Between June 26 and August 15, there were eight cases where terrorists in the Samarian city of Jenin launched rockets at Israeli communities. None of the rockets harmed persons or property, but there is reason to worry that future efforts will be more successful. Uzi Rubin traces the development of Hamas’s rocket arsenal in Gaza from simple, homemade projectiles built from easy-to-acquire items, to military rockets smuggled from Iran, to sophisticated, locally manufactured weapons that can hit targets anywhere in Israel and carry large payloads. With this progression in mind, he considers the situation in the West Bank:

Presently, the terrorist organizations’ capabilities in the Jenin district are more or less equivalent to Gaza’s capabilities in the early 2000s, namely the capacity to manufacture simple rockets in the private machine shops in Jenin and other Palestinian communities. Israel would like to return the genie to the bottle somehow—that is, to roll back even this rudimentary rocket production capability. Judging by the Gaza precedent, this seems nearly impossible. As noted above, even the presence of IDF boots on the ground inside Gaza could not prevent the terrorists there from producing a limited amount of simple, kitchen-made yet lethal rockets.

In the case of Gaza, the transition from the first to the second phase of the threat—from locally home-produced rockets to imported military-grade rockets—happened when the IDF had already vacated the Gaza Strip. In contrast, the IDF maintains a significant presence in Samaria. It stands to reason that once smuggled military-grade rockets become known, the IDF will act energetically to block the smuggling routes and shut down depots and launching pits inside the Palestinian cities.

It is not inconceivable that the terrorists and their Iranian sponsors might aspire to move directly from Phase 1 to Phase 3, from kitchen-grade rockets to producing quality, long-range rockets in advanced production lines manned by well-trained local operators. [But], if the IDF maintains its military presence in the West Bank, it can be assumed that the Palestinian efforts to set up a rocket industry will be met by energetic Israeli efforts to frustrate the enterprise.

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.