Israel is Consolidating a New Regional Status Quo
2025-08-319 view
Since late 2023, Israel has been working to establish a new security balance in the region, in the wake of the October 7 attacks by Palestinian militants. This effort includes expanding the “safe zone” around Israel to prevent the emergence of future new threats on its borders, as well as using its long military reach and excessive force to expand the scope of its military operations well beyond.
Besides insisting on the demilitarization of southern Syria and on maintaining its presence in parts of rural Quneitra and Rif Dimashq which it seized in late 2024 and early this year, Israel is also preparing for a new phase of military operations in Gaza, aimed at seizing complete control of the Strip and clearing it entirely of Palestinian militants. All this adds up to a campaign to exploit the changes underway in Palestine and Syria to expand Israel’s security belt.
In Lebanon, Israel and the U.S. are likely to keep up their pressure aimed at disarming Hezbollah, under threat of a return to military operations against the movement, whose continued possession of weapons they see as potentially allowing it to re-emerge as a threat to Israel over time.
Israel is also working to establish a status quo under which it can use military force against targets far from its borders whenever it feels the need to do so—such as its repeated attacks on Iran to undermine the Islamic Republic’s missile capabilities and harm its nuclear program. Israel also periodically launches strikes against the Houthi group in Yemen, most recently in the last week of August, when it targeted the Houthi-affiliated government and killed its prime minister in response to the group launching ballistic missiles at Israeli targets.
Israel clearly views the strong backing it enjoys from the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump as an opportunity to establish a new status quo in the region. As Trump’s Special Envoy to Syria and Lebanon, Tom Barrack, said in an interview in late August: “In Israel’s mind, these lines that were created by Sykes-Picot [a colonial-era deal dividing up the Middle East] are meaningless. They will go where they want, when they want, and do what they want.”
Israel could well launch a new escalation against Hezbollah in the coming months, in addition to precision strikes against Iranian-backed Iraqi factions. This scenario is ever more likely given the convergence between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s desire to consolidate a new security status quo, and the Trump administration’s focus on further weakening Iran and pushing it to the negotiating table with much reduced leverage.
