An unrestrained Israel is reshaping the Middle East

TEN years and a lifetime ago, Binyamin Netanyahu offered a stark vision of the future. Israel’s prime minister told a parliamentary committee that there could never be peace with the Palestinians. “I’m asked if we will forever live by the sword,” he said. “Yes.” His words were a source of controversy, not least among the leaders of the Israel Defence Forces (IDF), who did not think the government should give up on diplomacy. Yet today Mr Netanyahu’s vision is an almost unquestioned reality. It has remained so even though Israel has reversed the sense of peril it felt immediately after Hamas, a Palestinian militant group, went on a rampage across southern Israel on October 7th 2023, killing more than 1,100 people and kidnapping 250 more.