Last month, terrorists in the northern part of the West Bank launched at least two rockets in the direction of central Israel, both of which fell short and caused no injuries. Nadav Shragai discusses this recent development with military experts, beginning with Uzi Rubin, one of the Jewish state’s foremost authorities on missile technology:

“That is precisely how it began in Gaza,” recalls the man who headed the . . . Israel Missile Defense Organization. . . . Rubin’s déjà-vu is firmly embedded in the striking similarity between what is occurring now in Judea and Samaria and what happened in the Gaza Strip between 2000 and 2002. “There too,” [Rubin said], “it began with shoddy homemade production, in garages and workshops. The locals in Gaza removed explosives from mines, mixed together makeshift explosives—which initially blew up on launch, and worked with hollow pipes from whatever materials they could lay their hands on. Gradually, they began to improve their capabilities and performance. The first Hamas rocket was launched at the town of Sderot on April 16, 2001.”

“Now a similar process might well be taking place in Judea and Samaria,” warns Rubin. “Though it might currently appear to be extremely insignificant and not threatening, but that is exactly how it began there too. We need to be extremely alert and to kill [the problem] off at birth,” he recommends, and then refers back to Gaza: “Just look and see to what dimensions the rocket threat in the south has developed.”

A senior Hamas figure, Saleh al-Arouri, who is responsible for the organization’s military activity in Judea and Samaria, has expressed a hope in the past that “the resistance in Judea and Samaria will succeed in obtaining rockets.” And when asked if this is actually possible, he responded that “In the Gaza Strip, rockets were manufactured under blockade, so in the West Bank too, we will be able to overcome all the difficulties and will succeed in producing rockets.”

Hossein Salami, the commander-in-chief of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), also threatened last summer to turn Judea and Samaria into a base for launching rockets at Israel.

If Iran succeeds in obtaining nuclear weapons, the war in Gaza, let alone the protests on college campuses, will seem like a minor complication. Jonathan Schachter fears that this danger could be much more imminent than decisionmakers in Jerusalem and Washington believe. In his view, Israel seems to be repeating the mistake that allowed it to be taken by surprise on Simchat Torah of 2023 and Yom Kippur of 1973: putting too much faith in an intelligence concept that could be wrong.

Israel and the United States apparently believe that despite Iran’s well-documented progress in developing capabilities necessary for producing and delivering nuclear weapons, as well as its extensive and ongoing record of violating its international nuclear obligations, there is no acute crisis because building a bomb would take time, would be observable, and could be stopped by force. Taken together, these assumptions and their moderating impact on Israeli and American policy form a new Iran concept reminiscent of its 1973 namesake and of the systemic failures that preceded the October 7 massacre.

Meanwhile, most of the restrictions put in place by the 2015 nuclear deal will expire by the end of next year, rendering the question of Iran’s adherence moot. And the forces that could be taking action aren’t:

The European Union regularly issues boilerplate press releases asserting its members’ “grave concern.” American decisionmakers and spokespeople have created the unmistakable impression that their reservations about the use of force are stronger than their commitment to use force to prevent an Iranian atomic bomb. At the same time, the U.S. refuses to enforce its own sanctions comprehensively: Iranian oil exports (especially to China) and foreign-currency reserves have ballooned since January 2021, when the Biden administration took office.

Israel’s response has also been sluggish and ambiguous. Despite its oft-stated policy of never allowing a nuclear Iran, Israel’s words and deeds have sent mixed messages to allies and adversaries—perhaps inadvertently reinforcing the prevailing sense in Washington and elsewhere that Iran’s nuclear efforts do not present an exigent crisis.