a government led by him. His answer was essentially no: He described Winter as a good field commander, but argued that Winter had not served at the strategic level of the military and had not held sufficiently senior positions. Winter responded sharply, rejecting the premise that Eisenkot’s approach represented the necessary standard for strategic leadership. 

The exchange is more than personal politics. It highlights a fundamental question that will probably follow Winter throughout the campaign: What kind of military experience qualifies someone to translate battlefield experience into national strategy?

Winter’s supporters see his operational experience as precisely what Israel needs after October 7th. His critics argue that commanding combat units is not the same thing as running national security policy. That debate is likely to become especially important if, as some reports suggest, Winter is positioning himself for the defense portfolio. 

The Haddad factor: The inclusion of Yoseph Haddad may be the most revealing element of Winter’s political project. Haddad is an Arab-Israeli activist who has become prominent internationally as a public advocate for Israel. He joined Winter as number two on the list and has said he wants to become Israel’s next public-diplomacy minister – and potentially the first Arab member of the security cabinet. This is an important political calculation.

Winter’s message is not simply “more force.” It is force combined with national cohesion and an assertive Israeli narrative abroad. That explains why the party has gone out of its way to emphasize its mixture of secular and religious Jews, immigrants, Arab citizens, reservists, bereaved families and residents of communities hit by October 7th. Whether this represents a genuinely broad national movement or simply a sophisticated way of packaging a strongly right-wing platform remains to be seen.

But the symbolism is unmistakable. Winter wants to define the political divide not as Jew versus Arab, or even simply right versus left, but as those who believe Israel must fundamentally change after October 7th versus those who believe the existing political system can continue. That is a much broader appeal.

What exactly does Winter want? This may be the most important unanswered question.

Is Winter trying to become another right-wing party? A future defense minister? The political home for disillusioned security voters? A mechanism for forcing the next Netanyahu government further to the right? Or the nucleus of a much larger post-Netanyahu political movement? There are indications of several of these ambitions simultaneously.

His party is clearly positioning itself to influence security policy. It advocates a more proactive military doctrine, rejects the creation of a “Palestinian” state, supports a radically different approach to Gaza, and calls for universalizing national service. It also speaks about judicial reform, crime and governance rather than limiting itself to foreign policy. 

And Winter’s language is deliberately about victory, not merely deterrence. That distinction deserves attention. Israel has spent decades developing a doctrine in which deterrence, containment and periodic military operations could coexist with the absence of a comprehensive political settlement. October 7th exposed the limitations of that model in its most devastating form.

Winter’s answer is essentially that Israel must regain the initiative. But initiative by itself is not a strategy. And victory is not an end state. 

The danger of confusing military success with strategic success: This brings us back to the larger question. Israel has demonstrated that it can fight. It can mobilize reserves. It can strike distant targets. It can defend its population. It can absorb extraordinary pressure and continue functioning.

The more difficult question is: What happens after the fighting? What replaces UNRWA, if anything? What replaces Hamas governance in Gaza? Who governs Gaza? What security arrangement will ultimately exist along Israel’s northern border? What happens in Lebanon if the Lebanese state remains unable—or unwilling—to fully control Hezbollah? What happens in Syria as its political order continues to evolve? What is Israel’s long-term policy in Judea and Samaria – the West Bank? How does Israel prevent Iran from rebuilding its nuclear, missile and regional infrastructure? And how does Israel preserve its indispensable relationship with Washington while maintaining the freedom of action it considers necessary for its security?

These questions are not independent. They are parts of one strategic problem: Israel has too many unresolved fronts.That statement should become more than a description of the problem. It should become a prescription for the next government.

Strategic closure: Israel’s first strategic priority should therefore be to establish an explicit hierarchy of objectives – and then finish what can actually be finished. That means distinguishing between existential threats, manageable security problems and political disputes that cannot be solved militarily.

Preventing another October 7th belongs in the first category. Iran’s nuclear and missile capabilities belong there as well.

But not every unresolved political question can be settled through another military operation.

A strategy of permanent crisis management eventually becomes its own strategic failure. Israel needs to move toward strategic closure: defeat or contain immediate threats; establish who governs the territories in question; replace failed institutions where necessary; create enforceable security arrangements; and define what Israel is actually prepared to accept as an end state. That is the missing bridge between military power and national strategy.

And it is precisely here that Winter’s political emergence becomes interesting – even for people who have no intention of voting for him. Because Winter is forcing a question onto the political agenda that Israel’s established parties cannot easily avoid: What does “victory” actually mean?

The test for Netanyahu, Winter – and everyone else: The next election should, therefore, not be judged solely by the familiar question of who is right-wing and who is left-wing. It should be judged by something more demanding.

What is the government’s theory of the region? What does it intend to do with Gaza? What does it want the future of the West Bank to look like? How will it manage Lebanon? How will it deal with Iran? How will it rebuild deterrence without creating an endless cycle of escalation? How will it maintain American support? How will it address the enormous internal burden created by prolonged mobilization? And, ultimately, how does it intend to turn military power into a sustainable political order?

That should be the standard by which Netanyahu, Winter, Eisenkot and every other candidate are judged. Not who can promise the hardest response. Not who can produce the most dramatic military operation. Not who can identify the greatest number of enemies. But who has a credible plan for getting Israel from war to security – and from security to a sustainable political order. That is the priority Israel cannot afford to postpone. Because the greatest danger of having too many unresolved fronts is not that Israel will lose any one of them. 

Winter’s emergence does not answer that question. His party is far too new, and its policies are themselves controversial, for that. But he has changed the political conversation. He has taken the argument that Israel needs a fundamentally different security doctrine out of the military and into the electoral arena. He has combined it with demands for Haredi enlistment, national unity and a more assertive Israeli diplomatic effort. And, by pledging to recommend Netanyahu while remaining politically independent of him, he has created a potentially unusual role for his party: not an alternative government, but an alternative power center within the right.

Whether that becomes a significant political force will depend on whether Amcha Yisrael can turn attention into enough votes to survive the electoral threshold. But the underlying issue is larger than Ofer Winter. Israel could win every battle it fights this year and still find itself fighting the same battles five years from now.

That would not be strategic victory. It would simply be another round.

He will judge between the nations and will settle disputes for many peoples. They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore. (Isaiah 2:4)

Bless, be blessed and be a blessing!

Have a safe, God-honoring week.

Marvin