With the election over, what should be the priorities of Israel’s new government? The editors of Mida have three suggestions: rolling back the power of Israel’s judicial tyranny, improving internal security, and fostering economic growth. About the last item, they write:

So the Netanyahu government should put helping the business sector at the top of its agenda for the next few years. The barber, the welder, the music-store owner, and the aluminum plant founder should find it as easy to set up shop and make a go at it as the high-tech start-up guy. Entrepreneurship, risk, production, and trade are what Israel needs right now. Put differently: much less public-sector and government growth, much more business growth. We need to burn through the red tape, break down convoluted licensing barriers, eliminate labor laws that make it increasingly difficult actually to hire workers, and wage war on a bureaucratic system that makes it next to impossible for business owners to register property, build a structure, or get electricity.

It won’t be easy. Many powerful people have an interest in preserving the present system—especially the big businesses that can afford to comply with the burdensome regulation that protects them from competition by smaller upstarts. Another powerful force vested in the current system is the “social justice” lobby, which believes in expanding government investment and employment to close gaps and all sorts of other populist boondoggles.

For some time, opponents of U.S support for Israel have been urging the White House to end the war in Gaza, or simply calling for a ceasefire. Douglas Feith and Lewis Libby consider what such a result would actually entail:

Ending the war immediately would allow Hamas to survive and retain military and governing power. Leaving it in the area containing the Sinai-Gaza smuggling routes would ensure that Hamas can rearm. This is why Hamas leaders now plead for a ceasefire. A ceasefire will provide some relief for Gazans today, but a prolonged ceasefire will preserve Hamas’s bloody oppression of Gaza and make future wars with Israel inevitable.

For most Gazans, even when there is no hot war, Hamas’s dictatorship is a nightmarish tyranny. Hamas rule features the torture and murder of regime opponents, official corruption, extremist indoctrination of children, and misery for the population in general. Hamas diverts foreign aid and other resources from proper uses; instead of improving life for the mass of the people, it uses the funds to fight against Palestinians and Israelis.

Moreover, a Hamas-affiliated website warned Gazans last month against cooperating with Israel in securing and delivering the truckloads of aid flowing into the Strip. It promised to deal with those who do with “an iron fist.” In other words, if Hamas remains in power, it will begin torturing, imprisoning, or murdering those it deems collaborators the moment the war ends. Thereafter, Hamas will begin planning its next attack on Israel:

Hamas’s goals are to overshadow the Palestinian Authority, win control of the West Bank, and establish Hamas leadership over the Palestinian revolution. Hamas’s ultimate aim is to spark a regional war to obliterate Israel and, as Hamas leaders steadfastly maintain, fulfill a Quranic vision of killing all Jews.

Hamas planned for corpses of Palestinian babies and mothers to serve as the mainspring of its October 7 war plan. Hamas calculated it could survive a war against a superior Israeli force and energize enemies of Israel around the world. The key to both aims was arranging for grievous Palestinian civilian losses. . . . That element of Hamas’s war plan is working impressively.