Next week, notes Shmuel Rosner, three significant events will take place. On March 1, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) will hold its annual conference; the next day is Super Tuesday—when primaries are held in a number of states, possibly leaving one Democratic candidate with a lock on the nomination—and on the next, Israel will have its second do-over election. The outcome of the two elections could have serious repercussions for the U.S.-Israel alliance:

AIPAC is the epitome of bipartisan support for Israel. Yet the presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren has vowed to skip it. AIPAC strongly supported moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem, yet Bernie Sanders says moving it back to Tel Aviv “would be on the table” under certain circumstances. [By contrast, in 1995, an overwhelming bipartisan majority in Congress called for relocating the embassy to Jerusalem.] Can AIPAC forge a path for a bipartisan U.S. policy under such terms? And what would it be? A relocation of the embassy to Modi’in, about halfway between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv?

The larger question about bipartisanship isn’t the one about this or that leader. . . . It is the question about general public support for Israel and all that comes with it. The elected leaders usually reflect their voters’ beliefs; hence, one must wonder about these [American] voters. Do they deem Israel an ally, or a rogue [state]? Is it seen as a model, or as a pariah? Is it seen as a country deserving sympathy, or condemnation; assistance, or pressure?

Debates about Israel-related policies always have been a part of public discourse, and no one expects the two main parties to agree on all the details. However, some tenets were considered foundational to the idea of bipartisan support, and these also seem under threat. Military aid to Israel is one such topic. When Sanders says, “Aid can be conditioned on Israel taking steps to end the occupation and move toward a peace agreement,” that’s a change.

Bipartisanship is defined by basic agreement on some fundamental features of policy toward Israel. But when everything—including the embassy’s location, the [Palestinians’] “right of return,” aid, the Iran threat—is open for discussion, what is left of bipartisanship is very little: namely, the cliché that all candidates make sure to repeat about “Israel’s right to exist.” Well, thank you. You have a right to exist, too.

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.