Wars on two fronts are, generally

speaking, things that are best avoided.

History books are littered with examples

of countries and empires who thought

that they could pull them off either by

choice or by necessity, and with a few

[music] exceptions, they did not end

very well. Israel, for its part, has

been running something close to an

on-again, off-again war across some

seven separate fronts for going on 2 and

1/2 years now. [music] And while the IDF

is certainly still punching way above

its weight in terms of sheer

capabilities and reach for such a tiny

country, cracks are starting to show.

Curiously, though, the problems

threatening to split things wide open

aren't just coming from across the

border. The strain of Israel's fractured

internal politics is also starting to

show.

Running hot.

Over the past 2 and 1/2 years, it's been

tricky keeping up with all the different

operations that Israel has been involved

in. The headlines have, of course,

focused on the massive war in Gaza,

where over 100,000 troops have rotated

through at various points, and Israel

still occupies somewhere in the vicinity

of half of the enclave. But beyond that,

there's been Lebanon, the war in Iran,

ongoing operations in the West Bank, and

periodic into Syria and Yemen. Oh, and

they also set up shop in Iraq as well.

Throughout all of this, Israel seems to

have been able to take on these multiple

fronts, sometimes one after another,

sometimes several at once, without

buckling. Lately, though, it's started

to look like this tiny country might be

maxing out. Israel, after all, has just

some 10 million people. For context,

that's less than the population of

greater London. Even by Israeli

standards, these last years have been

unprecedented. Some 360,000 reserves

were called up in the first weeks after

October 7th, amounting to the largest

mobilization since the 1973 Yom Kippur

War. Since then, the reserve army has

never really stood down, not in a

sustained way, at least. Some 17,000 of

the original call-ups have remained on

active duty ever since, and tens of

thousands more have been sent home only

to be called back up as many as seven

times. The IDF was, to put it simply,

not designed to fight like this. The

whole operating logic, dating back to

the 1950s, was that the country was too

small to sustain a long-term war, so it

would have to fight short ones with

overwhelming force, helped in part by a

nationwide citizen army. Jerusalem used

that model for most conflicts since, and

it largely [music] worked. There were

occasional longer-term stints, like

their occupation of Lebanon, but even

then it was a massive invasion that

rapidly diminished down to an occupation

by just a few thousands. What's notable

about the current era is not just that

the war is lasting longer than expected,

it's that these longer wars are coming

on top of a genuine manpower shortage.

The IDF says it's currently 12,000

troops short of where it needs to be,

with roughly 9,000 of those gaps being

in combat roles. And the way the army

has been plugging that hole by grinding

the reserve force harder and harder is

itself becoming a problem. Reserve duty

for the average combat soldier in 2026

was originally supposed to be 55 days,

already a serious ask for people holding

down jobs and raising families. The Iran

war, though, raised that to 80 to 100

days for many units. At those rates,

Israel is effectively asking its citizen

soldiers to spend a quarter of every

year in uniform with no end in sight.

Now, to an extent, this is understood by

Israelis as a possibility when they

enter the reserves. The country is not

exactly a stranger to being attacked,

and as a certain Russian president will

be able to inform you, schedules for a

swift, overwhelming blow to knock out

your enemy don't always go according to

plan,

do they? In the aftermath of the October

7th attack, reservists reportedly showed

up at 130% strength. People who hadn't

even been called rushed to join, with

some units even turning volunteers away

because they didn't have enough weapons

to hand out. It was pretty clear from

the outset that Gaza was not going to be

a quick battle. By September last year,

though, turnout for operational call-ups

had dropped to 60 or 70%, and reserve

commanders had turned to recruiting

through WhatsApp groups because the

normal channels weren't filling the

ranks anymore. The frustration has even

spawned its own political vehicle, a new

party called the Reservists, led by

former minister and reserve battalion

commander Yoaz Hendel, running on a

platform built entirely around draft

reform and reservist welfare. Manpower

issues are just part of the problem,

though. The hardware side is likely even

more concerning for Jerusalem.

Throughout Operation Roaring Lion, the

Israeli campaign against Iran earlier

this year, a British defense think tank

estimated that Israel could fully

exhaust its infantry of Arrow

interceptors if Tehran kept firing at

the rate it was. US officials similarly

told Semafor that Israel had informed

them that it was critically low on

ballistic missile interceptors. Now,

they're not exactly alone here.

Interceptor shortages have become a

running concern the world over in recent

months, and the US is similarly reported

to be dangerously low itself. One report

estimated that Washington burned through

25% of its entire SAM infantry defending

Israel's airspace during the 12-day war

in June 2025. But, the US has a vastly

more robust industrial base it can lean

on to build more of these at a rate that

Israel would seriously struggle to

match. The hardware can eventually be

rebuilt and restocked, but the manpower

problem, that's another story entirely.

IDF Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir recently

warned the security cabinet that the

army is going to collapse in on itself

if the shortage is not addressed. And

the reason it hasn't been is tearing the

current government's apart. Now, before

we get into the internal divides causing

ruptures in Israel's body politic, a

quick breather to tell you about Front

Stoic. Look, if you're a regular viewer

of this channel, you'll already know

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but we've been really focusing on

getting a bigger roster of serious

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now have pieces on the site by drone

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better than ever. And now, back to the

internal divides tormenting Israel.

Who fights?

Part of Israel's ability to punch so far

above its weight has historically come

down to conscription. Basically, when

you're born in Israel, it's just taken

as a given that you will do your time

serving in the Israeli Defense Forces

after graduating high school. For those

who go on to university, you serve first

and you study later. There has been,

though, one exception to this from the

very earliest days of the country.

Israel was founded almost exclusively by

secular Jews who were nevertheless

deeply committed to preserving the

religious tradition that, in the wake of

the Holocaust, was a shell of its former

self.

Haredi Jews, or the so-called

ultra-Orthodox, were granted an

exemption by the country's first Prime

Minister, David Ben-Gurion. Men who were

deep in religious scholarship in

yeshivas across the country who did not

want to cut their studies short to serve

would be exempt. At the time, this

covered all of the 400 or so students,

not exactly something that was going to

be a game-changer for the country

militarily, so it was not particularly

controversial. The thing was, population

trends can fluctuate, and when it comes

to Haredim, those 400 were just the

start. Migration from Europe began to

boost their numbers, but they also have

a lot of kids, and we don't mean more

than one or two or even four or five.

Right now, they average 6.5 children per

woman, a figure impressive in and of

itself, until you realize that's

actually down from the peaks of nearly

eight around the turn of the millennium.

And remember, that's the average. Fast

forward to 2026, and those military

exempt scholars have grown to roughly

14% of the overall Israeli population.

That is a lot more significant in terms

of military exemptions. But, when you

start breaking down these figures by

age, it really starts sounding those

alarm bells. Nearly 60% of all Haredi

Jews are under 20, and they currently

make up a quarter of all Jewish children

in the country under the age of four.

This has been a long time coming, and

successive Israeli governments have

largely done what any responsible state

would do.

They kicked the can down the road. Now,

there have been attempts to figure out

what to do about the situation, most of

which involved trying to pass laws that

coupled increasing Haredi integration

voluntarily into the IDF with

codification of exemptions. They never

really went anywhere, though, and the

issue has become increasingly toxic.

Things really came to a head back in

2024, when the Israeli Supreme Court

finally weighed in and unanimously ruled

that there was no legal basis for Haredi

exemptions, ordered the Defense Ministry

to begin mandatory conscription, and

green-lit charging those who didn't

respond to summons with draft dodging.

The rule landed on a government that

couldn't be worse positioned to deal

with it. Israel had gone through an

unprecedented series of five separate

elections in four years between 2019 and

2022, and going back to the voters for a

sixth was just out of the question.

Netanyahu entered into an unenthusiastic

coalition with some six separate

parties, including the two Haredi ones,

United Torah Judaism and Shas.

Even with them all together, he barely

had a majority, which meant no wiggle

room. And when it came to the Haredi

parties, getting their support usually

involves one thing, guarantees to

continue the military exemption. Now,

Netanyahu did try to work with them, but

the war made this issue even more

radioactive than ever before.

Neither party is particularly involved

in foreign policy, and they are not the

ones pushing for any of the campaigns

that Israel has embarked on. They're

historically willing to sit in

coalitions with just about anyone, left

or right, so long as they get the select

issues they prioritize for their

communities sorted. But, Netanyahu and

his other coalition parties are, and the

wars are at least part of the reason the

exemption has become untenable, with

pressure now building from both sides at

once. On one side, you have security

hawks along with the far-right religious

Zionist groups that form the base of

Smotrich and Ben-Gvir's parties, and

whose communities have absorbed a

massively disproportionate share of the

war's cost. Despite comprising maybe 10

to 12% of Israel's population, they've

accounted for roughly 45% of all combat

deaths across the entire war, with some

periods spiking north of 60% at the

height of the violence. This is often

driven by an intense nationalist

sentiment that leads them to being

overrepresented in frontline sign-ups.

You can imagine how these communities

feel about Haredi demands for an

exemption from fighting, made worse by

the fact that the very MKs they elected

to represent them are the ones cutting

the deals to make it happen. On the

other side, religion can be quite

stubborn, and the Haredi parties

themselves have categorically refused to

back down on their exemption demands. As

time marched on, and it became

increasingly clear that Netanyahu was

stalling any formal legislation to

codify the exemption, United Torah

Judaism quit the coalition outright last

summer. Netanyahu limped along on a

60-60 tie until this month, when Shas

followed suit and moved to dissolve the

Knesset. Elections are coming later this

year, and while it's too soon to predict

outcomes, the Haredi are only half the

problem.

While the Haredi parties have been

enjoying their unusually prominent time

in the limelight lately, there's been

another faction of Netanyahu's coalition

that's been causing international crises

since [music] taking office. The two

parties a religious Zionism and Otzma

Yehudit, but they're better known for

their respective leaders, Bezalel

Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir. These two

men are truly unlike anything previously

seen in Israeli political leadership and

very much represent a pivot to the hard

right. For example, they consider

Netanyahu's Likud party unnecessarily

accommodating to Palestinians. Of the

two, Ben-Gvir is the more controversial

and has been making headlines lately

after filming himself taunting bound and

blindfolded activists detained from an

aid flotilla headed for Gaza. That stunt

drew a rare rebuke from the US

ambassador and prompted Israel's own

president to publicly condemn him. It

also angered huge swaths of Europe from

where the activists mostly hailed,

including countries that are usually

staunch supporters of Israel. Neither of

these men are working from the

backbenches though. Smotrich holds the

finance ministry, which also puts him in

charge of large swaths of policy on the

West Bank including settlements. [music]

He's wasted little time delivering for

the hardliners who back him.

Construction there has been absolutely

booming with more than 51,000 housing

units approved since 2022 and 103

entirely new settlements authorized. And

if that's not enough, earlier this month

he was prominently calling for Israel to

erase [music] permanently the lines

distinguishing between areas A, B and C,

referencing the different zones that

recognize the Palestinian authority's

governance over parts of their

territory. In other words, annexation.

The West Bank has been a flashpoint

that's received bizarrely little

attention. Attacks by Israeli extremist

settlers on Palestinians have been an

ongoing fact of life there for years.

Not all settlers are involved or even

supportive, but the violent fringe is

large and well-connected enough that

treating it as a few bad apples

seriously understates the problem. With

Ben-Gvir, who is himself a settler and

has a long history of backing extremist

positions serving as Minister of

National Security, it's not exactly

difficult to figure out what side he's

going to come down on. In fact, in his

early days in office he was known for

unironically referring to those who

attack Palestinian villages as sweet

boys. There have been attacks in all

sorts of Palestinian infrastructure,

including homes and religiously

motivated attacks on mosques and

Christian village, but this year seems

to be particularly brutal. According to

ACLED data, settler violence has surged

to the highest level since October 2023.

The UN documented an average of five

settler attacks per day across 2025,

totaling nearly 1,800 incidents,

including non-fatal attacks. To make

matters worse, Israeli human rights

group Yesh Din found that 94% of cases

were closed without indictment

whatsoever. Now, to be fair, it's far

from the only violence that goes on

there. The Shin Bet recorded 57

significant Palestinian attacks last

year, down from 231 the year prior.

These include shootings, stabbings, and

car rammings. The IDF, for their part,

aren't turning a blind eye toward this,

far from it, and that's landed them very

much on the settlers' bad side as well.

Last summer, there were multiple attacks

by settlers on IDF soldiers, including

with pepper spray, attacks that even

Ben-Gvir called a red line in a rare

break from his usual defense of settler

actions. Other attacks targeted their

equipment, burning IDF military vehicles

and the surveillance hardware the army

uses to maintain security in the area.

In one instance, [music]

after torching a mosque in Deir Istiya,

the attackers left behind a message, not

written in Arabic for the local

Palestinians, but rather in Hebrew for

the IDF when they showed up. It said,

among other things, "We are not afraid

of Arvie Blues and keep on condemning,"

referring to the IDF Central Command

Chief Major General, who had recently

put out a denunciation of their

violence. They were taunting the IDF,

"We can sneak in, burn places down, and

get out before you even show up. And,

well, there's nothing you can do about

it, because the man running the police

is on our side." Netanyahu has known

that this is a growing issue, but also

knows that if he sacks Ben-Gvir, he

loses his coalition. So, this unhealthy

status quo has continued, and we really

need to stress a key word there,

unhealthy. Earlier this month, Netanyahu

was briefed by a senior officer in the

IDF Central Command along with the head

of Shin Bet that some 80% of violent

incidents Israeli troops in the West

Bank record are Jewish extremist attacks

[music] on Palestinians. That is a

staggering statistic in and of itself,

but it is only compounded by reporting

by Israel's Kan network that stated,

quote, "The officer informed Netanyahu

that the need to devote resources to

Jewish terrorism has forced the Israeli

Defense Forces to cut back on arresting

Palestinian terror suspects, putting the

security of the state at risk." End

quote. The message isn't subtle. The

army's own commanders are telling the

prime minister that one fraction of his

coalition has become not just a security

problem, but apparently the major

security problem in the West Bank. This

is effectively the mirror opposite of

the draft fight. The Haredi walked

because Netanyahu couldn't shield them

anymore, while Smotrich and Ben-Gvir are

staying is what's causing chaos

elsewhere. Neither arrangement was

sustainable, and by all indications, the

differences they were able to paper over

are now just too vast. Israel will soon

have new elections for the first time

since October 7th, and while it is a

historically terrible way to debate

against Netanyahu's political survival,

it's quite clear that whatever the next

Israeli government consists of, it's

going to look a lot different. What that

actually means to the people living in

Israel, Palestine, and the wider region

though, remains very much up in the air.

Thank you for watching.