Israel at the Crossroads: A Messianic Halakhic State, or A Normal Civil Democratic State?

ABSTRACT Misrepresenting the war as the “Hamas‐Israel war” is a factual distortion of both the reality and the nature of the war, because while the initial attack was launched by Hamas, Israel made a conscious conversion of its military response into a broader war targeting the entire Palestinian population—not just Hamas militants. It made from the October attack an opportunity to reshape the conflict, expand its territory, alter regional realities, and pursue its long‐term strategic vision of regional dominance under the misleading slogan of a “New Middle East.”