Israel once again faces a painful and troubling gap between expectation and outcome. The confrontation with Iran was accompanied by hopes for a deep strategic blow to its nuclear program, missile capabilities, terrorist proxies, and perhaps even the stability of the Iranian regime itself. There were important operational achievements, and they should not be dismissed. But if, in the end, the emerging arrangement fails to realize the goals presented to the public, the sense of missed opportunity is hard to ignore.

The difficulty is not only diplomatic or military. It is also public. Most Israelis supported the move, and it is therefore hard to say plainly now: we were wrong; we misread the situation; we expected too much. It is easier to place responsibility on the leadership, the military, the American president, or the circumstances. It is harder to acknowledge that the public, too, shared the expectation that the use of external force could solve a deep and complex problem.

Yet precisely at such a moment, when the sense of failure becomes sharper, it is worth looking at another historical example. In 1864, Denmark went through one of the greatest crises in its history. It was defeated in war by Prussia and Austria and lost important territories in the southern part of the kingdom. The defeat damaged national self-confidence, undermined public trust in the leadership, and forced Denmark to rethink its power, its borders, and its future.

Out of that crisis came the Danish phrase:

Hvad udad tabes, skal indad vindes — “What is lost outward must be won inward.”

This sentence does not express surrender. It expresses a national decision: when a country discovers the limits of its external power, it must rebuild its internal strength — through education, trust in institutions, solidarity, economic renewal, civic responsibility, and the ability to live together.

Israel after October 7 is, of course, in a very different place from Denmark in 1864. Denmark lost territory in a war between states; Israel experienced a massacre, mass kidnapping, the collapse of a security concept, a long war, the uprooting of communities from their homes, and severe damage to public trust. And yet there is an important point of similarity: in both cases, an external failure exposed a deep internal weakness.

October 7 intensified the Israeli crisis. For years, sharp polarization had been building around Netanyahu’s trial, the judiciary, religion and state, military service, the treatment of minorities, the nature of democracy, and the identity of the state. In the year before the war, that polarization reached a peak around the judicial overhaul and the protest movement against it. For a brief moment after the catastrophe, it seemed that pain might restore a basic sense of partnership to Israeli society. But as the war continued, the divisions........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)