2026 is the year Israel will regain its dominance.
After more than two years of wars, international isolation, and global pressure, the Jewish state enters 2026 poised to be stronger than ever.
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Predicting Israel’s future has never been a calm, academic exercise. It is closer to weather forecasting in a hurricane zone, except the storms argue back, file United Nations resolutions, and trend on social media.
And yet, if history teaches us anything, it’s that Israel has a peculiar habit of surviving moments that were supposed to finish it off, then arguing internally about how exactly it survived.
As 2026 approaches, Israel is not entering a year of quiet or consensus, but it is entering a year of clarity. The illusions are gone. The stakes are known. The enemies are familiar. And despite everything, from multi-front wars to international absurdity, Israel remains stubbornly functional, economically alive, culturally creative, and deeply allergic to despair.
So, no, 2026 will not be “easy.” But Israel has never needed easy. It requires realism, resilience, and the uniquely Israeli ability to build, argue, invent, and laugh — often at the same time. Here is what to expect from Israel in 2026.
Another War — or Two
The likelihood of another major war in 2026 is uncomfortably high. Whether with Hezbollah, Iran, or both, Israel’s northern and eastern threats remain unresolved. Should another war break out with either of these two adversaries, expect others to join, including the Houthis in Yemen, whatever is left of Gaza’s military capabilities, militias in Syria and Iraq, and perhaps some turmoil in Judea and Samaria (also known as the West Bank).
If Iran is involved, expect Israel to eliminate all top governing and military personnel, including the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei (86 years old), as well as his son (likely considered to be one of his successors) and anyone else who could possibly be in line to take Khamenei’s position in the wake of his death.
Israel will undoubtedly take care of all these jihadists, although it may pay a steep price for doing so, similar to the circumstances during the 12-day war with Iran last summer, when Iran’s missiles caused major damage throughout our country. But if there is any existential threat here, it is not to Israel; it is to the Iranian regime and its increasingly deteriorating “axis of resistance.”
Getting Tougher on International NGOs
In 2026, Israel will become far more critical, and far more disciplined, about which NGOs are permitted to operate along its borders and inside conflict zones such as Gaza. This is not a rejection of humanitarian aid; it is an overdue insistence on accountability.
After years of evidence showing that some international organizations were either infiltrated by Hamas, turned a blind eye to terror infrastructure, or allowed aid to be diverted for terrorism purposes, Israel has moved to a tighter, more transparent approval framework. The result is a narrower but more serious humanitarian ecosystem.
This week, the IDF approved 24 organizations to continue providing humanitarian aid in Gaza. These include many American and Christian organizations, International Medical Corps (which has significant Jewish leadership and historical ties to the Jewish Distribution Committee), as well as reputable NGOs from other countries such as Peace Winds Japan, Deutsche Welthungerhilfe, and UK-Med.
According to Israel, these 24 organizations account for roughly 99 percent of the total humanitarian aid volume entering Gaza. Notably, Israel had not publicly named them until now, a signal that the goal is operational effectiveness, not public relations.
The message is straightforward: Humanitarian access is welcome, humanitarian theater is not. Israel will continue to facilitate massive aid flows while drawing firmer lines around who is allowed to deliver them. In 2026, expect fewer logos at the border, but far more accountability behind them.
National Elections by October
Israel’s political system cannot indefinitely sustain the current equilibrium. By law, national elections must be called by October, and the country will once again be forced into a reckoning over leadership, responsibility, and the post–October 7th future.
These elections will not resemble past cycles dominated by personality and identity politics. Security doctrine, civil-military trust, the role of the judiciary, ultra-Orthodox military service, and Israel’s long-term governing philosophy will dominate the campaign. Voters will not be choosing between slogans, but between competing visions of resilience, accountability, and national repair.
Whatever government emerges will inherit a country that is far more serious, and far less patient, than it was before October 7th.
Continued Israeli Control in Gaza
Despite international pressure, Israel will retain some form of control over Gaza in 2026 for one overriding reason: security.
The pre–October 7th model (outsourcing Gaza’s governance while hoping deterrence would hold) has been permanently discredited. Israel may not seek permanent civilian rule, but it will insist on operational freedom, buffer zones, intelligence dominance, and the ability to strike threats before they metastasize.
Any alternative arrangement — whether involving Arab states, international actors, or reformed Palestinian governance — will be judged by one metric alone: Does it prevent another massacre? Until the answer is unequivocally yes, Israeli control, direct or indirect, will remain.
Israel’s Place in American Politics
Israel’s bipartisan standing in the United States, once a pillar of its strategic security, is increasingly unstable.
In December, U.S. President Donald Trump warned publicly that Israel and the “Jewish lobby” had lost influence in Washington and that Congress was “becoming antisemitic.” Speaking at the White House Hanukkah party, he expressed alarm at Holocaust denial, denial of October 7th, and antisemitic violence — from Australia to American cities. His message was blunt: Jewish political capital can no longer be taken for granted.
At the same time, “progressive” politics (which has hijacked much of the Democratic Party) increasingly frame Israel as a moral outlier, while parts of the Right instrumentalize Jewish support without genuine commitment. Israel is becoming less of a consensus cause and more of a political fault line, a dangerous shift for a country that depends on strategic clarity from its closest ally.
Cultural and Institutional Isolation
More cultural institutions will continue to isolate Israel, often under the guise of “neutrality.”
In December, Guinness World Records informed Matnat Chaim an Israeli organization that leads the world in altruistic kidney donations) that it would no longer accept submissions from Israel. As Matnat Chaim president Rachel Heber noted, Israel’s medical achievement “astonished the entire medical world,” yet was deemed unacceptable solely due to nationality.
These exclusions are not about policy; they are about signaling. Israel will increasingly be treated as untouchable — not because of what it does, but because of what it is (a Jewish state).
The United Nation’s Anti-Israel Circus
Nothing illustrates the distortion of global moral priorities more clearly than the United Nations. According to the UN itself, 305 million people worldwide face humanitarian catastrophe due to ongoing conflicts. Yet the focus remains fixated on Israel and the two million residents of Gaza. The libel of famine persists despite contradictory evidence. Facts are ignored.
When UN-appointed expert Alice Nderitu found no evidence of genocide, she was silenced and dismissed. She later described being “hounded day in, day out” for refusing to libel Israel, while an actual genocide in Sudan was largely ignored.
Since 2006, 46 percent of all UN Human Rights Council resolutions have targeted Israel alone. Israel is the only one of the UN’s 193 member states with its own standing agenda item at every Human Rights Council meeting. This is not accountability; it is obsession.
Expect more of the same in 2026.
New York City as an ‘Anti-Zionist’ Political Hub
In the United States, New York City will become a focal point of institutionalized “anti-Zionism.”
New Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who took office on January 1st, has long signaled that anti-Zionism sits at the center of his political identity. This week, he appointed Ramzi Kassem as the city’s next chief counsel, a lawyer who has supported anti-Israel protest groups, coached anti-Zionist activists, represented anti-Israel protesters, and even defended a terrorist held at Guantanamo Bay.
Then, on Thursday, his first day as mayor, he signaled to Zionist Jews across New York City that their concerns would not be a priority — and that those who target them for their support of Israel would face fewer obstacles from City Hall. With a single executive order, Mamdani dismantled several of the city’s key safeguards against antisemitism: He revoked New York’s adoption of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism, reversed security measures designed to protect synagogues from hostile anti-Zionist demonstrations, and removed longstanding protections against municipal participation in boycotts of Israel. The moves were not administrative housekeeping; they were ideological declarations.
Mamdani made clear that opposition to Zionism (and, by extension, to the political identity of the vast majority of New York City’s Jewish community) will sit at the center of his governing philosophy. Of course, New York City is not just a city; it is a cultural amplifier. Policies and rhetoric that take root there could very well echo nationally, and even internationally.
At the same time, there are nearly 600 Israeli-founded companies in New York City, which have created more than 27,000 jobs, generating an estimated $12.4 billion in direct value to the city’s economy and $17.9 billion in total gross economic output.1 Expect many of these companies, as well as many Israelis living in New York City, to migrate to states like Texas and Florida.
The Rise of Jewish Immigration to Israel
Despite a drop in immigration numbers in 2025 (21,900 new immigrants, down about one-third from 2024), Jewish immigration to Israel (known as aliyah in Hebrew) will rise in 2026. The Bondi Beach Hanukkah massacre last month was not an anomaly; it was a warning.
While antisemitic violence surges across the West, Jews from the UK, France, Canada, Australia, South Africa, the United States, and even South America will increasingly replace the major drop-off of Russian Jews that Israel saw in 2025.
The Israeli government has already announced an emergency plan to absorb 30,000 immigrants in 2026, and recently conducted a war game simulating the emergency arrival of 45,000 Jews fleeing to Israel within two months.
Aliyah is no longer driven only by Zionist idealism; it is now being driven by necessity.
Meanwhile, more than 69,000 Israelis left the country in 2025, producing a second consecutive year of negative migration balance. But this is not purely a loss. Israelis abroad become informal ambassadors, humanizing Israel through friendships, workplaces, education, and everyday interactions. Israel’s story will increasingly be told not only from Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, but from cities around the world.
The Israeli Economy’s Perseverance
Against expectations, Israel’s economy will continue to outperform.
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) projects a return to “normal” growth at 3.3 percent, accelerating to 4.9 percent in 2026 and exceeding long-term trends in 2027. In 2025, Israel Bonds recorded over $2 billion in global sales for the third consecutive year.
An Israeli stock market index computed by the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange tracking the performance of 35 large companies listed on stock exchanges in Israel, known as the TA-35 Index, led global markets in the first half of 2025; IPO activity has revived; and trading volumes are breaking records.
Not to mention, Israel’s pension system ranks among the world’s best, and life expectancy and GDP per capita remain among the highest globally. Israel was recently ranked among the 10 most influential countries in the world, as well.
As Itay Elnatan, CEO and Managing Partner of Leader Private Capital, said a couple of months ago:
“Not two years have passed since Israel faced one of the most challenging periods in its history, a period of security, social, and economic uncertainty. But what has happened since then is a story of resilience and faith. Today, Israel is not just surviving; it’s leading. It is building infrastructure at an unprecedented pace, attracting global capital and positioning its capital market among the most advanced in the world.”2
Israeli Culture and Arts
Despite unprecedented cultural boycotts and international exclusion since October 7th, Israel’s cultural scene is not contracting; it is surging.
While many exhibitions, concerts, film screenings, and festival appearances were canceled abroad (often not for security reasons but under ideological pressure), Israeli artists responded not with retreat, but with creative ignition. Visual art, music, theater, comedy, and cinema are experiencing a local renaissance driven by urgency, truth-telling, and a renewed commitment to local audiences.
With international stages increasingly closed, Israeli cultural institutions turned inward. Major museums expanded permanent collections of contemporary Israeli art. Festivals became spaces of communal healing. Galleries filled with sharper, more experimental work unconcerned with foreign approval. Israeli cinema, led especially by women directors, entered one of its most powerful periods, producing films that reshape national memory and center voices long marginalized, including the female IDF observers whose ignored warnings preceded October 7th.
Ironically, isolation clarified something essential: Israeli culture does not need external validation to flourish. Artists began creating for their own people; audiences responded with deeper engagement; institutions invested with greater confidence. The result is creative abundance born of pressure but not defined by it. When international doors closed, Israeli artists didn’t wait for them to reopen; they built something richer at home.
The Bottom Line
In 2026, Israel will be more contested, more scrutinized, and more misunderstood than ever. It will also be more resilient, more self-reliant, and more determined. Indeed, history suggests that pressure is Israel’s most reliable productivity hack.
The world may grow less comfortable with Israel in 2026. We ought not to be surprised by more hostile hashtags, press conferences, and bureaucratic resolutions, but Israel will stay its course by virtue of Israelis’ ability to adapt, endure, and keep building while the world argues about them.
Ultimately, the Jewish state will grow more certain of itself. And if experience is any guide, Israelis will do so loudly, creatively, and while arguing internally about the best way forward — because that, too, is part of the system working.
United States-Israel Business Alliance
“‘The world is beginning to understand Israel’s economic power and its enormous capital potential.’” CTech.
Thank you for the optimistic view for Israel in 2026. I have a very pessimistic view for the Diaspora. The only solution presented by Israel for the Diaspora is Aliyah. That is not a realistic solution for 8.5 million of Jews living outside Israel which is more than 7.3 million who live in Israel. It is a very big mistake to separate the security of the 2 groups. The Diaspora doesn’t have the IDF as a preventive force. Each local Jewish group (religious, political or just gathering to celebrate) is on its own and now extremely vulnerable to violence and social isolation. The goodwill PR by Israelis who became xpats is minor and questionable. It is a mistake to forget about the Diaspora.
Good article, thank you - and the best of good luck to Israel in 2026.
I’d only take issue with one comment:
“The world may grow less comfortable with Israel in 2026”
I think the Starmers, the Bidens, the Harrises, the Islamo-Marxist luvvies, Greta, ‘Queers for Palestine’ etc - all these and their ilk will be ever less comfortable.
Those of us with common sense, fairness, decency, ethics and morals will salute Eretz Israel and pray that their example catches on in our countries.
Watching Venezuela and Iran right now, I am crossing all my fingers and toes.
Am Yisrael Chai