The Hostages Divide a United Israel

The Hamas terrorist attack on Oct. 7 continues to send shock waves throughout the world—especially in Israel. Some hard choices must be made, and some ugly realities have emerged that weren’t acknowledged until the ground shook.

Israelis are united as rarely before on a fundamental belief: Any conclusion to the war that leaves Hamas in charge of Gaza would be intolerable. Backed by public opinion, the government has made it clear that the war won’t end until Hamas’s capacity to rule Gaza and attack Israel has been destroyed. This will be the case, I suspect, even if the U.S. eventually tries to halt Israel’s military effort before it has achieved its objectives. In conversations with Israelis of varying political backgrounds, I detect a willingness to go it alone, if necessary, until they have restored their security. “Never again” is now more than a reminder of the Holocaust; it has a new resonance.