On Tuesday, the U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken came to Israel, where he met with Prime Minister Netanyahu and emphasized, inter alia, the importance of establishing a Palestinian state. Such an outcome would presumably involve delivering Gaza into the hands of the Palestinian Authority (PA), whose president, Mahmoud Abbas, received a visit from Blinken the following day. But could such an outcome be compatible with Israel’s goal of preventing further attacks by Hamas? Michael Mandelbaum looks at this question:

An observation by Aviv Kochavi, a former Israeli chief of staff, provides a clue to the main requirement for Israeli military success in Gaza. He noted that Hamas had morphed over the years from a terrorist organization, engaging in guerrilla tactics against Israel, into a full-fledged army. It is organized like an army, with platoons, battalions, and brigades. . . . What is distinctive, and crucial, about this army is that it is based underground, in the hundreds of miles of tunnels that Hamas dug and reinforced after seizing power in Gaza in 2007.

The most important task of the IDF operation in Gaza is to destroy [Hamas’s] tunnels. This is a protracted, arduous, perilous activity. . . . An above-ground Hamas, even greatly reduced in strength as a consequence of the Israeli military campaign, will continue to launch isolated attacks on Israeli targets; but it will be transformed from an army back into a terrorist organization. Exposed to Israel’s airpower and to attacks from Israeli ground forces, it will not be able to mount assaults on the scale of those of October 7.

Of course, the best possible outcome of the war in Gaza would be the cessation of all attacks on Israel from its south. That, unfortunately, is unlikely: whatever postwar political arrangements are put in place will almost certainly not end them.

The PA is unlikely . . . to be either willing or able to stop attacks on 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.