In the mid-1980s, the Israeli government, facing runaway inflation and a general economic crisis, implemented a series of fiscal reforms, which included the introduction of the New Israel Shekel. Not only has it proved far stabler than its predecessor, its recent increase in purchasing power has helped make Tel Aviv the world’s most expensive city. Matti Friedman writes:

It wasn’t too long ago that a dollar could easily buy four shekels—in fact, there was a time when a dollar could buy 1,630 shekels [old shekels, that is]—but as I write these lines the dollar is struggling, incredibly, to buy a measly three. The dollars in my bank account are worth a fifth less in shekels than they were last March, and the same trend affects my parents’ pensions and what I’ll get from Tablet for writing this column.

American currency has always played an important role in the emotional life of Israelis, who used to hoard dollars under floor tiles. Serious business was done in dollars, which were like that stable guy who’d always be there for you. Our own colorful shekel notes, by contrast, were like the high-strung friend you hung out with but wouldn’t trust with your car.

But important as the reforms of the 1980s were, governments do the most to help economic growth by staying out of the way:

Those watching Israel from the outside are condemned to mistake political news for the life of the country. Insiders understand that over the past two decades something deep has come together here in culture and economics, and that modern Israeli society is only tenuously connected to the government. That’s the answer to a perplexing question—namely, how on earth the economy managed to boom through the past two years of political deadlock and infighting, with no national budget.

“It’s a reflection of the fact that to some extent our economy isn’t dependent on the government,” [the Tel Aviv University economist] Paul Rivlin said. “The politicians can muck it up, and I wouldn’t put it past them, but even having four elections one after the other didn’t do it.” Just in the first half of this year the sum of foreign investments in Israel, mainly in tech, reached $37 billion—close to the sum for all of the previous year, and greater than the sum for the year before that.

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.