When, on May 30, the new Knesset took the unprecedented step of dissolving itself and holding a second round of elections, most Israelis were frustrated, Evelyn Gordon among them. In retrospect, she has arrived at the conclusion that, whatever sort of government emerges, the recent vote will restore faith in democracy and better reflect the will of the people. The nub of the issue is that, when voting for right-wing parties other than Likud, most voters thought doing so would still help win the premiership for Benjamin Netanyahu:

In April, rightist parties that explicitly promised to support Benjamin Netanyahu for prime minister won 65 of the Knesset’s 120 seats. In other words, a clear majority of voters seemingly cast their ballots for a right-leaning, Netanyahu-led government. But after the election, Avigdor Liberman, chairman of the [right-wing, secular party] Yisrael Beytenu, refused to join such a government.

Thus even if an alternative government could have been formed—whether one led by Netanyahu’s rival, Benny Gantz, or a unity government [led by both]—it would have undermined rightists’ faith in the democratic process. Any such government would have looked like a product not of the majority’s will but of the whims of a single individual, Liberman, who “stole” right-wing votes and gave them to the left.

The do-over election showed this wasn’t the case. Liberman’s party not only maintained its strength but increased it, thereby proving him right that his voters cared more about curbing ultra-Orthodox power than about keeping Netanyahu in office. . . . That doesn’t mean Gantz won. [But] nobody will be able to claim the election was stolen. [regardless of what] happens.

Democracy’s sine qua non is that voting actually matters. When people stop believing this, democracy dies.

This is of particular importance, Gordon explains, because of undemocratic moves by both Yitzḥak Rabin and Ariel Sharon that led repeatedly to territorial compromises, leaving the right more cynical about the democratic process. Perhaps, she concludes, the reversal of this trend will be Netanyahu’s “final service to Israel.”

Robert Clark explains why the resumption of hostilities is both just and necessary:

These latest Israeli strikes come after weeks of consistent Palestinian provocation; they have repeatedly broken the terms of the cease-fire which they claimed they were so desperate for. There have been numerous [unsuccessful] bus bombings near Tel Aviv and Palestinian-instigated clashes in the West Bank. Fifty-nine Israeli hostages are still held in captivity.

In fact, Hamas and their Palestinian supporters . . . have always known that they can sit back, parade dead Israeli hostages live on social media, and receive hundreds of their own convicted terrorists and murderers back in return. They believed they could get away with the October 7 pogrom.

One hopes Hamas’s leaders will get the message. Meanwhile, many inside and outside Israel seem to believe that, by resuming the fighting, Jerusalem has given up on rescuing the remaining hostages. But, writes Ron Ben-Yishai, this assertion misunderstands the goals of the present campaign. “Experience within the IDF and Israeli intelligence,” Ben-Yishai writes, “has shown that such pressure is the most effective way to push Hamas toward flexibility.” He outlines two other aims:

The second objective was to signal to Hamas that Israel is not only targeting its military wing—the terror army that was the focus of previous phases of the war up until the last cease-fire—but also its governance structure. This was demonstrated by the targeted elimination of five senior officials from Hamas’s political and civilian administration. . . . The strikes also served as a message to mediators, particularly Egypt, that Israel opposes Hamas remaining in any governing or military capacity in post-war Gaza.

The third objective was to create intense military pressure, coordinated with the U.S., on all remaining elements of the Shiite “axis of resistance,” including Yemen’s Houthis, Hamas, and Iran.