TEL AVIV—In mid-June, Israel’s 12-day Operation Rising Lion, capped by America’s June 22 Operation Midnight Hammer, substantially degraded the Islamic Republic of Iran’s nuclear program. Two months later – as tens of thousands of Israelis took to the streets last Tuesday to demand that the government promptly secure the release of the remaining 50 hostages, living and dead, held by Hamas in Gaza and end the war – those remarkable feats of arduous planning, technological prowess, and pinpoint execution felt like a distant memory. They have left little discernible impact on the majority of Israelis – a majority that, according to the polls, opposes Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his governing coalition.
Israel remains Israel, a nation of remarkable people and stunning contrasts. Less than 50 miles from the Gaza front, Tel Aviv’s beaches, bars and restaurants, and high-tech start-up commerce sparkle and buzz. Jerusalem’s yeshivas, synagogues, and religiously observant homes hum with devotion. Construction in both cities proceeds at a dizzying pace.
However, in Tel Aviv – and not only here – Israelis do not dwell on having overcome horrors and heartbreak to take the fight to the enemy. They derive little satisfaction from having inflicted heavy blows on Iran and the Iran-backed jihadists who surround Israel. These days in Tel Aviv – and not only here – Israelis are more likely to agonize over the hostages, worry about their own families’ safety and prosperity, and fret over their nation’s future.
The wariness simmers against the background of Israel’s formidable military achievements since Iran-backed Hamas jihadists invaded the country and massacred some 1,200 persons and kidnapped 251 others. Israel destroyed Hamas’ capacity to wage war – the jihadists still pose a terrorist threat – and thus far, with U.S. assistance, has negotiated the return of 201 hostages, living and dead. The Jewish state severely weakened Iran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon. It hastened the ouster of Iran-backed Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad in December 2024. Then, following his regime’s collapse, Israel hit hundreds of Syrian military targets, among other things removing Damascus’ ability to interfere with Israeli fighter aircraft passing through Syrian air space on the way to and from Iran. Israel damaged Iran-backed Houthi infrastructure, decreasing the Yemini jihadists’ ability to launch drone and missile attacks (and Israeli military officials believe that air force strikes last Thursday likely killed the Houthi prime minister, defense minister, chief of staff, and other top officials). And it struck hard at all three components of the existential threat posed by Iran: In addition to setting back Iran’s nuclear program by as much as two years (which Israeli experts have long considered the best-case scenario) and diminishing the ring of Iranian proxies surrounding the Jewish state, Israel also blew up a significant portion of Tehran’s ballistic missiles and missile launchers, and damaged its missile-producing capabilities.
Why then are many thoughtful Israelis sober, chastened, and even dispirited as they contemplate the near term and beyond?
The short answer is that Israel remains at war on multiple fronts with no end in sight. The cumulative battlefield accomplishments clarify peace’s elusiveness.
The longer answer involves the multifarious array of daunting threats and challenges that Israel confronts.
First, Israel confronts an Iran that it has knocked down but not knocked out. Tehran has vowed to rebuild its nuclear program. It retains a sizeable stockpile of missiles and can launch them at Israel in overwhelming numbers. And despite weakened finances and reduced logistics capabilities, Iran continues to support the Houthis, Hezbollah, and other regional proxies.
Second, Israel confronts Gaza with no viable plan for governing the territory after the Israel Defense Forces complete military operations against Hamas. Negotiations over the remaining hostages have stalled: Netanyahu seeks a comprehensive deal that returns all the hostages and disarms and dismantles Hamas, while Hamas wants a partial deal, freeing some hostages and leaving their organization standing. To break the impasse, Israel initiated the seizure of Gaza City. However, even if Israel crushes Hamas in its last remaining stronghold, the Jewish state would still face around 2 million Palestinians suffering a prolonged humanitarian catastrophe, lacking a functioning government, and living amid tens of thousands of tons of rubble. Israel’s least awful option involves demilitarizing Gaza; mobilizing massive Saudi and UAE funding to care for the poor, the sick, and the homeless and to remove rubble and reconstruct physical infrastructure; establishing some form of local Palestinian civil administration; and continuing overall Israeli security control. But almost two years after invading Gaza, the Netanyahu government has neither offered a blueprint for executing such steps nor indicated that it has undertaken serious post-war planning.
Third, Israel confronts rising West Bank violence, and not only from Hamas. On Jan. 21, the IDF launched Operation Iron Wall in the West Bank. In pursuit of jihadists, the operation has destroyed hundreds of structures including homes, displaced at least 40,000 Palestinians, and killed more than 150. At the same time, and with at least the implicit sympathy of Treasury Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, a small number of thuggish Israeli residents of Judea and Samaria have committed hundreds of lawless acts against Palestinians. Emboldening the thugs, the Knesset approved a non-binding resolution in late July that would have the government “apply Israeli sovereignty, law, judgment and administration to all the areas of Jewish settlement of all kinds in Judea, Samaria and the Jordan Valley.” The Knesset resolution neither mentioned the approximately 3 million West Bank Palestinians, nor explained how Israel could remain both Jewish and democratic if it exercised its “natural, historical and legal right to all of the territories of the Land of Israel.”
Fourth, Israel confronts severe economic challenges. While the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange has performed astonishingly well since the Oct. 7, 2023, massacres and defense industries are booming, a host of economic indicators signals trouble. These include a contracting GDP; soaring deficits; mounting labor shortages in high-tech and construction; declining private consumption, business investment, and exports and imports; and plunging tourism.
Fifth, Israel confronts dire internal divisions. For many years – today as much as ever – voters largely have fallen into pro-Netanyahu and anti-Netanyahu camps. Both believe that the other presents an existential threat to the nation. Each blames the other for failing to prevent the Oct. 7 massacres. Both camps believe the other’s view of the Israeli Supreme Court’s proper function menaces democracy in Israel. And both see the ultra-Orthodox as pivotal. Netanyahu seeks to shore up their faltering support for the government by enacting legislation exempting them from military service. With the country at war on multiple fronts, anti-Netanyahu forces – including a fair portion of the center right – decry entrenchment in law of relief from the responsibility to share in the nation’s defense for a sizeable group of able-bodied Jewish citizens.
Sixth, Israel confronts several Western nations – Australia, Canada, France, Malta, and the UK – promising to recognize a Palestinian state in September. Such political grandstanding will neither improve Gaza and West Bank Palestinians’ quality of life nor hasten the day in which they rule themselves. To the contrary, it sends the baleful message that Palestinians’ principal error in pursuit of statehood has not been neglecting to build free, democratic, and stable political institutions, but rather failing to slaughter enough Israelis.
Seventh, Israel confronts rising antisemitism fueled in part by surging anti-Israel propaganda. For example, the New York Times accompanied a front-page story on alleged Israeli starvation of Gaza Palestinians with a photograph of an emaciated child. Notwithstanding Gazans’ suffering and the mistakes Israel has made amid its unprecedented efforts to deliver aid to enemy territory, the child’s frail condition resulted from cerebral palsy and hypoxemia. It is likely that the Times’ subsequent correction caught the attention of only a small fraction of the story’s readers and did little to reverse the damage caused by the scurrilous front-page accusation.
Not to be deterred, a few weeks later Pulitzer Prize winning New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof wrote, “I’ve covered many wars in my career, and Gaza is distinguished by its pointless destructiveness – at least 70 percent of Gaza’s buildings have been damaged or destroyed.”
By his own account a seasoned war correspondent, Kristof provides little evidence that the destruction was disproportionate in relation to Israel’s legitimate military objectives. Instead, he writes like an armchair moralist unfamiliar with military history, urban warfare’s harsh realities, and basic laws of war principles. Kristof does not seriously consider that Hamas acquired presumptive moral and legal responsibility for the damage and destruction suffered by Gaza through its flagrant violation of the laws of war: By embedding combat units, booby traps, munitions depots, command-and-control centers, and rocket and missile launchers within and under cities, the jihadists transformed urban areas into battle zones. And Kristof never explains how Israel could accomplish its legitimate military objectives – eliminate Hamas as a military force and governing power and return the hostages – without engaging in the cruel urban warfare that the jihadists intentionally imposed on Gaza’s civilian population as well as the IDF. Instead, like legions of high-brow commentators, Kristof writes as if Hamas’ use of Palestinians as human shields and Gazan civilian infrastructure as military fortifications nullifies Israel’s right of self-defense.
Small wonder that the confrontation with so multifarious an array of daunting threats and challenges induces wariness in the Israeli spirit.
Nevertheless, Israelis continue to demonstrate inspiring reserves of resilience, and not only in their soldiers’ courage on the battlefield but also through their searing public debates about politics, diplomacy, and national security.
