Given the current array of parties in the Knesset, it seems possible if not likely that Israel will have another election this fall—which would be the fifth since April 2019. Efraim Inbar argues that this ongoing instability has deleterious consequences:

When he took office, the IDF chief of staff Aviv Kochavi sought to implement a military plan for the years 2020-2024, dubbed “Momentum.” Due to the political instability and the coronavirus crisis, the plan did not receive orderly approval from the political echelon and is not backed by multiyear budgetary authorization. Although the IDF is executing the plan as best as possible with the resources currently allocated to it, there is considerable uncertainty about its full implementation.

Furthermore, the decision-making process on key security issues unquestionably has been harmed. The political echelon is preoccupied with managing political crises and election campaigns. The time left for Israeli politicians to think seriously about security challenges is limited. Although professional echelons of the defense establishment continue to work and make recommendations, they cannot take major decisions without the involvement at the senior political level.

The complicated political situation also raises difficulties in Israel’s foreign relations, particularly with countries with which Israel recently has reached peace agreements. These countries are unaccustomed to weaknesses of democracy itself and are unfamiliar with the vagaries of Israel’s political system. Instead, Arab countries have preferred to see Israel as a stable and strong country with which long-term enterprises can be comfortably concluded. But Israel’s lingering political crises cast a shadow over this assumption and create discomfort among Israel’s new partners.

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.