On Aug. 15, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu presented the “2030 Security Concept” to the Diplomatic-Security Cabinet. He had labored over this document for many long months, and according to Netanyahu’s close associates, he wrote it after conferring with past and present high-ranking security system experts.

This is only the third time that Israel defines the “security concept” of the state. The first to formulate it was Israel’s founder and first prime minister, David Ben Gurion. While Ben Gurion served as prime minister for many years, Netanyahu stands to overtake him as the person who served the longest in that capacity. The second time the concept was changed was in the previous decade, by a special committee headed by Minister Dan Meridor in 2006.

Netanyahu’s current document constitutes a dramatic change regarding the Israeli security concept, in total contradistinction to the policy that was reflected in the defense budgets of the past 70 years of the State. Just as Netanyahu completely changed Israeli policy vis-a-vis the Palestinians (as described in an earlier Al-Monitor article), now he comes to change prevailing conceptions by transforming basic defense concepts.

Till now, Israel aspired to lighten the burden of the defense budget on its gross national product (GNP); this was done at a snail’s pace, perhaps, but with determination. The ultimate goal was to develop a thriving, creative and free economy in which most of the GNP would not be gobbled up by defense needs. The continued weakening of the threats against Israel contributed to the process. Peace agreements with Egypt (1979) and Jordan (1994), the dismantling of the Syrian threat, and significant weakening of Iran in the Trump era were supposed to allow Israel to lower the defense burden even more and, instead, invest in economic growth, welfare and education.