Some wars announce themselves at once. Others reveal their true meaning only after the smoke has spread from one front to another, after the funerals have multiplied, after entire communities have been uprooted, and after a nation begins to understand that it is not facing an episode, but an era. More than two and a half years after October 7, Israel can no longer call this merely the Gaza war, the northern war, or the Iran war. What began with massacre has become a multi-front struggle over the most basic question of Jewish sovereignty: whether the Jewish people will live securely, freely, and permanently in their ancestral homeland. In that sense, this is Israel’s Second War of Independence — a war not only of survival, but of renewal.

The comparison is not perfect, and it should not be forced. Israel in 1948 was small, poor and weak, with fewer than one million inhabitants. It had little armor, few aircraft, limited weapons and a new army only recently formed from underground movements and local defense forces. Israel today is a country of roughly 10 million people, with a strong economy, a world-class technology sector and one of the most capable militaries in the world.

Yet beneath these differences lies a familiar structure.

Both wars began with an existential attack on Jewish life and Jewish sovereignty in the Land of Israel. In 1947–49,........

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