(June 23, 2026 \/ JNS)\n <\/p>\n
U.S. President Donald Trump\u2019s Abraham Accords showed there is \u201cgenuine respect\u201d for the Jewish state across the region, Israel Defense Forces Spokesperson Brig. Gen. Effie Defrin said on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
Defrin opened his remarks to the JNS International Policy Summit in Jerusalem by telling attendees he wanted to share \u201csomething more personal: my perspective on where we are today and why, after everything we\u2019ve witnessed, I am very optimistic.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIsrael is a small country, living in a very difficult neighborhood,\u201d he said. \u201cAs Israelis, we were raised on one simple idea: we\u2019ll defend ourselves, by ourselves\u2014this was in our DNA, and still is.\u201d<\/p>\n
However, after the Abraham Accords were signed in 2020, \u201csomething remarkable happened,\u201d Defrin continued, praising Trump\u2019s leadership.<\/p>\n
\u201cWherever I traveled across the Middle East, to countries I never thought I [would] get to visit, I saw something that surprised me. I saw genuine respect for Israel,\u201d he said. \u201cI met military leaders in this region who wanted to work together, and together, we began building a new regional architecture.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jerusalem\u2019s emerging partnerships in the Middle East are not just based on the common threat posed by Iran and its terrorist proxies, but also on \u201cshared interests and shared opportunities,\u201d he noted.<\/p>\n
By May 2023, Jerusalem believed it was \u201cclosed than ever\u201d to reaching a normalization deal with Saudi Arabia, the military spokesman continued. \u201cAnd then, October 7th happened. What began as a Hamas attack against Israel quickly expanded into regional war, involving Hezbollah, the Houthis and Iran itself.\u201d<\/p>\n
Defrin noted that the Abraham Accords have survived war and peacetime.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, the seven-front war sparked by Hamas\u2019s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre \u201chas revealed to the world something significant: Iran\u2019s ambitions do not stop at Israel\u2019s borders,\u201d according to him. \u201cIts missiles, drones and proxies threaten the stability of the entire region and, increasingly, far beyond it.\u201d<\/p>\n
The past three years of war \u201chave reminded us that our size has never defined our strength\u2014our people have,\u201d Defrin stressed, praising the soldiers of the IDF.<\/p>\n
\u201cI often get asked: \u2018what is the strategy of the IDF\u2019? But I have to tell you, we have learned through painful experiences that protecting our people cannot mean waiting for the next attack,\u201d he said. \u201cA ceasefire cannot mean returning to the reality of October 6th.\u201d<\/p>\n
Under its new defense strategy, the IDF acts proactively to thwart threats, he emphasized. \u201cWe remove threats before they become attacks and deny our enemies the abilities to rebuild.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIDF soldiers stand at the front as a buffer between the enemy and the people of Israel, and we will remain there until this threat is removed,\u201d declared Defrin.<\/p>\n
The spokesperson concluded his remarks by thanking attendees for \u201cstanding up for Israel, even when it was, and still is, not always easy.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAfter more than 30 years in uniform, I can say with complete confidence that Israel\u2019s greatest strength is not its tanks, aircraft, intelligence or technology; its greatest strength is its people,\u201d he concluded.<\/p>\n
The 2026 JNS International Policy Summit, which started on Sunday and was preceded by a weekend VIP gathering and tours around Judea, comes one year after the inaugural JNS Summit held in Jerusalem.<\/p>\n
The three-day conference included addresses and panels on U.S.-Israel relations, the war with Iran, Israel\u2019s military, diplomatic and legal battles, the wave of global antisemitism in the wake of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack, as well as relations with the Christian world.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(June 23, 2026 \/ JNS) U.S. President Donald Trump\u2019s Abraham Accords showed there is \u201cgenuine respect\u201d for the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":506713,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[85,46,43],"class_list":["post-506712","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-israel","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/506712","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=506712"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/506712\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/506713"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=506712"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=506712"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=506712"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}