With a hostage deal likely, Israelis are thinking of the case of Gilad Shalit, a soldier captured by Hamas—using a tunnel—in 2006. He was released in 2011 in exchange for 1,027 terrorists held by Israel. Among them was Yahya Sinwar, who is now the governor of Gaza and the mastermind of the October 7 attacks. Many Israelis have reasonably concluded that the deal made the price of Israeli hostages far too high, and helped pave the way for the current crisis.

It is with this in mind that Elliot Jager considers the Israeli security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir’s recent proposal that convicted terrorists be eligible for the death penalty. Jager, while making clear that he is anything but an admirer of Ben-Gvir, observes that if terrorists like Sinwar were executed, Jerusalem wouldn’t be faced with the dilemma of whether to exchange them for hostages:

[A]fter what happened on Black Saturday, October 7, any claim that the death penalty would paint our enemies into a corner is risible. Certainly, the death penalty should not be off the table for a defendant convicted of the premeditated killing of multiple victims. I accept that capital punishment may not be a deterrent, certainly not for political or Islamist-inspired terrorism. That said, to my knowledge, no executed killer has ever killed again, nor has anyone ever been taken hostage to get a dead man out of prison.

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.