Former Israeli National Security Advisor Eyal Hulata warned this week that his country’s national security was being negatively impacted by Israel becoming an increasingly partisan issue in the United States. He also said that Israel needs to consider the long-term impacts to the U.S.-Israel relationship before taking significant military action against Iran without U.S. support.

Hulata made the comments during an American Enterprise Institute event in Washington, D.C., on Monday commemorating the anniversary of the Oct. 7 Hamas terror attacks. He appeared alongside AEI senior fellow Danielle Pletka, who moderated the panel; Elliott Abrams, the former envoy on Iran during the Trump administration who now serves as a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations; and ret. Lt. Gen. David A. Deptula.

“The fact that Israel is increasingly becoming a partisan issue in Washington is not good for the long term for Israel’s security,” Hulata said. “And whatever we do in a single night in Iran or a week, there’s going to be not only a day after but a year after and a decade after. For Israel, regardless of what we may think about the position of a single administration at this point, to do something so dramatic without coordination with an administration, that will have strategic implications on the day after.”

“Whether I like it or not, we are still a small country in the Middle East, and the United States of America is the only strategic ally that Israel has. The fact is that I believe that this should have been an opportunity for the United States of America to do something about the Iranian nuclear program, I’ll put this aside. I think definitely for Israel to do something so bluntly opposing to a message of a president, you know, the president can say, ‘Don’t,’ to Iran and they will do whatever they want, but for Israel to do that it’s way more difficult,” he continued. 

Earlier in the program, Abrams noted that there still wasn’t an answer to the question of who, or what countries, would oversee Gaza and the West Bank after the war. Abrams said it was “absolutely remarkable” that “we’re no closer than we were a year ago” to a “solution for the day after,” despite being one year out from the Oct. 7 attack. 

“It’s a year later and there is no day after. The war continues. I’ve read or at least skimmed most of the proposals and nobody really has a practical answer,” Abrams said. “You need a government in Gaza. You need security in Gaza, who’s going to do that? And everybody said last year that obviously you don’t want it to be Israel, you don’t want it to be Hamas. The Palestinian Authority is not able to do it. I think on this subject, we are no further advanced than we were on Oct. 8, which is very unfortunate, because we’re going to need an answer.”

“I would hope that before Oct. 7, 2025, there is some work actually being done on establishing a kind of government in Gaza that can keep people alive, hospitals, schools, food and preserve order,” he added.

Abrams said later in the program that he hoped the U.S. worked with European and Arab allies to “start thinking about” what is needed “to help put together a competent governing structure” in the West Bank.

“The question in the West Bank is almost the question of Gaza, which is: How do you build a governing structure that is competent, that is decent? Let’s put aside the word ‘democratic’ for the moment. That people have confidence in because people in it are trying to do well for the people of the country,” he said.