Israeli writer: The new illusions in Israel are more dangerous than the previous ones.

Israeli expert Mikhail Milstein, head of the Palestinian Studies Forum at the Moshe Dayan Center at Tel Aviv University, warned that Israel is currently living under the influence of a "delusional perception of reality" represented by the pursuit of "imposing sovereignty" over the occupied West Bank, at a time when it remains unable to draw lessons from its resounding failure on October 7, 2023.

Milstein, a former intelligence officer, states in an article in Yedioth Ahronoth that those who led the pre-October 7 perception or the security and political vision that led to the "bloody surprise" are the same ones now leading the new annexation campaign, and they are aware of the damage being inflicted on relations with the United States and the world, yet they justify it as "minor bumps on the road to salvation."

The Israeli expert points out that the "imposition of sovereignty" law and the crude statements of Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich against Saudi Arabia have sparked a political storm in Israel, as they embody a mix of arrogance and ignorance of the regional environment.

When Smotrich tells the Saudis, "Ride camels in the desert instead of talking about normalization," he expresses a contemptuous view towards the peoples of the region, which is the same perspective that emerged before the war in the disdain shown by intelligence officers towards Hamas's plans.

Milstein believes that the new vision is based on a set of false assumptions: that U.S. President Donald Trump will stand by Israel in all circumstances, that a "partial annexation" of the Jordan Valley or limited areas can be implemented in a way acceptable to Washington and some Arab countries, and that the Arab world has grown tired of the Palestinian issue and no longer cares about it.

However, these assumptions, he says, have completely collapsed recently when Trump and his deputy J.D. Vance announced that they do not approve of any Israeli step to annex the occupied territories, and Trump himself hinted at considering the possibility of releasing Palestinian leader Marwan Barghouti, sentenced to five life terms, to take over the governance of Gaza, which was a strong blow to the Israeli right.

The writer reminds us that this is not the first time that the projects of the religious right have collided with the wall of reality. In 2020, Israel backed away from the annexation project in favor of the Abraham Accords, but the proponents of the idea did not abandon their convictions; rather, they continued to cling to them as a divine promise that cannot be renounced.

Milstein adds that these are the same individuals who managed a series of failed projects in the Gaza Strip over the past two years, starting with the "Gaza Humanitarian Foundation" project that wasted billions of shekels, through attempts to encourage "voluntary migration" of Palestinians via a special administration within the Ministry of Defense, to the "militias and clans" idea that was promoted as an alternative to Hamas's rule and recently ended with their liquidation or arrest by Hamas.

Despite all these failures, no official investigation has been conducted into the outcomes of Israeli policies in Gaza, which has allowed, according to Milstein, the return of the same delusional mentality that sees every failure as a new opportunity to escape forward.

Moreover, new and more dangerous plans have recently emerged, according to the writer, such as the "Two Gazas" project that divides the strip into a prosperous part under international supervision and a devastated part under Hamas rule, in a desperate attempt to weaken the movement through "social engineering."

The Israeli expert believes that this idea completely repeats the mistakes that preceded the catastrophe without any self-criticism or accountability.

Milstein describes the "new illusions" as more dangerous than their predecessors because they are not merely miscalculations or analytical flaws, but an absolute ideological belief derived from the national religious thought embraced by the "religious Zionism" movement, which is based on a biblical principle that sees control over the land as a divine obligation that is not subject to political or international calculations.

The writer states that the symbols of this movement—chief among them Smotrich—are not affected by international isolation or warnings of sanctions, and they cling to biblical sayings such as the annihilation of the "Amalekites," and they see no harm in establishing a military administration in Gaza or controlling the West Bank, boasting phrases like "Arabs only understand force" and "wherever there is a settlement, there is no terrorism."

They see themselves as having a historical mission to exploit the "miraculous era" that Israel is experiencing to change the geographical, demographic, and political reality between the sea and the river.

Milstein warns