The ongoing US-Israel military campaign against Iran is triggering a sweeping realignment of the Middle East that could ultimately redraw the region's borders, senior Israeli political commentator Amit Segal argued in a sweeping analysis published Thursday in the Israeli outlet Israel Hayom.
Writing under the headline "Israel's New Border, Pending Trump Approval," Segal contended that Israel has effectively reversed the traditional dynamic of the US-Israeli alliance. Rather than relying on American protection, Israel now finds itself actively assisting Washington in achieving its principal strategic objective: neutralising Iran's capacity to threaten global energy markets by closing the Strait of Hormuz.
"Remarkably, instead of Israel needing American assistance against Iran, it now finds itself helping its closest ally achieve its overarching goal," Segal wrote, noting that Gulf states have pressed the Trump administration to eliminate the Iranian threat to energy stability once and for all, unwilling to trust any future Tehran government with the same leverage.
The territorial implications could prove far-reaching. Segal pointed to the expanding Israeli military presence in southern Lebanon — including an ongoing IDF push toward the Litani River — alongside the continued Israeli foothold on the Syrian Hermon since late 2024, as indicators of a new de facto security perimeter that Israel may seek to formalise. The question, the analyst argued, is whether President Donald Trump will grant Israel de jure recognition of its new northern border, rather than merely tacit approval.
Trump, Segal noted, is "a man with no sentimentality for old borders," citing the US president's prior readiness to recognise Israeli sovereignty over parts of the West Bank and his support for population displacement from Gaza as precedents for further territorial revision.
The analysis also assessed Turkey's position as one of acute strategic embarrassment. Segal described President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan as having woken to discover "he is not quite as big as he thought," left outside the loop of a major regional conflict despite having cultivated what he believed was a close working relationship with Trump. Ankara, Segal argued, faces a triple bind: rising energy prices, renewed US-Kurdish rapprochement, and the public demonstration of Israeli-American military capabilities that far outmatch Turkey's own.
On the origins of the current conflict, Segal revisited the legacy of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, arguing that the October 7, 2023 attack was never intended to destroy Israel militarily. Instead, Sinwar calculated that Israel's international isolation would force the Palestinian issue back onto the global agenda at a decisive moment. The plan, Segal wrote, "almost succeeded" — until a combination of factors Sinwar failed to anticipate intervened: Israel's willingness to absorb losses and sustain a prolonged offensive, Iran's reluctance to commit fully to the fight, and the election of a US president with no interest in conventional political norms.
The broader reframing of the conflict — from a Jewish-versus-Muslim narrative to one of regional moderates versus fundamentalists — may ultimately prove as consequential as the military operations themselves, Segal concluded.