Is the Israeli government’s current hard-line approach primarily Netanyahu’s policy, or is it driven by coalition partners such as Ben-Gvir and Smotrich? If those figures left government, could Israeli policy fundamentally change?

Wegner opens by rejecting the framing itself. He does not see the current approach as belonging chiefly to Netanyahu, Ben-Gvir or any single politician — in his account, Israelis believe they face organizations openly committed to attacking them, naming Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis and Islamic Jihad. He points to the 2005 Gaza withdrawal as the formative disappointment: an experiment many Israelis hoped would open a different future instead became, in his telling, a staging ground for tunnels, rockets and militias that culminated in the October 7 attack. What outsiders describe as a hard-line turn, he argues, most Israelis simply experience as self-defense, and he doubts the underlying doctrine would vanish even if Netanyahu and Ben-Gvir both left office.

Would another Israeli government therefore pursue essentially the same security policy?

On the core security questions, Wegner says, almost certainly yes. He describes Israel as drawing a clear line between Muslim-majority states it has normalized or cooperative relations with — the UAE, Morocco, Jordan among them — and armed organizations that reject its right to exist outright. Individual operations, generals and prime ministers will differ on tactics and timing, he concedes, but he cannot picture any realistic Israeli government choosing to simply wait out the next attack while hostile groups continue to arm and prepare. That baseline, in his view, now runs far deeper than Netanyahu’s own political fortunes.

There are reports of disagreements between Israel’s political leadership and parts of the military and security establishment. How significant are those differences?

Wegner treats disagreement among generals, intelligence officials and elected leaders over timing and tactics as a normal feature of any democracy at war, not a sign of fracture. He draws a sharper line, though, around vigilante violence in the West Bank: he is unambiguous that Jewish activists who harass or attack Palestinians uninvolved in the conflict are acting outside government authorization and outside Israeli law, and he says that view is shared by many inside the security establishment itself, who want tougher consequences for it. His broader point is that Israel, like any society at war, has produced its own extremists — and that the state, not individuals, must retain control over the use of force.

Has Israeli public opinion changed fundamentally since October 7, 2023?

Decisively, he says. Before the attack, a meaningful share of Israelis still believed border defense was sufficient, and that a Gaza left to its own devices might eventually turn toward economic development rather than conflict. October 7 broke that assumption for much of the public: with children now growing up amid sirens and shelter drills, Wegner says many Israelis have concluded that guarding the border alone cannot answer a threat that can arrive by missile or drone from hundreds of kilometers away. He is careful to add a second half to this answer — that the human toll of the resulting military operations, including the deaths of civilians and children, genuinely troubles many Israelis, alongside real worry about the damage to the country’s international reputation. He describes the resulting dilemma, over how to confront armed groups while limiting harm to uninvolved civilians, as one with no easy answer.

Has Israel itself become increasingly divided between liberal, secular Israelis on one side and nationalist, conservative and religious Israelis on the other?

Yes, unambiguously, he says — and he sees the country holding two contradictory truths at once. External threats, in his account, tend to pull Israelis together, since a population under fire becomes more dependent on itself and on shared institutions. But domestic political division has simultaneously grown sharper, and he argues the deepest of those splits are not really about Iran, Hezbollah or Hamas at all — they concern the character of the state itself: the relationship between religion and government, the position of the ultra-Orthodox community, and the legitimacy of Israel’s political institutions. Israel, in his framing, can grow more unified against an external enemy and more fractured internally in the very same period.

How much does Netanyahu personally determine Israel’s long-term foreign and security policy?

Wegner allows more room for personal difference here than anywhere else in the interview: a different prime minister, he says, could genuinely shift Israel’s response to settler violence, or pursue relationships with Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia differently than Netanyahu has. But he returns to his central thesis — whoever holds the office will still have to manage Iran, Hezbollah, Hamas and the Houthis, threats that do not disappear with a change of government. The useful distinction, he insists, is between Netanyahu’s own policies and the far broader Israeli security doctrine that has taken shape since 2023.

Judicial reform deeply divided Israel before October 7. Could bringing it back to the center of politics deepen those divisions again?

Certainly, he says, and he goes further, calling the original push for judicial reform a mistake in how it was pursued. But he argues Israel today is overwhelmingly consumed by security rather than judicial politics, framing the central national question as how Israelis protect their children and their future while still holding onto democratic and Western values — a balance he admits is not easy to strike. He points to expanding relationships with Morocco and the UAE, and emerging cooperation with other regional actors, as evidence that Israel is also investing in paths that do not rely on military strength alone.

International public opinion, particularly in the West, has turned increasingly critical of Israel. Does that represent a strategic danger?

Without qualification, he says yes — Israel cannot afford to dismiss its international legitimacy or its relationships with Western publics. But he frames the Israeli counter-question as unavoidable: what is the alternative when a country believes it is under attack? From that vantage point, he argues, the choice was never between self-defense and international popularity. The real test, in his closing formulation, is finding a way to deliver security, reduce civilian suffering and preserve Israel’s standing abroad all at once — three goals he acknowledges do not always pull in the same direction.