“The U.S.,” writes Jacob Nagel, “is duty-bound to help Ukraine to defeat the brutal invasion of the Russian president Vladimir Putin, [and] Israel must do its utmost to lend a hand.” What neither country should do, the former Israeli national security adviser goes on to argue, is send Kyiv its most advanced missile-defense systems—despite the repeated pleas of Volodymyr Zelensky and members of his government.

The Iron Dome is capable of getting the job done in Ukraine. . . . That being said, there are four reasons why Israel cannot afford to send the Iron Dome and other systems to Ukraine.

The main and most important reason is obvious: it is almost certain that any system provided to Ukraine will ultimately fall into the hands of the Russians and subsequently transferred intact to the Iranians, even if the Ukrainian forces limit their deployment to the Kyiv area (as they have claimed they would in some cases). The know-how and the combat experience will then be used by Iran to develop capabilities that would overcome Iron Dome’s defense and ultimately lower its effectiveness.

The second reason we should not provide such systems is that Israel still doesn’t have enough interceptors for its own operational needs, especially when it comes to countering the threat on the northern border. . . . Third, even if Israel agreed to send weapon systems, it would still take time—presumably, months if not years—before they could be phased into service in Ukraine after the troops get proper training. These three reasons are as valid for the U.S. as they are for Israel.

There is a fourth reason why Israel should not heed Ukraine’s request: the impact on Israel-Russia relations and the dwindling presence of Russia in Syria, as well as the threat of Iran replacing it. While it is less important, this reason should not be overlooked. The war may have led Russia to take troops out of Syria and deploy them in Ukraine. Still, this seemingly positive development has become a source of concern because Iran seeks to fill this vacuum with the backing of Russia and Syria. Having Israel send systems to Ukraine could create a potential threat by Russia, Syria, or Iran to Israel’s freedom of maneuver.

Contributing to the Jewish state’s current controversy over efforts to reform its judicial system, observes Peter Berkowitz, is its lack of a written constitution. Berkowitz encourages Israelis to seek a way out of the present crisis by looking to the founding document they do have: the Declaration of Independence.

The document does not explicitly mention “democracy.” But it commits Israel to democratic institutions not only by insisting on the equality of rights for all citizens and the establishment of representative government but also by stressing that Arab inhabitants would enjoy “full and equal citizenship.”

The Israeli Declaration of Independence no more provides a constitution for Israel than does the U.S. Declaration of Independence furnish a constitution for America. Both documents, however, announced a universal standard. In 1859, as civil war loomed, Abraham Lincoln wrote in a letter, “All honor to Jefferson—to the man who, in the concrete pressure of a struggle for national independence by a single people, had the coolness, forecast, and capacity to introduce into a merely revolutionary document, an abstract truth, applicable to all men and all times, and so to embalm it there, that to-day, and in all coming days, it shall be a rebuke and a stumbling-block to the very harbingers of re-appearing tyranny and oppression.”

Something similar could be said about Ben Gurion’s . . . affirmation that Israel would be based on, ensure, and guarantee basic rights and fundamental freedoms because they are inseparable from our humanity.

Perhaps reconsideration of the precious inheritance enshrined in Israel’s Declaration of Independence could assist both sides in assuaging the rage roiling the country. Bold and conciliatory, the nation’s founding document promises not merely a Jewish state, or a free state, or a democratic state, but that Israel will combine and reconcile its diverse elements to form a Jewish and free and democratic state.