Conventional wisdom in Israel has it that she cannot afford to lose a single war.  Losing a war to its Arab (or Iranian!) neighbours would not result in an unfavourable peace treaty, but rather in the extinction of Israel.

And yet, Israel hasn’t won (or at least convincingly won) a single one of its wars or campaigns since the victory in June 1967.

It is probably also true to say that Israel’s neighbours haven’t attempted to wage an existential war since 1967 (although the 1973 Yom Kippur War could easily have turned out that way).

Does that mean that this conventional wisdom is totally wrong, or does it just mean that not winning a war is different to losing it?

Perhaps we now need to redefine the threat to say that if Israel continues to lose (or not convincingly win) its non-existential wars, sooner or later it may badly misread the existential nature of a threat against it (or fail to respond correctly to it).

It is in this sense that we should now understand the conventional wisdom, and reaffirm that Israel indeed cannot afford to lose a single war.

Or, to put it in simpler terms, if Israel continues to fail with the less important stuff, the pattern will become difficult to break.  Sooner or later she will fail with the (national) life and death stuff.

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