Israel is now at a unique moment in its history where it can declare and enforce new rules of the game, which will give it a better chance of keeping itself safe for years to come.
The new rules are simple: if any proxy of Iran does anything against Israel, Jerusalem orders a strike on Tehran.
In February 2022, then prime minister Naftali Bennett ordered a Mossad strike against around 125 Iranian drones on the Islamic Republic's sovereign territory in response to two drones sent to attack Israel, which had been shot down.
It seemed like a possible turning point by which Israel would respond directly against Iran for all actions, even those which did not kill anyone, and potentially deter, by force, Tehran from continuing to harass the Jewish state either directly or through its proxies.
Instead of being a turning point, it was a passing moment.
Israel fought multiple inconclusive rounds with Islamic Jihad in Gaza and had some skirmishes with Hezbollah, but leading up to October 7, 2023, the IDF was afraid to force Hezbollah to move a tent of a few of its fighters from a spot they had snuck onto in the uninhabited Mount Dov border area.
Afraid to fight Iran's proxies, allies
The IDF was afraid to get in a fight with Hamas.
It was willing to strike certain weapons smuggling operations in Syria, but usually under the cover of darkness, often covertly, and trying to downplay the operations so as not to upset the Assad regime.
And it was terrified of Tehran.
Iran was sending weapons, funding, and training to Hamas, Hezbollah, parties in Syria, and the Houthis in Yemen in order to attack Israel and instead of directing its fire at the "head of the snake," the Jewish state was stuck taking hits from Iran's proxies and pushing back only on those proxies.
From October 27, 2023 until summer 2024, the IDF systematically dismantled Hamas's military apparatus.
It is still a terror guerilla threat and a political threat, but for now it does not constitute a military threat.
Israel can keep things that way by ongoing enforcement strikes on any Hamas attempt to rearm.
Since November 27, 2024, the IDF has kept Hezbollah on its heels, killing over 200 of its fighters and destroying the terror groups weapons both south and north of the Litani River, leaving no doubt that any attempts to rearm will result in a deadly penalty.
The Assad regime has fallen, and any attempts to endanger Israel from Syria have also been met with swift attacks.
The Houthis are a trickier, more diffuse enemy to deal with, but only if they are dealt with in a vacuum.
If in addition to striking proactively against attempts to rearm and threaten Israel on all of these fronts, Jerusalem now orders attacks – albeit limited and narrow – on Iranian territory every time these groups attack Israel, the attacks are likely to lessen for a long time or stop entirely.
If every Houthi missile that is shot down over the sea leads to an IRGC office in Tehran being bombed, suddenly Iran will probably figure out a way to exercise leverage over the Houthis to stop them from firing despite the Islamic Republic saying they are an "independent actor."
This does not mean eternal war for Israel.
Rather, it means a readiness for regular limited proactive preemptive operations to prevent adversaries on these fronts from attacking Israel, and in Iran and Hezbollah's cases, to prevent them from building up nuclear or ballistic missile capabilities which could be turned on Israel in the future in a way that would overwhelm Israel's defenses.
Significant efforts should be made not to kill even foreign fighters when carrying out such attacks, with the focus being on removing Iran and its proxies' attack capabilities, which can reach Israel.
This does not mean Iran has no military.
If Iran wants to build a ballistic missile army that can only reach 500 to 1,000 kilometers, and not 1,500 kilometers to Israel, maybe that is also not Jerusalem's problem, as long as they are not smuggled closer to Israel's borders.
And they can have as many foot soldiers, tanks, and other conventional weapons that do not have a 1,500 kilometer strike capabilities range as they want.
Maybe Israel can even agree to some consultations with the US and other allies to warn Iran to stop certain activities before Israel strikes, like it does sometimes with Hezbollah.
For years, Israel failed to protect Sderot or Kiryat Shmona with politicians lying and pretending that "the rules for Sderot and Kiryat Shmona are the same as the rules for Tel Aviv," when everyone knew that the Jewish state was not really defending those periphery cities.
Forget applying that formula.
From now on, the rule should be that any attack on Sderot or Kiryat Shmona leads to an attack on Tehran.
If Israel announces and enforces once and for all now that it will not allow creeping threats to be built against it and that Tehran will suffer any time it tries to use a proxy against Jerusalem, a longer-term true ceasefire may emerge, and Israeli security could be enhanced for decades to come.