Security, foreign relations and Israel

Yehodaya will be a small state, but it will not be built as a weak one. Population size is only one component of national power. The right location, strategic depth, advanced technology, high-quality intelligence, a skilled military, and useful alliances can give a small state substantial defensive and deterrent capability.

Security will be a central consideration from the stage of territory selection and infrastructure planning. Yehodaya will need territory with defensible depth, clear borders, access to the sea, and the ability to maintain supply routes even in an emergency. Distance from the Middle East will reduce direct exposure to the familiar centers of conflict, and the agreement with the state from which the territory is acquired will include clear arrangements governing the border and security relations.

Yehodaya’s security doctrine will rest on several foundations:

• A professional, technologically advanced standing military focused on intelligence, command and control, rapid response, and the operation of advanced systems.
• Compulsory military or civilian service for all citizens, without sectoral exemptions. Civilian service will include, among other things, emergency medicine, rescue, home-front defense, communications, and operation of essential infrastructure.
• A broad, trained, and readily available reserve force capable of rapidly expanding the military when necessary.
• Significant investment in intelligence, cyber capabilities, artificial intelligence, sensors, robotics, and unmanned systems. For a small state, technological superiority is a central force multiplier.
• Layered defense of the borders, airspace, maritime domain, communications networks, and national infrastructure.
• A clear deterrent capability demonstrating that any attempt to harm Yehodaya will meet a rapid response and impose a heavy cost.

Yehodaya will not be starting from zero in terms of knowledge and human capital. Israel and Jewish communities around the world contain an extraordinary pool of experience in security, intelligence, cyber, engineering, medicine, and technology. Recruiting even a small portion of these capabilities would make it possible to build an advanced security system within a relatively short period.

A small state does not need to manufacture every aircraft, ship, or weapons system itself. It can purchase existing systems, develop advantages in fields where it has particular capabilities, and cooperate with industries and states elsewhere.

Alongside its independent capabilities, Yehodaya will seek to build security partnerships with countries whose interests align with its own, first and foremost Israel. Intelligence-sharing, procurement, training, cyber-defense, and mutual-assistance agreements would strengthen its security and make it a valuable partner. Alliances will not replace the capacity for self-defense; they will add depth and strength to it.

Civil resilience will also form part of the security doctrine. Water, energy, food, communications, and medical systems will be designed from the outset with redundancy, emergency reserves, and decentralized operating capacity. A state that can continue functioning under pressure is harder to defeat than one whose systems depend on a small number of vulnerable points.

A government focused on a limited number of essential functions can direct the necessary resources, manpower, and attention toward security. Protecting the lives, liberty, and property of citizens is among the most basic tasks of the state and should receive priority accordingly.

Yehodaya will defend itself through a combination of sound geographic planning, trained citizens, professional forces, technological superiority, civil resilience, and strategic alliances. It does not need to be the largest state in the region in order to be the state that is not worth attacking.

The United Nations does not grant states their sovereignty. It is an organization that sovereign states may apply to join. Membership in the UN is an expression of broad international recognition, but it is neither the legal condition for statehood nor the source of a state’s authority.

The commonly accepted criteria for statehood are a defined territory, a permanent population, an effective government, and the capacity to conduct relations with other states. Yehodaya will satisfy these criteria through a binding interstate agreement under which an existing state transfers territory and sovereign powers to it, and through the establishment of governing institutions, a legal system, a population, and a functioning economy.

The first and most important recognition will be that of the state with which the agreement is signed. When a sovereign state lawfully transfers territory and powers to Yehodaya and recognizes it as an independent state, a clear legal and diplomatic basis is created for recognition by additional countries.

Yehodaya will then seek direct recognition from selected states according to their importance and the shared interests between them. It does not require unanimous consent from the international community. A meaningful group of states maintaining formal relations with Yehodaya would be sufficient to facilitate trade, travel, investment, security agreements, passport recognition, and diplomatic cooperation.

The recognition process will rest on several steps:

• Obtaining bilateral recognition from countries with diplomatic, economic, and security ties to Yehodaya.
• Signing agreements on trade, investment, aviation, shipping, security, and technological cooperation.
• Establishing interest offices and economic missions in major centers.
• Fulfilling Yehodaya’s commitments, honoring contracts and agreements, and demonstrating that it is a stable and reliable partner.

States recognize other states when the legal reality is clear and when relations serve a diplomatic, security, or economic interest. Yehodaya will offer its partners stability, innovation, investment, trade, technology, and security cooperation. The more successful and useful it becomes, the more states will wish to establish relations with it.

History demonstrates that a state can exist, prosper, and maintain full international relations without being a member of the United Nations. Switzerland was a sovereign and recognized state for generations and did not join the UN until 2002. Membership in the organization and political sovereignty are separate matters.

The choice not to join the UN is a choice in favor of direct, focused diplomacy based on bilateral relations and mutual benefit. It means that Yehodaya will have to invest more in building direct relationships and specific agreements—and that is precisely the kind of foreign-relations system it seeks to establish.

Yehodaya will come into being by virtue of a lawful interstate agreement, establish sovereignty in practice, and build relations with every country that sees value in partnership with it. International recognition will grow out of the reality Yehodaya creates, not out of decisions of the United Nations.

Yehodaya is not being established in place of Israel, but alongside it. Israel is the nation-state of the Jewish people and their national and historic home in the Land of Israel. Yehodaya will be an additional state with a Jewish identity, offering a different political, economic, and social model in a different part of the world.

Relations between the two states should be based on a deep strategic partnership between two independent countries. Yehodaya will seek close ties with Israel in several central fields:

• Security, intelligence, and technological cooperation.
• Free trade, joint investment, and cooperation in research and innovation.
• Mutual assistance in war, natural disaster, or national emergency.
• Cooperation in Hebrew language, education, culture, and Jewish heritage.
• Consular assistance and cooperation in protecting Jewish communities around the world.

A deep relationship does not require political identity or agreement on every issue. Sovereign states with interests of their own can disagree and remain allies, as is common among countries that maintain long-term strategic relationships.

There may be a degree of competition between the two states for residents, entrepreneurs, and capital. There is no reason to conceal that. Israel already competes for them with the United States, Europe, and other countries, and Israelis who wish to live abroad can do so today. Yehodaya would allow some of them to continue living in Hebrew, within a Jewish political framework, and in close connection with Israel and the Jewish people.

Many of the Jews who may choose Yehodaya are people who do not intend to immigrate to Israel in the first place. Their practical options today are to remain in their country of residence or move to another foreign country. Yehodaya would not take them away from Israel; it would create an additional Jewish option for them.

When a person chooses Yehodaya rather than Israel, that is not necessarily a loss for the Jewish people. People are not the property of a state, and a strong state must earn their confidence and their choice. Competition between two Jewish models may encourage both states to improve, learn from one another, and offer better conditions to their citizens.

Strategically, the existence of Yehodaya would strengthen Israel. It would add another center of Jewish population, capital, knowledge, industry, security capability, and diplomatic influence. In an emergency, it could provide Israel with assistance, equipment, operational space, and a partner whose commitment is not dependent on shifts in public opinion in foreign countries.

Israel will remain the jewel in the crown and the national home of the Jewish people. Yehodaya will add alongside it another center of sovereign Jewish life. A people with two strong, friendly, cooperating states has more options, greater depth, and a stronger capacity to secure its future.