It is a national security issue.<\/p>\n
But accepting this proposition has consequences. Actions capable of materially damaging Israel on the cognitive battlefield must be judged as national-security events, even when the person taking them believes passionately that he is defending Israel.<\/p>\n
That is why what troubles me most about MK Zvi Sukkot<\/a>\u2019s recent sledgehammer episode is no longer Sukkot himself.<\/p>\n It is the Israeli government\u2019s response.<\/p>\n How Israel fails to take cognitive warfare seriously<\/p>\n Sukkot entered Kafr Madama near Nablus under IDF protection and participated in demolishing a Palestinian monument that appeared to honor terrorists.<\/p>\n The IDF said soldiers had been diverted from operational duties for what they understood to be an authorized tour and that Sukkot then acted outside the approved framework and \u201cwithout authority.\u201d<\/p>\n Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu condemned the incident. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich reportedly reprimanded Sukkot and told him not to do it again.<\/p>\n Not to do it again?<\/p>\n If cognitive warfare really is national security, is that remotely sufficient?<\/p>\n Consider an admittedly uncomfortable comparison: Peace activist Mordechai Vanunu.<\/p>\n Vanunu believed Israel\u2019s nuclear policy was morally wrong. He decided that his own judgment entitled him to disclose extraordinarily sensitive information about Israel\u2019s nuclear program.<\/p>\n Israel concluded that no individual had the right to make such a national-security decision for the country. He was convicted of grave offenses and sentenced to 18 years in prison, 11 of them in solitary confinement.<\/p>\n Obviously, Sukkot did not reveal nuclear secrets. He did not commit espionage, and I am not suggesting his statutory offenses are equivalent to Vanunu\u2019s.<\/p>\n But the distinction may be more one of degree than kind than we are comfortable acknowledging.<\/p>\n Imagine an IDF soldier selling several M4 rifles to an enemy. Another person sells Iran plans for upgrades to an Israeli missile defense system. The consequences are radically different, and therefore the punishments should be radically different.<\/p>\n But the underlying violation belongs to the same family: an individual has taken something entrusted to him within Israel\u2019s national-security establishment and assigned to himself the right to decide how it will be used.<\/p>\n That principle must apply to cognitive security as well.<\/p>\n Sukkot effectively decided this, given that he believed the monument glorified terrorism. This argument may have merit; he believed he was entitled to decide when, where, and how Israeli power would be exercised to destroy it.<\/p>\n He was not.<\/p>\n That decision belongs to the State of Israel.<\/p>\n No Israeli civilian gets to walk into an air force command center and select tomorrow\u2019s targets in Iran, Lebanon, or Gaza because he believes a particular target must be destroyed.<\/p>\n Why, then, should any Israeli citizen, particularly an elected official, believe he has the authority to select targets on the cognitive battlefield when his actions can affect Israel\u2019s relationship with Washington, its diplomatic standing, Jewish communities abroad, and its global legitimization?<\/p>\n And this is not confined to one political camp.<\/p>\nMK Zvi Sukkot and several others seen smashing a monument in in Kafr Madama near Nablus, August 25, 2026. (credit: SCREENSHOT\/X, SECTION 27A COPYRIGHT ACT)<\/p>\n