In the aftermath of the murderous attack on a restaurant in his city earlier this month, the mayor of Tel Aviv intoned that, until the “occupation” comes to an end, terror will be inevitable. Marshaling a great deal of historical evidence, Efraim Karsh argues the opposite:

In the two-and-a-half years from the signing of the Oslo Accords [when Israeli withdrawal began] to the fall of the Labor government in May 1996, 210 Israelis were murdered—nearly three times the average death toll of the previous 26 years, when only a small fraction of the fatalities had been caused by attacks originating in the West Bank or Gaza due to Israel’s effective counterinsurgency measures, the low level of national consciousness among the Palestinians, and the vast improvement in their standard of living under Israel’s control. . . . In September 1996, [Palestinian violence escalated even more steeply].

If occupation was indeed the cause of terrorism, why was terrorism sparse during the years of actual occupation? Why did it increase dramatically with the prospect of the end of the occupation, and why did it escalate into open war upon Israel’s most far-reaching concessions ever? To the contrary, one might argue with far greater plausibility that the absence of occupation—that is, the withdrawal of close Israeli surveillance—is precisely what facilitated the launching of the terrorist war in the first place. . . .

It is not “occupation” that underlies the lack of “hope on the horizon” [for an end to the conflict] but the century-long Palestinian rejection of the Jewish right to statehood. . . . So long as that disposition is tolerated, let alone encouraged, the idea of Palestinian-Israeli peace will remain a chimera.

If Iran succeeds in obtaining nuclear weapons, the war in Gaza, let alone the protests on college campuses, will seem like a minor complication. Jonathan Schachter fears that this danger could be much more imminent than decisionmakers in Jerusalem and Washington believe. In his view, Israel seems to be repeating the mistake that allowed it to be taken by surprise on Simchat Torah of 2023 and Yom Kippur of 1973: putting too much faith in an intelligence concept that could be wrong.

Israel and the United States apparently believe that despite Iran’s well-documented progress in developing capabilities necessary for producing and delivering nuclear weapons, as well as its extensive and ongoing record of violating its international nuclear obligations, there is no acute crisis because building a bomb would take time, would be observable, and could be stopped by force. Taken together, these assumptions and their moderating impact on Israeli and American policy form a new Iran concept reminiscent of its 1973 namesake and of the systemic failures that preceded the October 7 massacre.

Meanwhile, most of the restrictions put in place by the 2015 nuclear deal will expire by the end of next year, rendering the question of Iran’s adherence moot. And the forces that could be taking action aren’t:

The European Union regularly issues boilerplate press releases asserting its members’ “grave concern.” American decisionmakers and spokespeople have created the unmistakable impression that their reservations about the use of force are stronger than their commitment to use force to prevent an Iranian atomic bomb. At the same time, the U.S. refuses to enforce its own sanctions comprehensively: Iranian oil exports (especially to China) and foreign-currency reserves have ballooned since January 2021, when the Biden administration took office.

Israel’s response has also been sluggish and ambiguous. Despite its oft-stated policy of never allowing a nuclear Iran, Israel’s words and deeds have sent mixed messages to allies and adversaries—perhaps inadvertently reinforcing the prevailing sense in Washington and elsewhere that Iran’s nuclear efforts do not present an exigent crisis.