In 1964, an Israeli journalist asked S.Y. Agnon, a towering figure of 20th-century Hebrew literature, to comment on the fact that the Jewish state was now defended by a Jewish army. Herewith, an excerpt from Jeffrey Saks’s translation of his reply:

I think the army is nothing to play around with, but dabbling in pacifism is a bad business. Regarding our regular pacifists, who bask in their pacifism, the sages have already said, “Whoever shows mercy to the cruel ends up being cruel to the merciful.” I had one of the Shomer HaTzair members visit, from that leftwing youth movement. In response to the opinion he shared with me, I responded that the time when the people of Israel outstretched their necks for slaughter has passed. They claim that an army and war are not fitting for the people of Israel. Is it “fitting” for our enemy to slaughter us and for us to be slaughtered? Regarding the messianic era, it is said, “Nation shall not lift up sword against nation” (Isaiah 2:4)—but to achieve that we must be worthy of the messiah.

I don’t like the military. I would not talk about a Gentile army this way. I am not moved by anything practical or technical. . . . Yet when I witnessed, here in the Talpiot neighborhood [of Jerusalem], the young men in the War of Liberation, how they defended us and how they would come from their posts on Shabbat eves to hear kiddush—then I couldn’t hold back tears.

Israel, which had the insight to make the great and valiant warrior King David into a poet of the Psalms, one who sits and passionately studies the Torah—perhaps this is the secret of our army’s endurance.

Last Tuesday, the Houthis—the faction now ruling much of Yemen—said that they intend to renew attacks on international shipping through the Red and Arabian Seas. They had for the most part paused their attacks following the January 19 Israel-Hamas cease-fire, but their presence has continued to scare away maritime traffic near the Yemeni coast, with terrible consequences for the global economy.

The U.S. responded on Saturday by initiating strikes on Houthi missile depots, command-and-control centers, and propaganda outlets, and has promised that the attacks will continue for days, if not weeks. The Houthis responded by launching drones, and possibly missiles, at American naval ships, apparently without result. Another missile fired from Yemen struck the Sinai, but was likely aimed at Israel. As Ari Heistein has written in Mosaic, it may take a sustained and concerted effort to stop the Houthis, who have high tolerance for casualties—but this is a start. Ron Ben-Yishai provides some context:

The goal is to punish the Houthis for directly targeting Western naval vessels in the Red Sea while also exerting indirect pressure on Tehran over its nuclear program. . . . While the Biden administration did conduct airstrikes against the Houthis, it refrained from a proactive military campaign, fearing a wider regional war. However, following the collapse of Iran’s axis—including Hizballah’s heavy losses in Lebanon and the fall of the Assad regime in Syria—the Trump administration appears unafraid of such an escalation.

Iran, the thinking goes, will also get the message that the U.S. isn’t afraid to use force, or risk the consequences of retaliation—and will keep this in mind as it considers negotiations over its nuclear program. Tamir Hayman adds:

The Houthis are the last proxy of the Shiite axis that have neither reassessed their actions nor restrained their weapons. Throughout the campaign against the Yemenite terrorist organization, the U.S.-led coalition has made operational mistakes: Houthi regime infrastructure was not targeted; the organization’s leaders were not eliminated; no sustained operational continuity was maintained—only actions to remove immediate threats; no ground operations took place, not even special-forces missions; and Iran has not paid a price for its proxy’s actions.

But if this does not stop the Houthis, it will project weakness—not just toward Hamas but primarily toward Iran—and Trump’s power diplomacy will be seen as hollow. The true test is one of output, not input. The only question that matters is not how many strikes the U.S. carries out, but whether the Red Sea reopens to all vessels. We will wait and see—for now, things look brighter than they did before.