Israel’s military dominance in regional politics is clear, but it has been unable to convert that power into the consent, trust and cooperation of its neighbours. Instead, prolonged war, international criticism and reliance on the United States are weakening the foundations of its regional dominance.
In the philosopher Antonio Gramsci’s terms, “domination” is the ability to compel others through force, whereas “hegemony” is leadership established through the consent of peoples and states, where accepting a power feels not merely compulsory but natural and acceptable. Seen through that distinction, Israel may have reached the peak of military capability, but that success has not established regional leadership; if anything, prolonged war and conflict have further weakened its legitimacy and acceptability.
Since 2023, Israel has destroyed much of Hamas’s military infrastructure, killed Hezbollah’s top leadership and established a military presence in parts of Gaza, Lebanon and Syria, while striking Iran’s missile and nuclear programmes hard and killing Iran’s supreme leader. These strategic successes show the breadth of Israel’s military power, but they are not proof of regional hegemony; rather, Israel’s strength works mainly as a capacity to compel, not to organise neighbouring states willingly under its leadership.
Israel’s high-tech sector amounts to about 17 percent of its economy, and up to 57 percent of total exports came from it in the first four months of last year; in civilian research and development spending relative to GDP, Israel is among the world’s top countries. But the size of a sector is one thing and setting global rules through it is another: Israel is highly skilled in technology, yet the rules of the wider global technology system are set mainly by other powers.
In cybersecurity, Israel’s influence is exceptional — seven of the world’s top 10 cybersecurity firms have research-and-development centres in Israel. Google acquired the Israeli cloud-security firm Wiz for 32 billion dollars, and Palo Alto Networks announced it would buy the Israeli information-security firm CyberArk for 25 billion dollars. But these deals expose a key contradiction: Israel’s most successful tech firms ultimately become part of the larger US technology and capital-market system. The shekel is not a global reserve currency, and the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange is closely tied to US markets like the Nasdaq; Israel has also received more than 130 billion dollars in US aid since 1948.
The recent war with Iran highlighted this dependence. Although Ben Gurion airport was closed for nearly 40 days during the war, financial markets stayed relatively stable, and the Google-Wiz deal closed even amid active regional conflict — so economic stability reflects deep international integration as much as self-reliance. A bigger concern for the tech sector is human resources: about 90,000 Israelis stayed abroad for three months or more in 2025, and Israeli tech firms are increasingly hiring staff overseas, a trend that began during the political crisis over the 2023 judicial reforms, before the Gaza war. The departure of some of the most skilled professionals is a worry for Israel’s long-term structural strength.
The second key condition for regional leadership is legitimacy — whether others accept a power’s strength as acceptable rather than out of fear alone. Israel’s military superiority does not stand entirely on its own strength either: in the recent war with Iran, US forces used hundreds of interceptors in Israel’s defence, and the Pentagon’s THAAD stocks fell by nearly half, while about 80 percent of Israel’s own Arrow interceptor stocks were used within weeks, according to the analysis. Israel has achieved a very strong military deterrent, but one that operates within a costly US security framework, so the idea of it as a self-reliant, invincible military power comes into question.
On international legitimacy, Israel is under pressure — a genocide case at the International Court of Justice, arrest warrants from the International Criminal Court for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defence minister Yoav Gallant, and a UN investigation into Israel’s actions in Gaza have all increased controversy and criticism, while 157 countries have recognised Palestine as a state, according to the analysis. Public opinion has shifted too: in a 2025 Pew Research Center survey of 24 countries, 62 percent of respondents held a negative view of Israel and only 29 percent a positive one; even in the United States, Israel’s main ally, about 60 percent of adults have a negative view. In the Arab world, 87 percent oppose recognising Israel and more than a quarter see it as the region’s biggest threat.
Israel’s limits are clearest in regional diplomacy. Saudi Arabia is still unwilling to normalise ties without an irreversible path to a Palestinian state; the Gaza ceasefire was not made on Israel’s terms but imposed on it, the analysis argues; and talks on an Iran-US nuclear understanding are moving forward while bypassing Israel. Countries such as Egypt, Qatar, Jordan, Oman, Turkey and Pakistan have grown important in regional diplomacy, and none has built its foreign policy in dependence on Israel. So while Israel can stall or obstruct regional processes, its ability to impose a regional framework of its own choosing is limited.
During the Iran war, regional air defences intercepting thousands of drones and missiles showed a kind of regional coordination — but its centre was the United States, not Israel. Arab states cooperated with the United States, and the United States cooperated with Israel, so the connecting bridge of the whole structure is Washington, not Tel Aviv. The same pattern appears in energy and trade: Israeli gas exports to Egypt are cited as proof of regional importance, but when Israel’s largest gas field was shut for about 33 days during the Iran war, Egypt faced a power crisis and had to import costly LNG. And although Haifa is seen as an important gateway in the proposed India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor, its capacity is limited compared with rival regional ports, and alternative trade routes bypassing Israel are growing.
Across economy, legitimacy and regional networks, the same picture emerges: Israel has power, but that power is not matched by legitimacy; it has a regional presence, but not the spontaneous ties with neighbours that would make them want to organise their interests around it. If anything, new regional networks are trying to form while bypassing Israel as much as possible. This does not mean Israel’s decline is inevitable or imminent — a system of military dominance without regional hegemony can last for decades, and a legitimacy crisis may be necessary for decline but is not enough to cause it alone, so long as a powerful patron is willing to bear the cost of that dominance. Ultimately, Israel’s future will depend not only on its military strength but on how coherently its neighbours can build their own political and economic networks — because military dominance has made Israel strong, but that strength has not yet made it a regional leader, and if the US security umbrella weakens in future, the gap may become clearer still.
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