{"id":237669,"date":"2026-01-14T15:02:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-14T15:02:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/237669\/"},"modified":"2026-01-14T15:02:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-14T15:02:08","slug":"when-threats-tell-you-who-they-are-believe-them-lessons-for-taiwan-from-israel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/237669\/","title":{"rendered":"When Threats Tell You Who They Are, Believe Them: Lessons for Taiwan from Israel"},"content":{"rendered":"

In November 2025, Taiwan\u2019s foreign minister commented<\/a> that the island aims to deepen cooperation with Israel. Both Israel and Taiwan have<\/a> called<\/a> for Taipei to learn from the Middle Eastern country\u2019s security apparatus, particularly regarding the ways in which Israel\u2019s large reserve force and intense military training have protected the small democracy in a threatening security landscape. As Israel reckons with the tragic events of October 7th and assesses<\/a> how it failed to predict and deter Hamas\u2019 deadly attacks, Taiwan can draw from the lessons learned. Hopefully, knowledge from Israel\u2019s failure can galvanize Taiwanese society into action and paint a more realistic early warning picture of the threat Taiwan faces from the People\u2019s Republic of China (PRC).<\/p>\n

No Information Gap<\/p>\n

When a surprise attack happens, a common assumption is that the incident occurred because the government in question lacked information about the threat. Indeed, after the October 7th attacks, both Israeli and US intelligence analysts were surprised<\/a> at the relative ease through which Hamas was able to build up its assault force, construct an elaborate underground tunnel network, and breach Israeli territory.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Yet, Israel\u2019s internal security and counterintelligence service, Shin Bet, has since conducted<\/a> its own investigation into the various failures that led to the attacks. Most notably, the report records policymakers\u2019 lack of urgency towards the threat, a misunderstanding of Hamas\u2019 intent, and overconfidence in Israel\u2019s own border security as the main reasons for the surprise. Importantly, none of these issues relate to a lack of information. Instead, the conclusions point to a failure to take at face-value the information available regarding Hamas\u2019 war preparations.\u00a0<\/p>\n

A Failure of Assumptions<\/p>\n

Prior to 2023, much of Israel\u2019s security establishment operated<\/a> under an assumption that now reads as catastrophic: Hamas was a fragmented resistance force that was bogged down in its own governance issues in Gaza and lacked an appetite for all-out war.\u00a0<\/p>\n

October 7th shattered that illusion. What Israel encountered that morning was not a disorganized militia but a fully-formed army\u2014one with an adaptable<\/a> leadership structure, covert communications systems<\/a>, pre-positioned weapons, and a vast underground infrastructure designed<\/a> for sustained conflict. The scale of planning and preparation was incompatible with the image Israel had allowed itself to accept.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Yet this was not incongruent with the intelligence Israel had collected<\/a> about Hamas, or even the publicly-available information about Hamas\u2019 planning<\/a>. Israeli military intelligence officials have told me that Israel had the names and phone numbers of every Hamas operative who crossed into Israel that day. Others have corroborated public reporting<\/a> by telling me that Israeli authorities have tracked millions of US dollars flowing into Gaza. They had monitored Hamas\u2019 growing arsenal, its training exercises<\/a> on mock Israeli settlements, and even public statements by Hamas officials calling for confrontation<\/a> and lauding<\/a> the group\u2019s tunnel network.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It is thus evident that the surprise of October 7th was not the result of a lack of information about Hamas\u2019 preparations and intent, but rather Israel\u2019s inability to shift its own assumptions about Hamas. Prior to 2023, Israeli commanders and policymakers insisted that Hamas did not want a full-blown war. Israeli policymakers and intelligence officials followed a logic that felt intuitive: Hamas was a resistance force that wanted a better life for those in Gaza, and war does not make Gazans\u2019 lives better. Moreover, Israeli military leadership appeared to believe that their armed forces were strong enough that Hamas would never dare trigger an open confrontation.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But, Israel\u2019s military and political leadership overlooked Hamas\u2019 deep belief<\/a> that a life under the thumb of Israel is no life at all, and Hamas\u2019 extremist ideology that death through war brings rewards in the afterlife. Israel\u2019s overconfidence left little possibility to imagine a scenario in which Hamas\u2019s will to fight outweighed its desire to live, or its fear of Israel\u2019s strength.<\/p>\n

In other words, Israel assumed Hamas would make the same risk calculation that the Israelis would have. They were wrong, and paid dearly by belatedly understanding that deterrence is only as strong as the enemy\u2019s assumptions\u2014not yours.<\/p>\n

Lessons for Taiwan<\/p>\n

If there is a global audience that should study the failures of Israel\u2019s defense planning, it is Taiwan and those that are invested in the island\u2019s security. Israel\u2019s faulty assumptions prior to October 2023 included the belief that Hamas did not want a full-blown war, that Hamas prioritized life in Gaza, and that Hamas\u2019 military build-up and arsenal were not indicators of a true intent to attack. Taiwan\u2019s policymakers would do well to rid themselves of their own faulty assumptions about the PRC and heed the lessons below.\u00a0<\/p>\n

When an adversary shows you who they are, believe them.
Like Israel, many Taiwanese<\/a> people and certain international observers<\/a> are still reluctant to assume that China will truly go to war with Taiwan. However, the PRC\u2019s rhetoric, military build-up and exercises, and societal planning signal the very opposite.\u00a0<\/p>\n

PRC officials have been explicit\u2014sometimes blunt\u2014about their intentions toward Taiwan. These officials have clearly stated they \u201cabsolutely will not rule out use of force<\/a>\u201d on Taiwan and Xi himself has said he is willing to use \u201call means necessary<\/a>\u201d to annex Taiwan. Additionally, China\u2019s military buildup, increasingly sophisticated exercises<\/a> around the island, and exercises targeting mock-ups of the Taiwanese presidential palace<\/a> and the city of Taipei<\/a> all demonstrate the PLA\u2019s preparations to attack Taiwan specifically.\u00a0<\/p>\n

China is also preparing its society to tolerate a conflict over Taiwan, and planning for the Chinese Communist Party\u2019s (CCP, \u4e2d\u570b\u5171\u7522\u9ee8) administrative control over the island of Taiwan. Take, for example, state- and province-level planning<\/a> for conflict scenarios, legal changes criminalizing<\/a> those that identify as Taiwanese, and state-affiliated media<\/a> and public universities proposing<\/a> plans for Taiwan\u2019s governance. Dismissing these datapoints because they conflict with what Taiwanese society wants to believe means repeating Israel\u2019s mistake.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Never project your own intent onto an adversary.
Taiwanese and US analysts and pundits commonly reference the cost of war on China\u2019s economy<\/a> as an indicator<\/a> that Beijing does not really intend to invade. This analysis may be driven by the emphasis that both Taiwan and the United States place on maintaining their own economic strength.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Yet, we have witnessed time and time again that Beijing is willing to shoulder economic costs in pursuit of its political aims. This includes its own damaging economic policy<\/a> to maintain political control<\/a> over industry; domestic policies cracking down<\/a> on foreign influence that drive out overseas investors; and economic coercion<\/a> that ultimately scares businesses<\/a> away from China and hurts<\/a> Chinese firms.\u00a0<\/p>\n

China\u2019s strategic decoupling from parts of the global economy is not an ad hoc policy\u2014rather, it is a plan illustrated by PRC economic strategy documents<\/a>, investment in its own supply chains<\/a>, and CCP rhetoric that Chinese companies are an \u201cimportant force to carry out the major decisions and deployments of the Party Central Committee.\u201d<\/a> This demonstrates PRC intent to isolate its economy<\/a> from external shocks such as sanctions or retaliation, or disruptions to global trade routes, both of which it might face if it were to move on Taiwan. All of this points to Beijing\u2019s willingness to shoulder economic costs if it sees the political outcomes as necessary.<\/p>\n

While the threat of being cut off from the global economy may factor strongly into a theoretical calculus by Taiwan as to whether the PRC would conduct a military intervention, Beijing may not share the same priorities. Ultimately, Beijing will weigh whether the political necessity of annexing Taiwan is worth the economic cost. Like Israel, Taiwan should not assume the enemy will make the same calculus that it would. To project Taiwan\u2019s desire for peace and global economic stability onto Beijing\u2019s decision-making risks clouding the evidence already in plain view: that the PRC is building the military capability and preparing for the economic consequences of war.\u00a0<\/p>\n

A bottom-up, decentralized response can save a nation.
Lastly, Taiwan can learn not just from how the Oct 7th attacks happened, but how Israel responded in the early hours. Hamas sent thousands of fighters into Israel, wave after wave. Israel\u2019s initial responders often numbered in merely the tens or hundreds. Yet, by the end of the day<\/a>, Israel had deployed<\/a> a formidable defense that drove back the attackers and declared war.\u00a0<\/p>\n

No doubt this response was facilitated by Israel\u2019s longstanding conscription policies and military training. But training and mobilization are two different undertakings. Israeli citizens mobilized quickly without a central command or central communication. Reserve soldiers and Israeli citizens shared stories<\/a> about how they first learned about the attacks through WhatsApp groups and local community message boards, and sprang into action. Israeli citizens shared information about Hamas fighters\u2019 whereabouts online, identified local first response groups, and drove to their reserve command units without being officially called up for duty.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

In certain places, such as the Nova music festival grounds<\/a>, first responders arrived within hours with little or no knowledge about Hamas\u2019 coordinated attack or the horrific massacre that was occurring, hearing only that \u201csomething was happening.\u201d Army intelligence officers told me that it took the country\u2019s military around three days to map the full scope of Hamas\u2019s penetration and military coordination. Even so, it took only six hours for Israeli society to mount a formidable, improvised first line of civilian defense.<\/p>\n

For Taiwan, which faces a numerically-superior adversary with the capacity to overwhelm early defense lines, this lesson matters profoundly. A fast, decentralized, self-directed response can blunt even a large, well-coordinated surprise attack.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Warning Is There\u2014If It Is Heeded<\/p>\n

Incorporating these lessons does not guarantee that Taiwan will prevail in a conflict scenario with the PRC, nor will it necessarily deter an attack from the PRC. Indeed, Taiwan faces a very different kind of adversary than Israel does, and Taiwan has unique geographic challenges that Beijing must overcome if it were to use force against the island. But ignoring these lessons guarantees Taiwan\u2019s vulnerability.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Israel learned, at enormous human cost, that an enemy can broadcast its intentions in plain sight and still not be believed. Taiwan cannot afford that luxury. Preparedness starts with accepting that an adversary\u2019s declarations, capabilities, and preparations are not rhetorical theater\u2014they are data. And when a threat tells you who they are, the most dangerous mistake is to think they are speaking figuratively, or to project your own intent onto the adversary. What happened to Israel on October 7th should be a clear warning sign for Taiwanese society. China is planning to annex Taiwan, and without taking PRC preparations at face-value or building a bottom-up defense, Taiwan is vulnerable to a surprise attack.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The main point: While Taiwan faces a very different challenge than Israel does, it can still learn from Israel\u2019s failed assumptions about Hamas. It is a grave mistake to assume China would make the same risk calculation that Taiwan or the United States would, and ignore China\u2019s capability, rhetoric, and actions.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In November 2025, Taiwan\u2019s foreign minister commented that the island aims to deepen cooperation with Israel. Both Israel…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":237670,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1657,85,68817,46,43,128512,15624],"class_list":{"0":"post-237669","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-israel","8":"tag-china","9":"tag-il","10":"tag-invasion","11":"tag-israel","12":"tag-news","13":"tag-pla","14":"tag-taiwan"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237669","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=237669"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237669\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/237670"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=237669"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=237669"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=237669"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}