Reflecting on the condition of Israel six months into the war, Micah Goodman discusses the psychological effects of the ongoing horrors on Israelis as well as Israeli relations with the Palestinians and with the Middle East as a whole. But the main topic of his conversation with Amanda Borschel-Dan is the country’s social and political divisions. Mosaic has recently covered these divisions from two very different angles: our interview with Yehoshua Pfeffer about haredi enlistment in the IDF and Rafi DeMogge’s article about the demographic makeup of the soldiers who have lost their lives in the war. It’s worth considering all three items together. In Goodman’s view, Israelis have much more in common than the political map suggests. (Audio, 46 minutes.)

If there is to be peace, Palestinians will have to unlearn the hatred of Israel they have imbibed during nearly two decades of Hamas rule. This will be a difficult task, but Cole Aronson argues, drawing on the experiences of World War II, that Israel has already gotten off to a strong start:

The population’s compliance can . . . be won by a new regime that satisfies its immediate material needs, even if that new regime is sponsored by a government until recently at war with the population’s former regime. Axis civilians were made needy through bombing. Peaceful compliance with the Allies became a good alternative to supporting violent resistance to the Allies.

Israel’s current campaign makes a moderate Gaza more likely, not less. Destroying Hamas not only deprives Islamists of the ability to rule—it proves the futility of armed resistance to Israel, a condition for peace. The destruction of buildings not only deprives Hamas of its hideouts. It also gives ordinary Palestinians strong reasons to shun groups planning to replicate Hamas’s behavior.