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anti-tank missiles and the Iranian missile barrage in April have given Israelis a taste of how the end may come.
Yossi Klein Halevi captured the new national mood in a recent Wall Street Journal op-ed: “Even as we maintain the pretense of daily life, a part of us is permanently alert. We tell ourselves that we’re steady and joke about the apocalypse, because that’s the Israeli way. But during one recent sleepless night, I literally jumped when a passing motorcycle sounded like an explosion.”
Opinion surveys bear that out. An Israel Democracy Institute poll found that those expressing optimism about the future of Israel’s national security had dropped from close to 47 percent in November 2023, when the war in Gaza appeared to be going well, to 31 percent in June. Another recent survey by the Institute for National Security Studies showed that just a quarter of Israelis have a high or very high sense of personal security.
Israel faces a unique threat among nations at war or threatened with it. Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping would like to erase Ukraine and Taiwan, respectively, from the map, but neither wants to destroy or expel the Ukrainian or Taiwanese people. Not that life would likely be pleasant under their rule, but the Ukrainians or Taiwanese would be allowed to remain in their homes and live their lives, albeit as Russian and Chinese citizens. These are (or will be) wars of empire and conquest. Israel faces the threat of existence. For a time, Israelis thought otherwise—they no longer do.

Does Israel’s Conflict with Hezbollah Have an Endgame?  (Daniel Byman, Foreign Policy
Fortunately for Israel, Hezbollah differs from Hamas in ways that make deterrence more likely to hold. Hezbollah has had a healthy respect for Israel’s military power for many years, and the devastation of Gaza is yet another reminder that Israel plays for keeps. And the group’s leaders have shown that they care far more about Lebanon than Hamas cares about Gaza. Lebanon’s economy has imploded since 2019, and another war could lead to the country’s complete collapse—with Hezbollah blamed.
Such an approach is fundamentally unsatisfying: Although ideally a brokered peace would push Hezbollah’s fighters farther from Israel’s border, the group would remain a threat to Israel. Unsatisfying deterrence, however, is better than a devastating war that, in the end, would have an unsatisfying ending.
Strategy, however, has never been an Israeli strength. Israel’s military and intelligence service can be brilliant: The recent assassination of Haniyeh in the heart of Tehran is only the latest of many examples. But Israel’s national security decision-making is highly politicized, and short-term thinking dominates the calculus. Indeed, more than 10 months into the fighting in Gaza, Israel still lacks a realistic endgame.
This predilection for the short term may lead Israel to strike first and try to figure out a long-term goal later. Continued U.S. and allied pressure on Israel to avoid all-out war is necessary to give Israeli leaders political cover for avoiding a war that would be both costly and counterproductive.

How Hamas Ends  (Audrey Kurth Cronin, Foreign Affairs)
The war in Gaza has settled into a mind-numbing pattern of violence, bloodshed, and death. And everyone is losing—except Hamas. When Israel invaded the territory last fall, its stated military objective was to destroy the terrorist group so that it could never again commit acts of barbarity like the ones it carried out during its October 7 attack. But although the war has culled Hamas’s ranks, it has also vastly increased support for the group—among Palestinians, throughout the Middle East, and even globally.