Kuala Lampur, Feb. 22 -- For decades, Israel's core argument has rested on a proposition that much of the world - even when uneasy - accepted: that military superiority was not a choice but a necessity, a condition of survival in a hostile strategic environment. That argument carried weight because it was paired, however imperfectly, with a political horizon - Oslo, the two-state framework, land-for-peace, normalisation through diplomacy. Force was presented as an instrument in service of an eventual settlement.

What is increasingly difficult to discern today is not Israel's capacity to fight, which remains overwhelming, but Israel's theory of how fighting ends.

Across multiple theatres - Gaza, the West Bank, and periodically Lebanon - ...