The Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, led by MK Yuli Yoel Edelstein (Likud), voted on Monday to advance the 2025 National Security Strategy Bill to its second and third plenum readings. The legislation is sponsored by MKs Gadi Eisenkot (National Unity Party) and Edelstein.
In March, Eisenkot, a former IDF Chief of Staff who lost a son in the Gaza War, introduced the essential philosophy behind the bill:
“Since its founding, the State of Israel has lacked a formal, systematic national security doctrine. While basic principles have guided the country for decades—deterrence, early warning, and, eventually, defense—these have never been officially codified. Over the years, this absence has been consistently identified as a critical flaw by investigative committees and experts, despite various efforts to create a formalized national security concept.
“The catastrophic events of October 7 marked the most significant breakdown of these principles since the state’s establishment. Deterrence failed against one of the weakest enemies in the region. Frontline forces were caught completely off guard. The second pillar, early warning, also collapsed—neither the troops on the ground nor civilians received adequate alerts, despite Israel’s intelligence dominance and the wealth of information available in the days and even hours before the attack. The third pillar, defense, failed as well. The enemy quickly overran the Gaza Division, which was tasked with protecting local communities. Towns were left vulnerable for hours.”
Eisenkot concluded: “I strongly believe that a legally mandated, regularly updated national security doctrine would improve our thinking, planning, execution, and ability to learn from failures. It would ensure continual adaptation to regional changes and serve as a vital guiding framework for security leaders. Most importantly, it would foster the coordination that has been sorely missing—coordination we now urgently need in the wake of October 7 and amid the complex threats we continue to face, both near and far.”
The bill designates the National Security Council as the lead body for drafting Israel’s diplomatic-security strategy. This process will be carried out in coordination with the Defense Ministry, Foreign Ministry, National Security Ministry, and relevant security agencies.
