Today is the holiday of Tu b’Shvat, the “new year of the trees.” In the diaspora, this day over the centuries came to embody the Jewish longing for the Land of Israel. With the return from exile, it has taken on a new meaning as a day to be celebrated by planting trees. Alon Tal considers its significance:

There is no more concrete manifestation of the Zionist impulse as the national movement of an indigenous people, than Israel’s forests. Seventy years ago—when the country was an impoverished, developing nation, the founders set about returning the woodlands to a decimated land—a land where 97 percent of the original vegetation had been extirpated.

That is not Zionist propaganda. Empirical evidence from aerial reconnaissance photography of the British army in World War I confirms the absolute bareness of Palestine following 2,000 years of Jewish exile. Since then, almost two million dunams of woodlands have been planted. There is something deeply meaningful about this profound act of national, ecological revival during these troubled times.

Over the years, I was always annoyed that Palestinian leadership never respected the authenticity of my Israeli identity and Jews’ historic connection to their homeland. But invariably, I let it go. Many Jews working on coexistence even avoided openly defining themselves as “Zionists,” lest they create unnecessary antagonism. The main thing was to get on with the “peacemaking.” In retrospect, this was a mistake.

Two-thousand years ago, the Mishnah codified the four new years that are built into our national calendar. . . . The fact that Israel has revived this arboreal birthday and turned tree-planting and tree-preservation into a national holiday is a sign of just how much our heritage informs our present-day lives.

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.