Bruce Maddy-Weitzman, a retired professor of Middle East history in Israel, has an extraordinarily detailed account of the events of October 7 as seen from Kibbutz Alumim, a religious kibbutz on the Gaza border. He spoke to many of the survivors and reviewed documents captured from Hamas terrorists.

Fortunately for Alumim’s residents, they would be spared the worst of the horrors visited on neighboring kibbutzim, thanks to a combination of good fortune, apparent mistakes by the Hamas attackers, late-arriving assistance from various security forces and, most of all, the courage and resourcefulness of its plucky defenders. Alumim’s 41 foreign workers—22 Thais and 19 Nepalis—on the other hand, were far less lucky, and paid a terrible price.

Maddy-Weitzman ends with a moving consideration of what the members of Kibbutz Alumim and its neighbors think and worry about now:

What does the future hold? Prior to October 7, a common mantra among the kibbutzniks in the Gaza envelope was that their lives there were “95-percent paradise and 5-percent hell.” Nearly all of Alumim’s residents hoped to return home, but on one condition: There could be no restoration of the status quo ante that had included the “5-percent hell” and ultimately left them vulnerable to marauding terrorists. But after October 7, could the authorities be trusted to achieve this, and if so, how? Kibbutz spokesman Dani Yagil was succinct: “They destroy, we’ll build,” in line with the pioneering ethos that had led to the establishment of Jewish settlements in the area in 1946, two years before the state of Israel was founded, and the founding of Alumim in 1966 by dedicated idealists.

Others, especially those with young children, weren’t so sure. After all, as Eitan Okun related, half of the children in the kibbutz were already in therapy before October 7, owing to the constant stress engendered by Color Red warning sirens. How could they, as parents, have subjected their children to this? And could the destruction of Hamas’s military capabilities and ability to rule, the declared goal of Israel’s war against it, really be achieved? And what about the profound fissures that had opened up in Israeli society in the preceding year, and that were now reappearing again, five months into the war? Overall, there seemed to be a longing for more pragmatic voices that could lead Israel away from the abyss into which it was staring.

The fight for home on October 7 had been won. The fight to keep and renew that home, both the kibbutz itself and the nation as a whole, was far from over.

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.