Although Israel’s founding was made possible through the 1948 Independence War, it is the 1967 Six Day War that reordered the Middle East and framed Israel’s identity in 2025.
And yet, Israel’s 12-day war against Iran may have outdone its achievements during the Six Day War on multiple fronts.
During the Six Day War, Israel defeated three countries, Egypt, Syria, and Jordan.
It also conquered vast new territories, including the Sinai, the Golan, the West Bank, and east Jerusalem, including the Old City and the Temple Mount.
And until it did so, the average person thought that those three countries were most likely going to sweep Israel into the sea, not that the Jewish state would rout them and gain/regain lands.
Yet, after-the-fact analyses have shown that the Israeli military was far superior to its adversaries during that time, not only in capabilities and professionalism, but in level of commitment to the cause.
On top of that, Israel also devised a daring surprise attack plan and had some substantial luck (or divine help in the view of some religious circles), but it turned out that if someone had known the insider status and readiness of both sides, Israel probably should have won and by a good margin.
Iran is not, and never has been, Israel's equal
No one can say that Iran was Israel's equal; it never has been.
But Iran has proven itself, time after time, a far more savvy, resourceful, patient, and determined adversary than any other adversary Israel has faced in its history.
Despite being 1,500 km. away, by October 7, 2023, the Islamic Republic had managed to surround the Jewish state in a “ring of fire” of seven fronts: Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, the West Bank, Yemen, and Iran itself.
Israel was not the only country that Iran has outplayed, with the ayatollahs consistently turning the tables on the Saudis and other Sunni adversaries in country after country – at least until this war.
This meant that Iran could distract, harm, and weaken Israel on several fronts, without feeling any pushback on its own soil.
Despite 25 years of brilliant Mossad operations, by October 7, 2023, the ayatollahs had already managed to enrich large amounts of uranium to the 60% level, enough to potentially weaponize several nuclear weapons’ worth of uranium in weeks. This volume has only risen over the last 20 months.
Unlike Iraq in 1981 and Syria in 2007, the smarter and more devious Iranians had also distributed their nuclear program across dozens of sites throughout their vast country.
There was no one spot Israel could attack to end or shut down the program, and there were heavy concerns that the regime could sneak out to a nuclear bomb in a matter of months without anyone noticing.
It even built multiple sites under mountains, which were potentially immune to Israel’s limited weapons.
Finally, Iran had developed an astounding arsenal of powerful ballistic missiles, with estimates between 2,000-3,000 capable of reaching Israel and causing widespread devastation to Israeli cities.
The ballistic missile apparatus was also spread out in Iran’s enormous country to make it impossible to strike the Islamic Republic without facing a grave second strike ballistic missile capability against the Jewish state.
Even before these 12 days, Israel had carried out take-downs of Hamas and Hezbollah, and helped cause the fall of the Assad regime in Syria.
But in some ways, what it did during these 12 days was more important for all of the Iranian proxies to see – their leader pummeled into submission.
Why will they try to pick a large fight with Israel in the future if their leader and weapons provider cannot stand toe to toe with the Jewish state without being knocked out?
The vast nuclear program, while not entirely wiped out, may be set back at least two years, and may be set back enough to prevent it from making a comeback.
Israel did not hit one nuclear site – it hit dozens. And then sometimes hit those dozens multiple times. And its success convinced US President Donald Trump to join the fray and take out the Fordow nuclear site under a mountain.
Iran’s nuclear threat was the greatest existential threat Israel has likely faced since the 1948 war, when it was a weak group of militias that was just trying to survive and not lose too much land.
Jerusalem has removed the threat.
Not every ballistic missile is gone, but Israel managed to eliminate around two-thirds of the launchers, bringing Iran down from its desire to fire 500 missiles in a wave to 200 to 75 to 30 to closer to 10.
This required innumerable flights of 1,500 km., and even farther, to saturate many parts of Iran from where these missiles were being fired.
Israel has also been incredible on defense.
Iran fired around 500 ballistic missiles at Israel over the 12 days, killing only 29 Israelis, when IDF estimates had been that easily hundreds or more could have been killed.
These were not the weak and dumb rockets that made up most of Hamas and Hezbollah’s arsenal, which could be shot down by Iron Dome.
Many observers mistakenly think that missile defense success was expected because the Iron Dome has been a publicly known phenomenon for over a decade.
But these far more advanced and far more deadly missiles needed to be shot down by the advanced Arrow 3 system, which hits them up in the atmosphere.
That achievement on its own was a leap forward in missile defense that may force Iran and other adversaries of Israel to rethink their long-term strategies about how or if they can harm Israel.
And when Israel beat the three armies in 1967, they were taking down rank and file soldiers and tanks.
During this war, Israel killed nine of 13 top Iranian commanders and turned Tehran inside out, penetrating just about every nook and cranny they wanted to get to.
This penetration in and of itself will force Iran to rethink its basic strategic approach and capabilities versus Israel.
When you put all of that together, in only 12 days, Israel may have removed the most multi-sided octopus of threats it has ever faced – and in one fell swoop, – put every adversary in the region on notice that it will no longer play nice – and that any party seeking to harm Israel should be ready to pay for it at the highest levels.