To some analysts, Israel’s current and intense political divisions come down to a conflict between those who view themselves primarily as Israelis, and those who see themselves primarily as Jews. Inspired by a conversation with a secular compatriot, Yehoshua Pfeffer argues that the country’s Ḥaredim—if they can overcome decades of ambivalence toward Zionism and the Jewish state—can point to a way forward:

While in Mandatory Palestine sometime in 1929, Ze’ev Jabotinsky once visited one of the newly established Hebrew schools. The teacher prepared her students ahead of time, and when the dignified visitor asked the children what was “the most important thing,” they immediately knew the answer: the Land of Israel! But Jabotinsky was not entirely satisfied: “And what other thing is of great importance, no less than the Land of Israel?” Neither children nor teacher were ready for this question, and Jabotinsky himself answered: am Yisra’el, the Jewish people. . . . The nation.

David Ben-Gurion, Jabotinsky’s great rival, acknowledged this unequivocally: “First of all, I am a Jew,” he declared in a 1963 speech (delivered in Yiddish), “and only then am I an Israeli.”

Ḥaredi society is set to experience (with the assistance of some brave leadership) a similar transition from a focus on local and community responsibilities to extensive civic engagement, all this while preserving its fundamental principles. Among those fundamental principles is maintaining an unshakable sense of aḥva [literally, brotherhood], love of all Jews, even in a democracy that rightly treats all its citizens as equals. In this sense, ḥaredi society is positioned to be a tremendous positive force for the Jewish state. Indeed, for Zionism. . . .

In many ways, the transition is already happening. While significant challenges remain, it is a great hope.

Israel will likely respond directly against Iran after yesterday’s attack, and has made known that it will calibrate its retaliation based not on the extent of the damage, but on the scale of the attack. The specifics are anyone’s guess, but Edward Luttwak has a suggestion, put forth in an article published just hours before the missile barrage: cut off Tehran’s ability to send money and arms to Shiite Arab militias.

In practice, most of this cash comes from a single source: oil. . . . In other words, the flow of dollars that sustains Israel’s enemies, and which has caused so much trouble to Western interests from the Syrian desert to the Red Sea, emanates almost entirely from the oil loaded onto tankers at the export terminal on Khark Island, a speck of land about 25 kilometers off Iran’s southern coast. Benjamin Netanyahu warned in his recent speech to the UN General Assembly that Israel’s “long arm” can reach them too. Indeed, Khark’s location in the Persian Gulf is relatively close. At 1,516 kilometers from Israel’s main airbase, it’s far closer than the Houthis’ main oil import terminal at Hodeida in Yemen—a place that was destroyed by Israeli jets in July, and attacked again [on Sunday].